Trump Announces Run for Re-Election in 2020

Donald Trump, otherwise known as The Prez, announced he will be running for re-election in 2020.  For coverage of the reaction, we go to NBC, and our correspondent, Vince Scum. Vince, what do you see?

[nods head, like they all do when going to a remote reporter] Yes, thank you, Bob. Large scale fainting has already been reported in California, which causes concern over the San Andreas Fault. The people who reject reality are updating their "Not My President 2016" signs to "Not My President 2020".  New twitter hashtags are ready (#NotMyPresidentAgain), and neck muscles are being built up for shaking their heads in abject denial. Reached for comment, Nancy Pelosi said, "Peanut Butter."

A huge list of celebrities say if Trump wins (again), they're moving to the moon. This comes on the heels of a huge list of celebrities saying they were going to leave the country if Trump won in 2016. To date, none have kept their promise. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who was on that list, was not available for comment, but the faint sound of snoring was heard from behind her office door.

Thanks, Bob.
Thank you, Vince.
Now for the reaction on the right, we go to Audi Porsche, from NPR. Audi, what's the word from the right?

[nods head, like they all do when going to a remote reporter] Thank you, Bob. I've been rather upset over this most recent event. We put together a panel of experts to tell you why the president is wrong.

Thank you, Audi. Now let's go over to Vince Snetterton-Lewis, a wombat.

[nods head, like they all do when going to a remote reporter] Sits there, staring at the screen.

Thank  you, Vince.  Little known fact: wombats are members of the refrigerator family.

Wait, I'm hearing we have someone actually on the ground, who's actually going to report on the Right's reaction - we go to Vince Hogg, in Texas. Vince?

[nods head, like they all do when going to a remote reporter] Thank you, Bob. As you can see, I'm here at the future site of Trump Re-election Headquarters, in the parking lot of the NRA, right by Charlton Heston's grave.  The NRA tells us that sales are suddenly in a slump. Barack Obama gave the largest boost to gun sales in the history of the country, and sales were up after the school shooting in Florida, bless the children and their families. The moment Trump announced, people stopped panic-buying.

Can you hear the cheering, Bob? That's the sound of pickup truck dealers all over the country. Just today, pickup sales have gone through the roof. The governor of Texas has announced two new plants are being built to manufacture oversize Merkin flags and bumper stickers, bringing four hundred and one jobs to Houston. Back to you, Bob.

That was Vince Hogg, in Texas. Few people know this, but up until today, Vince was an exotic dancer and part-time spoon at a very prestigious restaurant in Dallas.

As one would expect, social media has been a war zone ever since the announcement. Instagram features selfies with various lawn signs, Faceyspaces is aghast and everyone with an account is forwarding everything to everyone, resulting in another day at Faceyspaces. The largest reaction was on twitter, where a collective aneurysm occurred, then the hashtags started to be slung. Then all was silent except back-slapping and high fives, as twitter management put into effect its surprise new policy, where anybody who says "Trump" or anything negative about liberals is guilty of Hate Speech and thrown off immediately. This isn't too different from twitter's former policy, where conservatives were thrown off for insulting protected minorities. Over at GAB, the free speech network, servers were buckling under the load. People who managed to get in reported whooping and gunshots at the largest celebration they'd ever seen online. Even the actual nazis there were in good humor, although they blamed Trump's previous victory on the Jews who run everything.

At Democratic Headquarters, a look of confusion mixed with horror is the uniform of the day. Democratic leaders say they fully expect to lose win the 2020  election, on the strength of their performance in the 2016 election. The Committee to Blame Another Country for Interfering in the Election is already formed and working feverishly on a hemisphere. The early indication is some place that ends in -stan. Off the table is Israel, which has pictures of all of them at the Donkey Show. Not mentioned are any possible candidates, but rumor has it that the list includes Barbara Streisand, who is also on the list to move to the moon if Trump wins, and the attendees of the Emmy, Grammy, and Tony awards. Speculation is that the field will also include a jellyfish, Barbara Feinstein's cat, several small bits of bellybutton lint, and Chelsea Clinton (who has already been declared the winner).

Things are all atwitter at Libertarian Party Headquarters, where they expect their greatest chance of winning in the history of the party. The thought here is that, judging by their humiliation in the last election and Trump's great momentum, Democrats might vote libertarian. This is because their candidates may not be able to win, even though they have 'friends' in the election business. To further their chances, dems just purchased livertarian.org, hoping nobody will notice the difference. Meanwhile the libertarians, in an official statement, said they expect to have a candidate by 2019 but don't expect to be allowed to debate or get listed at the polls. The candidate will be likeable, mild-mannered, and know exactly where Aleppo is. Unfortunately he won't know where Canada is. In order to avoid the disgusting spectacle of last year's convention, where one delegate appeared in nothing but a left sock, they are hiring Ted Nugent to reprise his old stage bit of wearing a loincloth, swinging from a rope, and shooting flaming arrows at a picture of Hillary Clinton, while simultaneously playing a guitar solo.

Approached for comment on Trump's announcement, the Green Party said, "Who's Trump?"

Perennial candidate Vermin Supreme will be in the running too. He has modified his platform of dental health and a free pony to dental health and free guns, in order to court undecided Second Amendment supporters. The other perennial candidate, Pat Paulsen, has chosen to remain dead.

First to the mic, though, was Bernie Sanders. Bernie wants everybody to know that we all deserve free education. And free houses, with free cars in their free driveways. Unfortunately, he won't be running this year, as Hillary told him not to and bought him another free house, bringing his total to seven.

All is hushed at Trump HQ, while potential running mates are discussed.  On the short list are Eva Braun, Bob Dole's arm, and Jared from Subway - a man who truly represents both parties.

Trump campaign spokesperson, Judge Judy, released a picture of Donald sitting on his golden toilet and smiling that smile.

Don't Touch That Anvil!!

I have many magical qualities, none of which is my personality.
I can make a stoplight turn red simply by approaching it.
I can make a grocery checkout line come to a dead stop by getting in the line.
In terms of sheer size and awesomeness, my wife wins: she can make a train show up by driving to an intersection with lights and a gate.

You get it.

So I'm back to calling the tax authority.
Once again, all circuits are busy.  I know what's going on here - the number doesn't actually exist, or it's in a very small closet, behind a false wall.
So I found another number to call. This one was apparently located in a place where there are more circuits for a call.

ThermiTip: if you can't find a number or it isn't the correct number, curse a lot. Some of them have Fuck Filters that shunt you to an operator. Or you could just press O a lot, hoping for an operator. Or any old human being. If all else fails, call a number that might not be the department you want. When they answer, act stupid (some of us don't have to act). If you're polite and just a little lost, the natural inclination is to help, so they'll get you where you need to go (unless you're calling City Hall, where they'll politely tell you NOT MY JOB and hang up).

After once again being assured that my call was important, somebody finally answered. The very interesting part of this, aside from him answering, is that I somehow managed to reach the correct department (by calling the wrong department). It's obvious this department wants nothing at all to do with its customers.

Once again, I needed to take down information.
This is where another one of my talents comes into play: I can make a pen stop writing by picking it up. And I do not disappoint. My wife had cleaned, so there were no more pens. I proceeded with a pencil. As soon as I took down the information, the lead snapped. Then my paper sailed to the floor. I picked it up and straightened it out (so it could sail to the floor a second time). I knew if I tried to put my phone on speaker, I'd find a way to disconnect the call and spend all eternity trying to get them back on the phone.

Here's the bizarre part: the guy was helpful. And considerate. And made really good suggestions. I had to keep checking my phone to make sure I dialed the correct number and was still connected. I can't say much more about this person, lest they figure out who he is and fire him for behavior unbecoming a city employee.

• A Seal Team 6 raid, referred to by President Trump as "highly successful", turned out to have killed well over a dozen women and children and was botched. We really need to stop this, Mr. President; both the lying and the endless war.

Faceyspaces is at it again, doing what Faceyspaces does best. There's a Protect option on your menu, which sends you to the app store to download a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service called Onavo.  Rather than keeping your data locked and impenetrable, it directly mines your information.  Don't use this. Better yet, don't use Faceyspaces.

