THE MAYOR JOINS ME AT 1PM And I'm going to ask him as many questions as time allows. Don't miss it.
BRIAN MACAULEY WANTS TO BE ON LITTLETON'S SCHOOL BOARD And he joins me at 12:30 to discuss why. Find out more about Brian by clicking here.
A PLAY ABOUT A REMARKABLE WOMAN'S JOURNEY UP LONG'S PEAK Is coming soon. Local playwright Kiesa Kay joins me to talk about her play Thunder is the Mountain's Voice about the adventures of Isabella Bird 150 years ago. The play is being staged in Estes Park, find out more and buy tickets here. Keisa joins me at 1:30.
EVIL REARS ITS UGLY HEAD IN MAINE Where a man who has apparently been hearing voices and was hospitalized earlier this year with mental issues has murdered 22 people at two different locations. One, a bowling alley, was full of children there for a bowling league. The other was a bar down the road in Lewiston, Maine. Police still haven't caught the man, though they know who he is. This is horrible and terrifying and I'm at the point where if I believed it would help I would happily sign on to a ban on large arms. If I thought it would help, which I don't. I am so tired of talking about this stuff. I'm so tired of worrying about taking my kid to the mall. My heart is breaking for these families. Maine has a red flag law, and if this guy's situation didn't trigger it, what good is it? He was a firearms instructor, so I wonder if he could have gotten the weapons anyway? This is just too much.
SOMEONE ASKED ME HOW TO FIX THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN COLORADO And I've been thinking about that for two days. Then lo and behold, this column written by a Republican in El Paso County shows up and he's created a great start. He doesn't say it, but he says it when he talks about the current leadership and their slavish devotion to Donald Trump. Until they go the party is in a death spiral. Will Republicans listen to Joshua Griffin and make the changes needed to right the ship in Colorado? I would happily sign up for his vision of a Republican Party again.
ABOUT THESE PEOPLE RIPPING DOWN POSTERS OF HOSTAGES I don't know if you've seen the videos of people maniacally tearing down posters of hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. A woman in San Francisco started the campaign of hanging up posters which don't even have an Israeli flag on them in various cities, to remind people here of the atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel. It's a powerful and quiet reminder of evil in the world. Now people are ripping them down and I've come to believe that they are doing so because the posters remind them of the evil they support and thus bring them shame. The easiest way to ease that shame and avoid facing the fact that you support people who cut the heads off babies is to rip down the posters. This column is written by a Jewish woman who recognize an old friend in one of these videos. Ripping down posters doesn't change the fact that you are now supporting the mass murder of babies and families if you are justifying what Hamas did in any way shape or form.
WHICH OF COLORADO'S ACADEMICS SUPPORT HAMAS? You can read their names in this article about a letter being circulated around academia that has garnered 1,900 signatures for a letter that blames Israel and refused to condemn Hamas in any way. Here are the CU professors who have signed the letter:
Mathieu Desan, Assistant Professor of Sociology at CU Boulder.
Edelina Burciaga, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at CU Denver.
Chantal Figueroa, an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Anthropology Department at Colorado College.
Dr. Erin O’Callaghan, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colorado State University.
Katie Rogers, Assistant Professor in Regis University’s Anthropology Department.
David Cook-Martin Professor CU-Boulder
I want to make sure they get the recognition they deserve, and please don't harass them or threaten them in any way, then they get to play the victim and they don't deserve that. You can read the letter, which glosses over the atrocities committed by Hamas while blaming Israel for trying to warn residents of Gaza to leave Gaza City. It's absurd and I want every one of them to be questioned about their judgment in signing this letter.
JEWISH STUDENTS LOCKED IN A LIBRARY AS PALESTINIAN SUPPORTERS BANG ON THE DOOR This story about of New York is horrifying and you begin to understand how the Holocaust happened in the first place. Did you see the story on the news? Watch below to see what the students were dealing with.
NewsNations Leland Vittert is right when he says there was a virtual media blackout on this story. He's also right when he points out that if there were a bunch of black students locked in a library while students in white hoods banged on the door it would lead every newscast. Why is this different? CBS New York called it a "tense" situation in this story and honestly made it seem like those crazy Jews were overreacting to peaceful protesters banging on the locked door holding them back from Jewish students.
