The Magic Dingus Box

Your love is like bamboo under the fingernails




Dear lefty

• What do you do when the president has the Flying AIDS?
• offer to watch over Melania's treatment? 

The Pied Piper of Pennsylvania

Mrs lefty has some sort of power over spaniels that no one understands.
After 4 rescue cockers, I've seen a definite pattern.
They come home, and within a week, are following her around. Everywhere, including the bathroom.
Within a month, they're sitting at the door, whining, when she goes out.
Penny whines, then watches out the window (Dog TV) til her mommy comes home.

What scares me is that my Service Elephant, Iqbal, is starting to watch Mrs lefty walk around the house. If he starts whining and blowing his trunk when she leaves the house, the Service Elephant Training Academy will hear from me.

• My nose hair is especially thick and full-bodied today.
• Must. Change. Shampoos.

Russian interference in the upcoming election is getting more and more frantic, like the debates. Just yesterday, 3 people across Russia were attempting a Trump accent.

• Smart TVs are bad. Samsung is the worst. Startup ads not mentioned in privacy policy. Your data for sale, they brag to customers.

People complain that Work tells them nothing.
Mine tells us everything, and I appreciate it. Most of it has absolutely no relevance, but I think it's good that we can all understand something's happening and why.

ATTENTION ALL EMPLOYEES

Relevant

• The ice cream truck is outside

Not Relevant

• The HR department will be getting new copiers. No, you may not use them.
• Accounts Receivable has inaugurated their new One Record per Account initiative, wherein files in the computer will will be dropped randomly, resulting in new, higher losses for the Corporation. A/R will have a lot of work to do, in order to compete with the original method, where many records were dropped when they weren't supposed to be.

Relevant

• The food truck is outside

Not Relevant

• Please join us for recognition of Gender Awareness Week, which takes place in the Main Hall. Men are required to wear high heels, and 10 lucky men will be selected at random for the Miss Corporation Beauty Pageant. Judging will be done by women with short, spiky hair.

Relevant

• Donuts in the main lobby

Not Relevant

• Accounting will receive their long-awaited new pencils on Friday at 3pm Eastern. They will not know about it until Monday, because you can never find anyone from Accounting after lunch on Fridays.

So let's discuss the law that both sad candidates want to change that would affect social media. Currently, social media is not responsible for what users post. The candidates want to make them responsible.

As a libertarian, I don't think the government has any business here. The companies are private and should remain unbothered (BAKE THE CAKE).

If your newspaper features a personal for-sale ad, which turns out to involve a crime, should it be held responsible? Should a store be held responsible for a 3x5 card someone puts up on their community bulletin board? It's not only a ridiculous burden to the business, it's probably a free speech violation, among other things. It's every bit as ridiculous as punishing them for not allowing certain speech.

Congress is threatening to subpoena the heads of Faceyspaces, Twitter, and Google, unless they show up voluntarily. Haven't we seen this show before? It was really bad the first time. They added privacy and bias to the topics. Dems deny there is any anti-conservative bias.

This is complete and utter bulldoockey. To deny anti-conservative bias is to not have used social media in the past few years. I watched it happen on Twitter and  Reddit, then read about YouTube and Faceyspaces. The moment you were guilty of Wrongspeak, you were punished, starting at removal of the post, de-monetarization, and ending in being thrown off the service. You couldn't even appeal or talk to a human about the alleged infraction. I screamed when this started - not because I'm a conservative, but because anything could then be censored. The liberals didn't care - they were just happy they got speech they disagreed with shut down. I couldn't get across to them that they might be next. There's also the matter of who decides what's correct and what's conspiracy theory? An awful lot of conspiracy theories proved true.

While I stand by my statement that businesses shouldn't suffer government regulation, I want you to think about the effect of this. All social media is now left-leaning. This means that people will never hear about any alternatives unless they specifically go searching for them. Add in payment processors, hosting companies, and internet connections, and you have a humongous education/indoctrination program for the country (and world), that speaks with one voice. Imagine how powerful this is. Before this started, most people didn't know there was a libertarian party or what they stood for. Pretty soon it will get worse.  I can't demand these private companies do anything, but I'm pointing out the larger effects of this obviously organized program.

• Amazon Fulfillment Centers' serious injuries topped 14,000, despite safety claims. No word on how many deaths that includes. Amazon also admitted to over 19,000 deaths.
• In unrelated news, Amazon announced its new Head of Fulfillment Safety, Hillary Clinton

Champion jockey Oisin Murphy tests positive for cocaine and says he will "fight to clear my name".      ...as soon as the coke clears from my system

These people are funny. The police could watch someone pull a gun and kill an innocent person, with 12 surveillance cameras taking video, and the accused will stand up and demand justice, because he did NOT kill that person.