• Just in case you think I'm kidding about the weather here, this is our forecast:

• unseen is the hourly forecast, which includes a little sun. People are starting to look out of their caves, wondering what that strange light in the sky is. Children have momentarily stopped asking their parents to tell them about the time there was sun. Pets are covering their eyes with their paws. And, because sun causes lines and cancer, Hollywood is blaming Trump.

The wife is watching the Wendy Williams show.
I remember when Wendy Williams was a punk singer who chainsawed things during her shows.
The wife is passive-aggressively torturing me.
The tv is so loud, I can't help hear the silence between her lines, the whining that her sushi isn't cut thin enough, and her news of disease or other, that she needs to outline for her thought-impaired audience.
People are talking about 'common sense gun legislation.' What they need to be talking about is common sense Wendy legislation. It's a wonder half the audience hasn't hurt themselves before the end of the show. Perhaps Neilsen needs to take a survey of how many home viewers hurt themselves. Or their husbands committed acts of violence.

• Today in Arizona, students at Gilbert High School walked out to honor the victims of last week's shooting in Florida. Tomorrow in Arizona, students at Gilbert High School will walk out to honor toast.

The Salmon of Doubt

For a number of days, we have been attempting to have salmon.
In normal households, this is a relatively easy concept: go out or stay in and have salmon.
In my house, a simple concept can turn itself into a gargantuan trek.

On the first night, we were grabbing our salmon and taking it to my parents, where we were to prepare it. With luck, we'd eat it too.
We failed, for reasons I'd rather not specify (having nothing to do with marital relations).

The second night brought another try at the parents. Mrs leftystrat took the day off. The entire day. She and the dog never left the exceedingly comfortable bed.

Giving up with the parents, the third night was Salmon for Us Night.
This time, Mrs leftystrat took the night off.
I wouldn't dare disturb her, for fear of my private parts getting pierced.

At 11:37pm, the Mrs stumbles down the steps, shaking her head, and announces, "I'm going to try this a different way. We are NOT going to have salmon tomorrow."

At 11:38 it was my turn: "In addition, we are not going to have sex every night this week."

She was so amused, she went back to bed.



UPDATE: It turns out we were both right! We did not have salmon OR sex.

• In a private chat of a UK school, a joker came in and started posting memes. They were delightfully disgusting and wildly off color. They were SO bad, I have to describe them here. The ones about the UK can be understood by context...
•  One of them was a 1-10 scale, accompanied by the question ‘Using the scale provided, rate how much you like kids’. At 1 was a picture of Kate and Gerry McCann, and at 10 was a picture of Jimmy Savile. Another was a picture of Katie Price’s disabled son with the caption, ‘What’s black and screams? Harvey Price answering an iron.’ 
• Hitler was also a common thread, with one meme bearing a picture of his face with the text ‘I burned six million calories in four years’. Another was a picture of Gordon Ramsay shouting at, here he is again, Hitler, with the caption, ‘Put them back in the fucking oven! They’re so undercooked they’re writing fucking diaries.’ 
• This being a university, someone in this private chat got offended and contacted the university, which promptly sent out a note that it has a 'zero tolerance policy towards racist, sexist or bigoted behaviour.' You know.. because it was a private chat, and the university had an aunt in the holocaust, whose son was on Gordon Ramsay, answering the iron.

With all the crap, phishing, spam, virii, and malware floating around, please refer to leftystrat's Rules of Cybersecurity: Don't. Just don't.

Don't open that email. Don't click on that link. Don't send your password to Sears. Don't marry or send cash to anyone from Nigeria. Don't approve any naked pictures from Olga. Before you open the message from your best friend, telling you about a deal, ask if they actually sent it. Delete anything with misspellings or wording that is obviously foreign. The IRS will not email you to tell you that money is owed or a refund is due. Neither Jay Leno nor Oprah are going to give you a car. The president doesn't care what you think, nor does your local representative, who sends you legitimate email.

• PRO TIP: if you're going to pour from the barbecue sauce bottle (I like Sweet Baby Ray's), always remove the cap.

It was a long time ago and we were visiting a relative at the Happy Place. 

There were  some names on their whiteboard. In the mornings, they state their goals for the day. One wanted to remember to be happy. Another wanted to work on her main issue. Our favorite goal was 'to stay awake for the whole day'. You don't have to be in the hospital for this to apply. [RIP DumDum - 5 years?]

• I spent some time thinking about this alleged Russian influence on our election, via social media. I haven't really paid much attention to it, but apparently they ran ads on Faceyspaces and ran bots, urging people not to vote for Hillary, but to vote for Trump, Bernie, and Jill Stein. There is also an alleged Russian presence on twitter and Reddit.
• Without knowing many facts, I can tell you this investigation is a witch hunt. It's total and complete BS.  How do I know?  
• When was the last time you told someone, on social media, how to vote and they listened to you?

I finally figured out what my wife has been complaining about for years.  Which thing, you ask. It's the stereotypical Helpless Man Syndrome, wherein the male cannot find anything and has to ask his wife where they are. As we know, I don't like to be the stereotypical anything, so this bothers me.  Being helpless doesn't exactly thrill me either.

Ok, I have one small piece of the equation that others don't: a highly dissociative wife, for whom time is not necessarily linear. It tends to exist in blocks. And between the blocks, others 'help' by moving things and hiding other things. So when I have to ask where the ketchup is, because it's not in the place it always is, it's because she has 'rearranged' things. Or better yet, someone else has hidden it, because it's valuable and they don't want anybody to steal it. They've hidden candy, car keys, and important medicine. Like most children, they're trying to help.  If I have completely confused you or you are a new reader, my wife has Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder.

Back to being helpless...

Honey, I can't find the frozen pizza.

It's on the top shelf of the freezer, where it always is.

Ok, I just looked and it isn't there.

I never moved it and it's always on the top shelf.

I believe you. Can you help me find it?

[opens freezer] Oh. It was on the bottom, under these ten bags of Brussels sprouts.

Sorry, I should have known that. Thank you.

My friend left me some papers on his porch, so I could get them whenever.

I stopped by and found a plastic bag with stuff in it. His wife is always sending stuff over, so it was nice of her to include whatever that was.

When I got home, I went into the bag and found a whole mess of fake plastic autumn leaves. And absolutely nothing else. Because that's what my mind expected to see. Shakira could have been sitting next to the bag, swirling her hips in that hypnotic way, and I'd have missed her.

And this is what my wife has been complaining about for years. Poor lady.

Good thing I don't work with explosives, eh?

• According to Interpol, all Internet of Things devices are potentially at risk of cyber attacks.  It's humbling to hear that Interpol reads this blog.

Your flight is delayed.

Why?

Because there are two more scanned boarding passes than people on the plane.

Do you...

1. PANIC
2. Wave your hands wildly in the air and PANIC
3. say 'Allah Akbar' repeatedly, in a loud voice
4. thumb nervously through your Koran
5. tell people that the planes were remote-controlled on 9-11

• If you are at all curious about how Google Chrome's ad filter (that is not an ad blocker) works, read this.  Remember: the idea is to get you to turn off your ad blocker so their ad revenue won't suffer.

Once again, the good people in DC have stepped in to magically fix everything, this time with the Secure Elections Act. We remember that all legislation means the opposite of its title (Patriot Act), so there's that. The measure issues appropriations of grants to states to take action on election hardware and software issues.  In English, it takes more of your money and gives it to states to 'secure' the elections. The last time elections were secured, we got expensive electronic voting machines with no paper trail, from a manufacturer (Diebold) who donated to the democratic candidate. Speaking of which, how about all those generations of scanning devices at airports.....?

Nothing good comes out of DC and whatever it is will cost you dearly.

Speaking of which, how about that Border Security?

The US government has been left red-faced after it emerged that its Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has failed for over a decade to verify passports are authentic because it has not been able to properly read their built-in smart chip.

This was another project guaranteed to 'keep us safe'. We paid for it. A lot.

What have we gotten for our tax dollars? Another failed system. Another worthless department in our ever-expanding government. Why do I refer to it as Security Theater?

If your work performance turned out to be worthless, what would happen?

You'd be put on Modified Duty, by which I mean your daily routine would be modified by sitting on your couch, looking for a new job. I'm going to take a guess that the remedy for this situation will come in the form of new technology for the department, at the cost of hundreds of millions of your dollars. And these dollars will not be the originally appropriated dollars - they will be additionally appropriated dollars. 

