National Women's Underwear Day

Yes, that's right - you heard right - it's National Women's Underwear Day!
Everyone put on some women's underwear and wear it with pride.
C'mon guys - who can honestly say they don't wear women's underwear?

Oh.
Never mind.



If you have an Idevice XS or XR battery case, you could be due a free replacement from Apple.

I broke Giant's handheld scanner system by only buying 2 things.
Never mind the title... it's an app for your phone, that scans items for checkout. This is another privacy nightmare. It connects to store wifi, meaning you're at risk for whatever's going on there. It's on your phone, so it probably accesses things it shouldn't. If nothing else, your purchasing is delightfully passed to the store, not to mention whoever else, like the author of the program and various ad agencies. Look beyond the headline.

Ready to start trying out a different operating system? Tired of Win 10 sending all your information to Microsoft?  Here are the 5 best linux distributions for Win 7 users. They mention Ubuntu, which is my choice. However, I recommend Xubuntu, which is Ubuntu with a more customizeable desktop. With this, you can make your desktop look any way you want, including just like Windows, so you're already familiar with it. All linuxes are the same, with different visual components and updating.

• Mrs lefty is calling her doctor and getting a busy signal. Penny comes in from the back yard, steps on REDIAL, and the doctor's office answers.
• I need to have her around when I have to call someone.

Mrs lefty tunes around tv a lot. Last night she watched The Office.
I was sitting next to her, surfing, and caught parts of it.
To call it cringy is to give it more credit than it deserves. It's smarmy, stupid, unfunny, and so bad, I want to run from the room and hide in the attic during a thunderstorm. Nah - didn't like it.



In national social media news, Cardio B, who just said she's getting citizenship in a different country, is considering US politics. I'm trying to decide if she'd do any better than the installed buggers. Meanwhile, here's a random thought from Cardio:

Artificial Intelligence gains traction because Native Intelligence is scarce.

Dear lefty

• Am I better off going into network security or vertical markets?
• Ask the penguins - they're usually pretty good with advice.

Scientists use stem cells from frogs to build first living robots.
Ok, guys, hop to it!

"I have often wondered why the sounds of the beating drums do not make the marching soldiers shoot their officers and go home." - Albert J. Nock

• How to be anonymous in the age of surveillance
• Warning: contains the word 'Juggalo', but not in a bad way

My 70s progressive rock station played a little gem I haven't heard before. This isn't odd at all, except for this particular little ditty. It isn't often I have to check to make sure I'm not hearing 2 stations at the same time, playing the same song, 1/10 of a second apart. Using the power of multiplicative reasoning, I deduced that the vocals were ok - it was just the music that was completely f'd up. I listened, stunned.

The artist's name is Kevin Ayers. The song is called Lady Rachel.
The title sounds all medieval, about some mythical damsel, locked away in a castle, in a closet, of ancient England's budding first serial killer. It was romantic.

Continuing to be stunned, I listened through the last 30 minutes of the song (I kid - it was only 25 minutes). Counting my blessings that my radio app lists the artist and song, I went off to play Stump YouTube. That failed; there were several different listings for the song, of which I chose the live one.

To say the song is bad is to elevate it to heights it could never dream of attaining. I have to mention that the fellow playing the left handed SG is Ollie Halsall, a formidable player. Kevin is apparently a Big Man on the English music scene. Unfortunately he died in 2013, after which I believe they filmed this clip.

This isn't the exact version I heard, but it will serve to help you understand my distress and question your life choices. As a musician, I wouldn't want anyone to crap on my creation, but as a satirist (or whatever I am), this is a huge red blinking target. The bio states he was a Big Deal, but Wikipedia lets anyone put anything they like into it.

This looked like a band rehearsal. The kids were in 6th grade and their parents were so proud. Kevin had even written his own song(!) and they were practicing it for the Big Show in the school auditorium. Excitement filled the air, as most of them left the basement and ate the cookies that Mom just put out. When they got back to their instruments, they noodled around, as musicians do, each playing some little piece of something they played all the time, guaranteed to piss off the rest of the band. This went on for 20 minutes, after which Mom yelled down the steps, "You boys sound great! Was that the new song?"  I don't know whether they recorded it on Mom's brand new 8 track console stereo or they went into the studio later, but it has that rough quality that really makes them sound serious (I'm lying through my teeth).

