Title Having Nothing To Do With Content

Who says we don't learn from the past?
Some wise organization in Philly decided to grease up signposts and traffic lights for the Eagles game. Sounds bizarre, right? Not in Philly, where last time, people were scaling the poles. One particularly brilliant fellow was lobbing glass bottles. So they're trying to avoid hilarity this time around.

But I have faith in Philly fans, who once upended a parked truck, in a celebration of something or other. I know they'll find a way to get past the grease and cause mass mayhem, landing them on national tv and being memorialized on YouTube. Maybe this year they'll blow something up. Or release a nerve agent. There's no underestimating Philly fans.

In an example of pure synchronicity, Mrs leftystrat said it's getting LOUD outside.  Apparently Them Iggles won, and the yahoos are already parading up and down the block, in a drunken (or normal) stupor, with small explosives.

Sure enough, at least two people managed to climb a greased pole. This is the kind of indomitable spirit shown by Philadelphians, when their team wins, and when trying to get out of a parking ticket.  Speaking of Philly Spirit, there was only one fire.

Philadelphia authorities are working on a large scale evacuation plan, should Dem Iggles win the Superbowl. This has the potential to be the worst mass casualty event since Three Mile Island.

• A 15 year old hacker impersonated the CIA director and other officials in massive data breach. 15 years old. This says a lot about CIA security and the 15 year old. Perhaps the CIA should hire the little bugger... he seems evil and smart enough for their mission.

This was actual advice given to people in the South...

It's a different world, south of the Mason Dixon line

• A large number of businesses in the UK have been rendered vulnerable to cyber crimes by employees who regularly access pornographic and gambling websites on their work computers. This is why we can't have nice things.

Just when you thought your country, whatever country your country is, was the most incompetent in the area of cyber security, along comes Norway, where a healthcare provider is investigating a breach that might affect half of the population.  This is impressive. They claim that there's no evidence that it has put patient treatment or safety at rsk... you know... except for the fact that the healthcare data on half the country has been compromised.

In completely unrelated news, Norway has just dropped off the Greatest Places to Live list.

• Speaking of Superbowels, I was invited to a Superbowl party. I need to gather some magazines and make sure there's plenty of internet available, so I have something to do while avoiding socializing (and football). There's plenty of room under the snack table, provided no one else thought to hide there.

Just when you thought it was safe to read social media:

For example, my wife should ask me if I'd date a trans woman. If I said no, she should divorce me. Makes perfect sense, if you ask me.

Texas judge Jack Robinson interrupted the jury, saying God told him the defendant is not guilty. The judge apologized to jurors for the interruption, but defended his actions by telling them “when God tells me I gotta do something, I gotta do it."  Before you could say "schizophrenics hear voices" or "this is disallowed by the First Amendment," Judge Robinson recused himself. A request for a mistrial was denied. Because his outburst couldn't have swayed the jury in any way. 

Although Florida wins the award for sheer number of weird stories hitting the news, everything's still bigger in Texas.

• For some reason, which has nothing at all to do with temper or banging on things, the 'i' on my laptop sometimes fails to work. Today, it's producing double letters. Now my work computer's 'i' is sticking. What kind of bizarre synchronicity is this? Will either or both keyboards leap up and tell me God told them not to work? Do keyboards talk? Will I have to have the meds adjusted (again)?

A frequent stowaway slipped past Chicago's O'Hare airport security and took a flight to London. Don't you feel secure now? Not to worry, our brothers in London have our backs: they caught the lawless traveler and sent her home. No word yet on Frequent Stowaway Miles. The TSA was unavailable for comment, as they were all in the back room, laughing at your naked xrays.

• It's not a conspiracy when you're watching it happening: In the past three months, five porn stars have died. Three of overdoses, one in her sleep, and one by suicide. This is a tragedy of major proportions. If you remember, Madeline Monroe also died of a drug overdose, otherwise known as 'suicided.' 
• Who feels so threatened by adult entertainers that they are to be terminated? As with any suspect event, you have to ask yourself Who Benefits?
• Well, our president is alleged to have had an affair with a porn star. Let's take a wild guess: he also had affairs with other porn stars. Ladies who can no longer be questioned over the matter.
• Dead. Who winds up dead? People who have angered the Clintons. Perhaps Hillary had affairs with the ladies in question. Or even Bill.
• Maybe the government has declared a War on Porn. No, wait, that would only increase the number of porn stars.
• Rest in peace, ladies.