• Ireland has ruled that Subway bread must be taxed, due to its sugar content.
• Ireland is a very weird place.

Debate rules are being changed after the initial Trump-Biden ugliness.

Step back a second and think about this.... debates are nothing but spectacle in the first place, and now people are outraged about style over substance. Nobody has called for honesty or asked serious questions - that should be the outrage. That is why they're called The Great Unwashed.

• The Vatican denied Sceretary of State Mike Pompeo an audience with the pope.
• The official story was that they don't get involved in politics.
• The unofficial story was that Pompeo is not a hot little altar boy.

Anniversaries of Birth

Albert Collins - the Iceman of the blues
Julie Andrews - "Look at my breasts!"





SJW SOLUTION?

Coinbase, a major cryptocurrency exchange based in Silicon Valley, has announced that it will not engage with pressing social issues such as racial injustice and is offering exit packages to employees who disagree.

Navy SEALs change official ethos to be gender neutral, remove ‘brotherhood’ and more.   “To date, no women completed the SEAL or SWCC qualification training pipelines.”  Army changes official ethos to be species-neutral, because you never know when a non-human will join, and we have to reflect that inclusivity.

* The Magic Dingus Box was a homemade control unit that was built and used by Danny Gatton, the World's Best Unknown Guitarist.

Danny was so good, he was hailed the world over, by stars of the guitar world (Les Paul!), as The Humbler. As I type, a movie is near completion, called The Humbler. Visit, learn, contribute.

Sadly, Danny suffered from severe depression and took himself out.
I maintain that art is produced by Serious Internal Agita.

Please Move the Cheese. It Stinks.

Polar bears are left-handed. So am I.
Since I went to public school, I know this makes them my ancestors.

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

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

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

Speaking of which, how about that Border Security?

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

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

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

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

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

Will heads roll?

No, but eyes will.

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

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

• PRO TIP: if you're really really drunk and if you really really have to wee outside, do not do it on a police station.

Isn't it great and nice and convenient that your new car is connected to the internet? Potentially, yes.

Realistically? Are you kidding me?
Your data is for sale to the highest bidder.
The cherry on the top is that you get to pay for the privilege!

OEMs are adding firewalls to your car!
Even if they were effective, your data will leave the car and be sold, where the profit margin is 80-90%.  What will you get from this? Nothing, at this point.

There are articles on the web on how to pull the cables that connect this. If  I were to buy a car today, I'd be certain to demand the car not be a connected car. Start by not agreeing to pay a carrier to connect it (although you'll still have to disconnect existing gear, especially if there's an OnStar-like feature).

Read the article. Now is the time to educate yourself and make your choice known.

• According to a paper, we're all exhausted.  We're exhausted over things like "Wildfires, terror attacks, rising tensions with North Korea, racist rallies, political investigations in Washington, the non-stop barrage of presidential tweets, more and worse mass shootings from Las Vegas to Florida, a tsunami of sexual harassment accusations, the role of Russians in our elections, climate change, red state-blue state division and not one, not two, but three of the worst hurricanes on record — including one that nearly blew Puerto Rico out of the Caribbean Sea. "
• I thought it was just Mondays.

Everybody's favorite airline, United, has been out of the news for a few weeks, so here's the first entry for February: A passenger used the emergency exit and slide to leave a plane he just boarded at Newark Airport. For some unknown reason, the police arrested him.

No one has been able to find a reason for the event, and the plane was delayed for five hours because of it.  It's kind of a shame the doors are locked once the plane is in the air. To be fair, United has absolutely nothing to do with this very silly behavior, unless one of the flight attendants mind-controlled him and told him the plane was on fire.

• A rare snowfall blanketed Rome the other day, causing many at the Vatican to conclude that hell has finally frozen over.

I never regret not having a Faceyspaces account. Not even being unable to see the Murder/Suicide Channel, where you livestream your own suicide or yourself committing murder. A new entry was a man streaming his own murder.

Well, he didn't actually start out to catch his own death, but while he walked along, someone shot him. He remains quite dead, and Wingate University (North Carolina) went into lockdown for an hour, as did the state of Florida. Five buses full of NRA protesters were immediately diverted to North Carolina, and ten buses of Second Amendment supporters were hot on their heels.

• I hate to be the one to say it, but Monica Lewinsky looks pretty good these days.  

I wonder if she'd be up for a cigar...

Experts claim  that robots will take over and 'treat humans like guinea pigs'.

Yes, they will be taking over customer service positions.