Will heads roll?

No, but eyes will.

Dirty Harry said it best: "Let me ask you a question, punk. Do you feel any safer? DO YOU?"

Border Patrol was not entirely unaware of this small glitch, after the Government Accounting Office reported on it in 2010.

• Another tremendous headline:  Harvard University Bans Single Gender Clubs, Unless They're Women-Only.
• Per a twitter comment: We do not live under a democracy any more. We live under a corporate gynocracy.

A Dubai to Amsterdam flight was forced to land in Austria.

Why?

Because a passenger would not stop farting.

(it's like they're doing stuff just for this blog)

Two Dutchmen kept asking the flatulent party to cease his anal exhalations, but he refused. Eventually a fight broke out.

Austrian officers boarded the plane with (fart-sniffing?) dogs and four suspects were escorted off the plane. Every reader of this blog counted two Dutchmen and one Farter. It turns out that there were also two women involved. Even United knows this is five people.  

Did a flight attendant serve him beans? Were other passengers trying to harmonize with him? We have questions.

How's Marshall, you ask.

The switch to oral chemotherapy (pills) failed miserably. His body did not like it. So he gets no more chemo.

His lesion has grown back larger, so we're worse off than when we started.

We're looking into ways to keep his pain down, as the lesion is sore. He will not suffer.

My mother came by and did some energy work on him. That night there was no bleeding from the lesion, which is a first. Energy work continues.

If you have any good thoughts to spare, please send them to him.

HP LaserJet Pro MFP M130nw - Review

One of the reasons I was politely asked to leave my previous web location was that I did not dedicate the blog 100% to technical content. The other reason had something to do with Halloween Boobies, but I won't bore you with that now.

In my long and storied computer career, I've had three printers at home: a LaserJet so old that it wanted a serial cable, and two multifunction HP DeskJets. The LaserJet worked flawlessly until, for some reason, it didn't. The DeskJets both followed the same trajectory: they printed nicely, the very expensive ink cartridges dried out because I barely print, and the scanner mechanism broke, which, for some reason, broke the printing function. This was years ago and I've somehow managed to survive.

So after much thought, I decided on a laser printer, with scanning, fax, and copying. Laser cartridges don't dry out and they produce a lot of pages. I looked around and found relatively cheap color laser printers. The first color laser I saw at work, many years ago, was about $10,000. So I was a little shocked to find this little bugger in the neighborhood of $350. Since I remember what was involved with color lasers, it was a real mental tug of war between I WANT ONE and YOU'LL BE SORRY.  The 'feature' that stopped the purchase was that it requires four cartridges (this is standard) at about $110 each, which is more than the cost of the printer itself (also standard with InkJets).

Since I had such a bad time with HP printers, there was no excuse not to get another one. Ok, let me back up.... when printers are released, they don't come with linux drivers. Windows and Mac - no problem. Linux... well... take your chances. The linux community got together and put together a resource on printers and whether or not they worked with linux. Unfortunately the linux community cannot travel into the future to say if a very new printer will work. So if you want a new model of printer, you have to wait til someone buys it and tries it, then posts the results. The ones I was looking at didn't have listings on the linux page yet. 

HP may have questionable hardware, as displayed by my two dead multifunction printers, but they're incredibly smart. They released software called HPLIP or something like it, that will allow you to use their printers on linux. HP was also very fortunate, in that their software is so functional that it's included in several linux distributions, Ubuntu included.

My nephew said you go into Costco to buy some cereal and walk out, $350 dollars later, with a cart full of everything, including tires for your car. So I naturally started there (online).  They had exactly one HP, which was the aforementioned color laser. Nope. Costco doesn't usually disappoint.

While I'm web-shopping, I noticed something... stores weren't listing small details, like price. Some had to be put in your 'cart' before the secret price would be revealed. Some were more complex and I give up easily. To prove my point, later that evening I did a search for a specific kind of juice, and that price wasn't  listed either. Juice. What the hell is wrong with these people?

My next step is where I used to live when they first opened... I won't say their name, because for some reason other people don't, so I'll tell you it rhymes with Breast Guy. BOOM, the HP printers popped right up. It was weird - they had prices listed. Not available in stores, this unit was probably being blown out at $99, as it was up to double that on other sites.  I did a compare of a few laser AIOs (all in one), as price was less a consideration than reliability and suitability.  I print something every other month or so, which isn't really a category to compare by. It turned out that the least expensive printer would be just fine. It's an awful shame this isn't the case with guitar gear.

Although this shouldn't be anyone's sole criterion for purchase, I checked the reviews. People are most likely to review something if they have a complaint, especially if you've ever had the misfortune to read Yelp. I was surprised to find a lot of great reviews and a few bad reviews, all pretty much the same. People liked the printer or they had trouble and hated the wireless setup. Since I'm a big shot network guy<tm>, this wouldn't be a problem for me.

The transaction was quick and pleasant, unlike any other transaction I have had on the web. I kept waiting for the internet to crash, but it didn't. I got a tracking number and it showed up when they said it would.

For some reason, I really didn't want to set it up. Who gets a new toy and doesn't want to play with it? I'll tell you who... the person who has to set it up first. I only knew this subliminally. Dammit if the reviewers weren't right: even a big shot network guy<tm> couldn't make the wireless function work. It's not that it wasn't user-friendly, it was user-HOSTILE. It also refused to set anything up until there was paper in it. Am I crazy for thinking it shouldn't need paper to set the wireless feature up?

My wireless network is set up very securely. So securely I almost had to take it  apart to get to it.  I need very specific info before I can connect anything wirelessly. Naturally the information was not available for this little bugger.  Going through the options on the face of the printer was an interesting feat.  The directions were printed out in four languages, fortunately, in case I preferred to read them in French, Spanish, or Portuguese (I think). Looking closer,  they basically gave a few quick steps, then referred to the User Guide, located at a web address. Just think of the money saved not printing a useful set of instructions. Just because you can get some backdoor software that works with linux doesn't mean there are any instructions for linux.

So I did what any short-tempered, ADD techie would do... I gave up and plugged the damn thing into my computer, with the INCLUDED usb cable. They used to charge you extra for them, causing many an unpleasant surprise when they opened the box after the stores closed. Linux recognized the printer and set it up. Yay! I told it to print a test page, which it promptly did. And by that I mean that it said it printed, but I checked the print queue and discovered it was sitting there, stopped, with no way to send it out for printing. I got all sorts of weird error messages, which I looked up, and discovered that people recommended reinstalling the HP software. I downloaded it and set it running, where it suggested removing the old software... yeah, ok. And it found the printer and bloody printed! I was shocked.

It printed very quickly, as lasers tend to. The print quality was great. This seemed to be just what I was looking for, wireless setup aside.

The printer came with a cd of software, Windows and Mac only, so most of you won't have most of these issues. Just for fun I tested the scanning function. From waaaay back, I remember that you have to use either a utility or graphics program and scan into it. And I did that. And it worked.  Beautifully and much quicker than I remember.

The fax function, which I really needed AT THIS MOMENT, was nowhere to be found. In fact, I noticed there was no jack in which to plug the phone line. What happened? I think the genius who purchased the printer somehow transposed the models that included wireless with the models that faxed. Or the printer only included fax capabilities if it was shipped on alternating Wednesdays, on a thirteen month cycle.

My situation is difficult and weird, so you will not experience the same variety of grief I did. You may experience different varieties of grief -  I don't know. I expect the wireless networking to be easier with software for your operating system, but I can't be positive.

The printer works well, quickly, and the print is nice. The scanner works quickly and accurately. The fax doesn't work at all, largely as it's not included on this model. Since scanning and printing work well, I think it's safe to assume that copying also works flawlessly (provided there's paper). HP no longer thinks hiding the power button is funny and has located it on the front of the printer, so naturally I had trouble finding it.

The printer does everything I want it to do.

If I get itchy, I'll give wireless networking another try. But I'll have to be damn itchy before that happens.

Unless it starts throwing random parts at me or the scanning mechanism breaks, I recommend this printer. For the price, you can't beat it.

