You can’t change the past. You can’t know the future. Make the now the best you can.
Attacking AOC because she worked as a bartender is laughable. Here is someone in Congress who actually worked for wages in a real job. We could use a few more non-millionaires in that body.
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I like the new Minnesota state flag. It is simple but subtle, the blues of sky and water, an abstract outline of the state and the signature North Star. It is unmistakably Minnesota. I am dismayed that there are those who would attempt to use it for yet another wedge issue to divide us into hate camps.
Orban'd joins Bork'd in the political lexicon. I can suggest a few here in the US who should be Orban’d.
Of the alleged scientific papers that dispute the consensus about climate change, the percentage funded by the fossil fuel industry is within epsilon of 100.
$1.5 trillion for DOD? How about an audit first?
The cost of war is always supplemental.
"Poetry can make you remember what you didn’t know you knew". Robert Frost
A special forces soldier, a member of the Venezuela operation, has been charged with using classified information and betting on that Maduro excursion to make $400K on Polymarket. Good start but small potatoes compared to the insider traders on tariffs, oil, Iran, Hormuz. How about prosecuting those mega criminals?
Minnesota Star headline: "Suspicion of insider-trading is growing". Duh.
Grandparenting has to be the greatest gig ever invented.
I judge the quality of a choir by how many times they bring tears to my eyes.
The Stanley Cup has to be the hardest trophy in sports to win. High compete level, entertaining & impressive skills on display night after night. Must win four grueling 7 game series.
Impressive is an interesting word. “I was impressed” is a compliment - unless you are a sailor.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute reports that China now leads the United States in research on 66 of 74 frontier technologies, including artificial intelligence, superconductors, quantum computing and optical communications.
"We're not covering up anything, we just not revealing everything". Pam Bondi
Prices rise quickly and drop rarely.
New Jersey Transit is charging $150 for a round-trip train ticket to MetLife Stadium for FIFA World Cup spectators.
"Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom’s". Nelson Algren
Whatever happened to whistling? It used to be common among cheerful people.
Each day I read the Star’s obit columns for anyone my age. It's taking ever longer to get through.
Some of the world's greatest fiction can be found in newspaper obit columns.
Can someone explain why people spend 3 nights watching/obsessing over the NFL draft when you can get the draft picks in 2 minutes from the web? I don’t get it.
I possess an abundance of patience but I tend to hold it in reserve.
I fear the cynicism and lust for power inherent in the gerrymandering wars is causing irreparable damage. Politicians choosing their voters rather than vice versa spells disaster for democracy.
Americans are treating war like a video game. Have we lost our humanity?
Trump’s aides keep him happy with daily video montages of “stuff blowing up”.
The dumbification of America. More than 30% of Americans under 50 believe in astrology.
""There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. Flannery O'Connor
I would think being a member of a firing squad would be traumatizing.
Remember the "Gold Card" program - buy your USA residency for $1M? The Commerce Department reports exactly 1 approval to date.
When you excel at something you make one friend and ten enemies. Unknown
Our home borders a wooded area. Critters tend to stop daily to sample hosta and birdseed in our backyard. A single tulip survived these critters this spring. Grateful for small blessings.
I hope someone left you a May Basket.
One of my favorite stats is the Gini coefficient. Zero means everyone has the same amount, 1 means one person owns everything. When France hit .83 in 1789, they started cutting people’s heads off. We’re at .85. Scott Galloway
Half of the people DHS claimed to have detained in MN, those featured on the worst of the worst website, were already in state custody.
"You have to be fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they’re simply unbearable". Marguerite Duras
The NCAA men's (and women's) final four games were more like a street fight than basketball. First team to 60 wins.
Anyone who categorically rejects books must be deeply flawed.
The Library of Congress has 650 miles of shelves, and 150 million items, including more than 35 million books.
I read on average 75 books a year. So many books, so little time.
During our testing, we found that Mythos Preview is capable of identifying and then exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser when directed by a user to do so. Anthropic AI
He picked a fight with the Pope.
“Want to stop a data center in your community and impose common-sense controls on AI? Well, that’s a non-starter because the Trump family has invested in data centers and in AI firms. Want to regulate crypto and stop its use as a vehicle for crime? Well, um, no, because the Trump family has amassed billions from their crypto holdings. Want to rein in the pernicious effects of prediction markets. I don’t think so, because the Trump family invests in Polymarket. Want to shift America towards safe, clean renewable energy? Think again, because petrostate oligarchs have poured $500 million into Trump’s World Liberty coin.” Paul Krugman
Quick. Renew your passport before it gets faced.
Back to the 50's? Nostalgia for things that never were.
The Supreme Court is complicit in the destruction of the rule of law, granting immunity to crimes by a president, undermining Civil Rights and endorsing the right to order the DOJ to violate the constitution.
Of the 20 horses in this year's Kentucky Derby, 19 were related to Secretariat.
"A first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool". Richard Feynman
Binomials. Autocracy and corruption. Crypto and crime. Fish and chips.
Haagen Dazs has a new Dubai style chocolate mini ice cream bar. Delicious. Just the right diet size. Unless of course you eat 4 at a time.
Major street work happening outside our front windows. Bulldozers, backhoes, fiber optic boring equipment, water main replacement. What could go wrong?
When the power goes out, rescue the ice cream from melt.
At 50, everyone has the face they deserve. George Orwell
And at 75 it’s a roadmap of a life traveled.
We have more private security guards in this country than high school teachers.
Shocking. I was ignorant of this, thinking TB was a conquered disease. But ...tuberculosis (TB) kills an estimated 1.23 to 1.3 million people annually - more people die of TB than die of malaria, typhoid, and war combined… "a cure—why we didn’t find it until the 1950s, and why in the decades since discovering the cure, we’ve allowed over 150,000,000 humans to die of tuberculosis". The vast majority of deaths occur in developing regions, maybe the "why" is in that fact. Read Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
Of all the many cuts to social programs, I believe gutting USAID is the most cruel and callous. Since the cuts there have been 600,000+ preventable deaths (and counting), mainly children.
A couple hours on the bicycle soothes the soul and strengthens the heart. Grateful I can still do it, albeit at a considerably slower rate and fewer miles covered than a few years back.
And then a trove of e-bikes go by at 25 mph. Kind of destroys the mood.
Metal plates in the body are an unwelcome, uncomfortable, necessary intruder.
Be patient. Often nothing is better than something.
Baseball was present at creation. Read Genesis .. In the Big Inning ..
Copyright © 2026 Dave Hoplin
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