Odds and ends number 138
Since I'm using the concept from monoblogue, I'm keeping the numbering system, too. Here are thinner slices of bloggy goodness.
As always, I have the interesting stuff that stuck around in my inbox and bookmarks.
The top 10
I liked this so much last year as part of the final odds and ends that I decided to do it again.
Out of over 130 posts in 2025, these were the winners as of yesterday afternoon - they also happened to be the ten posts with over 200 views.
At number 10 was the lament about Shutting down common sense, written in the early stages of the October government shutdown on October 8. Sadly, I might end up writing yet another sequel come February.
In ninth place is a post from February 1 called A couple weeks of Trump, which (obviously) talked about the whirlwind start to his administration. Ah, the heady, optimistic days of DOGE.
Checking in at number 8, from March 22, is The two-week warning, which talked about the first of several Astroturf rallies the Left attempted this year - in this case the Hands Off rallies from April.
Back on October 18, I wrote the seventh place post which wasn’t necessarily political but instead was sort of a light-hearted look at culture called The changing of tastes, which talked about the Super Bowl halftime show.
Part of a top 5 tie is one of my “deeper dive” pieces on a special election here in Delaware, Special election 2025: a deeper dive. It was written back on July 19 and is likely a precursor to next year’s top 10 as we hit the midterms.
The other one in the top 5 is the follow-up post to my number 8 post, this one from April 9 and called A thousand points of darkness.
Fourth place belongs to a piece I did back on April 30 called A two-state solution? But it’s not what you think: it’s more about the separatist movements which occur when red parts of blue states want out.
My top three posts all occurred within a week of one another in August, which likely means the high readership of the first one carried over for a period of time. In at number 3, from August 13, was Another epic failure? The epic failure in question led to my #10 post a couple months later.
In second place, and my highest-ranking Election 2025 post, was the wrapup of the House District 20 special election on August 6 that spawned my #5 post. A loss for common sense had over 400 readers for a post that was hyper-localized. It did my heart good to be looked at for the commentary.
And the number one: So Texas has some cowards? which was posted on August 9. That post scored over 600 views. And guess what? They got their redistricting anyway, which set off a frenzy among other states.
I’ve been doing this Substack since mid-2022, and the great thing about it is that I have the immediate feedback of knowing how many read each post.
It’s worth noting that my #1 post from 2022 doesn’t reach what an average post here does now. Similarly, my “average” post now would be in the top 5 from 2023 and still be close to the top 10 for 2024. On the other side, the 209 views required to make my top 10 this year would be an easy #1 in 2022 and still a respectable 4th place in both 2023 and 2024. I guess that means more people like this space.
Helping out the hungry
Each year around Thanksgiving fellow Substacker and radio host Erick Erickson encourages his followers to donate to a group called Hungry for a Day, which provides Thanksgiving meals for folks in need around his Georgia home. This year H4aD were pleased to announce they fed over 80,000 people, a surge from the 65,000 they assisted last year and exceeding their goal, as founder David Huey announced:
This year, we set out to feed 75,000 people across the nation through our partnerships with food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters in communities across the U.S. As the needs continued to grow, you continued to give.
Dozens of corporate and faith partners along with more than three thousand individual donors came together to give a meaningful Thanksgiving meal to 80,061 people this year.
We were able to help 26 nonprofits, churches and community organizations doing amazing work across the country.
Thanks to Erick and his publicity, I didn’t miss the $40 - in fact, I’m glad it did some good rather than burning a hole in my pocket. When you think about it, a tithe is just a start, and when you have the means it’s good to share your blessing.
A Spotify boycott?
This recent push by Indivisible amuses me.
I used to listen to Spotify enough that, a few years back, they sent me a year-end sampling of what songs I listened to most. (Now it would be pretty small.)
Spotify still sends out the lists, but apparently Indivisible’s collective panties are in a wad because they play commercials encouraging recruitment for ICE.
Today, social media feeds are full of people sharing their Spotify Wrapped results, while Spotify is full of … ICE recruitment ads.
Spotify’s annual personalized look back is usually a fun way to reflect on what you’ve listened to over the year and share your tastes with friends. But it’s kind of a buzzkill when propaganda for a brutal secret police force ends up in your top genres because Spotify has chosen to make itself a pipeline for Trump’s deportation machine.
To be honest, I’m not sure what sort of recruitment one would get from Spotify ads. It seems to me the Venn diagram of Spotify listeners vs. potential ICE recruits is pretty small. When the ad campaign is a failure, look for Indivisible to take credit.
An iVoterGuide improvement
I’ve certainly told you that I’ve helped out iVoterGuide on a few occasions over the years - well, now you can see their ratings for federal officials in a whole new way.
At iVoterGuide, we’re thrilled to announce a new feature available on our website. Now you can find a comprehensive list of elected officials who actually represent you!
On our home page you will notice a second gold button beneath the space where you enter your address. In addition to clicking “View My Voter Guide,” you now have the option to click “See Who Represents Me.” There you’ll find names, offices, photos, social media, and contact information for your elected officials. You’ll even find a link to their most recent ratings on iVoterGuide.
Typically, voter guides list only the candidates being covered in upcoming elections. But we see tremendous value in providing the most up-to-date list of your current elected officials—in addition to the great coverage you’ll get on the candidates before elections.
So I did a sample from here in Laurel - no, the address isn’t mine, reverse-engineering geniuses, it’s the public library in town. While it’s good to have all this at our fingertips, there are a couple flaws I see in it.
One is that Delaware isn’t a well-covered state, which is understandable when we have less than 1/3% of the nation’s population. But we are still important. So there are holes in our state and local coverage insofar as ratings go.
The second and more important one is that those at the federal level are listed by when their term begins, not by the next election date. While it’s good to know that President Trump’s term runs through January 20, 2029, it’s more important to know that the next Presidential election is November 7, 2028. That’s also the date of the next gubernatorial election here in Delaware.
If they can clean up those errors - and obviously add some more information on candidates - this would be a great and handy resource.
Overturning assisted suicide?
Since the Left loves to take everything to court and gets publicity for it, leave it to the Delaware Senate Republicans to alert me to a lawsuit challenging House Bill 140, the assisted suicide homicide bill that passed earlier in 2025. Not exactly a lead item in the press.
The suit, filed by a single plaintiff and a number of advocacy groups, claims:
The law discriminates against people with life-threatening disabilities by arbitrarily depriving them of safeguards afforded to others. “The state government funds and provides mental health care, supportive services, and other suicide prevention measures to non-disabled people who express a wish to die, but the Act, by default, will channel and steer persons with disabilities, including people with eating disorders, spinal cord injuries, and other life-threatening or terminal disabilities toward assisted suicide instead.”
Republicans note that many of these complaints were lodged in the debate on the bill, but the DGA Democrats passed it anyway. Since this suit was posed in federal court, I hold a modest amount of hope it will be successful but most likely success would need to come from SCOTUS, which would ban the practice nationwide.
Works for me.
That’s enough for now. We’ll see what I come up with next month as we begin 2026 with more odds and ends on the last Saturday of January.
Until my next edition of odds and ends, you can Buy Me a Coffee since I have a page there.
I hope you had a lovely Christmas, Michael!