ANOTHER NEIGHBORHOOD PUSHES BACK AGAINST MICROCOMMUNITIES But the Overland neighborhood isn't as well organized as some others so they are getting a 150 unit micro community whether they like it or not. One neighbor says that he has regular issues with the homeless community already and he's afraid they will get worse with this new microcommunity. Too bad, buddy, you don't have enough political juice to get this done.
CAN WE FIX THE CONDO MARKET IN COLORADO? The Construction Defect law changes in 2007 destroyed the condo building market in Colorado by making it far too easy to sue builders of condos. In response, insurance companies jacked up rates so much that building condos was simply not an option for many builders. The Legislature nibbled around the edges to fix the issue in 2017 but it did not solve the problem. Condos are often entry level homes for first time buyers and we simply don't have enough. There is a new move to further address the problem while not giving blanket immunity to builders who don't do a good job. Read about it here. Expect trial lawyers to fight this tooth and nail.
THE GADSDEN FLAG KID HAS FILED A LAWSUIT Claiming a broad violation of his First Amendment rights after his school tried to force him to remove his Gadsden Flag patch from his backpack, with a school administrator saying that it was a symbol of slavery, which it is absolutely NOT. Now he's suing over that patch and a patch that supports firearms and depicts cartoon versions of PacMan characters with guns. I have mixed feelings about this. I believe a school has the right to set limits about what kids can wear to school. They should be reasonable, but they should be allowed to say that students can't wear anything with a firearm or booze brand, or with a marijuana leaf on it, or with inappropriate language. Banning the Gadsden Flag was just stupid and now it's created an unnecessary situation born in ignorance.
LET'S TALK REMOTE WORK FOR A MINUTE I've got a couple of articles that are pretty interesting when it comes to remote work. This one discusses how managers evaluate employees by the amount of time they see them hammering away at their desk. Two separate studies showed that even when Work From Home (WFH) employees performed at a HIGHER level than their in office cohorts, they were given harsher evaluations from bosses and not promoted when they should have been. Why is this? Because managers haven't been trained on how manage remote work. This article gives solid suggestions on how to manage remote employees to make sure everyone gets the recognition they deserve. All that being said, this article lays out four reasons why bosses hate remote work and want it to end. We seem to have conflicting data sets here if you ask me.
DANGER WILL ROBBINS! Here are nineteen things that people treat as safe that really aren't.
STOPPING WEST NILE VIRUS IN COLORADO This is interesting as West Nile Virus has made one of my friends VERY very sick this year. We've had 613 cases of West Nile Virus this year, many of them very serious and 45 causing death. This story is about a researchers who is trying to figure out a way to stop the spread of West Nile by vaccinating the birds that carry the virus in its most virile form. Read it here.
THE BIGGEST LIBERAL CITY IN TEXAS IS LOSING PEOPLE I find this kind of funny considering that Texas has seen the greatest in-migration of any state. Not the liberal enclave of Austin, which is seeing an exodus that is dropping home prices which spiked during the pandemic.
THE GDP GREW AT 4.9% IN THE THIRD QUARTER Which is great news but I'm not sure it is as it could mean the Fed could raise rates again, although I am simply not sure. This article says consumers spent big last quarter and the markets are responding mixed today. Economists say spending should slow, but perhaps not enough to throw us into recession, which would be great news.
A SIMPLE WAY TO OPEN A 12 PACK Watch below or click here.
TINY LEGS REQUIRE CREATIVE STAIR CLIMBING Watch below or click here.
TIME FOR SOME SADNESS And this bad song about seasonal depression may help. Watch below or click here.
WHY I HATE STREET RACING MOTORCYCLISTS A guy who survived what surely should have been his death is sharing the video he shot of his idiotic driving to warn others. You can see the video here. He didn't die but did have 20 broken bones. Honestly it serves him right.
AND NOW, THE DUMBEST THINGS COWORKERS HAVE DONE AT WORK Some of these are mind boggling. I've seen people do dumb stuff, but these are next level.