Getting Even with Aardvarks

Your love is like  green eggs and ham

• Fired Employees Sue Google for Breaching 'Don't Be Evil' Part of Contract
• Lawyers for Google said the word 'Don't' was stricken from all work contracts
• Google has removed Pirate Bay domains from search results, citing Dutch order
• Do not use Google. Use duckduckgo.com

Today I identify as   a very popular $900 red Christmas tree

• Scientists figured out the chemistry behind marijuana's skunky scent.
• meanwhile, no one has figured out how it works or its long term effects - Go Science!
• Next up: scientists figure out why cocaine is white

My four day weekend went smoothly. Well, smoothly if you count by motion; I barely moved.

I don't move much while asleep, although I'm told I laugh a lot. In fact, I'm much more amusing when asleep. Napping is a large part of my life - I'm good at it and I practice often. Mrs lefty also raises the Nap Flag (it's black so you can't see it in the bedroom). I was rudely awakened from my first nap of the day by a request for assistance: someone had tripped. I got that sorted out and, shaking my head, left the room. Not before almost tripping on the thing Mrs. lefty tripped on. Every day is like the Three Stooges. It's only a matter of time until she asks me to carry a 2x12 and I turn around, hitting her in the head. Last night I fell down the steps, carrying shelves so we won't fall down the steps.

Of all the weird shit the builder did to this house, the absolute weirdest has to be the stairs. Halfway down, they turn at a ninety degree angle. No warning, no lights, no signs. The last washer we got broke trying to get it down the steps. I'm thinking of inviting my neighbor to see the steps....

Pants became a theme, perhaps because of the holiday, but not because I overate, no sir, I don't want you to leave with that impression. I was minding my own business, as I do once or twice a year, when the zipper to the aforementioned pants felt weird upon pulling up, and POOF, the zipper broke. I have never had a zipper break before. I couldn't figure out a way to fix it, as this is beyond rocket science (and napping). So I put on another pair - one with a functioning zipper. I sat in 'my chair' and felt weird. No, that can't possibly be liquid. I checked and I was wrong: it was liquid on my chair, and by extension, on my pants. Before having a Proper Fit, I went back one day, to discovering liquid on the couch. The dog lets us know when it's Liquid Time, and I believe the rest of us have the concept down, so we're stymied. So then it was time for a Proper Fit. I blasted through the bedroom door and turned the lights on, causing the dog to go into barking fits and the wife to go into Asking Fits. MY CHAIR IS WET. THE COUCH WAS WET. Plus I can't sit on the life-sucking couch.

I think this is either the universe fscking with me or it's the universe trying to tell me to just stay in fscking bed. There is no liquid in bed. I hope.

I spent a lot of quality aggravating time with my laptop over the past days. The long and short of it is that it would have worked much better if the manufacturer would have suggested installing their proprietary drivers. This was suggested during a recent conversation with them. They sent a link. It was on a part of the page I've never seen before, under How to Buy a $4,000 laptop, Staff Baseball league, Hawaiian pizza, How to Remove Nose Hair without Infection. It was too obvious for me to find.

The reason I was taking about my laptop is that the keyboard's 'A' key only works if you hit it a certain way. I'm getting close to hitting it with a hammer.  So that's $75 for a new keyboard, and $25 to ship it. I begged them not to ship USPS because I wanted to get it. And get it sometime before Summer. $25 to ship a new keyboard that has to weigh a pound or two. WTF is going on with shipping? Are they experiencing Supply Issues? Are the trucks on strike? Has President Taxit raised Unemployment Compensation or sent out more checks, so all the drivers quit? Are they demanding vibrating seats in the trucks and Comfort Girls in the cab? How come *I* don't get Comfort Girls when I go out somewhere? Hess trucks cost a few dollars to ship. WARNING: this year's Hess truck is an airplane, if you have OCD or that's the kind of thing that bothers you.

Have you ever worked on a laptop? It is not for the short-of-temper, ADHD, far-sighted, impatient, or blind. None of them are alike - I mean no single laptop out of the millions sold over the years is alike. If you're lucky like the Pope, there will be a YouTube video of the teardown. If you're unlucky like me, there will be little arrows on the case, telling you which screws to remove to get the case open. You also might find the process in the manual, which you threw away with the packing, or it came on a CD you couldn't find if you were on fire. Fortunately there's the website, where all the manuals are kept. Under How to Buy a $4,000 laptop, Staff Baseball league, Hawaiian pizza, How to Remove Nose Hair without Infection. After you get the screws out and pry the damn thing apart, there are no little arrows telling you what to do. But you sure do look intelligent, with two halves of s laptop on your 'bench', or dining room table that will not be used for dinner for a solid year, until your wife throws the damn thing out and you get a new one. Or become proficient in abacus. Or send the thing in for service. Or bribe your kids' friend, the odd-looking nerd who gets picked on all his life. Offer him something substantial, ok (guess who that nerd was)? WARNING: You will have screws left over. It's a universal fact.

In the process of cleaning, I watched Mrs. lefty arrange the cereal boxes. It took a while to figure out, but she was arranging them by size. So naturally I moved them around when she left. Every house with an OCD also has an Asshole, and that's me. The joke is probably on me, because it's just more time and effort. But like Christmas, it's worth it.

Guitar Center, like every retail outlet on the planet, had Black Friday, which lasted approximately a month. I didn't really think about it because I opted out of their emails. The first few were innocuous, but then they started arriving daily, accusing me of shopping at Sam Ash, and other local stores. I had to stop it. So naturally, after Black Friday it's Cyber Monday, the most blatant attempt at commercialism since Christmas. I was going to check Guitar Center out because I haven't been there since the Flying AIDS started. But getting up at 3pm and my napping schedule made it impossible. I'll have to wait a week or two, til everything is open til midnite. Or I could go online. This is where all of the sad Barnes&Noble customers have to go, after their stores were shuttered. I guess they got tired of people buying overpriced Starbucks drinks but not their overpriced books. I dunno.

Christmas or sales in general are sad times for the left handed... they advertise a Bob's Midnite Special guitar for 30% off. If you were to ask, they'd tell you it was only for the right handed models. If you want a lefty, it will be 30% extra. It doesn't matter - they don't have it in the store for anyone to try. At times, it's tiring being treated like a leper: you have to pick up a backwards guitar and your arm falls off. To be fair, Guitar Center had 135 guitars on sale. One was left handed. Either we have to acknowledge their effort, or burn the place down - your call.

Four days with the leftys. Do you have this kind of fun?

Good God, my feet are ugly.

• so far, the only Black Friday Month Cyber Monday Week item that generated any interest was a phone holder that clamps onto a surface and you can twist it around.  I'm easy. Very easy.

Cat Tails 

• All cats have ‘an element of psychopathy’, according to new study
• Woman found ‘breastfeeding cat’ onboard flight in front of horrified passengers, cabin crew messages reveal
• No, cat owners are psychopaths. Cats are just assholes. Mine used to jump on the stove, turning the gas on.

President Taxit released many barrels of oil to reign in gas prices.

To do their thing, Canada released half its store of maple syrup.

I did not make this up   

• One third of the workers in Australia's parliament have been sexually harassed, per a report
• Australia's doing some weird stuff lately, but guys - it sounds like there are job opportunities!

Flying AIDS news   

New variant: PANIC!!!

From discovery to global panic in 48 hours: How South African scientists' warnings about soaring cases of Covid super-mutant variant sparked frantic cabinet meeting and worldwide travel ban

Excellent, Smithers

Dr. $400k Fauci says the new super-strain is probably in the US already

uh-oh, we'll need a third vaccine and to wear four masks

U.S. President Biden says not considering new vaccine mandates

watch for mandates

Merck's COVID-19 pill significantly less effective in new analysis

do you mean to tell me a few months' testing doesn't produce accurate results?

