Or, in this particular case, they did grind him down: Steven Den Beste has been driven from blogging by. . .his readership. How ironic, but unsurprising. It has been noticeable for quite some time that a thing he used to enjoy had become wearisome to him, because of too much "help".

Long time readers of this site, if any of you are still around to read this post, will know that USS Clueless was one of my favorite sites, frequently linked to and commented on. In that selfish way, it will be missed. In another more significant way, it will also be missed: Steven Den Beste contributed greatly to the intellectual fight, whether you generally agreed, generally disagreed, or quibbled on the edges. His thoughtful posts were always thought provoking, at least for me.

I hope he'll find another outlet to express himself through, that will not have the drawbacks that caused him to grow weary of blogging, and exacerbated with his readership.

In the meantime, in betweentime, as far as this blog goes: updates are few and far between here, but mainly 'cause I haven't much to contribute at the moment. Here's how it goes: I'm not even able to catch much (nothing, really) of the Republican Convention so far. Missed both major speeches last night, and am unlikely to see much of what is coming up. That's just one example. Till I get done with AIT, posting will remain few and far between - even on "training" subjects. It's just too hard to get online for more than a little while, and too hard to get enough information to make a well informed post.

I do have plenty of downtime here, though. AIT has about two hours worth of classwork per day when something is actually taught and learned, and the rest of the time is just frittered away. I’m just not able to make much constructive use of it. It’s vexing.