Smuggling Produce

There are prohibitions on taking produce from one state to the other. This also happens from country to country. It makes perfect sense; one invasive species could do untold damage to the local ecosystem. Did you know that California salami carries the risk of foot in mouth disease. Whenever I speak, I run the risk of foot in mouth disease.

A long long time ago, we visited California. My friends gave my wife something we had never seen - a blood orange. Wasn't I surprised when she whipped it out on the plane... I went white and explained the situation to her. Being an ex-Catholic, she was even more guilt-ridden. Fortunately the Fruit Police didn't profile us.

Unfortunately some different police did profile us. My luggage 'went missing' and we were told it would be delivered the next day. Perhaps my dirty clothes looked threatening when they were looking for something to steal in Baggage.

• Somebody did something nasty at the NSA. Strangely enough, this wasn't done inside the NSA, by its employees. There was an event at the gate, resulting in three people being injured, one shot. The NSA was waiting for the FBI to get there. I guess they preferred making a phone call to putting an alert in the FBI's computers while they were 'monitoring' the FBI network.
• Federal officials are trying to figure out what led to the incident. I'm no crime expert, but I'd say it was the vehicle trying to get past the gate.
• The FBI said this is not terrorism. They don't know why it happened, but it isn't terrorism.

A group of scientists at my house have discovered, to no one's surprise, that cockers like Cheese Jax.

This is why you never sit over the wing.

• Songbirds Have Brains Specially Designed to Find Mates for Life. Humans have brains that are uniquely suited to watching reality tv.

NASA (Never A Straight Answer) is going to investigate a 10,000 year old  (East) Indian rock with paintings of what looks like aliens and UFOs.

NASA's finding will be that random environmental forces combined to produce what appears to be drawings, but is just completely random. SETI (Silly  Effort To Investigate) will offer the opinion that this drawing was part of a 10,000 year old comic strip, and wasn't meant to be serious. They checked their records and SETI 10,000 years ago said the same thing.

• Black Panther, the movie opening this week, has split white folks on whether it's ok for white children to wear the Black Panther mask. It could be seen as cultural appropriation.
• In unrelated news, black folks are in a tizzy over whether it's ok for their children to wear Cinderella masks and long hair. It could be seen as cultural appropriation.
• Heaven help us from white people helping us.

Thanks but no thanks: Bill Clinton has been deemed too toxic to campaign in the midterm elections. They offered the Clinton Foundation $10,000 to keep his wife home too.

• Amazon has confirmed that sex toys have been sent to random people and they have no idea how to stop it. I want to know who complained. 
• The technique, known as "verified review hacking," could involve sellers setting up dummy accounts to buy and ship their own products to strangers.
• Amazon has set aside fifty thousand dollars to open a thief school, where potential thieves learn to steal things and send them to their own houses.
• So if Grandma has a new spring in her step, look for the Amazon box.

Google is about to start filtering ads in the Chrome browser.
The initially great-sounding announcement should be looked at, like everything else, with great skepticism. The 'standards' Google is using are somewhat arbitrary, using results from an ad coalition pf which Google is a part. The idea is to get people to turn off their ad blockers, because Google and others make a lot of money from them. Imagine being the 5,000lb gorilla who is able to do this.

How am I going to react?
Same as always: by not using Chrome, which phones home to Google anyway.
From Chrome derivatives: nothing. Keep the damn ad blockers on, regardless.
From any other browser: keep the damn ad blockers on.

• Scientists warn that cleaning products are as bad for you as smoking 20 cigarettes a day.  I'm glad this was discovered and plan to do neither cleaning or smoking, so as to avoid this avenue to cancer.

Faceyspaces made things a little more safe by allowing two factor authentication. In English, this means that you log in with your password, then they send a text to your cell with a code to enter. Two factors are your password  and the code. This makes it more difficult to hijack your account (unless the thief knows your password and has your phone). Unfortunately Faceyspaces is spamming people's phones. They may or may not know this is happening.

Every day is another reason I regret for not using FB.

• So how do those smart speakers work? Check out the link - very interesting information, in case you're curious or purchased one by mistake. 
• This technology is Future Stuff. It's wonderfully helpful. It can save you time and effort. It can control your entire house. If you can deal with the negative sides.

If you use Chrome browser, be aware that Google has decided it's the arbiter of what is and isn't an acceptable ad. It is a member of an ad coalition and will be blocking certain ads to discourage people from using ad-blockers, which cut into Google's profits. 

I don't use Chrome, but there are a number of variants (Iron, Vivaldi, Opera, etc). I recommend running your ad-blocker and there's nothing more to be done. If you're looking for a good crap blocker, install uBlock Origin. This is also available for Firefox, and is lighter than others.

• Everybody's favorite pontiff, Pope John Paul Jones, was hailed as a miracle when he took the gig. Lately, not so much. His calls for change have upset the powers that be in the Church. The fellow he put in charge of financial reform, Cardinal George Pell, had to take an unscheduled break to deal with historical sex offense charges in his native Australia. The commission for the protection of minors contained two abuse survivors, who resigned, stating lack of progress.
• This man has so many people mad at him that he has been offered a secular position in the Trump White House.

I like to think America leads the world in so many things, so it's downright upsetting to see other countries outperforming us. A woman in England was arrested after leaving a nasty note on an ambulance, telling them she didn't care if the whole street collapsed; they needed to move the van because they had no right to be parked there.

This is unacceptable. To find someone so downright rude and entitled outside of the US is unimaginable.

Naturally, since this was England, she was arrested on suspicion of public order offenses. The ambulance company stressed that the arrest included verbal abuse they received, which is "completely unacceptable and must stop" There are unfortunately still a handful of narrow-minded individuals who consider leaving vile abusive notes acceptable."

While the article did mention the necessity for services to perform their duties, they seemed much more upset at the 'vile note'. I love England. If you picked up an illegal knife (longer than 3") and stabbed an entire hospital ward to death, you'd be politely taken into custody. If you stabbed an entire hospital ward to death, then made a statement disparaging Muslims, you'd be thrown the the ground, beaten, and put in jail for life. And yes, I'm exaggerating, ever so slightly.

Toxicity and Privilege Report

• That bastion of top ten thinking, Yale University, now offers a course that teaches students 'counternarratives around whiteness'.  It explores such topics as “white imagination,” “white property” and “white speech.” Follow the link: my words cannot begin to describe the abject silliness of the theme. I think I feel my White Privilege rattling.
• USA Today asks "Are boys 'broken'? Another mass shooting renews the debate on toxic masculinity".  Toxic masculinity? Who thinks this stuff up? Do they sit around in a room coming up with concepts that don't exist and putting them out as serious? Do they get paid? Do you notice that no one would dare say something like this about women?
• If you leave this blog with one thing, besides a headache, remember that sociology is not necessary for understanding; take it for granted that it's bad to be white, toxic to be male, and if you're a white male, you should just be jailed before you do something Really Bad. So if this blog ever stops getting updated, either my wife has killed me and disposed of my body so well that no one will ever find it, or The PC Police have finally hauled me away to prison because I'm not thinking the correct way.

Today's Hot Headline indicates that KFC is facing a shortage of chicken.
Taking it in stride, a spokesman for KFC said it was a good thing they weren't facing a shortage of Chicken-like Substance.

• ThermionicEmissions is proud to announce its first comment to a blog post this year. Never mind that it was spam - it was nice to see it.

Philadelphia has announced it's going to stop Porch Pirates. For those of us un-hip enough to know, Porch Pirates follow delivery trucks around and steal boxes left on porches or steps. Furthermore, Philly will also be stopping bank robberies and illegal gun sales. With legislation. Some might say Philly is an unrealistically optimistic city. Others would say Philly is silly.

Philly will be having a very large suicide march shortly. They did not indicate whether they were trying to stop it or encourage it. The following week, Philly will be holding a dance-in for gun violence.

• For all the women screaming about inequality, here's progress: Sacramento Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (allegedly) fired an employee for refusing to play "spin the bottle" with her, during a drunken party.  This is the second accusation for Garcia, who is on voluntary, unpaid leave. Never doubt yourself, ladies.. you can do anything a man can do.

