I do nothing: I do it often and I do it well

For some reason, known only to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, an email address I don't use has become Spam Central, largely for foreigners trying to give me millions of dollars because of their declining health (and mental capabilities). The address is ONLY used for Google communications for this blog. Even though I was never good at math, I think I got this one.

If I really cared, I'd take them up on their offer and scam them out of their own money, but it's just sooooo much effort to expend when I can't become awake for work, even at my own desk, after 3 cups of coffee (and an undisclosed amount of meth, snorted right there, which everybody thinks is coke).

• If you use Firefox and take advantage of private browsing, you will be happy to know that it's absolutely infested with Google nonsense. I'm recommending that, if you care, you set your options to mimic private browsing, without using the feature (forget everything you did, flush cookies and history, etc). 
• One of the problems is the use of a Google blacklist of bad sites. When you query the list, Google knows where you're going. Outside of private browsing, you can set the service used (which may also keep records - check).

Speaking of delayed gratification, Stanford University for the Terminally Wealthy did a famous study, where children were put in a room and given a marshmallow. They were told they could eat it whenever they wanted, but if they waited til the Study Person returned, they'd get another marshmallow. Forty years later, it was shown that the children who waited experienced better outcomes in life. Also that phrases like 'better outcomes' take about forty years to appear. And if you don't pay researchers on time, studies take a lot longer to reach a conclusion.  [from 12 Habits of Mentally Strong People]

• US police might be in trouble via their bodycams. They turned up hackable, which could put the attacker in control of the camera and video. 
• If the police don't forget to turn the camera on.
• We will not learn.

After several huge media outlets threw Alex Jones off, coincidentally at the same time, it was discovered Twitter didn't. This came as quite a shock to Twitter's Left, which demanded he be silenced for 'hate speech', as well as free speech advocates, who figured he'd be thrown off by now. Reports are that Jones' subscriptions went through the roof after 'disappearing'. Twitter's Left are apoplectic, demanding they Do Something. Twitter is having trouble making a decision, for once. It should be noted that the majority of people thrown off Twitter are Twitter Right, as admitted by Jack, Twitter's Big Cheese<tm>.

Now, let's think on this for a second. As the election heats up, a conspiracy guy, off to the right, gets thrown off most major media/social sites at once. One could theorize he's influential, as so many sites acted at once. And since several sites acted at once, who's giving the orders?

Disclaimers: I do not listen to Jones, but he amuses me. As a libertarian, I believe that these sites have a right to allow or disallow whoever they want. However, this smells orchestrated and deserves investigating.

The effect of these actions is silencing people and cutting off income. Regardless of the person or entity being censored, is it ok with you that major outlets essentially dictate what you can see/hear/read?  Again, this is not about a person so much as silencing in general. Make no mistake - to allow this is a mistake. The left's excuse is 'hate speech'. If these people understood the First Amendment, they'd know that there is no such thing as hate speech. Speech is speech, whether or not you agree with it. This includes the unscrupulous legislators who allow such assaults on freedoms guaranteed to everyone.

• As if it wasn't bad enough that companies are selling literal airbrushes to apply makeup, they are also selling spray-on hair and/or root touchup. 
• dent puller would be helpful, as would body putty.

After watching way too many police shows, covering the US and UK, I've come to the conclusion, after taking way too much time, that police have turned into a multi-billion dollar drug-seeking operation. I think we can all agree that anything showing the officers in a bad light gets scrubbed from video and never shown. This leads to video of police actions that they think are legitimate.

The script is always the same:

• sometimes lame excuse for pulling someone over
• I need to pat you down
• do you mind if we search your vehicle? If you have nothing to hide, why object?
• ooh - drugs!

Some of the excuses are legitimate, like running a light. Some are completely ridiculous, like not using your turn signal for two seconds before changing lanes. Or a bulb out on your plate. I got pulled over for swerving a little as I approached a toll booth. I fully admit swerving, as I was reaching into my pocket for my wallet. We were on our way to a gig and the guy was playing "you don't have anything in the car I need to know about?". Officer, if you want to pull all our equipment out of the car and check it, be my guest. Then we invited him to the show, because we're that way, plus it was a lovely passive aggressive move on my part.

In all of these cases, the police were looking for drugs.

Now think about this. The US and UK (and whatever other countries) have set up a humongous infrastructure for the War on Drugs. The police are a detection unit for this alleged war. They don't even issue a ticket for a moving violation by itself without looking for drugs. Most of the time, they find drugs. One can guess these segments were left in on purpose because it makes great television, and the non-drug pullovers aren't shown because they're not exciting. Or most of the pullovers are for drugs. Take your pick.

The moral aspect of this is hysterical. "No, son, I don't smoke that stuff and you shouldn't either." Yeah, the forty year old policeman hasn't smoked a doobie and gives a stern moral lecture. Just say no to cutting off our money supply for this terrible war we must fight.