US preps vaccine contingencies amid panic over poorly understood omicron

we don't understand it, but we're making up the contingencies now. Don't get mad - it's how we've handled everything so far...

Africa has extremely low COVID-19 death rates despite only 6% of its population being vaccinated,

• Jeffrey Epstein Spent Final Days In Fear of MS-13, Struggling With Constipation
• if  he was tormented by a cellmate, maybe the cellmate saw how he died.... it was apparently not on the toilet....

Nebraska’s attorney general recently identified 57 priests and other Catholic officials responsible for allegedly sexually abusing more than 250 victims

Sue the church. Force it to compensate victims. Prosecute the abusers, from the priests to the pope. It's long past time.

Which reminds me, it's Hanukkah. Or Chanukah. It's also Chanukkkahch. The Jews have a lot of holidays that sound alike. I wanted to explain Hanukkah for my non-Jewish readers (mostly for me). Hanukkah is observed for eight days and nights, strictly for the purpose of pissing off Christians, who think they have the only important holiday in December. Hanukkah commemorates the Jews setting alight the Holy Grail and walking around the desert for 40 years (the more modern Jews walk around the dessert for 40 years). They had a very bad sense of direction. Of course I kid - Hanukkah recognizes the only time in history the Jews were not picked on, for eight days straight. Right after Hanukkah, it was back to making bagels, and the usual, "My god is better than your god" stuff.

At the evening of each day, one candle on the menorah is lit. In ancient times, it was hard to tell the time, so most holidays begin the night before. Not only do the Jews have no sense of direction, they can't tell time. The candle is lit with the traditional Holy Flamethrower, by the head of the house or by any child they can get to stand still long enough.  Each night, another candle is lit. No one has the ability or math to figure out how many candles are lit in total, but rest assured each box of candles is always one short.

1 first night

11 second night

111 third night

1111 fourth night

I'm not typing this all out.

The children spin a dreidel, which is a little wooden spinny thing. After 300 years of persecution, most children have dropped the dreidel and instead play with the holiday edition of Playboy. It is said that Hugh Hefner did more for Judaism than Jesus himself. While the kids spin the dreidel, or play with Playboy, their parents make deep fried food, in tribute to the Christians. They also put mayonnaise on meat, which doesn't happen the other 357 days of the year.

Hanukkah is not a really important holiday, but it's used to get even with the Christians and Christmas. In fact, Hanukkah wasn't even invented until 1999, by Jews trying to sell Kwanzaa trees.

• We all have this coworker, don't we? The guy you ask a question, because he's very knowledgeable. Then the answer comes....
• Dear lefty: someone asked me about this 2 weeks back, on a Thursday, at 5pm. We came up with  a temporary workaround, but I asked for some information, that I haven't received an answer to. So I'm prodding you to prod the Boss, or it ain't gonna work right. And good luck catching the boss' attention. Even Ritalin doesn't help him. Let me know... I have a spreadsheet of every question everybody has asked me since I was hired.

Hey, don't forget, Giving Tuesday follows Cyber Monday. They want you to give to businesses that maybe you didn't give to on Cyber Monday. I didn't look, but I bet there were sales.

I can't wait for the rest of the week. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday, Hyper Sales Wednesday, and my favorite, Naked Thursday. Note: Black Friday starts in October and runs through Christmas.

Then there's Boxing Day. This is not a US thing, but more a Canada thing, where Canadians stop talking about hockey for five minutes and throw boxes at each other. The box has to contain an absolutely stupid gift they received. The winner stays home.

• I did what I was told: I took the chainsaw and the pickup truck out so we could use the dining room table for Thanksgiving. Then a screen door tried to push Mrs. lefty down the stairs.

Be Careful Not to Catch Kubernetes

One of the signs of the end of 'civilization' has arrived: there is an attack for android that uses the accelerometer to 'listen' and transmit the results to an attacker.

Microsoft, Google, and Apple clouds are banned in Germany's schools. They do not satisfy Germany's privacy standards.  Pay close attention to the section on Windows 10 telemetry.  There is also a city government in Germany that jettisoned Windows for linux.

Here's 100 linux command line commands explained, for your linux pleasure. No, linux does not have to be run from the command line - it can look just like Windows or anything else.


You're probably bored with your drone and need a little more excitement. Boy, are you in luck: Throwflame has a drone, complete with flamethrower. 

How about those new USB-C cables? Did you know there are 6 different kinds, that all look the same? My brain hurts.

2300 National Health Service (UK) computers are running Win XP.
I told you socialized medicine is no good.




Say thanks.
Some of the most underappreciated people are those who work at the counter or behind the scenes. People who may know you when you come in to use their services. Some are even downright friendly.

Next time you go to one of these places (vet, doctor's office, etc), bring something along, if you appreciate their service. Nobody else does, and the reaction is open-mouthed surprise. Thank the person who gave you a later appointment when you overslept, or who got something done for you faster than usual. Bring a donut or a dozen. Coffee. Candy. It costs little and means a lot.



Dear lefty

• What is phishing?
• When people who can't spell stick their thing in the water to catch stuff

NATO mistakenly published the location of 150 US nuclear warheads in Europe. Pure genius. Also, the US is reportedly spending up to $10 billion to modernize this arsenal.

1. can I have a few of the old ones?
2. I TOLD YOU about the dangers of Big Government and the Military Industrial Complex. Endless war. Your money is paying for this. Imagine how much more of your own money you'd have if the military were for a strong defense only... you could more than afford ridiculously expensive health insurance.
3. President Eisenhower said this about the Military Industrial Complex

Irony Runs Thick

Bernie Sanders' campaign workers are demanding a $15/hr "living wage" and 100% free healthcare for those earning under $60k.  The campaign has thus far resisted.

UPDATE: unable to take the battering of the Irony Squad, workers were granted $15/hr. And had their hours cut.

• I'm telling you, pick up some YooHoo in juice boxes and put it in the fridge. Your taste buds will thank you.

Coworker Follies

ME: asks can you please see if you can find this for me? I can't find it.
HIM: when is the meeting?
ME: what meeting
HIM: the meeting with Bob's Incorporated
ME: I'm not aware of any meeting
HIM: the one with Bob's
ME: I'm still not aware of any meeting
HIM: you sent me an email, asking me about the meeting
ME: no, I sent you an email, asking you to FIND this in the Bob Box. If it makes you happy, you can meet with Bob's.
HIM: No thank you. I'm confused.
ME: I concur.

There is such a basic level of miscommunication, it sounds like we're married.

• Don't let them hoodwink you and charge you extra: guacamole is frog in a blender.

A woman claims Taco Bell served her a 'doorknob' in her nachos.
The joke's on her - it was the healthiest part of the meal.

• Remember the Mosquito? The device that emits high frequencies that only 20 somethings can hear, but not 30s. It's to repel people, like in riots. Well, it's being used in public parks in Philthydelphia. The city that wants your guns, taxes your sugary beverages, and is proud to be a sanctuary city.
• The city is using a riot tool to keep people out of city parks after dark.

There's some sort of problem with the way humans hear and (hopefully) comprehend. It comes in 2 forms: phone and email. The words in capitals are the words the person hears....

PHONE
Hi - I want to kill your daughters HI BOB - HOW ARE YA?

for some reason, people don't hear the first words you say.


EMAIL
1. DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE REPORTS ARE?
2. Would you like a raise?

you will get an answer to 1 but not a word about 2. This applies to anything you ask for with 2 topics or more.



We always like to think our children are gorgeous and bright. I know mine is gorgeous, but the jury is out on bright. Last night, she somehow managed to get a rear paw nail caught around her ear. Same this morning. We thought maybe she was special.

During her final chemo appointment, they put a bandage around her leg. She was trying to get it off.

Maybe if I hide, no one will see me...

