The Elephants are Running the Car Washes!

In an event that no one saw coming, Elizabeth Hurley, model and part-time goddess, posed semi-topless in a British rag. Jee-bus, this woman is 54...

• Police surprise 4 yr old boy for xmas after mother's murder.
• Trying not to post stuff like this, but someone needed a Christmas miracle.

All of the space missions featured a small army of guys behind consoles. I thought they were all faking usefulness or watching adult entertainment. The Apollo control room has been resurrected, with each console explained. This cements a conspiracy theory: the Moon missions were faked because the controllers were watching pr0n.

• If you bought a live xmas tree, you paid a state-mandated $0.15 to the Christmas Tree Promotion Board. This is what we elect.

Be careful of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwaanza and New Years themed malware. The initial version comes via snail mail, with a phrase like Merry Christmas on it. DO NOT OPEN IT. Later versions come in the form of email, with similar phrases on the subject line. Don't open these either. The most virulent, nasty malware is marked by subject lines with emojis on them. Never open these. Jonathan McAfree, from McAfree Antivirus Division (MAD) explains that if you delete them immediately, the authors will get frustrated and not send any more of them. 

• Speaking of dead musicians, I'm tuning around the bands and come across a guitar solo that jumps out and grabs my ear in the first half second. Sure enough it's UK, with then-guitarist Allan Holdsworth. RIP.

I don't know how many of you spent any time in mental hospitals, nor do I want to...  One facility, outside of Beijing, has set up a bakery where the patients do the baking.

Tremendous idea, in my completely uneducated opinion. I have driven by mental hospitals, so I feel qualified to comment.  It keeps the folks doing something productive, in addition to questionable conventional therapy, so you have happier, better adjusted patients.

There will be problems, of course.

• The insurance will demand all the proceeds, plus a per-cookie copay.
• Patients will have to get insurance precertification each time they put something in the oven
• There is great difficulty getting corporate sponsorship: "Buy Bob's Flour - the official flour of mental patients"

The workforce will be eager, for the most part, but not without its issues...

The addicts will eat all the cookies dough.
The bipolars work the fastest, except when they're crying under the table.
The depressed don't show up.
The schizophrenics refuse to work because the oven is talking about them.
The narcissists spend their time trying to make their face the official logo, and do no productive work. They make great leaders.
The multiples bake, then the kids come out and eat. COOKIES!!

"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush

Today I identify as  the button you push to make the traffic light turn green

• Know what's sad? I'm listening to online radio and hear this really interesting song. It sounds very complex. It's King Crimson. It's called Improvisation. They play better improv than I play Real Songs.

Dennis Muilenburg, CEO of Boeing, has stepped down, effective immediately.
Either that, or he was fired, depending on who you ask.
It might have something to do with the 737 MAX's refusal to stay in the air and the 14 month Failure Dance around getting it cleared.

• Amazon had plans for driver safety training. 
• "We chose not to have onroad practical training because it was a bottleneck" to getting drivers on the road, a senior manager wrote.

88% of Americans use a second screen while watching tv.

Ouch. We've normalized A.D.D. have you seen her Instagram page? 

• London is using new electric buses. Because they have no incredibly loud diesel engine, the buses needed a noise to make people aware of their presence to avoid collisions (because a humongous 2 story vehicle is apparently not enough)
• I think they're going in the wrong direction. Make the buses more quiet. Think of it as Darwinism's hearing test.

A New Zealand electrician fired for declining to use a face-scan system was awarded $23,200. This is truly inspiring, but will disappear in smoke when he can't sue the New Zealand government for the same thing.....

It's the first holiday season without my father.

He wasn't a particularly tall guy, but his presence was huge.

I cannot accurately describe the non-presence. Like people sitting on a couch, but there's a large blank spot, with no actual couch there.

We're not exactly a big holiday family, but we had one day of celebration. He enjoyed being a patriarch, in his own way. He was a merry patriarch.

I didn't get to the party this year, but I can only imagine the large, unspoken hole in the room.

Regardless of anything else, we admire my mom's strength. I can't begin to imagine...  perhaps her mental decline is some sad sort of gift. 

Somebody said we're mourning two losses.....