And then there are the just plain stupid drivers, who lead the police on a dangerous, high speed chase through two counties because they have an overdue parking ticket. The driver admits this to the cops, as he's being extracted from his upside down vehicle that he crashed on the side of the highway, after the stop sticks were deployed. No doubt they search what's left of the vehicle for drugs.

DISCLAIMER: none of the above applies if the driver is impaired. The police and prosecutors should throw the book at anyone who drives impaired for any reason.

• Ever so slightly disconcerting is watching my cursor move a little bit by itself.

The Continuing Adventures of Space Force

Lieutenant lefty here.

As you may remember, I was selected for The Force by President Trump himself. A year later, we still don't know why.

I have risen in rank rapidly, because of things like getting three r-words into small sentences, seemingly effortlessly. The fact that I can tell the difference between a male and female cable end might also have something to do with it.

Last week our Secret Mission (sssshhhhh.... don't tell anybody) was to check out what King Kong Ill, President for Life of North Korea, was up to when not in the press. What I'm going to tell you is Triple Top Secret, above even Double Tomato Clearance, so you must swear on whatever it is that people swear on, that you will not repeat this information or tell anyone where you read it. When not in the public eye, King Kong Ill has his BFF, Dennis Rod Man, over for one of his Ultra Secret crossdressing parties. The Minister of Panty Propaganda had a little chat with Rod Man, wherein he explained that no matter how Dennis dressed, the most fabulous and prettiest in the party had to always be the Ill, as insiders call him. An outsider called him the Ill once, and they still haven't found his body.

When President Trump met King Kong, he couldn't understand why the Ill had a picture of J. Edgar Hoover, nefarious head of the FBI and famous gay crossdresser, in his private suite. There are still high level discussions among the Cabinet whether it was a full size picture or just another of the Ill's mirrors.

After this amazing discovery, we saw a bunch of various colored and shaped craft of some sort whiz by our ship. Since we're the Space Force, we thought maybe we should take some sort of action. Since we're the Space Force, we had no idea what action to take, so we phoned the White House. Dick Cheney said we saw nothing; it was merely space gas. So we went back to our duties. By the way, if anybody knows what our duties are, could you please send them to me at my secret classified email address?  Thank you.

Daytime TV Causes More Suicides Than Depression

My wife watches daytime tv.
I cannot begin to describe the horrors. Unless you've spent even a day watching, you do not understand the sheer torture involved.

Broadcast tv went to hell years back, with radio. There's absolutely nothing of value, with the possible exception of news, and even that's questionable.  Things seem to go in blocks, starting with news at some hour at which even plants (and ants) are still sleeping. Then it goes to Yack Shows, where one or groups of women talk about celebrities, including Wendy Williams; an exceedingly tall woman with 400 wigs and humongous breast implants. You never see her and Frankenstein in the same room, but I shall go no further. The only thing worse than this gossip hound is her mind-controlled audience, whose entire output consists of drooling and "WOO WOO." Then a couple of non-caucasian women yack about celebrities and all talk at the same time. Then a huge block of Judge Shows, including Judge Judy, who is the rudest woman on tv and an incredibly negative Jewish stereotype. These go on for hours, with anyone who can fit into a robe raining down justice on some of the dimmest bulbs ever to appear in court. It's not fair to expect people to have a college degree (I couldn't pass the drinking exam) but most of these people don't have high school degrees. If they do, all of them failed grammar. Four times. They might not have left high school til they were twenty five, several days before they appeared on the show.

In between and around the March of the Stupid are the 'movies'. Because there is nothing on tv and because there isn't an original thought left in tv (or movies or music), new stations are popping up (like vicious weeds you cannot kill). They are probably taking advantage of copyright lapses and airing the absolute worst crap you can imagine: black and white war movies, 1970s television shows, and the real mind-blower - an entire network devoted to 70s game shows.

Wife is fascinated with history, with a special emphasis on those wacky and wild nazis. I don't claim to understand this and probably don't want to. As a result, there are frequently nazi movies on tv. You know - the family friendly, touching nazi movies. But do not despair.. non-nazi war movies are good too, provided they're black and white. Were people black and white in the forties? When war is temporarily over, the 'classic' black and whites start, with murder mysteries and stories of men loving unhinged women and someone killing someone else for the money.  One network picks ten of these gems, perhaps throwing in a 70s or 70s or 80s horrid period classic (in color!), and runs them all month. I don't even watch this crap and can recognize some of the lines. Wife, who has the attention span of a fly and the continuity of an infant, can watch this delightful deluge of mediocrity each time, with it being new each time.

So I sit there, diligently doing something horribly important on my computer, and being forced to listen to this drivel.

