I found this really excellent route home from my favorite global foods store in St Louis. You drive straight on Lindbergh Boulevard, and then – pa pam! – you are in Alton. That’s all there is to it. Drive straight for a very long time.

For a week, I’ve been telling everyone in sight, which is only two people but still, about the great new route. But then yesterday when I started driving, even though I knew to go straight, I made a turn and got into a very inconvenient route through ugly places. Because the GPS told me to turn, and I trusted it more than my own memory from a week earlier. Aesthetic considerations are alien to a GPS, and it will send you wherever the road is a couple of minutes shorter. I know this, and I should have trusted myself more.

There’s a lesson here.

The Dean unleashed another austerity surprise on me today but I was wearing very pretty shoes from Spain and didn’t care.

He looked very disoriented by how clearly I didn’t care.

That’s what happens to fellows who don’t understand shoes.

I don’t know how to say it so that it doesn’t sound callous but let’s hope that the woman shot in Minneapolis for trying to run over law enforcement is very very white. Because if not, there’ll be another George Floyd situation.

Why people, women especially, would want to go make themselves a nuisance with police is incomprehensible. Women normally are very attuned to their physical safety. Women of child-bearing age and mothers, in particular, are very avoidant of physically dangerous situations. It’s an instinct.

Very sad for the woman and also for all of us having to coexist with such madness.

I read this whole long thread about medical misogyny only to discover…

Want to talk about medical misogyny? I was due to have a hysteroscopy (v painful gynae procedure) next week with sedation. I rang with a mundane question and the staff were confused, saying no sedation is booked. After being put through to various people, I finally got an answer:

— Shambo of Luxembourg (@BradfemlyWalsh) January 7, 2026

… that this woman is in the UK and the whole debacle was caused by the austerity measures the NHS has to adopt. Of course, the problem will never be solved because the people who suffer from austerity can’t bring themselves to name the issue.

We seized the Marinera!

US confirms 'seizure' of Marinera oil tanker https://t.co/4R0QmPgO0S

— Wale Smith (@WaleSmithRsk) January 7, 2026

This is really cool.

America is finally back.

I stopped at a red light behind a bus of middle schoolers from a local public school. I noticed that several kids were trying to show me a sheet of paper through the back window. I inched a little closer and saw that the sheet had handwritten words “Have a wonderful day!” and a drawing of a Christian cross.

Great country, amazing children. It is a sign of extreme psychological health that a bunch of 12-year-olds would want to do this at 7:45 in the morning on their way to school.

Russian state-owned media is reporting that U.S. Special Forces are currently trying to board and seize the Russian-flagged Iranian-linked sanctioned crude oil tanker, Marinera, in the Northern Atlantic. pic.twitter.com/ehuTFxqXFy

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) January 7, 2026

I hope our boys are very successful.

By the way, Britain refused to help us apprehend these Russian bastards. Now that my X feed has veered to the left, I’m seeing endless imprecations about how Western European countries will never trust America again. These are the same countries that have been funding the Russian war effort with their oil and gas purchases this whole time. The same countries that have been refusing to invest in their own defense because we should pay for it. The same countries that find it completely important to apprehend a Russian tanker that is violating the international law they appeal to constantly.

P.S. And then it got even more fun:

Russian warships were near the tanker when the seizure happened but took no action.

— WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 (@WarMonitor3) January 7, 2026

X is running some sort of an experiment on me. It removed the Ukrainian accounts from my feed and populated it with Dems. Every time I read a post, I think, “ha ha, this is a great sarcastic post.” And then I realize that the author is serious and feel sad.

I had a long dental procedure today, and when the anesthetic wore off, the pain was unpleasant. I had a full day, though, and had to be able to speak. So I did something I hate to do and took a painkiller. It had zero effect. None. Zilch.

I suffered and suffered.

In utter dismay, I bought an energy drink. And guess what? It removed the pain completely and immediately. I’m now scared of that beverage because what is it that they put into it for such an effect?

Our political life is so schizo because the proponents of free markets think everything should be a free market except for the dating market and the body-alteration market. And the believers in strict governmental control over the market exclude the dating and the body-alteration markets from this project of control. Neither side is aware of the incongruity at the heart of its belief system.