The results are in, and Penny is CANCER FREE!
The vets are happy for us and for themselves, because they want her back every 3 months for Very Expensive Tests.




Florida man arrested for "being awesome" after throwing his son into the ocean to 'teach him to swim'.  The police did not think I was awesome for throwing the neighbor into the ocean.



SJW Antics

The Apollo program was designed by men, for men. If we do not acknowledge the gender bias of the early space program, it becomes difficult to move past it
[New York Times]

The People's Republic of Berkeley, CA, is removing all gendered language from city code. No more He and She - now it's They. Including rest rooms.

Instagram is hiding 'likes' in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and Brazil, in the hope it will make people feel less judged.

Every woman has a right to have her scrotum waxed  [twitter]

Ivanka Trump mocked for giving 'all white' dog to her daughter.  [Newsweek]

Children of color make up more than half the student population—but only 20% of public school teachers are people of color. Our plan will devote $500 million per year to create-world class teacher academies at MSIs and HBCUs, so more students can have teachers who look like them.  [Beto O'Rourke]

The Vagaries of Elephant Sexing. And Sexting.

After our great success with the battery-powered Worx mower, we purchased a Worx... thing... it's a small chainsaw attached to a long pole. Wife says it's for getting rid of high branches. I say it's for long distance torturing of certain neighbors.

I guess it depends on who handles it.  Meanwhile, it's waiting in the kitchen.


ThermionicEmissions is saddened to hear Beth Chapman, Dog the Bounty Hunter's wife, passed away, most likely from cancer (1967-2019). Although an occasional target of the blog, we send our best to Dog and family.

• Japan is set to resume whale hunting. They say it's essential.
• Reached for comment, the whales say it's not essential.
• Funny mishap on the first day: someone harpooned Rob Reiner.

At the Glastonbury Festival (England's answer to Woodstock III), people observed...

Unfortunate songstress Neneh Cherry was warbling through her set when the veteran OS finally gave up the ghost. Alas, XP was dealing with the stage back projection, meaning that the audience lurched from being vaguely surprised to learn that Cherry was still around to the horrifying realisation that so was XP.

Yes, Windows XP, the long out of support, dead OS. Perfect example. The only safe, past term OS, is one that runs by itself and doesn't connect to any network. When Microsoft tells you to upgrade, they're not kidding. And you know how I feel about Microsoft.

•  Mauritania (election controversy), Ethiopia (coup), Syria (2x, exams), have had large internet 'interruptions' with the past few hours. This shows you how important the net is, and how control of it is so important for tyranny. Remember this the next time you demand internet censorship and control.

Confused by all the news about Huawei?

Just discovered were 3 accounts on a big business router; all 3 were hard-coded (built in and not removable), one was root (access to everything) and 2 were system accounts. The passwords are the same, so if you know one, you know them all. I suspect the ability to 'phone home' will also be discovered.

So if you don't understand why many are calling for dumping their products, you're starting to. As a glance at the news will tell you, our government is not all that good at securing things. Nobody on the planet wants to fire up their networking gear and find out it's available to anyone with the password and it's sending data to China (where companies work even closer with their government).

This is why it's disheartening to see the president and others backtracking on the ban. [never hope politicians finally 'got it']

Along those lines, large cloud services provider PCM was hacked, as discovered in mid-May. Why do I say that if you can no longer touch your data, it's no longer yours? The moment you let things loose past your home or business, you are at the mercy of bright as well as bungling people/corporations. You've widened your attack surface (made yourself easier to hit with a foul ball).  The hack was accomplished via phishing, as most are lately.

In reality, you're not going to avoid The Cloud, whether you know it or not. Just don't choose to. Sync your browser passwords? Get your info from anywhere there's a connection? Get login and password from anywhere you are? It's in The Cloud.  Just don't put anything out that you don't have to, especially for the sake of convenience. 

Dear lefty:

• Where can I get a tin foil hat like you? What's your size?
• Just pretend you have one and act accordingly. It will eventually materialize; faster if you're referred to as one by friends or online. 
• My size varies, depending on how smug I feel that day. It's always large, though.

A lot of you are probably asking yourselves about the incidence of human feces incidents in San Francisco. Anticipating your question, I found the following...

I don't know which surprises me more: that there are so many or that there are stats. A San Francisco friend's comment was 'notice the color'.

• Several days after once again brandishing swords with the US, Iran said it's over the limit of plutonium it's supposed to have.
• They also announced they have very small penises.

There are people who have read ThermionicEmissions via online translation!

Nice to know I can frighten people in other countries.  World domination is imminent. 

• Sony is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Walkman (1979). Where were you when it came out? A twinkle in your parents' eye? The back seat of a brand new Oldsmobile Cutlass station wagon? Still post-traumatic over the conversion to unleaded gas?

Karl Rove (R-Hell) was bemoaning the shit show that was the Democratic debates. His main objection was federal abortion funding, which he said 'violates morals and people don't want their tax dollars funding abortion.' Hey Karl - I'm morally opposed to war. I don't want my tax dollars funding the military industrial complex. You're a smart fella - you know it doesn't work this way... it's just convenient for your religious agenda.

Say what you will about Kellyanne Conway, but that New Jersey accent makes you want to gouge your own eardrums out. The sad thing is that her accent isn't all that bad for New Jersey.

This week's best overheard:

When police dug up the yard, they found the body. But unless it had 3 legs, there was another body down there somewhere.

COWORKER Follies

Ring ring...
Me: Yes?
Him: Hi, it's me. I wanted to get your idea on this project. I don't want to send the email first, then do the rest.
Me: I'm thinking we should wait on the email.
Him: Yes, but if we wait on the email, the boss will be upset.
Me: Why do you always call me to argue with yourself? Is your wife often upset with you and you can't figure out why?

• A baseball player died in a hotel at a young age. There is no cause of death but police don't believe foul play or suicide was involved. 
• When a musician dies, the cause of death is announced immediately, without autopsy.
• When there is a particularly nasty explosion, it is automatically not terrorism, before any investigation.
• How do they know this stuff?
• our condolences to the pitcher's wife of 7 months.

SJW News

Nike co-opted the Betsy Ross flag as a sneaker decoration.
There was incredible howling from Colin Kaepernik, because 'it takes us back to slavery'.
Nike will not sell them in the US.
Demands to destroy the Betsy Ross House and Betsy Ross Bridge are pending.

Men have named women's body parts, which is sexist.

Oreo is giving away special Pronoun Packs and encouraging everyone to share their pronouns with pride today and every day.

At Least the DOG is Happy to See Me

After stumbling to the kitchen, forgetting where the dog food was, feeding the little darling and tripping over a pair of size 27 clown feet (mine), I decided to make a change. I got all positive and told the Universe it was going to be a great day.. an unprecedented day... a real change. As I said this, I tripped and fell backwards into a chair.

Unprecedented.

• My good friends at the supermarket have been busy lately. Remember, this store has a full time employee to follow me around, see what I buy, and stop carrying it immediately.  This is in addition to the Confuse the Customer Initiative, where they keep moving stuff around for no apparent reason.  "Coffee? - that's all the way up the other end." But it was here yesterday. "Yeah, we moved it."
• The latest victim was my creamer. The full time lefty impaler saw me buying this one brand and type of creamer. I don't need to tell you how important coffee is, right?  Within a month, they stopped carrying that flavor. As of the other night, they stopped carrying the brand.
• Every now and then I wonder how normal people live.

Dear lefty:

• What about Mondays?
• They are known to come right on the heels of Sunday, but one can have up to 5 of them per week.

Coworker Follies:

HIM: WAAAAAAAH - I can't get to that website! What's the address?

ME: Wait, I have to look it up - you use it every day, I don't.

HIM: Ok, got it. No, I don't. I can't get there. WAAAAAAH!

ME: what did you type?

HIM: is it an http or an https? 