• Broward County deputy Scot Peterson is taking an untold amount of grief for not running inside during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High that killed 17. Peterson says he didn't initially believe that the gunfire was happening inside the building, which is why he hid looked for the gunman outside. Footage of  Peterson's actions can be found here.

• A man suspected of swallowing drugs is having his output monitored. Word is that he's on a 38-day toilet strike and 'would rather die than poo'.
• C'mon  - when was the last time you went three full days without pooing? Remember all the pleasant feelings? Especially the ones in the car, on the turnpike, with the next bathroom 53 miles away?

Madonna has slammed modern hitmaking.

No, seriously.

The first musical no-talent queen of marketing is upset with the genre she pioneered?

In completely unrelated news, Barack Obama is very upset about all the black people running for office.

• My bestest buds over at Apple have revealed a giant, high-end iPhone. Because $1200 wasn't charging the customers enough. There will also be a bargain model released (expected price, $1199.99).
• Although the new iDevice won't be out til late this year, people are already lining up at random phone stores, in Apple Position: on their knees with wallets outstretched, drooling out of at least on side of their mouth, and thinking of new ways to praise this wonderful phone that they have not tried to their friends.  In anticipation, their friends have all moved to South America.

"Call Me By Your Name" is hailed as a heartbreaking gay romance, but Hollywood's SJW Squad is pissed that two straight actors were cast in the lead. Perhaps the Squad can be appeased if the actors claim they're closeted.  I left my acting certificate in my other pants, but I guess you'd have to be a hell of an actor to play gay.

The only acting I ever do is trying to play Adult. It's difficult and takes a lot out of me.

• According to a study at the University of New Jersey, Camden Campus, eating fruits and vegetables slashes your depression risk by ten percent. In a universal declaration, the US stated it will take its chances.

Attorneys for a 15-year-old accused of stabbing a woman to death last year in Colorado is about to claim that acne medicine made her do it. In the meantime, you should either avoid or start using Accutane, depending on your situation.

• Next time you decide to fly, if you can get past the TSA, think about this flight. I watched a play by play and noticed people saying 'aboot' and 'pop' (soda) so I knew it was a Canadian airline. A passenger asked for a pop and was less than amused to be charged $3 for it. He got loud. The flight attendant, previously known as stewardess, previously known as Hey Babe,  tried to calm the fellow down, but he shifted topic to paying taxes on duty-free stuff. When Hey Babe said she was just handing out headsets, he let slip that he should bomb Canada.
• Perhaps he was a time traveler from August 2001. Perhaps he had consumed most of what he bought at the duty-free. Perhaps he should have been denied a seat due to "Too stupid to fly."
• If I were on that flight, I'd hope the crew could distinguish hysterical laughter from evil laughter, lest I take an unplanned ride after the flight.
• For some reason, the plane's captain was less amused than me and pulled an aerial u-turn, back to Toronto. Upon landing, the plane was stormed by Canadian Special Forces (armed with curling brushes) and the Pop Protester was removed. He had no idea the welcoming committee was exclusively for him. He was later discovered to have issues.
• The replacement plane had to divert also, due to a medical emergency.
• Here's the special attention part: since September 11, 2001, any time there's an emergency like this, planes flying through the US get F-15 escorts. I'm wondering what an F-15 can do about a loudmouth, or even a loudmouth with things that go boom. Then they explained things.... the plane that exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, sent debris all over the place and caused many casualties on the ground. So they don't want planes going down over populated areas. I'm still asking myself how F-15s can stop a plane from exploding. The fellow explains that they're escorting the plane and if anything looks bad... they can make a decision then.  
• Uh-oh.

Danny Gatton - the world's best unknown guitarist.

Here's a local story on him and his struggle for The Big Time.

He toiled for years, with recognition from local fans to big guitarists. He made the cover of Guitar Player and Vintage Guitar. He played with cars, ala Jeff Beck.

Danny could play jazz, country, rockabilly, blues and whatever else he wanted. Guitar players would watch him, slack jawed. I stood a couple of feet from him at a now-defunct club in Philly. He did a bit where he played slide with a beer bottle. One day there was a kid there with crutches and Danny played slide with a crutch.

Eventually Danny broke out and produced a few really good CDs.

Here's the Sun Medley (Mystery Train, My Baby Left me, That's Alright)

He appeared on Austin City Limits, finally expanding his audience. He really started to hit big. He was a star with audiences and throngs of guitar players, who simply could not believe what he could do.

Shortly thereafter, Danny chose to take his own life, using the shotgun method (not a terribly popular rock star goodbye).

If shit ain't feelin' right, please speak up. You'd be depriving the world of so much more.

I still see his original 1953 Telecaster at guitar shows.