America is really upset about healthcare, and rightly so.

One highly-touted solution is socialized medicine, like Britain's National Health.

Let's face it: the British are not a beautiful people, by and large. On that basis, I reject socialized medicine. 

That's what you get here: information and solutions.

• It's 2018. Everyone can order everything online. The brick and mortar businesses need to come up with something original and clever to stay in business. Enter 'Graham,' an enterprising English businessman, with a business that can't lose. Sure, you can buy a sex doll from any old sex doll store, online or in-person. But where can you try them out for fifty pounds for thirty minutes, after which you can purchase the doll. This man is obviously way ahead of the pack and should win some sort of business award. Graham denies, however, that he is running a sex doll brothel.
• With every idea comes a downside: the poor sod who has to clean the dolls if they're not purchased. And what is their official job title, for tax purposes? Automated Adult Services Restoration Engineer? 
• The only thing better than writing this blog is getting paid for writing this blog. It actually used to happen, in a universe far far back, with a different url. They warned me, if I didn't stop writing about Halloween Boobies, I'd cease to be listed. So I took my blog and went elsewhere. They told me I'd be missing the publicity and access their service afforded me. And still I left. And still, they were absolutely correct. But don't let anybody tell you I'm unprincipled: I'm just plain stupid.
• I'm betting that the remnants of the blog still there is generating more hits than this one. There's probably a small pot of gold there, waiting for me.
• Thanks for coming by and reading. Thanks for subscribing. Thanks for commenting. Thanks for going away in disgust, never to return. Thanks for going away in disgust and returning for more disgust. I get nothing concrete: just the hope that I've entertained and made you think about something or other.

The computer news daily features some obscene number of new ransomware varieties. Very briefly, it gets into your system, frequently by user error, encrypts your important files, then demands a ransom to decrypt them.

I want to present you with the Ultimate Super Secret Ransomware Mitigation Secret: backup your friggin computer. What could possibly feel better than thumbing your nose at some disgusting foreign hacker? Because you know you have backups to replace your encrypted files. Besides - there's no guarantee that paying the ransom will get your files back.

Backups not only protect against malware - they protect against fire, flood, hurricanes, tornadoes, most acts of God, hard drive failure, computer failure, and falling on your laptop during particularly interesting adult activities.

A backup can be as simple as a USB drive or external hard drive, onto which you copy the files you want to save. There is freeware for Windows that will help you automate the process. Linux folks can use the command line or open source software to accomplish this. MACs undoubtedly have some utility that sends your data into the past, so it's safe and you can restore it by bringing it into the present. If at all possible, encrypt your backups.... if the backup leaves your hands by mistake, you don't want anyone to know how much you paid for that sex doll. In pounds.

If, heaven forbid, this seems too complex, time consuming, or you're terminally lazy, you can use an ... I hate to say this... online service to automatically do your backups for you. You just have to select what gets backed up and how frequently, and off it goes, hopefully encrypted. This is The Cloud, which I don't like, because the moment your data leaves your hands, it's no longer your data.

You don't have to backup your operating system - that can easily be rebuilt. Just your data. If you use the USB or portable hard drive method, please put the device elsewhere, like a friend or relative's house. If anything bad happens to your home, your data is safe somewhere else. If the FBI pays you a visit and removes every computer in your house because they suspect you have certain files on them, you still have your backup, safe and offsite. Everybody will say how smart you are. More likely, you can tell everyone how smart you are because you have backups. Win/win.

• Why doesn't stuff work? Are we a nation wasting tons of time, waiting for or trying to get stuff working? For me, it's usually work stuff: Hey Boss, I can't log into the Garbanzo machine. 
• You need to get in touch with Babaloo, who owns the machine.
• Hey Babaloo, I can't get into the Garbanzo machine.
• Let me see.... yup - it works for me [click].
• Hey Reggie - the new guy doesn't have email. Who does he call?
• Oh, that would be the Email Department, but he's out for a week, someplace where the drinks have full size umbrellas in them.
• Doesn't he have a backup?
• Yes he does. He's back up in his house, on vacation too.
• Hey Boss, when I log into the work application, I see someone else's screen.
• Oh, you have to call Support.
• Support's hours are nine to five but they close at noon.
• Yeah, they're like that. Fill out a ticket and they'll get back to you some time next month... if they don't close your ticket and claim they already fixed it.