ME: always assume S - for 'secure'.

HIM: what about the www?

ME: Did I tell you to use www?

HIM: No, but all web addresses use www.

ME: [eyes starting at the back of my own head] No they don't.

HIM: Well, I can't get out. This must be a bigger problem.

ME: Can you get to Google? Or whatever your default pr0n site is?

HIM: Yes.

ME: Then it's not a bigger problem.

HIM: Oh.

ME: The bigger problem is that you somehow got hired.

• I do not find it unreasonable for a phone's dictionary to have 'taser' in it. Apparently LG does.

Speaking of Judge Judy.... the woman stirs up thoughts of illegal actions. Don't even....

I realize that my previous idea of a show where people pay to watch people hit her with a 2x4 might be a little much, but why not a taser? Taze Judge Judy! Within one season, the national debt will be wiped out.

If, and I can't imagine why, people ever tire of watching Judge Judy get tased, we can expand things to Taze Your Favorite Celebrities!  Are you tired of people being celebrities for no reason? Taze the Kardashians! Taze the Talking Heads (news and music).  Taze Oprah! Think of the possibilities. After the national debt is paid off, we can give billions to charities. It's a win-win.

• Oops -Google has been caught again. This time it's the Nest security camera, which was just found to have a hidden mic in it. 
• Think about it - Google is literally spying on you. This is deliberate.
• Between Faceyspaces and Google, it's a race to see how much of your data can be slurped up. Are you mad yet?  No.

• Speaking of Faceyspaces, they were just discovered using their own technology to keep tabs on ex-employees they feel can hurt them.

Dear lefty:

• Woger Wainbow, from Wolling Wock, Wisconsin, asks where this crap comes from.
• Well, Woger, the voices dictate and I just type. Don't tell anybody.

This week's paranormal research turns up two great headlines:

• Invisible UFO Recorded on Infrared Camera in Wiltshire  .... well, if it weren't invisible, how could it be recorded?
• 'Elixir of Immortality' Discovered in Ancient Chinese Tomb ...... apparently not all that successful

Let's finish up with something light.

How to 'fix' healthcare in the US.

Having been in the medical industry, a consumer, and an advocate, I have some experience and knowledge on the topic.

The Bernie-ites want socialism, and claim healthcare is free, as is college. If you have a remotely healthy number of functioning brain cells, you know nothing is free, regardless of politics.

Big Pharma and Big Insurance want whatever will cost them the least. They have been paying for this for years and years and are always the best bet for winner. Blame your representatives, who take the bribes contributions.

The lower-income folks believe they should be covered regardless.  Libertarians believe it's up to family, friends, and private charities. Others say it's society's duty to help those who can't (almost the same thing). Still others say let them drown. I think this routine is disingenuous: if prices for healthcare were reasonable, this wouldn't be an issue.

The UK and Canada thumb their noses at us because their system is superior.

Ahem.

Both have developed private healthcare systems because the main one doesn't work that well. Wait times are sometimes ridiculous. I can't get an approximate from either as to how much their 'free' healthcare costs them yearly. Mental healthcare is horrid, regardless of what country you're in. 

So how to fix it, regardless of the opinions of corporates with money?

I have no idea.

I can tell you in older days, you paid the doc out-of-pocket for your visits and insurance covered tests and hospitalizations. If you have Obamacare, it's not really insurance, until you pay your $5k+ deductible (more for a family). Many people can't afford insurance anyway. You can always negotiate a cash price with a doctor, but that doesn't work as well with the hospital. Also notice that private practices are being gobbled up by [hospital name] Healthcare System. This can't be good.

So, there are a bunch of facts and issues. Now what?
Whatever it is will have to be drastic, otherwise we're bandaging a bleeding artery, like Obama and Trump.

Please suggest something.

Frosting a Cake with a Paper Knife

A very common story told by people who have technically died and come back, is the Near Death Experience (NDE).  You know the story... traveling down a long hallway toward the light.. or a garden where your late relatives are waiting for you.

Sit down for a moment.
Stop the external and internal noise.
Go into the dark, maybe to the light, maybe a local light.
Are your friends and relatives there? Which ones?
What is their message, if any?
Think about it.



My wife experienced it.
She was up on the ceiling looking down.
Saw dead relatives.
They told her it's not time - go back.
Fortunately she did.


You're free to poo-poo it. You can tell me it's hypoxia and they're hallucinating (except they all seem to hallucinate the same thing).  It's a thought exercise. You don't even have to believe it's real.

• Things are going relatively well, in that I haven't heard more about the alpacas.

Parents are weird.

Even the most rational of parents have interesting little quirks.

My parents have some rather huge ones.

They're going on vacation, which is wonderful and we're all jealous. A family tradition is to take family to the airport. 

But not my parents. They leave early.

Early?

A day early.

From the airport?

No, but near the airport.

My mother, who can tell you who is about to call before the phone rings, likes to sleep at a hotel by the airport so they can get on the plane in the morning. To this day, no one understands why. I am the reason for many odd things she does, but I'm not owning this one.

• heard on tv: The Lesbian Cheering Squad is his latest picture.

The Pentagon has issued a directive restricting the use of fitness trackers and other devices at sensitive locations or high risk war zones.   The reason for this is that they got caught using the devices that divulged their location. In other words, nobody had an inkling that these devices could cause a problem, until it was pointed out in public. Then a directive was issued.

How long has ThermionicEmissions been warning about these devices? Please don't tell me one low level security d00d outdid the Pentagon by going ahead in his time machine and seeing what was going to happen. What clairvoyance! It's almost like he IS the future.

Seriously, folks.... we know the govt is a humongous monolithic organization that gets nothing done overnight (or century - you've worked at large corporations), but this....  this was not hiding in some black corner of the Dark Web, in back of Hitler's Rolls, under the picture of J. Edgar Hoover in full dress. This was a huge, beaconing, genuine emergency, visible to anyone who took a minute to think about safety and privacy.  I don't expect Joe Consumer would spend much time on this, but it shouldn't require a Serious Security Professional Prognosticator to check the Magic IT Ball to see the future.

These are the folks who protect our nation. Who spin up unbelievably huge new departments to help 'protect' us, at a cost exceeding the GNPs of most countries combined. You know better than to get me started on the result of this (TSA), right? Smile when you read your pay stub and see what you're paying for this.

This could be the harbinger of Bad Things in the armed forces. Wait - let me check my time machine.... fwwwwwip - yup, this is not going to be pretty.  Within the next few years, the Pentagon will restrict 'checking in' to Afghanistan location apps and posting your lattitide/longitude on Faceyspaces. No selfies of you in the sand on Instagram. And NO tweeting your location if you're in a country 'helping its leaders to better position the upcoming vote'. 

If this sort of thing is allowed to continue, it will no longer be fun to be in the military!


The Pentagon is welcome to contact me for consulting, but I'll save them a lot of money by having the NSA pass along what they gather from reading this blog. It's win-win. I get to blog, they get free warnings, and I get to help my country.

HONEY.... it's the phone... the Pentagon's calling again...

• a top supplier of iDevices had to shut down for a bit because of ransomware all over their network.  I told you iDevices are dangerous!

According to F-Secure, spam is through the roof because of the demise of Adobe Flash. Because people aren't using Flash, the criminals' pickings aren't as easy, so they turn to spam.  Here's the best part: long ago I was told that spam was so prevalent because 10% of its recipients clicked on it. Last year it was 13.4% and so far this year, it's at 14.2%. I often lament the fact that we're so incredibly stupid. I truly hoped that with time and knowledge, we'd become less stupid. That was stupid of me. We're spreading our stupid deeper and wider than ever before. We're actually getting more stupid. Not only do we not learn, we flatly refuse to, in favor of growing more stupid. But how stupid can we get, you ask? Don't ask, I say... they will never let you down.