Something odd happened today at work. I was waiting for some help from another department and I saw an attractive woman. Not just "work hot", she was pretty. This is a once a year (or more) occurrence. Someone told me about minority hires and here was the proof. Apparently we need to hire one attractive person for the entire corporation or hundreds of very good looking people will mill about, out front, with signs (that have spelling errors).

I figured this must be my lucky day, but it got better: she smiled and said hello.

I smiled and said hello, trying not to spit on her or say anything (more) stupid.

I can talk to almost any woman, just making observations or funny comments. But put an attractive woman in front of me who I might like to get to know better and I become a stuttering fool, with traces of blithering idiot. Fortunately I don't have to do that anymore, or my wife will get very angry.

An employee of this department came in, donned a wide grin, and said good morning to her. Then he saw me... and said hi.

I turned to her and asked if she noticed the difference in greetings. Like most people, she had no idea what I was talking about.

I explained, she laughed, and that was the extent of our interaction. 

I give it three weeks until she gets transferred out of sight.

• George Clooney, tired of adoration and good will, is eyeing a 2020 run for president.
• George believes in gun control and donates to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a terrorist organization. Need we say more?

Due to the current 'opioid crisis', officials are turning to acupuncture for chronic  pain. Many insurances would not cover acupuncture as of a few years ago. Oh, the irony. You better watch out - the insurers might cover chiropractic soon...

• Today's Best Headline: UberEATS driver charged with killing customer. Behold the new era of dog eat dog customer service. Sometimes it's a game to see who kills whom first. Extra points for eating the body.

The Louisville men's basketball team has to give up its 2013 national championship. All this because of allegations that a former staff member arranged for strippers and hookers at their dormitory. I don't know much about sports, but I do know you need to keep morale high. And what better way to keep morale up, so to speak, than strippers and hookers? This is patently unfair to the good men of the team. The results obviously showed, as they won the championship.  Coaches, recruiters, and professional teams should take notice of this finding.

• "Kill the NRA" sign appears on a billboard.
• Reminds me of a saying: the NRA is the only group that gets blamed for what none of its members do.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, people got hold of all sorts of tapes and documentation of an October 2017 UFO sighting, that launched F-15 fighters to intercept it. The UFO then became invisible to radar. While there is no conclusion and the UFO disappeared, the article is full of information relevant to the event.

This is not only notable for the documentation and process, but that there was any information released at all. Normally when researchers start investigating, the object 'did not appear on radar' and 'there is no documentation because there is no investigation.' I know NOTHING. I see NOTHING.

I again did battle with my arch nemesis: the vacuum. Vacuum tubes are pretty damn fun and they sound good, regardless of the few hundred volts required to operate them. Vacuum cleaners, however, have bedeviled me since I moved into the house.

My mom tells me that when I was little, I went to people's houses to visit and took apart their vacuums. I have no knowledge of this, but my mom isn't quite given to being this creative. I think I was just antisocial before the age of eight and there were no computers to play with.

All this apparently changed recently.
At one time there were two semi-adults with long hair, plus a cat and a dog. This produced enough hair to build several full size Hair Sheep on the carpets. No problem - I'll vacuum.

Nope.
Problem.

I'm not old enough to be a man who grumbles GET OFF MY LAWN and They Sure Don't Make Em Like They Used To (except for cars, which are way too damn small). However, I am forced to, by the performance of vacuums. There's a vague memory of childhood and an ugly blue vacuum that rolled on the floor, with a hose coming out of it. The voices are saying "Electrolux", so they're probably the ones who took apart the vacuums when I was little. You could drag this vacuum behind a car for twelve miles and it would come back into the house (hopefully not by itself) and do the same wonderful job it always had (provided you remembered to change the bag). Everybody had one like this and no one ever had any problems.. they just worked.

Now, as you'd expect, the machines are mostly upright and made out of plastic. They are available at all price points from $99 to $2,000, with Straight Sucking, Wind Tunnel, Cyclone, and Full Blown Tornado picking up options. The joke is on the buyers because none of them work any better than the others. The colors become more attractive as one spends more, plus they're rated in amps. Here's the marketing secret: amps denotes how much electricity the motor pulls from the wall socket. It has absolutely nothing to do with how well the vacuum sucks. One assumes that because the number is larger, the vacuum is better. Although it is possible, this is not the rating that is important.

So we bought a middle of the road vacuum. Which worked for two weeks, then choked. At this point, you have no choice but to become an expert in taking apart vacuums, diagnosing, and fixing them. Or buying a new one every few months.

The next few were cheap, and worked just as well as the others, sometimes better. Then caught fire and tried to burn the house down. One trembled and disintegrated. One tried to electrocute the cat. And all of them kept choking on hair. After a quick hair removal, I noticed huge grooves in the bar, for the hair to fall into and collect, until it failed to operate. Ever the helpful little bastard, I called the vacuum company and suggested they make the grooves much more narrow, so the hair wouldn't be tempted to collect. The lady thanked me and said she'd pass it on to the engineers. Unbeknownst to me, she did pass it on to the engineers, who had a wild party, with booze and hookers, and read all the stupid suggestions sent in by poor schmucks users of the vacuums. As one would expect, mine got the most laughter, and was second only to the suggestion that they design the vacuums to last more than a few months. Even the hookers laughed at that one.

Then there's the Oreck, featured in commercials, holding up a bowling ball. We purchased one, overjoyed by the bowling ball trick, knowing it would help us in this very difficult and solemn task. I turned it on, it ate up some pantyhose, and immediately broke. So much for Oreck.

I'm not disparaging all vacuums. Our current unit is a Shark. Or Badger. Or Cyclone. Or something. I must admit that this vacuum has held together frighteningly well. It would have to, as it has to pick up tons of debris and hair, plus survive becoming airborne when it pisses me off. Which is does often.

It really picks things up; the hallmark of a good vacuum. Or any vacuum, really. It's easy to empty, requires no bag, and hasn't met a pair of pantyhose yet that it didn't like. Except it chokes. Then I spend the next fifteen minutes on my knees, with a scalpel or boxcutters, freeing the beater from the hair, dirt, and small cars it has sucked up.

My wife is having none of this and blames it all on me. Of course, this could apply to anything in the house (or out of the house). She doesn't say YOU, but I know who she's talking to, when she gets mad and says no vacuum in the WORLD will pick up the mess from only vacuuming once a month. I resent this, as I vacuum every other month. Then she tells me one cannot simply vacuum, one must rake. My head is turning around like John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, looking for some sign of intelligence in a dark tunnel.

Wife pulls out this device I have never seen before in my life. It looks like a really beefy windshield wiper blade, but shorter and more businesslike. She proceeds to 'rake', picking up small bundles of gunk that frighten the cat because they're bigger than he is. Apparently I am supposed to go around the house, on my knees, raking the carpet before I vacuum.

I have to draw the line somewhere, and this looks like a really good place for it.

No.

I will not use two devices to clean rugs. God, or Charles Manson, gave us the vacuum to clean carpets completely, not requiring pre-treatment, like a rug shampooer.

The other day, the vacuum decided to pull a variation on not working whereby it moved the dirt around, but sucked just enough dirt to make it look like it might be working. I did not like this one bit, as I don't like to have to think on weekends, especially when it involves troubleshooting vacuums. Once again I got out the surgical kit and removed the detritus from the beater, creating a pile of hair I wish I could somehow attach to my head. Once again I resumed vacuuming and the vacuum resumed pushing the dirt around. It had temporarily outsmarted me and was laughing ever so slightly that I couldn't hear it if I didn't listen for it. The vacuum has a light at the bottom to tell you it's ok, or it's clogged, or perhaps I should really leave vacuuming to someone who doesn't have the patience of a very upset five year old. The light was green, which obviously meant something was wrong.

It finally hit me... it was clogged.
This vacuum has a lot of parts. Metal parts, plastic parts, body parts, and hoses. In fact, it has more hoses when taken apart than when assembled. I finally located the clog, forty feet into one hose. Have you ever tried to shine a flashlight through a forty foot hose to see if it's clogged? They go around corners, you know.

