Why Post the Hatemail?

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

As I’ve mentioned before, I get a lot of hatemail, and occasionally threats. The threats don’t bother me because the dangerous people act, rather than threaten.

I post the best of the hatemail for several reasons, first, it’s entertainment. Secondly, it serves as a benchmark of sorts; whenever I am wondering if *I* am the crazy one, I re-read them for reference. Finally, it’s an act of charity, a sort of prod to repentance and conversion for the guilty parties. I hope that when the offenders see their words posted in public for all to see that their humiliation will move them to contrition and repentance.

So yesterday when I received a PM from one such offender asking me to remove his diatribe from my site, I was hopeful that there was some element of this tertiary reasoning at work.

Nope.

He called me the devil and claimed I supported abortion, then said he was contacting an attorney because my posting of his public comments amounted to defamation.

Page updated with the latest.… Read the rest

More Proof of the Inherent Immorality of Property Taxes

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

I’ve explained before that property taxes are inherently immoral. This incident is an extreme example of the principle.

An 83-year-old retired engineer in Michigan underpaid his property taxes by $8.41. In response, Oakland County seized his property, auctioned it off to settle the debt, and pocketed nearly $24,500 in excess revenue from the sale.

Under Michigan law, it was all legal. And hardly uncommon. 

Read the rest of this disgusting display of state power here.

 … Read the rest

You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook; Here’s How to Cull the Dead Weight

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

I unfriended 60 people today. And yesterday. And the day before that. Well, yesterday it was more than 60 because I removed a badly behaved cleric.

Why?

It’s not because they’re Distributists, Sedes, Flat Earthers or Liberals (although I’m sure some % are). It’s because I have this neat little Chrome plugin that tells me who, among my 5,000 friends, do not ‘like’, comment or share my posts. Ever.

In other words, I friended them or they friended me but they never engage with me. Some of them are just stalkers. Others are people who want to unfriend me but politics cause them to merely unfollow (this is mostly family).

Here’s the rub: the way the Facebook algorithm works is that your posts are shown to your friends proportionate to your friends’ engagement your content, and so when people engage, your posts are shown to ever more people, and when they don’t engage, FB stops showing them.

(So if you post and are disappointed at how many of your friends seem to see it, now you know why).

Out of 5,000 friends (as of two weeks ago), 60% had not engaged with a single post in 60 days. I thought that was bad, although it turns out my posts perform very well for an audience of that size.

So what’s the solution? Culling.

Therefore, every day I remove 60 inactive friends at random. Actually, I push the button, and the plugin does the work. In a month I will have … Read the rest

Winning at Bingo

Posted on by Jeff Cassman

My kids play bingo with the blue hairs at the library each week. Sometime during my drug-induced haze of the last few weeks #11M8 advanced to the final round and beat an old lady, winning a cherry pie. (I did not get any pie).

The kids think nothing of beating one another at a board game, but prevail over an octagenarian with a cane, an oxygen tank and a yellow windbreaker and it’s all they talk about for days. Maybe it’s because the old people cheer and clap for one another when *they* win.… Read the rest