• If you want to go against what security people say and insist on using public wifi, here are some tips to keep yourself relatively safe.

Overheard from an equipment vendor: "Our security team said we are not allowed to use the WiFi in our hotel room during this hacking convention, so I am running to the lobby to answer some emails."

We are doomed.

• They say, whoever they are, that our mind wants to see patterns in something we don't understand, so that's why we see things that aren't there. I wonder if this goes for the ears... The television is usually on at a volume which allows it to be heard in most of Australia, so I'm forever yelling COULD YOU TURN IT DOWN A BIT - AT LEAST TO AFRICA? I was just about to yell again, when I saw the tv was off. This means I'm hearing a tv that isn't on. The technical term for this is auditory hallucination. The technical remedy is antipsychotics. After too long or too many, one starts to sound like Ozzy Osbourne and shake a lot. I'd prefer to think my ears want to hear patterns.
• And that, my friends, is how babies are made.

COWORKER FOLLIES

HIM: This list has the information you want

ME: Do you remember the site for that information?

HIM: Whaddaya mean - the list?

ME: The site where it resides

HIM: On the list. Let me take a picture of the list and text it to you

ME: WHERE THE DEVICE LIVES, where it is plugged into power, where it sits behind a door, its location, where it gets a network plug, where it blinks its lights, where people go to fix it when it breaks, DID YOU LEAVE YOUR MEDICINE HOME AGAIN TODAY?

Frosting a cake with a paper knife... refers to a very old tv commercial for canned icing. It's so moist, you can spread it with a paper knife. Then she does. This was satirized by Frank Zappa in 'Flakes':

I am a moron and this is my wife
She's frosting a cake with a paper knife....

Eels Are in My Head, No Great Surprise to Me

She keeps seeing him out of the corner of her eye.
The kids leave the back door open, in case he needs to get in.
They both keep filling up his water bowl.
The house is quiet. It has only two occupants.
He is mostly functional, until somebody starts talking about him. There is a whole directory of pictures he looks at longingly.
People have been very good at respecting privacy.
The response from online friends is heartwarming.

There are two actual snail mail condolence cards. One is from the good neighbor's adult children. She was the one who he taught to feed him upon command. They sent their best and thanked us for watching out for Mom.

A card came from the vet. The staff who knew him each wrote a message.

It's amazing how one 40lb dog caught so many in his wake.

• Nearly a half-billion Internet of Things devices are vulnerable to cyberattacks at businesses worldwide because of a 10-year-old security flaw, according to a new report. The web exploit is called DNS rebinding, in case you really needed to know.
• Only half a half-billion?
• If you've got a Dongguan Diqee connected vacuum, a vulnerability will allow hackers to eavesdrop, perform video surveillance and steal private data from victims. Pro Tip: don't get your Dongguan Diqee caught in anything.
• Do not put these things in your house or business!
• I told you so.

If the Department of Justice finds out that a business or you are being hacked to influence an election they will let you know.

Make no mistake: hacking of any type is unacceptable.

But if your vote is caused or swayed by social media posts, perhaps you shouldn't be voting.

• Google's ("Do no evil"), new email interface invites all sorts of nefarious actors to send all sorts of nefarious emails. Even the DHS warned them about it. Read and note, please. Get off gmail.

I want you to know that I do not exaggerate the weather. Although it was sunny recently, things have gotten back to normal. From my weather app:

• Google ("Do no evil") registered duck.com.  Why? So anybody who made a mistake going to duckduckgo.com would get redirected to a google search. After Duckduckgo protested, Google removed the autoredirect.

Dear Science: why does Coke taste weird after eating food like chocolate? Can you please do something about it? Thanks.

• There is something outside that sounds like a duck. What does a duck sound like? It sounds like those things you blow to call a duck. Since it's unlikely there's a duck outside, I want to know what it is. The last time I asked Wife what a noise was, she said squirrel. I wonder if squirrel is just a default answer. To keep me from asking other questions.

A Virginia bank was hacked twice in eight months via phishing emails. The bank is suing its cybersecurity insurance for refusing to fully cover the loss. Godammit - we're stupid and you must pay for our stupidity!

• The Wendy Show is coming to Philly!
• Totally unrelated: Did you know that most people slit their wrists incorrectly? They slice across, when they need to slice along.

Let's get to know each other: send me your likes.

Here's my bio, as it appeared in Playboy:

Name: lefty - with a small l

State: Confusion, Chaos

Age: older than you

Greatest Strength: sarcasm. Like I care.

Ambition: yes

Aspiration: Big Rock Star<tm>

Hobbies: disturbing people

Favorite Food: pizza and Mila Kunis, pizza delivered by Mila Kunis

Favorite Activity: sitting

Favorite TV show: Marty Python - I know him

Favorite Car: 1970s Cadillac land yacht: trunk fits 12, 24 if you slice them thin

Pet Peeve: most animals (except polar bears) are right handed

I'm allergic to: mowing

What Really Bothers Me: everything

One Thing I Regret: blogging

Regret Missing Out On: Conical bras and free love

Favorite Sayings: No good deed ever goes unpunished, Don't

Favorite Song: "Sit On My Face, Stevie Nicks"

Favorite Artist: The Anal Intruders

How I Would Change the World: the illuminati would hire me as a consultant

If I Could Be a Tree, I'd Be a:  #1 - the Larch

Coworker Follies #37
ME: I'm forwarding this email because I can't read it.
HIM: I'm not sure what you're asking.
ME: I can't read this email. Can you?
Him: No.
ME: Thank you.
Him: I still don't understand. What are you talking about?
ME: Ask your doctor for medicine.




Two New Jersey radio hosts are suspended until further notice for referring to someone as a rag head. It's not what I'd do in the same situation but I have to step up for the sake of speech and gains.

There's a lot of history here.
Up until roughly the late 70s, radio was pretty sterile. A few hosts were trying to break the mold and get away with things. The big breakthrough was Howard Stern, like him or not. Howard fought like mad to get things on the air that had never been there before. He did battle with his own radio stations as well as the FCC.  He eventually won and went national. Howard broke through and got to say and do things never done before. He won a lot for radio hosts. While he was in trouble with the FCC, there was an unlikely coalition of hosts and others who volunteered to help in the fight. He really pushed the envelope.

For some reason, freedom of speech does not apply to radio and television. I strongly disagree with this policy. George Carlin satirized this in The Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on TV. The FCC is a completely ineffective organization that has proven that they speak for broadcasters, not the people.

While this fight was going on, the place to hear all the really good stuff was watching comedy at clubs and colleges. It was radical and hysterical. It started comedy's heyday. WTF is a heyday?

At the end of the 80s, my band played classic rock and comedy. Then we decided on comedy and achieved success nationally on radio stations, clubs, and colleges. We even appeared on the Howard Stern Show. Things were going well, until we noticed that colleges were pretty weird. No, really? At the end of one show, a 'concerned' student came up to talk to us. He was upset we were picking on women. And Jews. And Jewish women. Oddly, he didn't have any complaints about any other group. He accused us of all sorts of things. We were witnessing the start of Political Correctness. This was pretty odd in colleges, once the forefront of edgy comedy.

You know what happened with Political Correctness. It worked as diligently as possible to make sure all fun was canceled.  Words hurt. They probably kill too. Yes, the Social Justice Warrior was born. It only got worse, and continues to this day on social media and in person.

Now two disc jockeys have gone and offended the PC crowd. Again, I don't agree, but it's important to stand up for free speech, because free speech includes speech with which you do not agree. They went and said something offensive. They ran afoul of the PC crowd. Whatever you think about this, this is taking back all the gains Howard Stern made. Soon we'll be as sterile as radio til the 70s. If this is to be cyclical, we're wasting a lot of time and energy. My wife was trying to take the side of the listeners, saying that making fun of this person's turban was like making fun of somebody wearing a cross. I said that was just fine. No sacred cows. After some thought, she agreed that freedom of speech shouldn't be abridged. She's right, aside from the fact that she agreed with me.