I got out my Johnny Home Colonoscopy Kit, which features that long, flexible hose they put up your butt to see if there's any bad stuff there, or just because they enjoy putting flexible hoses up your butt and getting paid large amounts in the process. After locating the clog, I convened a panel to discuss how to remove it, being in the forty foot hose. Pens were out, as were telescoping back scratchers, wombats (I didn't have any), and the cat (he's dead). So I did what every manly man does... I banged it on the floor in a manly way. I didn't have to listen at all to hear the vacuum openly mocking me.

One small rodent later, one end of the clog got loose. This time when I banged it on the floor, more came out. I held it to the light because I like making the same mistake several times. By then, the telescoping back scratcher worked, with the imitation hand on the end grabbing pieces of gunk. Twenty minutes later, the vacuum was completely free of obstructions, including my foot. The resultant mass on the carpet looked roughly like Whoopie Goldberg, only taller and less annoying.

Tired but energized from my first win, I started to vacuum.
And (I want my wife to read this) I did it without a rake, hoe, or shovel. It looks good. So I'll see you in a month or two.

And in the end, all there is to say is, "This vacuum sucks."
Or doesn't.




this entry passed the spellcheck with no hiccups. I wouldn't read it.

F- Off, I'm Having a Bad Day

Well, I'm not, but that fellow in England who just got pulled over by the nice policeman probably is.

That phrase was on a bumper sticker. The nice policeman kept pointing out that this was no good; somebody could take offense (offence in Britain). So it had to come off.

The US has no shortage of issues with hurt feelings but the First Amendment covers us, sort of. We're not all that concerned about someone taking a fence. It's astounding to me. Also astounding is the absolute look of shock in the eyes of the police when someone says a bad word. They threaten to arrest them for Public Order. Citizens of England: you better stop this before your government outlaws offensive thoughts.




ThermionicEmissions has been here approximately seven years.
Time flies when you're... ummm... here.

No Idea Where I Am

The above phrase denotes location, and when there's a location issue, we just know another Garmin Rant<tm> is coming.

And we're right!

First we went guitar and device shopping. This is traditionally a total failure, and we were not disappointed. With hundreds of guitars all over the walls, there were three low line lefties. That is par for the course, so it wasn't a big deal. I spent my time looking for deals on amplifiers and pedals, none of which presented themselves to me as a deal or a must-have.

So it was the wife's turn to shop, but we weren't sure where the store was. Hey, let's ask the Garmin.

The definition of stupid is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

I joked about what happened the last time I used the Garmin... it tends to make me very angry. As the address went into the infernal device, it appeared that I was not the only person upset by the Little Black Box from Hell. It couldn't find the listing for the store. Every other store, yes; this one, no.

Why didn't you use a different device, like maybe your phone, you ask. Good question. The answer is that last time we used three different devices, all of which tried to make us drive into the water, to a different state.

Finally the address came up and we were off.  Really far off.
The long and short of the trip was that it was two turns down the road. This will be pretty easy to remember for next time, if there is a next time.

The five minute trip took a total of one hour.

The Garmin told us to go down the street a bit and make a right at "Street". I don't know about you, but I'm willing to bet there are no streets in the state called Street. There is a Street Road (no, really), but it was about an hour away. So we took a guess and turned onto Street. Went to the end. It told us to make a left. Into a parking garage. I'm a good sport, so I made a left into the parking garage, thinking we were taking a shortcut through the garage. Heh heh.

Following the EXIT signs, we came out exactly where we were when the black box told us to make a left (into the parking lot). My temperature was headed up. As the navigator, her job was to procure the directions and communicate them at less volume than a 767 taking off, or a Slayer concert, whichever is louder. The literal temperature in the car went up twenty degrees. The passengers had become quiet because they sensed war, and trusted the Garmin almost as much as we did.

I headed them off at the pass, but was foiled at every intersection by stop signs that only applied to me. Before you go thinking that my mind has finally gone south due to extreme paranoia, I must explain that we were in a large shopping complex, with complex turns. All stores were outside, like a long, winding, tortuous mall without a roof. The stop signs were all pointed at mall traffic, not street traffic, so we had to wait for street traffic to stop. The joke was on us... the street traffic never stopped.

Visually, we had one long block to go. Timewise, we might have been home before we got the length of the block. The little black box that caused explosions outside it was so friendly as to let us know to make a turn onto "Street" at the end of the block. We persevered until Street. What are the odds that a state would have two Streets within yards of each other? Thirty minutes later, I pulled the car into a handicapped spot. In lieu of a handicapped tag, I just left the Garmin hanging from the mirror, tied like a noose. The police would understand.


I'm here for your pleasure. Someone should derive pleasure from my misfortunes. Also my fortunes, should they ever occur. Statistically, they will, but statistics are pretty bad on the when. According to the many statisticians who read this blog, fortune will in fact occur; definitely by the time I am unable to type or change my diapers.

The universe is a strange place. The Universe really gets off on screwing with people, under the guise of helping them. Everything is related, according to Dirk Gently, and many other people who like phrases. The problem here is that one has to put this cryptic system together until it makes sense. This is virtually impossible, given phrases like "you will know then" and "maintaining operational readiness." It's like the bible, Shakespeare, and what the dead allegedly say to the living. It makes absolutely no sense and you're left wondering why they can't simply explain it to you in English. Because that would ruin all the fun.

Although I too can't understand the bible, Shakespeare and the dead, sometimes I see the results.... usually in hindsight, like a smack upside the head with a small foreign car. The car always loses.

So in hindsight, I figured out why I couldn't find anything to spend money on at the guitar shop: my idiot employer submitted incorrect information and I now have a tax bill that would purchase many guitars.

Stop laughing - it gets better. This bill was for a few years ago. Every year I'm going to get another bill until this clears up. You may now continue laughing. I haven't had this much fun since the IRS failed to steal enough of my money in taxes and I came up with a bill that made my head spin around and spit pea soup. And then I got mad. I actually upset the IRS, as they told my wife when she spoke to them.

One of the truisms in life is that you can't fight city hall. In fact, you can't even get in touch with city hall. I called and was put on hold but assured that their best people would be with me as soon as they were done assisting other customers.  I was assured of this repeatedly over the next thirty minutes, right up until the message changed... "We are open til five o'clock. Please call back during business hours." [CLICK].

They honestly felt bad for me, so they sent me an envelope. In it was their sincere apology and a high-level personal contact to help move this along.  Of course I'm kidding.. it was another bill, with another stack of money added in for interest, Getting Hung Up On Fee, Calling on a Friday Fee, and Affixing Postage to the Envelope Fee.

By this time, I had stopped spitting pea soup and went to blood instead. Whose blood was not important at the time. I went to call them, because it worked so well last time (see the theme here?). There was one phone number, for payments. I dug around and found another number. All circuits were busy.  BUSY? What is this - 1980? Did we overwhelm the entire city's phone network? Or was the phone company also given the day off for the Eagles parade (2 days early)?

Speaking of which, there is a public transportation lottery to see who will be allowed to board public transportation to the parade. Entire stations will be closed and bypassed. With public and parochial schools closed, people taking off work, denizens of the area, and people working in the area taking 'extended lunches', it should be a real blast. I'll probably be the only one at work.



Great.. now I've depressed myself.
But in a sadly amused and creative way.

• Sometimes stuff seems so obvious that I scream at the tv screen or the computer monitor because they're so stupid. A perfect example was the aforeblogged news story about the government UFO secret program that studied UFOs for a few years. As I pointed out, we've been studying UFOs since at least 1947, probably longer. The facts are not hidden at all.
• Another ridiculous excuse handed out by SETI and others is lifeforms from so incredibly far away could never visit us because it would take several forevers to get here. This sounds like an acceptable answer, provided you don't think about it for longer than about ten seconds. Forgive my fuzziness on the topic but there is a thing called the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which is essentially a wormhole. Obviously we can't test it just now, but it's a theory, and that Einstein fellow sure was bright. I think it's safe to assume that aliens can be thousands or millions of years ahead of us, so isn't it possible they have the Einstein-Rosen thing figured out - or its replacement?
• Keep in mind I'm not saying that the unidentified flying things seen in the air contain alien life. I'm just countering more than one excuse at a time.
• Take a moment. Get to your Quiet Space. Now imagine handing an android tablet to Ben Franklin. What would he do with it? Would he be able to understand and operate it?
• It's exhausting, always being right.

Good News/Bad News

Congress just put together a budget.

