Dale, Doug and Jon

At last, a little time to check in on some friends.

I'm sorry to see that Dale at Faith In Honest Doubt is facing the ax. I've been there, and it's tough to put a good spin on the anxiety, the way life gets put on hold. It's easy to say that he'll come through eventually one way or another, but it's best for eventually to be as soon as possible.

Doug Wiken, meanwhile, had a more trivial but quite annoying run-in with Tele-Check. I find his suggestion that this sort of thing might be part of an intentional ruse to ward off checks somewhat plausible. I always find it interesting that many businesses either refuse to take checks or require ID just short of DNA to take one, while they unquestioningly honor a debit card that gets its money from the same account, often without so much as a signature much less any ID. Doug can bring this up during his Presidential campaign, should he decide to run.

Jon Carroll, as usual, makes a statement to which I can relate.

I hate to be right. Well, that's not true; I love to be right. But I hate when the thing I'm right about amounts to a net loss to the public good.

As a fairly consistent pessimist, I can sympathize with that sentiment. One hates to see bad things happen, even if you saw them coming. On the other hand, if things end up turning out better than expected, it takes the edge off being wrong.

Jon also dreams.

I wish I could drive a car the way a highway patrolman does. He's clearly had training. He clearly has a lot of muscle under the hood. Best of all, there's no highway patrol to worry about. Dive for an exit from three lanes over? Go right ahead; no one is going to report you. Drive in the breakdown lane? Go right ahead. Those cars can jump and swivel, striking fear into the hearts of malefactors.

I don't know about California, but here in South Dakota Jon isn't entirely correct about no one to report him, especially in the age of cell phones. If a Highway Patrolman is driving aggressively he'd better have a reason, because someone will call and complain, and contrary to the prevailing cynicism about sweeping such things under the rug, I can say that they take complaints seriously.