• Last and definitely least, there's a dangerous new drinking game on college campuses. Parents are being warned, as are the children themselves: it's called the Ancient Aliens Drinking Game. You watch Ancient Aliens and take a shot whenever they say "ancient astronaut theorists believe...". Thus far, no one has made it to the second commercial break, 45 have wound up in the hospital, and thirteen are dead. Warn your children. Do not post this on social media or more people will die.

Show us your picks!

Golf Balls do NOT Talk

The Marshall Follies

Because having cancer becomes boring after a while, Marshall found a Thing growing on his leg. Multiple doctors said it was completely benign.

Until yesterday, when we noticed it had grown to almost the size of a golf ball and started talking to him.

We took him and his benign Thing to the vet. While the Thing was still technically benign, it could rupture, causing him to leak Important Red Fluid. Of course that will require an operation. I wonder, if operations were $25, would he require so many of them. Marshall is unfazed and requested another malt.

ONE DAY after typing the above, Marshall passed me in the hall. There were bloody pawprints all over the carpet, steps, and through the house. He's now bandaged and his operation is in the morning. Nobody really cares about the blood - Marshall just has to be ok. And he will.

ONE DAY later, he had his operation and was just fine. The entire vet office came out to see him. The owner ran out to see my wife and congratulated her on the cocker with 10 lives.

Unfortunately he's wearing the Cone of Shame. It only took a few hours, after knocking half the house down, to figure out you have to get the cone over the bowl to eat or drink. Now he sits next to us, panting and whining. He has his own fan, to which he is always oriented.

TWO DAYS later, the cone came off. It confuses and unnerves us when he behaves like a dog. Well, he behaved like a neurotic dog, and within a few minutes, had licked his wound open. Suffice it to say he now needs daily antibiotics and daily bandage changes. The vet office has been wonderful to us since this started.

Since the vet office isn't open on Sundays, it was our day to change the dressing. To day it didn't go well could be the understatement of this entire multi-year experience in blogging. I don't ever want to do that again, nor does he. He went to the emergency vet to have it done and is now sporting a glowing green bandage, which goes really well with his black fur.

• This week's stats are in and the winner was Spain, with either 130 or 7 page views.  I'm sure this is not Google's fault, because I always mix up 7 and 130.
• The positive takeaways are that linux is the most popular operating system and Internet Explorer is the least used browser.
• The most popular visitor name is Juan. Google knows all.
• I made that up. The Juan thing. Google still knows all.

Coworker Follies
I write about him largely because we have the most amazing communication breakdown in history. We can't get out a sentence without the other not understanding.

ME: You got stuck with Windows 10? That's horrible.
HIM: We'll see how you feel when you get it.
ME: Fortunately my machine won't ever break or need replacement.
HIM: Your home laptop?

we're talking about work machines. Where did my home machine come into this?

He sends me a text about an issue that's really cumbersome and will add a long time to tasks. We go back and forth, trading ideas. I send a final suggestion. He says he's ok with it as it is.

Then why did you bother telling me about it? Did you want to argue with yourself by proxy? Do you have so little to do that you have to needle your coworkers and make sure they're not doing anything either? Do you have some sort of really weird fetish that involves wasting your coworkers' time? Was it good for you too?

One Day Later....
ME: Oh man, I just took that technical training. HR stated that the PTSD incurred is worse than a day at the DMV.
HIM: Oh... wow... so you are exempt from taking it?


Meanwhile, we have to take a Workplace Harassment class.
I figure by next year, I'll be teaching the class. As a how-to.

• I've been living in the same house for a long time. I love my neighborhood. It's nice, safe, and quiet, as I tell everyone. Apparently I lied. It was quiet, until the machines took over. It started with the House That Took Over the Neighborhood. It started as a small starter home and now, in a 4 year process, is three times as large on the outside, and has seven floors down, the last one being 3,004 feet underground. Perhaps they're preppers. Maybe this is a Neighborhood Military thing to surprise the enemy (when we find out who the enemy is). Then the Loud Family, which has some form of construction every day of the week, including rain days. It usually involves a loud circular saw biting into something metal.
• Today it's BEEP-BEEP-BEEP, like a backup beeper from an 18 wheeler. The BEEP-BEEP-BEEP is coming at ten second intervals, as if the 18 wheeler is backing up, moving forward three inches, then backing up again. Perhaps one of our neighbors has opened one of those schools that you see on tv, where you learn to drive a truck in only four weeks.
• My wife, who keeps track of everything that happens in the hood, told me the neighbor was digging up her yard. Looking out the window, the 18 wheeler turned out to be one of those cute, tiny little Caterpillars that you rent to dig up yards when your shovel breaks. It digs one foot of dirt, then backs up. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. All day. Probably all night too. I just want to know why a piece of 'construction equipment' half the size of a VW Beetle, requires a backup beeper. Is it to protect little children riding by on their little trikes with their little helmets?

Unlike mowing, I do not have a pathological hatred of vacuuming.

It's a household thing, as even Marshall doesn't care about the nemesis of all dogs. He barked a bit when he was younger, now he figures screw it.

Tell me if you hear any of this while vacuuming... [I'm in italics]

You can't just vacuum. You've got to pick stuff up first.

Doesn't the vacuum pick stuff up?

No - that stuff will clog it up.

Let me give you the rug rake.

Why do I have to rake the rug?

To get up all the pet and people hair.

Doesn't the vacuum pick it up?

No - that stuff will clog it up.

I need to get at that dirt.

What dirt?

The dirt under the weed whacker. In front of the tv.

What is that huge black stain from?

You should try vacuuming under the chair too.

Why is there a three foot long screw by the couch?

That's not the dog - it's a dust cocker.

Are your guitars migrating to the living room?

No.

How many do you have out?

One - next to the couch. That's not a lot.

What are those?

Oh. Four total. That's not a lot.

Could you move that one - your parents are coming over.

Which one?

I can kill you from here, you know.

Please do something with that whip before your parents get here.

Does this vacuum pick up [THUMP - screech]. Apparently not.

• Wanna impress your snotty cybersecurity friends at parties? The answer is hell yeah, until you realize that cybersecurity people aren't at parties, so they stopped being invited years ago.
• Try this: a RAT is a Remote Access Trojan. It is placed on a system to create a backdoor for future access. A bank in India discovered its ATM wasn't working, despite being full of money. It was then they discovered the RAT. When they opened the machine, 17,500 rupees were shredded, by the dead rodent they found. Sometimes this stuff becomes literal.
• If you're a customer of the southern US PDQ food chain, hope you didn't use your cards to purchase anything. From May 19, 2017 – April 20, 2018 the system was hacked. PDQ had no idea, hence the ridiculous amount of time it lasted. The announcement said it might have happened via a vendor's remote access. They have no idea, but figure if you were a customer during that time, your card information was accessed. I'm sure they are very sorry, but forgot to say that in the announcement.
• Comcast shut down an interface on its site after it was discovered to reveal home addresses, account numbers and additional customer data without permission to others sharing the same network as the customer or using an app on the network. Comcast naturally apologizes and says they don't believe any data was accessed because you need to be logged into the network already.

• “Overlooking basic API authentication illustrates a shameful degree of negligence at Comcast,” Ben Johnson, CTO and co-founder at Obsidian Security

The good news: WPA3, the security successor to your wireless network's aging and already cracked WPA2, has been announced.
The also good news: WPA2 will continue to be strengthened.
The less than good news: it could be a few years before you see WPA3.
The OMG they did it again news: Easy Connect is a feature that makes it easier to connect Smart Home and Internet of Things devices to their networks. What could possibly go wrong?