The good news:

• Congress just put together a budget.
• it is a bipartisan effort

The news you were expecting:

• It will require one more stopgap bill to keep the government allegedly running until March
• It will last two years
• It will add $380 TRILLION to our spending
• It will require Congress to increase the debt limit, as the bottom-dwelling self-serving scum-sucking subhumans do every budget, along with stalling.
• Congress wants to thank you for all the cards, letters, and good wishes, and would like you to know that their free healthcare will continue, with no deductibles or copayments, forever, despite any other healthcare crisis that the entire country may or may not be experiencing.

The commentary:

• One republican said he won't vote for it even if President Trump calls him and asks for his vote (somebody read The Art of the Deal ).
• Nancy Pelosi said there was no way she'd vote for it and gave a multi-hour filibuster on why president... uhh.. .Bush.. no.. Obama.. was wrong for this country, especially considering the healthcare crisis for Uranus. Furthermore, the rain in plane stays currently on the can, which affects the brain flowers that cause ammoniamentia in puppies.
• The president got more money for the Pentagon. So, you know, we'll all be safer. Unless, of course, we work in the Pentagon and a small drone happens to crash into it, producing four entire frames of video.
• The dems got more money for social causes, like the opioid crisis, because throwing tons of money at problems always fixes them.
• The country and future generations got screwed, so no change there.

If at first you don't succeed, being awake may not be for you.

• So there's this new, magic technology that can put faces on bodies, in decent, believable quality video. Naturally this has been adopted by porn, so a celebrity face goes on a porn star body. This is called Deepfake. As much fun as this sounds, the spoilsports at Reddit, Twtter, and Pornhub have banned them. The social networks are doing what you'd expect, but when adult sites do it, you know the legal team has had their say. To be fair, we get this.

A gender equality campaigner from London has received general praise from men and women on the internet for having a 'smashing pair of tits.' A Faceyspaces occupant posted gender equality content on her page and within an hour, had 2,000 comments that she had a stupendous set of mammalian protuberances.

If the picture in the article is the person mentioned, the commenters are dead on. Even straight women are commenting in a positive fashion. I never suspected how wonderful social media could be.  Had this happened in America, there would be rampant aneurysms in collegiate circles, fainting, and Unbelievable Outrage all over social media. In response, there would be Unbelievable Hilarity from the Social Media Joy Squad, having a poke at the Fainting Feminists. It makes great reading.

As this is in England, the commentors had better watch out, because you can be hauled down to the pokey for making 'rude' comments. Wouldn't want to offend anybody Over There, would we?

• Digressing for a moment (as usual), Philadelphia Police have stopped showing up for run of the mill crimes. The only sure way to bring them around is to say 'gun' in your call.
• In England, it would appear that bringing the police becomes a much easier feat if you tell them that people are hurling racial slurs out in the open. It appears that the worst crime you can commit is hurting someone's feelings.
• Keep in mind that my England knowledge comes from Monty Python and, for current day information, English police shows.

• You simply can't out-parody reality department: Antifa disrupts Swedish  LGBT parade because 'Gays are offensive to Muslims...'
• It would appear that this worldwide anti-fascist group is behaving in a fascist manner. The irony is obviously lost on them.

President Trump has addressed the National Prayer Breakfast, because screw the First Amendment - we need to prove we're holy. At least to court the religious backers.

• Just in case you were bored, Richard Pryor's widow tells us that Richard slept with Marlon Brando. “It was the ’70s!” she said. “Drugs were still good, especially quaaludes. If you did enough cocaine, you’d f–k a radiator and send it flowers in the morning.” Read this - it's great.

Spirit Airlines suggested a passenger flush her emotional support hamster down the loo. Spirit wouldn't allow the rodent on the plane, even though the student checked in advance. They deny saying it.  Meanwhile, United Airlines is partying because it wasn't them this time.

I can't say more: my emotional support elephant is getting very upset.

• Upset because they haven't been in the news for anything stupid this week, California announced it will block the transportation of petroleum from new offshore oil rigs, a Trump administration program.
• California just won the award for most congested driving. I am going to consult for the California Department of Transportation. Although I will pad my services out for several years, the award-winning proposition will be writing TRUMP on the dirt of the trucks that bring fuel into California. In less than a day, there will be no gasoline in the entire state, hence no traffic. I'll make millions!

This security researcher decided to set up her apartment as a Smart Home. With a little help from her friend, she set up monitoring to see what the devices collected and where they sent it to. Before you die of suspense, every device collected information and sent it upstream to the manufacturer and marketers. Precisely as I said. But you should read the article anyway, to get an idea of how everything worked. The conclusion is very interesting too, although it wouldn't exactly be mine.

I'm not sure how I'd set things up if these devices were in  my house. If you stop your data from being sent, you won't get updates for the devices. The data, meanwhile, builds a profile of what you do and when. What time you're home. Exactly what you watched on tv and when. Pictures of you (and the baby), walking around, possibly naked or half-dressed. Maybe using the couch for something other than sitting.

The truly sad part is that in 1984 (the book), you watched the tv and the tv watched you. Your smart tv is already watching you. You might put cameras in the house too; at this point, you've already done the spy agencies' job for them.   The devices promise, and sometimes deliver, convenience. Why is the paranoid lunatic from that blog so against the Internet of Things? Sure I'd like a few.. but the downside isn't worth it. Take a moment and think about that.

Not addressed here is the fact that the majority of IoT devices are insecure by design, so 'others' can potentially see what you're doing.

• Elon Musk launched a rocket. A private firm. This is pretty big. If it continues, we may infect surrounding planets with our presence. If there was any time for the aliens to make themselves known, it's probably now.
• There is documented history of nuclear weapons being interfered with, concurrent with unknown aerial objects at close range. This is information only - you're free to do the research and draw your own conclusions.

A local concert venue just let me know tickets are on sale for Tony Bennett and Gov't Mule. Hopefully not at the same time.

• Look.. if I don't turn you into a raving acutely aware person, let some scientists do it: A team of scientists from around the world confirmed millions of viruses rising into the atmosphere, traveling — sometimes for thousands of miles — and falling back down to the surface. All of the sudden, agoraphobia is starting to sound pretty good, isn't t?

Uh-oh.

Male dogs win the Westminster dog show almost twice as often as females.

Hollywood is now wearing brown, in sympathy with fur. All colleges are now on strike for gender equality and demanding that male dogs be excluded from the show.

• Covered up by OXFAM, the charity's rescue workers paid refugees for sex, while helping in earthquake-torn Haiti.
• The US military has been said to be almost an invading force to women in countries where they are stationed. I'd say OXFAM is a giant step up: they actually compensated the people they had sex with.  This provided the prostitutes a job amid all the destruction and kept volunteer morale up, so to speak. Win-win.

PET FOOD RECALL

Gravy Train, Kibbles ‘N Bits, & Skippy Dog Foods have been recalled due to the presence of pentobarbital, used for euthanasia.

They are put out by J.M. Smucker, which claims that there is an insufficient amount of the chemical to cause damage, but they are recalling it.  Of course, they're investigating it.

The FDA is investigating another pet food company with the same chemical contaminant, from 2016.  How does this happen?


I don't know about you, but I want the culprit caught and penalized. Perhaps a nice meal, featuring pentobarbital.




Several years back, China contaminated a large amount of food. They almost killed Marshall's cat and cost us large amounts of money at the vet. Naturally there was no prosecution. To be fair, I would have stopped short of the nuclear option.

TMZ is FB for Television

My wife is establishing how deeply she hates me: TMZ is on the television.

No matter how frequently it happens, I still go completely red in the face, as in blood boiling. Then make some sort of negative comment, as is absolutely necessary. The other day I came up with TMZ is like Faceyspaces for television. She thought about it and agreed, smiling. What she doesn't know is that I know the smile was for the reference and the fact that she turns it on just to piss me off.

• Speaking of Valentine's Day, what do you get the lady who wants everything? Shoes, obviously.
• What do you get the guy who wants things that are sometimes worth more than a house? Rolos, apparently.