So when you look at the video, it's not actually a performance - it's a bunch of kids noodling around. The only one involved in the song is little Kevin; the rest of them are off somewhere else. It's a good thing, too, as Jimmy, the drummer, is mentally playing with the band down the street. Watch them wander about, as Kevin emotes. Every now and then, Ollie makes a supporting noise or two, just to upset Kevin, who ordered him not to make supporting noises.  Kevin apparently just got a new guitar, and the salesman promised to tune it for him to make the sale. Salesmen being what they are, he never tuned it, so Kevin went onstage with an untuned guitar, only he didn't know it (the audience did). Kevin was Dead Serious about his new song. The keyboard player was a guy who asked if he could join the band. They said yes (keyboardists are impossible to find) and threw him right onstage. Unfortunately he had to sit there, waiting for a key or a cue, because he had never heard any of Kevin's songs. This worked out to the audience's benefit, as he played very little. He brought his nifty little echo box, that looked like a little tape player, but it was new and he had no idea how to work it.

The 'experimental' section was added as they went onstage, only Kevin forgot to tell the rest of the band about it. So they continued to wander around, lost, while Kevin took on the experimental section all by himself... plinking.. tapping.. playing with knobs, and plinking again. The band continued to do what it did best, largely standing around and playing random stuff til it was time to actually play a song. They decided on Jumping Jack Flash, but the joke was on them: they knew it in 2 different keys, which they played it in at once. The audience's collective jaws were on the floor, as if they had just witnessed a baby stabbing its kitty and wearing its entrails.

The band kept looking over, expectantly, at Kevin, waiting for him to break the sad news that the experimental section was finally done, like children of alcoholics, coming out from behind the sofa because Mommy and Daddy had stopped screaming and throwing things. Unfortunately the throwing and screaming continued because Kevin was In The Zone. The band was losing patience, so they wandered around the stage, lighting cigarettes and doing their math homework, except little Jimmy, the drummer. He was still playing with the imaginary band down the street. Kevin later told Jimmy his performance was above and beyond. Kevin and the band continued on, undaunted. This, unfortunately, daunted the audience (all the band members' families and their captive classmates).

After they finished the song, the band made sure to watch Kevin so they knew they were all finished with the song. Their families clapped, their classmates made a noise intended to mimic certain bodily functions.

This was played on a progressive 70s rock station. I still don't know why.
It also mirrors most of my band experience, only my bands didn't get to play on stage a lot. Let's say we were intimately familiar with various band members' basements.

RIP Kevin, 2013, died in his sleep.

• As the Oscars 2020 nominations are all lined up, the hard work begins: writing out your 10 minute social screed no one wants to hear.

Another idiot 'professional', telling us that Dissociative Identity Disorder (multiple personality disorder) 'doesn't exist'. I don't have enough time to refute this person's ideas one-by-one. Suffice it to say he's wrong across the board. I don't know where these alleged professionals get their concepts from (cereal box?), but anyone familiar with the topic can refute everything he says, line by line. Our suggestion is that he live with someone with the disorder that doesn't exist for a month or so. He's likely to change his mind. Professionals who spout this nonsense are frequently put up to it by large organizations that would prefer to have you think they're not doing what they're doing. You know - the people Jeffrey Epstein was about to expose....  Don't forget - Mrs lefty has DID.




Warning:   POLITICS

Sam Robb is a libertarian, running for president. Check out his site, specifically "Issues" - see if any of it speaks to you.
He is *a* libertarian, but not the only libertarian, and I am not endorsing anybody.



Today I identify as   rubber

• Music copyright lawsuits are scaring away new hits, argues Rolling Stone.
• Rolling Stone is right twice a decade, and I don't think this is one of them.
• The thing that is scaring away new hits is listening to the radio.

I don't normally post anything about movies, largely as I don't see a lot of movies. And when I seen them, it's usually years after they've come out. If you haven't seen it already, see Yesterday. Without giving anything away, a guy finds himself in a different reality, where the Beatles never existed. It's well written and well acted, featuring the music of Jimi Hendrix.  No, wait......     Also of interest was his staunch supporter/manager. I was kinda smitten the moment I saw her. Mrs lefty said she was kinda normal. This was a great improvement over what she normally says ("She looks like a porn star"). I don't like anything, so if I give a recommendation, it's probably pretty good. Either that, or you know to avoid it.



