Halftime Score from City Hall

Source: City of Richardson.

May 11, 2026, marks one year since the current Richardson City Council was sworn in. That's the halfway mark of the 2025-2027 term. It's time to look at how this City Council is working. So, I asked ChatGPT to analyze the votes taken by the council, looking for coalitions and opposing factions. There were only nine contested votes all year. That's a small sample. Any analysis is subject to swings on the very next vote. Nevertheless, I found ChatGPT's interpretation of the voting results to be worthy of consideration. The following was written by ChatGPT.

POTD: Ruins of Toprak-Kala

From 2025 09 17 Khiva

Today's photo-of-the-day is from the ruins of Toprak-Kala (1st-5th century CE). A thousand years before Marco Polo journeyed the Silk Road, ancient cities like Toprak-Kala flourished. Wikipedia calls it "an ancient palace city and the capital of Chorasmia in the 2nd/3rd century CE, where wall paintings, coins and archives were discovered." The city was built from sun-dried mud bricks (adobe).

Bonus photos are after the jump.

POTD: Mass Transit in Tashkent

From 2025 09 15 Tashkent

Today's photo-of-the-day is from an underground train station in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The trains are clean, frequent, and fast, one of the good legacies of Soviet times.

Bonus photos are after the jump.

Wuthering Heights (2026)

Rotten Tomatoes

Wuthering Heights (2026): Not Barbie meets Frankenstein. Instead, a passionate love/hate relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff on the foggy, rainy moor. All of the characters are unlikable. The 19th century story was loaded with sex for a 21st century audience. C+

HBO

Book Review: The Trouble with Heroes

From The Trouble with Heroes, by Kate Messner:

Amazon

"I’ve had plenty of mean teachers, the kind who just want you to shut up while they drink coffee and wait to retire, and I can deal with that just fine. It’s the nice ones you have to watch out for."