Don't forget the commercials! 1-800-SUE! If you've been injured, experience death, have mesothilioma, or transvaginal mesh, there are altruistic guardians of what is right called lawyers. You may be entitled to a cash reward and these folks are right there to help you. After you're done litigating, there are about fourteen variations of the Need Cash Now commercial, which run til you want to get all stabby with close family members. Finally, you can get paid to take care of your very sick relatives or be a cosmetologist. Both require silly outfits.

I have to admit it's fascinating to look at bits of 70s tv, to see how far we've come in production and technology (and writing - my God). Of all shows, CHIPS (remember that?) has absolutely the best car crashes we have ever seen, bar none. Today's car crashes cannot hold a candle (or a flamethrower) to these. The entire freeway winds up littered with completely smashed up hulks of 70s Land Yachts. The world could probably do without Rockford Files, Quincy, and the rest of the 'programming,' especially the torturous Murder, She Wrote, which runs two episodes, for the specific purpose of getting viewers to change the channel to some other mind-eating network. Like the Game Show Network. Can you imagine watching Jeopardy from 1974? The host and all of the contestants have been dead for 20 years. If you don't watch out, you might join them.

• We are still fighting the Great Ant War of 2017 but it appears the ants have decided to stop sending soldiers to the front. We're getting stragglers. Perhaps they found a better target. What could ants possibly want in a bathroom. A tub area? I hope they went to visit the Crazy Lady, although I suspect even they are terrified of her. If the ants ever take over, only she will be left standing.

Police are getting bodycams that identify places and people. The manufacturer, Motorola, claims it's not facial recognition, it's object recognition. Yeah, ok.  This is all ok, though, because it's for the children. No, really, they're tugging heartstrings because it can look for missing children. Heaven help us. When this gets loose, which it will, it will only get worse. Let's see... my state has facial recognition on drivers licenses. Wanna bet.....

While we're at it, there's a critical flaw in Segway Hoverboards, making them vulnerable to cyberattacks. There you are, Michael J. Fox, on your hoverboard, when some wag cyberchild hijacks the local surveillance camera to watch what happens when he turns the hoverboard upside down, hurtling you to the sidewalk. Seven minutes later, it's uploaded to Faceyspaces.

• Google is using your entire search history to create a personalized news feed. Although there are certain things you can do to minimize what Google knows about you, the best way is to stop using it. Duckduckgo is the way to go.

Pennsylvania is reporting ninety billion hacking attempts against it last year. There is no information available about how they arrived at this number, but it looks to be in reaction to scores of reports that they were hacked during the election. Let's ignore the fact that this breach might have something to do with the last election (seriously?). PA does want us to rest assured there is no evidence of the Russians hacking into the voting machines. No evidence at all. Nothing to see here - go on home.

I suspect the total number was arrived at by taking the number of stop signs in the state and dividing it by the number of pet squid belonging to the residents in the state. The resulting number is multiplied by that year's state deficit and added to the governor's salary. This number is divided by the number of strip clubs visited by state employees with state funds. See - easy as PI.

• A Canadian family had some interesting luck the other day. They were having some ice cream when someone bit into something, later identified as a catheter. The ice cream company charged them extra for the medical device, the health system had the police arrest them for using an unprescribed medical device and, being Canadian, the family apologized.

If English managed to produce a lot of words that had the first and second letter capitalized, I'd be the fastest typist on the planet.

• Senator John McCain has been diagnosed with brain cancer at the Mayo Clinic. ThermionicEmissions wishes him good health. He has already introduced legislation to bomb the clinic.  
• No, it's never too soon.

A Florida man, upset that AT&T trucks were parked on his property, asked them to move. Apparently he was not satisfied with the answer because he came back with a gun, shot out all four tires on one truck, walked to the other truck, reloaded, and shot out each of those tires too. He also shot out a radiator and into the body of a truck. In the obligatory interview with the neighbor, who only spoke Spanish (because this is Florida, US), he was such a nice guy.

In unrelated news, AT&T has ordered all of its employees to take an intensive two week course in what is a driveway and what isn't a driveway, as well as in which you should park the truck. So far there has been an eighty percent fail rate.

• Internet of Things Strikes Again: Alexa, everybody's favorite in-home listening device, got remotely updated so now its users are part of Amazon's Social Network.  You upload your contacts to the mobile app and everything gets thrown into the network, including the pool guy, some person you helped with their computer, people you don't remember, and your car mechanic. All of these people can add you. You can add them. If you don't like them, there was no way to block, but Amazon fixed that. If you want out, you have to call an actual person to be unsubscribed.
• As one would expect, Alexa users aren't really concerned. Ho-hum.

The dog did everything but sit on my head this morning in bed. He did walk up, plop down on my pillow, and proceeded to pant and whine, about five minutes before the alarm was scheduled to go off. No one set the dog for that time, so it was annoying. When I went to let him out, he went and slept by the door in the other direction. I thought the poor little bugger wanted to go out, get some breakfast, or some meds... no - he woke me up so he could sleep in a different place. You tell me who is running the house.