There are at least 2 cities whose names require changing: Terre Haute and Puget Sound. Terre Haute sounds like something someone borrowed from another language and they forgot to translate it. Puget Sound sounds like something your cat hacks up. It also has nothing to do with sound. It's those weird people in the Northeast, with more money than they can actually count (although they have people to count money for them).

PC Police Off the Rails. And Cancer.

As we know, England has gone a bit silly with their anti 'hate' laws, making it illegal to say bad things to someone else. One enterprising policeman put two stores on notice that their Feminine Care signs are sexist and must be changed, perhaps to something like 'personal hygiene' or 'personal care'. You know - because men can use tampons. Not to be stopped in his relentless mission of stamping out sexism, he insisted other stores change their restroom signs featuring a woman with a baby, because the men's signs didn't have a baby.

The twitter backlash started immediately, with the officer being slammed for wasting tax money.  Although the story is old, it resurfaced. Usually questionable laws come from Australia, but this one from England is Orwellian. Police are being paid to police speech. It's astounding. One wonders if all other crime has been eradicated so the police can bring the full force to bear on the scourge of people saying bad things.

The policeman in question deleted his Twitter account.

• Condolences to the family and friends of the young lady who lost her life in Charlottesville, when someone drove into a crowd, also injuring many others. The online commentary has very quickly gone nasty and divided itself neatly into predictable camps. Thoughts:
• We (the US) have a First Amendment that allows free speech, no matter how repugnant. The KKK has every right to assemble, regardless of how we feel about them.. to curtail their right is to curtail everyone else's.
• The counter protesters have every right to protest also. It should be noted that when there are counter protests lately, violence tends to follow.
• Free speech does not cover punching or other violent acts, no matter how much any group feels it's ok. Hate speech is a misnomer, used only to shut down opposing views. Speech is speech in the US.
• It is very interesting to note commentary from other countries which do not have our freedoms. They don't understand free speech and think the KKK should not be allowed to march. Period.
• The KKK is a small bunch of agitators, who count on news and counter protests. If people stopped showing up, they would more than likely stop marching.
• At very least, the counter protesters showed up armed for violence.
• The police were given orders to stand down, allowing the violence to occur and escalate. Find out who gave this order and you have a path to find answers.
• It is not difficult to predict that this is only the beginning.
• Ironically, the group calling the KKK nazis wants to shut down speech they don't like.
• Someone spraypainted Fuck Laws, in red paint, on a column at the Lincoln Memorial.
• The above thoughts notwithstanding, arguing over this is a perfect example of Divide and Conquer. If we fight among ourselves, we won't be paying attention to other things.
• Where is this coming from? For one, George Soros, who pours untold millions into creating social unrest.

There is actually a 'sport' called Footgolf. It's advertised as being more exciting than golf. To be absolutely factual, watching grass grow is more exciting than golf, plus you don't have to whisper.

• Speaking of Charlottesville, Anonymous hacked a website called The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi site, which had published an offensive story about Heather Heyer, the lady who was killed by the person who drove his car into the crowd. After the hack, Godaddy, the provider of the page, gave the Nazis twenty four hours to move to a new provider.
• Anonymous says they have the location of the page's owner, Andrew Anglin, and promised to send allies to visit him in Lagos.
• We all love to see the neo-Nazis and Bad Guys get it, right? Does this mean Anonymous is good?
• I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to see the Bad Guys operate in the daylight, so it is easier to see what they are up to.
• GoDaddy states the page violated its terms of service. They were responding to complaints. The complainer, a blogger with an agenda, was outed, resulting in her phone number and address going online and being bombarded by trolls.
• The Daily Stormer registered with Google, which terminated the registration due to violation of terms of service. Someone's not reading terms of service.  I don't remember terms of service, but I do remember Google was pretty solidly behind freedom of speech. You're reading this on a Google site. Perhaps they have a term of service prohibiting neo-Nazis - I don't know.

There is a report of an Internet of Things thermostat playing music. How? It has an Amazon Echo built into it. The situation was remedied by the owner.

In related news, 500 folks who felt it was necessary to get 'smart' door locks found themselves in Deep Doo-Doo when the company shipped a software update that rendered the lock electronically inoperable. Owners had to use their keys, if they had them. The responsible party has offered two fixes, which take between five and eighteen days. Are you ready for the Internet of Things? This is a slow motion train wreck of impossibly large proportions.

