A neighborhood in Ipswich has been sporadically awakened to the sound of a children’s nursery rhyme being played over loudspeakers. Creepy weird, huh?

The owners of the speakers have an explanation. This doesn’t help.

The sound is only supposed to act as a deterrent for opportunistic thieves that come onto our property, and it’s designed only to be heard by people on our private land.

It’s an odd choice of an alarm, but OK. I guess if you want to instill bafflement in thieves, it would be effective. But then they go a step further and place the blame on innocents.

We are now aware of the problem – the motion sensors were being triggered by spiders crawling across the lenses of our cameras and it looks like we’ve had it turned up too loudly. We’ve spoken to the resident who brought it to our attention and adjusted it so this shouldn’t happen again.

Oh, sure. Blame the spiders. I think we’re seeing another instance of unthinking bigotry against the poly-armed community.

These new health features in the Apple Watch are tempting.

I would worry that the false positive rate is going to be sky high, but on the other hand, I’m getting older, have a family history of heart problems, and had my own cardiac scare several years ago. Maybe this would be a good thing to look into.

How much do these Apple Watches cost, anyway? (quickly checks apple.com to answer my own question.)

GAAAAAAH! $400!

(Strokes out. Goes into v-fib. Collapses. Heart explodes. Dies.)

Nope, sorry, the budget isn’t going to be able to cope with this at all.

Tesla has a drug testing policy, so one can only assume that Musk will be failing it soon.

Tesla stock plunged 9 percent on Friday after a bizarre podcast in which CEO Elon Musk smoked weed and sipped whiskey, and two high-profile executives abruptly announced they were leaving the company.

Due diligence argle bargle shareholders bla bla bla.

I’ve got my YouTube channel set to hold questionable comments for approval before posting them (it’s not a very flexible system, though, and lots of crap still gets through). This one was flagged as “likely spam”.

PZ Myers, if you continue to lead people to worship Satan after this notice, I shall rebuke you! “Maran Eashoa M’Sheekah, our Christ Lord, the Anointed Life-Giving Living Branch is the ONLY Name given to humanity by which you received the Covenant of Life.” – See My 2-video series: Lord Eashoa! Pray to the ONLY Name that heals and Saves! “Jesus the Messiah” NEVER performed ANY of the righteous works nor the good deeds recorded in the Holy Bible! That is not a living human being but is a baphomet neuter shapeshifting demonic carnivorous creature from below and Liar just like his son Hillary the Devil Cain Qain Gain of Satan and a killer of mankind from the beginning just like his father the false messiah Satan Donald JeSUS ZEUS SOS ISIS Trump that ancient shapeshifting serpent from the Paradise of Eden, the titan, not a creator of anything, just a demon from Sheol the house of the dead, that can present itself as a human being. You have been lied to. You have ALL been Commanded to work for the Creator of the heaven and the earth and the sea and the water springs. You cannot serve two masters! It is Judgment Hour and there are MANY universes yet to come after this one concludes which is coming quick! I am the Spirit and it is the Season of My Testimony which is on My channel, the Reveal of the Creator. HURRY! You have NO TIME to delay! You WILL NOT enter the Kingdom of Heaven if you sat by with idle hands. Faith without works is dead faith. Get busy watching the Reveal quickly and telling others that I am here, directing them to My channel and the Reveal of the Creator! WATCH: ‘WORLD WAR III IS NOW! SILENT WEAPONS – WMD’S ARE USED ON US NON-STOP! IT’S BEEN GOING ON! READ COMMENT BOX & PAY ATTENTION: WE ARE UNDER CONSTANT ATTACK BY SILENT WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION! PROOF! DROP EVERYTHING & WATCH THIS NOW! My Testimony: the Spirit confirming this for you NOW! HUMANS ARE BEING KILLED WELL INTO THE MILLIONS OF MILLIONS!

Now I have a dilemma, though. This isn’t any loonier than the comments from creationists, or libertarians, or Jordan Peterson fans, or anti-feminists, and in fact is probably less evil (slightly) than any of those. So I’ll ask you, O Readers, should I click on the “approve” button or not?

Note: I do not accept any variant of free speech absolutism — I’m going to filter no matter what, so the only question is where I should draw the line.

Laurie Penny, on point:

The first time I waded through the collected polemics and YouTube punditry of Professor Jordan Peterson — the unthinking man’s televangelist, inflated to the status of serious truth-seeker by respectable newspapers around the world — I was expecting to be at least slightly dazzled by his rhetoric. But no matter how long I stared at the magic-eye picture of jumbled platitudes, masturbatory nightmares about being devoured by an all-consuming mother figure, and occasional sensible tips about making your bed, it failed to resolve into a work of epoch-defining insight. Instead, it reads as if St. John the Divine of Patmos settled down and got a job selling insurance but occasionally had flashbacks to when he used to lick blue fungus off cave walls and babble about the Great Dragon.

The only way Peterson could have acquired a reputation as an intelligent person is by cultivating an audience of people who hate the humanities, and have therefore never read a well-written book.

Lately, Mary and I have been taking our morning constitutional strolling around the horticulture gardens, over by the Pomme de Terre river.

It’s pretty, but OMG IT’S SEPTEMBER. Everything is going to die soon and freeze and be covered with snow, so we’ve got to get our walking in now.

At least one good thing is that we’re seeing a fair number of monarchs, and the next generation is growing fast.