Valentine's Day is the day named after St. Valentine. St. Valentine used to be known as Valentine, because they were so poor back then, they couldn't afford first names.  Valentine, as was customary in those times, was married to Mrs. Valentine. They lived simply because, as I mentioned, they were poor (stay with me here).  Valentine was known throughout the area, not for his deeds, so much as the fact that Mrs. Valentine was a raving bitch from hell. She was the kind of woman they burned at the stake; not because she was a witch, but because she annoyed the hell out of everyone, including pets. And those little rodents that might be moles or voles or elephant shrews - nobody cared about biology in those days.

One particularly miserable day, Valentine set out to buy his wife some flowers. This kept the bitching and carping down to a manageable level. He visited Flow, the flower guy, who apologized that he was out of flowers. Out of flowers? What kind of flower guy are you? Flow explained that in their village of Filthyralfia, it rained so much, the flowers drowned. When it wasn't raining, there was no sun to make them grow.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Valentine was on a tear, bringing grief and destruction to the people of the town. Starting with the priest and working her way down to the rubbish people, she made sure to insult each one of them personally. She considered her job very important and brought great skill and commitment to it. Some of the peasants formed a Village Watch and would let the others know when she was near. Grown men would hide under their houses and poke their ears out, rather than listen to one syllable from Mrs. Valentine.

Valentine had to walk ten miles, in the rain and gloom, to find a florist in the next town. He was struck by the sun there, and the fact it wasn't raining. He purchased their finest bouquet of roses (roses were initially brown, just like everything else in those days) and made the ten mile trek back to his village.

He gave the roses to Mrs. Valentine, who had only seen roses on television (they were poor but very advanced).  Then the most amazing thing happened: she stopped bitching. For five whole minutes.

A cheer went up into the air.

The village cried with joy. Children came down from the trees. The carnival re-opened. Pets walked the streets, unmolested.

From then on, Valentine was known as St. Valentine. Every year, men bought their wives roses (although the wives didn't shut up for any length of time). Or whatever they could find in the village. The date was February 14th, as close as they could tell, because most of them could not read or write.  

And they all lived happily ever after. Especially St. Valentine, who eventually shacked up with the florist's wife, since the florist never seemed to do anything useful anyway. And that, children, is how we got domestic partnership.

• In celebration of Valentine's Day, there has not been a murder in Baltimore in ten days. Experts, who get paid a lot of money to make this stuff up and go on tv, theorize that the murderers don't want to buy anything for their ladies, so they made themselves scarce. Expect the murders to go back to normal next week.

Former Canadian Minister of Defence, Paul Hellyer, has come out and said the Illuminati is real and running things from the background. You may recognize Hellyer as the hoser who said ufos are real and there are real foreigners visiting.

To some, Mr. Hellyer is a conspiracy loon.

To those of us in the know (or just passing by this blog), he's largely correct.

The irony is that most of this is in the open now, or starting to creep in.

• What kind of health insurance do pirates use?
• ARRRRRRRRRR-P

If you get goosebumps from listening to music, your brain might be special, according to Matthew Sachs. His study showed people who strongly connect with music have more dense fibers between auditory and emotional parts of the brain. Whether this proves anything or not, Sachs won't tell anybody. Furthermore, when listening to Led Zeppelin, pungent smoke started to appear out of nowhere.

The study also showed that people who listen to Kanye and Niki Manaj have no brain at all.

• A Malaysian newspaper published an article on how to spot a gay. Nobody knows why. Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia and good for twenty years in the pokey, so to speak.
• Gay men could be identified by their love of beards and the way they checked out other men at the gym. Lesbians hug each other and belittle men.
• In reality, trans people can be identified by some combination of boobies and a penis, that just don't seem to go well together.
• Lesbians do not belittle men: feminists do, as do feminist men. Lesbians can be identified by their eyebrows going up when you say BOOBIES. They are extremely fun to watch girls with.
• Gay men.... well... stereotypes don't come from a vacuum. Sweater tied around the neck, owning a Yorkie, and belittling the clothes women wear are all sure signs there's a homo about. Another dead giveaway is having sex with men.

According to the Linguistic Society of America, there are close to 7,000 distinct languages on the planet (not counting New Jersey). As of recently, there are close to 7,001 languages, as one was discovered on the Malay Peninsula.

Maybe they have a specific slur for Malaysians. My multi-year search has turned up nothing.

• Lifehacker, is a very interesting and helpful site, featuring great tips and, well.. hacks. Today they wanted to let us know that if you put lemon in water, you get no magic properties, like detox - you just get lemon water. These guys are sharp.

The sun came out today.

People were covering their eyes. Wondering what that strange light in the sky was. Praying to the gods. Setting grain aside. Watering their dead daisies. Hope began to appear in all who saw it.

Not to worry. In ten minutes it was gone.

• I would like to share with you the lyrics to a song I just heard on a commercial. The wisdom and sensitivity of the words is inspirational. "Imma do it like dis, Imma do it like dat."  I hope these words stay with you as long as they stay with me.

The day has finally come... Hip hop is now the largest selling music in the country. This goes to show that, like the Kardashians, just because it sells well doesn't mean it is any good. My soul cries out in pain.

We know I'm a little bit off on very popular culture, so please bear with me. You know that show with the fat bleach blond mom who rode a scooter and had a daughter who might have been a beauty pageant contestant? It had an incredibly stupid name.  In any case, Mom (Momma June?) lost a few hundred pounds and now has her own show. Do you need further proof we're in End Times? As a person who likes words, I cannot possibly describe the blight on society these reality shows constitute. Everybody has had their fifteen minutes and now we're just scraping the bottom of the barrel.

You don't watch them. I don't watch them. But like spam, somebody's clicking on it...

• People in England purchased tickets for the Reading Festival, then wished they could unpurchase them. The lineup, typically rock, is mostly rap and other assorted garbage. One person said they were selling their expensive tickets for 17p because that's all they were worth. It's happening all over the world, folks.

Germany has ruled Faceyspaces is out of order.

"Facebook collects and uses personal data without providing enough information to users to constitute meaningful consent." They make it too difficult to find the settings too.

Unfortunately this is Germany only. 

I have to be fair: as a libertarian, I'm against government regulation. As nice as it would be to stop Faceyspaces from collecting ridiculous amounts of information by default, it's the user's responsibility to read the privacy policy and make the necessary adjustments. Or better yet, not sign up for a Faceyspaces account.

Children Are Our Future department

Princeton held a class on Free Speech.

You know what's coming, right?

The teacher said 'nigger'.

A student yelled 'fuck you'.

Some students walked out.

And the class was canceled.

What have have the students learned here? 

The SJW who whines loudest gets what he wants. Especially if he can get a 'racist' in there somewhere. Somehow I don't think this will be helpful in their careers.  Aside from the death of sense, the people who should be really upset are the parents, who are paying what amounts to a house for tuition.

A high school teacher jumped on the #MeToo bandwagon because her students were touching her and emailing her inappropriately. This was a week after another teacher went public with similar accusations.

What have the students learned here?

You have to sexually harass your target just enough to upset them, but not enough to go to the authorities.

aside:  I performed at Princeton. Never have I seen a better-educated, more polite, and smart audience. My group's song parody act ran about thirty minutes at the time. We did over an hour because of the applause and encouragement. It was the only place anybody got some of our political humor. It must've changed or something.

• French president Emmanuel Macron said that 'France will strike' if proven chemical bombs were used in Syria.
• The entire country stands behind President Macron and is currently printing up signs and practicing calling out from work.

A study found that self-deprecating humor is linked to greater psychological wellbeing.

If I weren't such an idiot, I might agree.

• Kansas has ruled that a dog cannot run for governor. The dog was submitted as a candidate after a few teenagers were submitted, after some wag discovered there was nothing in the rules about age.
• Angus, a Vizsla, is described as a “caring, nurturing individual who cares about the best for humanity and all creatures other than squirrels.”
• Upon hearing about the ruling, Princeton canceled all classes and France went on strike.

STOCK TIP - because you get your best market info from some weird blog

Invest in corn starch and talcum powder futures.

The way people are sending white powder to politicians, there's going to be a mad run on it.

• Iran accused the West of using lizards for nuclear spying. Because their skin 'attracted atomic waves'.
• The West is just angry because Iran deliberately keeps being next to Iraq on the map.
• A little-known secret is that the Kardashians are Iranian. 
• It's all over: Iran won.