• The government has demanded data on visitors to an Anti-Trump site, probably due to an investigation. Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, this sort of thing is bad. 
• On the other hand, perhaps the site should have been located on a server that did not keep this information.
• Some of the Antifa people are radicalizing. There were weapons and shields in Charlottesville. Does this justify an investigation?  Does this behavior violate anyone's terms of service?

So the aliens were giving a tour of Earth...

"This is Roswell, where we played a little trick on the Army Air Force in 1947."

"They call this the Bible Belt. Just ignore it."

"Dogs? They're ours.  Cats? The reptilians rounded them up and dropped them here."

• Ok, I'm dying here... in Atlanta, angry people (antifa) protesting violence defaced a peace monument. Then they all ganged up on a single policeman, shouting PIG! 
• Wait, it gets better... Black Lives Matter put themselves between the policeman and the antifa protesters.
• I'll admit it - I refer to BLM as a terror group. Kudos to them for this selfless act.
• Tomorrow morning, be sure to look for grass, which is now in the up direction, while the sky will be below.

Thus ends the game of Naked Monopoly.

• Given the opportunity, Americans would deep fry furniture

Marshall Update: The biopsy came back positive for malignant melanoma. Sort of. They're 'pretty sure'. There is, of course, another test, but we were told to assume positive. The good news is that they cut out all of it. The bad news is that it still has to be treated, just in case.

So Marshall will now get to see the Doggie Oncologist.

We love him unconditionally, but he's going to need his own GoFundMe page if this continues.

• It's time for my Yearly Tire Rant. Attempting to keep the car legal and maintained, it went to the mechanic. Bulb replaced, oil changed, and by the way, it will need four new tires. The car is obviously conspiring with the dog.
• For reasons I absolutely cannot fathom, my Hyundai requires performance tires. Performance tires. It's not like, at any moment, the engine will leap out of the car because the tires aren't performing. We don't race, we don't bumper car (anymore), and we are never in a situation where the car has to perform anything but starting and running.
• This is the first car I've ever had that has huge wheels and tiny tires. There are no other tires for this car. I'm thinking the car would ride much better with real tires on it but what do I know, aside from the fact that every car I've ever owned had them.
• To make things even more amusing, the tires are in the neighborhood of $250 each. I realize my cars were older, but that's almost what I paid for all four of them.

Definitely Maybe

Bohemian Rhapsody celebrates its 40th birthday on October 31.  Queen guitarist Brian May still rocks out to it in his car. How was it made? I'm glad you asked. From Freddie's concept to the stages of recording to video to radioplay to live performance, it's a great story.

• Somebody call Goodyear!  A $2.7 billion Department of Defense unmanned blimp got loose and floated over Pennsylvania for a few hours (and when I say 'got loose', I mean it got confirmed shot down). The purpose of the balloon is to detect a missile attack, although Spy Machine is certainly another mission. To keep things interesting, the steel mooring cable dragged along for the ride, shorting out power wherever it went along the way. A recent investigation by the Baltimore Sun found the program "hobbled by defective software, vulnerability to bad weather and poor reliability." Apparently this is not a new phenomenon - they have gotten loose in Afghanistan on a number of occasions. IT'S COMING FOR US. AND OUR WALLETS!

A West Virginia [uh-oh] assistant prosecuting attorney has been suspended for pulling a pistol on fake spiders decorating his office. In my professional capacity as an amateur blogger, I suggest that this man's meds be re-evaluated.

• lefty has a credit card with a $5,000 limit. lefty has run smack into the limit. lefty calls the credit card company and negotiates, over seven days, a new limit of $7,500. lefty fully plans to spend up to the new limit and start the entire routine again in six months, claiming he'll pay his balance down (with a wink).  Congratulations! lefty has just explained the national debt and what Congress just did in passing its 'budget'.

There is now a Zombie Disease.  Called Cotard's Syndrome, it makes a person think they're dead. Why the hell can't we have a disease that makes people stop taking selfies? Where Cotard's makes people think they have no brain, the new syndrome installs a proper-size brain. Come to think of it, I used to walk up to automatic doors and they wouldn't open. I wonder if I'm a zombie....

• An Italian doctor has been suspended from practicing in the UK after failing an English language test. In America, we promote them.

Apparently the Chinese targeted Anthem Healthcare to learn about US healthcare.  What's there to learn? Pay a lot of money to a huge corporation with solid political ties. The corporation then tries (and succeeds) not to pay a single cent in compensation. What's so complicated?

