I’ve gotten much better at breaking some of the social media habits – in particular, grabbing my phone and doomscrolling first thing in the morning. But today is kinda a holiday, so I wanted to check in on the happenings over social media…
Today is Killdozer Day – 21 years ago, a reasonable man was pushed to his limit.
Marvin Heemeyer owned a muffler shop in Granby, Colorado, but the local city council approved a concrete factory right across from his shop – which would end up blocking his only access road. In an “odd coincidence” the family expanding the concrete factory was the same family who lost the property that Marvin had bought at auction. He had offered to sell the property back to the family, but they wouldn’t pay the reappraised value. Marvin tried to stop the process, but the city ended up approving the permits for the expansion.
In addition to cutting off access, the expansion also cut Marvin’s property off from the city sewer system, and the city began fining him. He eventually sold the property but retained a portion of the shop to work on his “personal project” – his “MK Tank” (Marv’s Komatsu Tank) more commonly known now as “the Killdozer.” Over 18 months, he reinforced his bulldozer with steel, concrete, and bulletproof glass. He installed cameras and even air systems to blow the dust off the cameras so he could see.
On June 4, 2004, at approximately 2:15PM, Marv drove the Killdozer through the concrete factory, then through the town. With local law enforcement unable to stop him, it is alleged that the Governor considered calling in the national guard to use an Apache helicopter armed with Hellfire missiles, or a fire team with Javelin anti-tank missiles.The governor’s office has denied even considering this, but members of Colorado State Patrol have stated that the ideas were considered but scrapped because of potential collateral damage.
The run was ultimately stopped when the Killdozer got stuck by the basement of the general store. Moments later, at 4:30PM, a single gunshot was heard from the cab, and Marv was dead.
“I was always reasonable until I had to be unreasonable… sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things.”
Interesting Tidbits
Want to go to Ron Paul’s 90th Birthday BBQ?
Privacy advocates are worried about mobile driver’s licenses – “Dozens of privacy advocates, along with top digital rights groups, have signed onto a campaign to remove the surveillance capabilities native to mobile driver’s license technology.”
Ross Ulbricht Was a Great Start. Trump Needs to Pardon These Five People Next – “If Trump is serious about creating meaningful, lasting change, the pardons must keep coming.”
Diabolus Ex Machina – “Presented to you in the form of unedited screenshots, the following is a ‘conversation’ I had with Chat GPT upon asking whether it could help me choose several of my own essays to link in a query letter I intended to send to an agent. What ultimately transpired is the closest thing to a personal episode of Black Mirror I hope to experience in this lifetime.”
Idaho Passes Emergency Truck-Nuts Legislation
Yes, Generation X is the coolest generation and (whisper it) the happiest too – “As a survey confirms the Eighties and Nineties were rated the highest for quality of life, Bill Borrows looks at the generation that was shaped by those eras and why they are still showing the people that came after how to have a good time”
Most people obey arbitrary rules even when it’s not in their interest to do so, experiments show – “A recent study published in Nature Human Behavior explored the behavioral principles behind why people follow rules using a newly designed framework called CRISP. A series of four online experiments based on the framework involving 14,034 English-speaking participants, revealed that the majority (55%–70%) of participants chose to follow arbitrary rules—even when the compliance was costly, they were anonymous and violations had no adverse effects on others.”
One Minute Park – This is a site that embodies the “old internet,” the site allows you to visit parks from around the works through one minute video clips.
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