• You know I hate social news stories, but my wife brought up that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have never texted. Kidman said it forces them to talk to each other. Wife said that they stole this from us.. we rarely text. Why, you ask? Because her phone is so brain damaged that it might refuse to ring or claim the call is email. If she tries to text me, it takes up to three days to arrive. Before you tell me this is on purpose, it takes the same amount of time for everybody else.
• Just to make things more interesting, it developed alzheimers and randomly mixes up information. When her mom calls, the first name displayed is the vet, the last name from my family, and a random picture. If she didn't know the phone number, she'd have no idea who was calling. I've spoken to phone experts who have never seen this before.

A New York school district wants to introduce facial recognition, to make its children safer. Ooh - new, invasive technology! But the privacy nuts won't like it. No problem, we'll say what we always say: It's for the children.

Ooh, wait.. it's not an accurate, proven technology. It isn't good at recognizing people of color. It also isn't good at detecting guns, although that's what the school board wanted to do.

The ACLU formally protested. The school board, in a closed session, rolled around the floor laughing. One actually peed in his pants.

• A hot new internet trend is posting pictures of the cat in your house that somehow appeared but isn't yours. So if your children ask where cats come from, tell them cats are a quantum lifeform that both exist and doesn't exist at the same time. When you are not observing them, they pop into existence and POOF - you have a cat. It's really that simple.

Just to let you know what kind of job police have in England, a woman attempted to rob a convenience store. The clerk locked her in and hit the Police button. She had a knife. Since she got nowhere with the knife, she picked up a bottle. The clerk wasn't impressed with the bottle, and she started threatening the people on the outside of the locked door. The police, understanding that the woman, on the other side of the locked door with the bottle, might use it on them. The cops went into Full Panic Mode and responded with riot gear and pepper spray.

Other countries should have this kind of trouble.

Oh Atlanta

The city of Atlanta got hit with ransomware a few days back. FBI, Microsoft, and Cisco are investigating. Mayor Keisha Bottoms (good God, no!) announced that the breach had been ransomware.  There is no word on whether the ransom will be paid, as Mayor Bottoms (I'm going to keep typing this name for months) did not elaborate. As we all remember, if you keep good backups, you should be ok. And don't click on anything. Anything. Just don't.

• It is with great surprise that I congratulate my area's snow removal personnel. Before the very large storm was over, the streets were clear. Including mine, which tends to be toward the back of the line. With a day or two of sun, there was precious little to shovel. Remember: shoveling is the major cause of heart attacks. Don't shovel.

Many many people marched over the weekend to protest the recent shootings. Or rather, they marched for gun control. Thousands and thousands of people marched against their own rights. 

Now, the disclaimers: 

* the marchers have every right to march - it's their First Amendment right, which I support wholeheartedly. 

* what happened in Parkland (and every other location) was unconscionable. Beyond tragedy. My heart goes out to those left behind. There was no reason for any of it.

* is there really any surprise that the shooter had issues, after the police were called to the house approximately 30 times?

* the sheriff and other law enforcement people failed to enter the school while the shooting was in progress. Police response time was 20 minutes.

* had the school taught the kids about the Constitution, perhaps they'd think twice about leaving class to protest it. But we don't seem to have any investment in teaching our children anything useful. I continue to not use algebra.

* one of the marchers in New York was Sir Paul McCartney. I don't know what Sir Paul's country of residence is, but I am getting tired of being lectured by people outside the country, who do not understand our laws and Constitution. It's bad enough our own people don't understand. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only musician who isn't a liberal (or conservative).

* I don't want to lose one life, under any circumstances; child or adult. I truly wish I had a solution. Gutting the Second Amendment is not the answer.

* No word on the senseless tragedy from Atlanta's mayor, Keisha Bottoms (told you so).

In the past day, I discovered that permits were applied for two months in advance of the parade.

• My friends at the Wall Street Journal (I lied - they don't return my calls) tell us that a Vanderbilt University researcher claims that hospital data breaches lead to patient deaths. 2100 patient deaths each year, according to the study. After a breach, quality of care goes down for some reason. This is a great article to read first thing. I love the smell of doom in the morning. 

The other day at the airport, beepers started going off. They were plentiful, and they were shrill.  Lots of serious-looking men in uniform, with guns, started arriving and waving these odd wallet-size devices around. They would emit their own screeching, varying in pitch. Eventually they located a woman and turned their beepers off. There are radiation sensors all over the place and the devices were portable detectors.  What triggered them? A woman who had a medical procedure involving low level radiation, five days prior.  I read about this happening at a border crossing a few years back, again from a prior medical procedure. Well, it's a good thing people aren't carrying dirty nukes through the airport, I guess. You can decide if your tax dollars are well-spent.

• The encryption mechanism in Firefox and Thunderbird's "Master Password" feature was found vulnerable.  If you use either, they will be upgraded. In the "I told you so" department, do not store passwords in your browser, please. Use a password manager.

The Coworker Chats

Monday morning...

ME: I've got training today from 1-2 and tomorrow from 3-4.

Tuesday morning...

HIM: I'm a little confused. Do you have training today?

ME: Yes, 3-4.

HIM: ok, thank you. I got my handbook today. Did you?

ME: I didn't order the print version.

HIM: So you received the download?

ME: no.

HIM: you don't need the handbook?

ME: I haven't received it.

HIM:  but we all got an email from them, asking us which we wanted.

ME: Please do not talk to me in the morning. Or afternoon.

-----------------------------------------------------------

ME: that training on helpdesk I took was a mess
HIM: the service desk or ???

ME: one of us needs to take a remedial English class. Guess which? The other one of us needs to start drinking,.

My old boss suggested pills, "because drinking takes too long to get good at".

------------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of old bosses, yesterday I flashed back to an old job. I was driving into work, when I got a call from my boss, who had gone missing for a week or two. He wanted me to be impressed because he admitted that he was an addict.

I pride myself on not overreacting to bizarre and sometimes tragic information, so I was able to drive while listening. I humored him (that's great, man, going away for 28 days?). He subsequently disappeared for another week, called to say hello, then disappeared completely.

Since that was the morning for phone calls, I got another, from a coworker. He got pulled over by the police, who found rather serious drugs, for some reason, and he was 'going away' for a bit.

So, aside from losing a substantial portion of our department, it was a pretty good day.

Epilogue:
I ran for boss. Coworker said he'd pray for me (he was serious). I became boss. Did good work. Drug Person went away for a while (we threw him a going away party). A year or two later, we were horrified to learn Boss died. Now I work for a place where gravity is more than a suggestion.

• The Federal Trade Commission announced it is launching an investigation into Faceyspaces' data privacy practices. Where have these people been for the last ten years?
• Rob Sherman is the deputy chief privacy officer at Faceyspaces, who said “We remain strongly committed to protecting people’s information. We appreciate the opportunity to answer questions the FTC may have.”
• In other news, Faceyspaces has a deputy chief privacy officer.  I hear the NSA has a deputy chief privacy officer too. Can you imagine that job? The main task is checking to see that your salary was electronically deposited on time. Perhaps the two of them play golf. Tiddlywinks? A second career in porn?
• Zuckerberg's take on your lack of privacy? You signed up for it.
• Atlanta mayor Keisha Bottoms has not announced whether she will appoint a chief privacy officer for Atlanta. Judging by the ransomware attack, the answer is no (I could go all day with this).

Dan Schneider and Nickelodon have parted ways.
Opted to end their longtime partnership.
Agreed to not extend the current deal.
Pursue other opportunities and projects.

Dan is responsible for The Amanda Show, What I Like About You, Drake & Josh, Zoey 101, iCarly, Victorious, Sam & Cat and more.

What this mealy-mouthed, extended litany of bull excrement translates to is: Hey Dan... the poop is hitting the whirling device's blades. The stories of your pedophilia are coming fast and furious. We cannot call you a pedophile, at least according to our legal department, so we'll agree to voluntarily separate.

