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Speaking of structural spatial isolation, we are seeing more and more of these in the city.

I think a lot of the bike memorials were just that: cyclist trying to pass a car on its right going through an intersection, and then the car turns right, right into them. I've seen bike-car crashes described that way in the media a few times.

Here's an example of what I mean. I took this video while trying our a car security camera. Thank god for the guy I saw him through the (ahem) driving rain!

While it is certainly possible for a car to go "off the rails", as it were, and hit pedestrians and bicycles who should be safe well within their space, whenever I see one of those white-painted bicycle memorials at street corners, commemorating a cyclist killed by a car there, I always wonder about the circumstances that led to it. Did the bicyclist challenge the car unnecessarily? I see too much of that in the city. I have a hypothesis, admittedly founded only by my own anecdotal experience, that maybe 80% of all car-bicycle crashes could have been avoided had the bicyclist taken more than their fair share of care. I've seen far too many bicyclists just blithely ride in front of cars (and trucks!) without even looking, assuming that since they have the right of way, all the cars around them are bound to cede the space to them. But while they may actually have that right of way, what they don't have is the size and weight advantage against a car, and when a car and bicycle collide, the bike always loses. That's why I believe a bicyclist should always take more than their share of responsibility and cede to a car that appears to insist on taking the space, even if the bike has the legal right of way to it. Sure, the bicyclist can curse and gesticulate toward the car for taking that right of way from them, but hey, at least they will live to do so.

I've waited in the right lane for people to cross before turning once I get the green, and I have experienced cars behind me honking at me, presumably because they felt I could have rushed a turn in front of the pedestrain starting to cross. To paraphrase Matthew 26:11, "For ye have the dickheads always with you ..."

This might concern Baseball if they cared as much about the younger demographic as they do the gambler demographic.

What are the chances the ruble collapses and Putin has Russia go all in on crypto? Heck, they’d probably like to create their own crypto, make it the official currency, and rig it so they can directly and capriciously control their people’s individual wealth. Of course he’s going to have to get out of this quagmire intact, first.

I think I can raid the couch cushions for the equivalent $3.75 US to take the other side of that. 😁 I do this, of course, because I’m a terrible gambler and I lose practically every bet I make, but this I would be glad to cough up on March 31.

Based on the general tone of reporting, it’s as though the Wicked Witch of the West released the monkeys saying “Fly, my pretties!” and they end up flying splat into the castle wall.

The flip side of this is, when you see someone at the corner and you stop, and you wait for a couple seconds before noticing they are looking away and not really paying attention to you, so you determine they must not be crossing. But just as you’ve committed your foot to moving from the brake to the accelerator, they pick that exact microsecond to start crossing after all. It’s once you drive beyond them that you hear a muffled “expletive!” coming through your closed car windows.

When people wait for their rideshare right on the corner. It's an issue here in the city before there's a state law requiring drivers come to a stop at an intersection when they see someone about the cross the street. So when I see someone on the corner looking back and forth, it looks like they're checking for traffic before crossing. So I stop to let them cross. Then they stand there for a few seconds and eventually see me looking at them expectantly, and they glare/shrug toward me as if to say, "so are you my ride or what?" Meanwhile the guy stopped behind me is honking the horn. So I feel sheepish and drive on. It's annoying, but just another new thing to get used to, I guess.

Nah, thought the better of it.

Worse than envisioning him creeping on a Miss Teen USA contestant?

Perhaps Putin bought them on layaway during the 2016 campaign.

I haven’t felt this concerned about the possibility of someone lobbing a nuke at us since the early 1980s. Shit’s getting more real by the day.

An interesting hypothesis might be that China might be egging on Russia in order to see the mistakes they make and that China needs to avoid when they take on Taiwan.

Apropos of nothing, a better analogy would be “this is Youngkin asking guys from Virginia to go to war with West Virginia when the guys in WV are shooting back.”

They’ve got to be begging and pleading with Trump to condemn it at least publicly. There’s an election to win in November and that can’t brook the kind of chaos an unclear Trump could wreak on the base’s margins.

A lot of Americans in 1938 supported the Nazis over the rest of Europe and considered communism a greater threat than fascism. There were many high profile leaders of this thinking and massive Nazi rallies taking place in, of all places, Madison Square Garden, even daring to put portraits of George Washington on the same stage as Nazi brown shirts brandishing swastikas. If it's 1938 in America, then God help us all.

No need for apologies, I was simply building on your comment.

Charming.

I’m not sure how much we should take the word of a considered work of fiction, although I would agree that special forces are likely to be trained in that kind of fake accent subterfuge. I could see that being applied to the situation mtutiger brought up, the Russians who were undercover as Ukrainian police at the checkpoint. I tend to believe that’s a minute percentage of the total armed force. The subsequent post suggesting Russian army regulars might be stealing clothes from houses to go undercover and cause mayhem among the civilians got me thinking about whether the average Russian could pull off a local Ukrainian accent without any special training. Unless they’ve all been special-trained in faking accents as part of their regular training the past few years. That’s possible, I suppose.

Ray of hope?

Today was a little easier. Wordle 252 3/6 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

I’m not cool enough to do Quordle, Flurdle, Blurdle, or any of those other variants. Five minutes a morning is plenty enough for my wife and me to bond over one quick fun puzzle.