•   Hundreds of immigrant families caught illegally crossing the Mexican border told U.S. immigration agents they made the dangerous journey in part because they believed they would be permitted to stay in the United States and collect public benefits, according to internal intelligence files from the Homeland Security Department.

The school president of the University of Louisville, KY, has apologized for staff wearing Hispanic halloween costumes.  Apparently putting on a sombrero is racist and the entire staff now has to take diversity training. Colleges now designating Halloween costume sensitivity consultants.  Scottish Diversity Committee has decreed a no-kilt policy.  Jewish Anti-defamation League forbids rabbi costumes. Paranormal Response Group says NO GHOSTS.  ACLU is suing, claiming bias against witches and pagans in general. Muslims offended over birkas. Christians say ignore halloween. In fact, the only group that isn't complaining is the American Dental Association.

In other news, Walmart has its own SWAT team to prevent 'embarrassing' Halloween costumes from hitting the shelves.

• Robot buses are coming to America!  The only question is how they will get the buses to drive as poorly as human bus drivers. Can you program a bus to go through a red light?  The buses are made in France, so at least they'll be full of disdain for American bus-riders.

It's better to burn out than it is to rust?  My wife came to me, in an upset state, to inform me that our stove was rusting. Of course our stove was rusting - it's been so quiet lately. Technically she's correct; that little panel under the display has rust spots. WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? Well, you can take it off, scrape and sand the entire thing down and repaint it, perhaps in your spare time. As for me, it's on my list, but waaaaaay down at the bottom, under dusting.

• You know that feeling of relief you get when you drive through an intersection and the light changes, but you made it ok?  Relief always turns to outrage when you check your rearview mirror and find that another car went right through the light and is just about inside your trunk. Bastards!

China wishes to remind its citizens that the new Two Child Policy goes into effect in March, therefore the One Child Policy is in effect until then. American math, hopefully similar to Chinese math, indicates that prospective parents can start fucking now: whatever arrives will do so after March.

• Japan and Korea have agreed to accelerate talks to resolve a row about Korean women forced to work in Japanese brothels during World War Two. Reportedly, Japan has offered to return them to Korea no later than this weekend.

Hacking group Anonymous is planning to reveal the identities of 1,000 KKK members, as obtained from the Twitter account of a clan member.  Wait - the KKK has computers?

• Sometimes a man can get in trouble, through no fault of his own. Like when your girlfriend answers with a simple hello, and you're in the shower and it's your wife on the phone - Joe Walsh, Certain Situations.

Hero of the Great Unwashed, Mark Dice, has another video, this time asking Hillary supporters if they support Sharia (Muslim) law in the US. And you know they do....

PRIVACY:  A popular iDevice encryption app has just been released for android.  I figure if Edward Snowden uses it, it should be good enough for me. It's called Signal and is available from the Play Store.  I'll assume none of us has information that's so critical it needs to be encrypted. But this isn't about criticality; this is about the right to privacy.. the right to NOT have your communications intercepted and put in a file somewhere for future use. I'm using it now.

Definitely Maybe?
My hero, Jeff Beck, released Definitely Maybe way back in 1972, on the Jeff Beck Group album. This is a wonderful instrumental. The thing that really does it for me, theme aside, is the multiple guitar tracks during the 'verse'. The way they're stacked and play off each other is really interesting and musically satisfying; for lack of better term, well-orchestrated (specifically at the end). It is also the only known (to me) use of a slide with a wah pedal.  The more than able keyboardsmanship comes courtesy of Max Middleton, who did most of the keyboards up to about Blow by Blow. Great stuff - it's a shame he's not with Jeff Today. As this is from an album, you'll hear a bit of click. Enjoy!

Dog Training

To The Nice Folks in Anonymous

You guys (and your compadres) have been in the news a lot lately, with all the hacks.  Fine job.

Remember Gary McKinnon, the British fellow who hacked into the US government's black files?  There was an awful lot of press about this case after he got caught.  The US wanted him extradited and his lawyers wanted him held in the UK, claiming he was autistic/Ausperger's.

McKinnon used all sorts of low-tech methods to get into the network, including screen remote control software.  The most interesting part of the case, in my opinion, was Gary's claim of all the wild and wonderful things he saw while inside.  Since he was using essentially long-distance phone lines, he couldn't afford to download proof (or so he said).

So, Anonymous, perhaps you could take up where McKinnon left off and get us some actual proof of what's being done with our tax money in Black Ops.


Should you choose to accept it, of course.