Hollywood is a cesspool, although not the only industry we will hear from on this topic.

After thinking about this for a while, I finally remembered where I saw him.... he's Ricky from Better off Dead!

Dan Schneider

Ricky - Better off Dead

RIP David Ogden Steirs - Better off Dead (and M*A*S*H)

If you have not seen Better off Dead, stop what you're doing and find a copy. Rent or buy, if necessary. The movie stars a very young John Cusack, as the kind of guy that life likes to take a dump on every now and then. I cannot accurately describe it but it's hilarious and suitable for all ages (I think). If you have seen it, isn't it time to watch it again?

• This fella found out what kind of information Faceyspaces had on him...
• If you have finally decided to extract Zuckerberg's nose from your life, here are a bunch of URLs to add to your HOSTS file, along with its location.

Just the facts: Bishop Amvrosios (real name Athanassios Lenis, of course) is about to be retried. He labelled gay people the "dregs of society".  What kind of people are they hiring over there? Should Catholics be happy that he's not a pedophile (not yet accused)? Maybe he's just mad about the gay orgy held near the Vatican, with male escorts and all the trimmings. Yeah, that's it.

• Everybody loses stuff; we're just particularly good at it. Last week, somebody lost dinner. Ok, leftovers in a container, but still... 
• Somebody once said that we keep our landlines for the purpose of calling our cell phones to see where they are. 
• Yesterday, someone lost a case of dog food. Dog food. Can you imagine the talent involved in losing an entire case of dog food?
• Right before a job interview, I heard the famous phrase, "How does someone lose an entire suit?

Best Headline

Was Arianna Huffington involved in sex cult depicted in NETFLIX series?

• Not all news out of San Francisco is bad or involves Nanci Pelosi. An Uber car got stuck after accidentally driving down stairs. The driver was a senior citizen. He said he doesn't normally encounter this problem when driving off tall buildings.
• You know what's next, right? Uber car plows through convenience store. Senior citizen driver says, "I went to step on the brake and hit the gas instead."
• Mr Uber President? United Airlines is on line 2. They want to know if you want the name of their public relations firm.

A man near Seattle was arrested, suspected of sending suspicious packages to multiple military facilities in DC.  Police say his motive was not immediately clear, but [you know what's coming - sing along with lefty] there was no immediate connection to terrorism. And before you ask, I was nowhere near Seattle recently.

In unrelated news, a (non-elderly) man drove his car into the FBI building. In the moments after the crash, as they were hauling Muhammed bin Boom from his car, the FBI guys said that the crash had absolutely nothing to do with terrorism.

Today in Legal News

• New York, which has thus far saved its citizens from the scourge of drinking too much soda, as well as from people who are smoking while walking, has proposed making it illegal for employees to access work-related email outside their regular work schedules.
• Usually one must live in California to find this kind of outrageous silliness.

Something happens on the Supreme Court. Maybe it's the food. Maybe it's the atmosphere. Maybe stupid multiplies in proximity to other stupid, but in the interests of the country, someone had better find out.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been pictured falling asleep. She also said she would leave the country if Donald Trump got elected. And now former Justice John Paul Stevens says the recent demonstrators should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment. 

I am not a legal scholar - far from it. I am hoping that Stevens is, but it's dubious. The Second Amendment was to protect ourselves from tyranny, locally and governmentally, yet he sees no more use for it.  Somebody's been drinking the Kool Aid, Justice Stevens. You should be ashamed.

It was inevitable, but this is pretty quick

• In the news, yet another attractive high school teacher is up on charges, this time for performing repeated acts of oral sex upon an early teen boy. She will go to jail. The boy will get a wing of the school named after him, as well as straight A's and more pats on the back than all of the sports teams combined.
• Today brings us the news that more nursing assistants have been arrested for sex with patients. This is the second bunch to be charged, out of an Iowa care facility. 
• I don't know what you think, but before they are sentenced, can we have a study on this particular healing modality? At very least, sex releases endorphins, which are the body's own painkillers. That alone should qualify as therapy, so long as they don't try to bill it to the insurance company. What is more uplifting than sex with a 20-something nursing assistant? Except sex with the 44 year old assistant, who knows a few tricks the 20-somethings don't.
• The women were charged with sexual exploitation by counselor, therapist, or school employee.  Let's have a non-legal, non-medical, non-expert discussion of these charges. Sexual exploitation... let's ask the patients if they felt exploited. It's not like they were forced (unless they asked to be forced). The CNAs are not counselors, therapists, or school employees - there is no doubt or wiggle room there. Marshall the cocker could verify this.
• Stop for a moment. Think about baseball. Now, let's ponder sex with patients... I fully expect Weird Stuff to happen in any industry. We'd hear about it from time to time. But this particular Weird Stuff has happened at one facility. Do they do STD testing of employees? Do they hire from the horny pool? Is there something about new employee orientation that sets them upon the patients? What kind of weirdness would cause this to happen at one site? Something in the water? Depression caused by living in Iowa?
• If you, faithful readers, and I got together, we could solve many of the world's pressing problems. Meanwhile, I'm feeling ill. Perhaps a stay in Iowa would do me good.

Continuing the legal beat, a woman in Ohio was arrested for making lewd comments to the Easter bunny, while having her picture taken with it/him/her. Technically she was arrested for drunkenness, because, as we all know, it's not illegal to make lewd comments to the Easter bunny (unless you're in England and hurt Bunny's feelings).

• In-N-Out Burger in California (you think we'd get this far without a California story?) is filing suit against a prankster pretending to be their CEO. The prankster is a YouTube video-maker, and the chain wants damages of more than $25,000. Because pranksters on YouTube make that kinda money.
• In other news, employees of In-N-Out Burger in California have voted to keep a prankster claiming to be their CEO, as their CEO. An employee in their Van Nuys store said, on the condition of anonymity, "He's much nicer than the real CEO, so we're going with him."
• "This kind of thing would never happen here," said Atlanta Mayor Keisha Bottoms.

Seriously, people, you need to get control of these drones. I'm not kidding when I say lives are at stake. Down There in New Zealand, a drone came so close to a plane that the crew worried it would get sucked into an engine. Although planes are designed to operate on one less engine, you don't want to test the theory, right? The Boeing 777-200 was coming in for landing. 

In related news, New Zealand has planes? 777-200s?

Philly has planes too. And three-deep parking in the No Parking zone.

South Philly has double and triple parking in front of row homes. If you tell someone they cannot do that, they get up from their pasta and meatballs, come out their front door, and put a .45 right between your eyes.

• The dog just barked at a trash truck. Not that I mind him defending us from trash trucks, but this is Dog Behavior. It always freaks me out when he does something normal dogs do. I'd expect that he'd be guarding his mommy, in bed, at this hour of the morning.

Back to the Parkland shooting for a moment... there was a drill on that day.
Just like 9-11 and countless others. Note to everyone: if there's a drill scheduled for anything, take the day off sane. Or sick.

• I don't care how old you are; going from Bangkok to Phuket is funny.

Way back around 2000, I found an interesting online group, spending a lot of time chatting with them. I noticed some kind of common knowledge of an event, not related to the topic of the group. Finally I asked why it was a good idea not to be in New York around that time. And would I be in the path of whatever happened.... they indicated that I'd probably be ok but didn't know much more, other than a large, dangerous event.

Years later I recalled this and realized they were talking about 9-11-2001.

People and organizations are studying all sorts of odd things. At different places across the world, there are electronic coin-flippers, all connected to the internet. As we know, the odds of odd/even coming out on a coin toss is 50-50, more or less. The online flippers bear this out. Approximately a day before 9-11, they went widely out of pattern. Some people report dreams of burning buildings. Just information for you - do with it what you want.