So, this DACA/immigration thing, that played a huge part in the government shutting down... I'm still at a loss for words. Screw it - I'm never at a loss for words.

I break with some of my libertarian brethren on immigration. They say unlimited. I say do it legally, the way it's supposed to be done. Letting a bunch of people in without the normal controls also negates the work that the real immigrants did to get their citizenship. They don't feel entitled, like the DACA crowd.

These people are illegal aliens, no matter what anybody tells you. 'Undocumented Immigrants' is wordplay, designed to take the sting out of illegal aliens. These people are criminals, having broken laws of the country in which they hope to live. In which some feel entitled to live. Many sanctuary cities and the entire state of California seem to be perfectly ok with lawbreakers, even encouraging them. California gives them drivers licenses and wants to automatically register them to vote with the license. This bus seems to be missing more than a few tires.

Allow me to introduce myself: I'm Mr leftystrat, and my heart goes out to people who have gone through red lights. I myself do not go through red lights, but the plight of those who do is a sad one, a heartbreaking one. Yes, they've broken the law. Yes, they may have caused a collision with a schoolbus full of children. That's not important. What's important is that we forgive these people. In my proud sanctuary city, we stand for the rights of everyone to drive, regardless of how. If necessary, we will break the law and stand between traffic police and our brothers and sisters, the red light violators. In fact, we do not approve of the harsh tone; rather, we refer to them as Traffic Firsters, because they're first on the importance scale. First before every other car on the road, regardless of lights, signs, and laws.

How stupid does this sound?

Imagine, breaking a law and having people tell you it's ok, just ignore the law.

Join us next week, when I take up the plight of a very misunderstood group - bank robbers. They did nothing wrong and we must accept them fully, including letting them marry our children.

• My house is still trying to match last night's temperature. In other words, it's cold. I walked outside to find I didn't need a coat! The sun is almost out. It's warm - almost 50. It's bikini season! It's a shame because I don't have my bikini body yet, plus I need a wax like you wouldn't believe.

So, if you're patching your Intel CPU against the Spectre/Meltdown bug, Intel says not to. If you have already, unpatch it. Announcement forthcoming. This company bungled everything, from design to mitigation. Also, note that after you patch it, your computer will slow down, to the tune of approximately twenty percent or more. This is what you paid for. I tend to use AMD processors, given the choice.

• If you've ever use the command line (cmd.exe) or PowerShell in Windows, you can already use the command line in linux.  Note that this is not mandatory to use linux. You can run it just like Windows, making it look just like Windows too.

I suspect my wife is trying to gaslight me. She is doing a lot of cleaning, which also encompasses reorganization.  What this means is that she's hiding everything from me. She knows exactly where everything is, but I have no idea. Men in general have a difficult time finding stuff, and this only makes it worse.  The other day I wanted peanut butter. That was my first mistake. It had moved to a different surface. Everyone knows you can't have peanut butter without some sort of chocolate, so I went looking for some chocolate Reese's spread. 

So where was it? How the hell should I know? She did a great job of hiding it. Perhaps this is an attempt to keep her around, because she knows where everything is. Meanwhile I keep her around because she tolerates me well, which is a very rare trait.

On my way to the counter, cursing her name, I spied the chocolate spread in the most logical place: on the floor, next to the fridge. Stupid me. I was about to check the second most logical place: in back of the washing machine in the basement. 

I need to use the ladder today.... I better look on the bed.

• After all this time and international intrigue, I remain unable to find a slur for Malaysians. If you know anyone who can help with this quest, please let me know. I have nothing against Malaysians.. I just want to know what the slur is. I am not looking for the generic slur.

People annoy me.

This might come as a surprise, but it is so.

Know what makes me happy? Dogs. My own, as well as others. When I see dogs on tv, I smile reflexively. This is easy to note, as I don't generally smile.

Airport sniffer dogs are born at special facilities and kept there til they're eight weeks old. Then a host family lives with the dog for a year and brings them back  for training. Can you imagine living with a puppy for a year, then having to say goodbye? You couldn't pry that dog from my hands, no matter how hard you tried.