The Emotional Evils of Ebay

I don't get out much, nor does my house's heater.
I don't even get online much, also like my house's heater.
Way back, I used to spend a lot of time on Ebay, to the point of having little brown boxes showing up at my door daily. If I didn't do a few transactions per week, Mr. Ebay would call me up to make sure I was feeling ok, much like Shoe Shopping Network and Mrs lefty. Eventually it occurred to me that I had to keep paying for these things and other things started happening, so the boxes stopped. No so Mrs lefty and the shoes.

Mrs lefty understands Ebay but doesn't spend a lot of time there. Being an occasionally nice husband, I occasionally point out a thing or two, like some amazing shoes and stuff she likes. If I were possessed of any live brain cells at all, I'd have stopped showing her additional ways of shopping a long time ago, but we know of my great love for shooting myself in the foot. In fact, at this point, I know of 437 ways to shoot myself in the foot, backed up by xrays. To make matters more evil, Ebay has this relative new thing... Ebay is on its way to becoming sentient, like Sky Corp, but more expensive. Wife was looking at shoes, just doing what came natural to her, and checking the Watch button on pairs she liked. She quickly learned the button can only store 500 pairs at a time, so she pared back. The thing that shows Ebay is almost alive is where Ebay watches the watch list. If the item (we'll call it shoes) doesn't look like it's going to sell, Ebay will email you that you can buy it for $20 off or some other discount. In my second shot at my foot that day, I told my wife the shoes were $20 off. BINGO - through the foot and the wallet at the same time!

I'm going to put a guitar on the Watch List, to see what happens.

If you think Ebay is bad, Amazon is already sentient. It knows exactly what you bought and can tell you what you're going to buy next. Every now and then I buy some baby toys or high heels to confuse it.



We're on the eve, or the beginning, of  a serious heatwave. No, not the song, the temperature. I hear it's going to feel like 100 on the beach in New Jersey tomorrow. Good thing we're not in New Jersey, eh? We got a break, in that it's only going to be 99 here. So many benefits of not living in New Jersey.  Due first to the Flying AIDS, and now to the temperature, we don't get out much anyway, so we're less likely to notice how hot it is, except when we lay under the car on in the driveway. To this day, we have no idea why. The only way we really know it's hot is when the news has wall to wall coverage of how HOT it's going to be. It's just like the 5 days' warning we're going to get 1/4" of snow in the winter. WARNING: we're going to have WEATHER tomorrow!

Another thing the Flying AIDS has killed is my only summer activities: guitar shows and electronics flea markets (hamfests). Thus far, they're all canceled. We know that less time out of the house is more time in the house, which means the strain goes back on Mrs lefty.  Even though places are opening up, they still require masks, and I refuse. They make my nose sweat and annoy me. So I'm still in the house, questioning my life choices.


Florida's a mess, but this time due to the Flying AIDS, which is on the rebound. They're thinking of locking down again. I say go ahead - the more of Florida locked down, the better off the rest of the states.

Speaking of Florida, a fatal motorcycle crash was listed as a Fying AIDS death. Asked to check again, the death was removed from the Flying AIDS list. Because sometimes it's hard to differentiate between a bloody motorcycle crash and a disease. They look so much alike. Looking further, other deaths that might be removed from the Flying AIDS list involved explosions, suicide by gun, leaping off buildings, and claiming to have evidence against the Clintons.

In today's Mask Follies, a woman urinated on the floor after refusing to don a mask at a Verizon store. Police had better investigate thoroughly; things are not always what they seem. Perhaps it was a statement on the quality of Verizon's service...


An NBC Sports jockey is filing suit, claiming discrimination because he's a heterosexual.


Hundreds of people tried to pull down the very large Columbus statue in Chicago. You know, these people can probably make good money in demolition. Why don't they get jobs?


In the midst of everyone having to bow down to Black Lives Matter, everything stopped while a black guy had to do an Apology Tour to be sorry to the Jews. That's power.


This is killing me... hundreds of advertisers are cutting spending on Faceyspaces. I almost feel guilty for laughing.*               *not really


A Kentucky couple was fitted with ankle monitors and placed on house arrest after the wife tested positive for coronavirus but refused to sign self-quarantine documents, according to reports. See what happens when being kept inside for too long stops drunk tractor racing?

not available on ebay

Weaponized Bunnies?

THIS JUST IN

Early Pleistocene enamel proteome from Dmanisi resolves Stephanorhinus phylogeny

Don't say I didn't warn you...



Mozilla is supercharging Firefox with two new features: one is DNS over HTTP, which hides your DNS requests. This makes it more difficult to track you. Coming up is their VPN. This will protect Firefox traffic only. When you connect to a site through the vpn, your IP address will not appear. However, you'll still get cookies (if you allow them) and your 'fingerprint' will be the same. Still, it's best to use this whenever you can, especially at 'free wifi' spots. A (free) Firefox account is required. Firefox will also be blocking trackers by default.

You can also use TOR - free browsers are available in your app store.

DNS and VPN services are provided by Cloudflare. There is no mention of a vpn for mobiles. Cloudflare is huge and reputable, but they can be 'asked politely' for information by governments. 


Dealerleads.com left their entire database, 413gb of data, open on the internet. The data is potential car buyers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses and more. This stuff is crazed and it's not going to stop anytime soon.

WhatsApp 'delete for everyone' doesn't delete media files sent to iDevice users.

iDevice lockscreen bypass: iOS13 tricked into showing your contacts.



I'm looking at my phone, checking on the wireless networks on the block.  It finds something called Bedroom TV. This should be fun. Last time it found an open printer. It took all I had not to print a few pages out for them.

• "Tyranny is always better organized than freedom." - Charles Peguy

Dear lefty

• You sound happy today
• I got some sex last night. I'm just not sure from whom.

It's 9:15am on a Saturday. It's gray outside and it might have stopped raining. Someone is running a weeder with an 8 cylinder 454 Corvette engine outside my window. Legal question: is it wrong to smoke near its gas tank?

• California passed a bill to ban police use of facial recognition. I'm stunned.
• But only on People of Color.  that's better.

Today I identify as another white guy exercising his privilege (but not his body)

About a year ago, six Stingray devices were found around Washington, DC. These devices fake being a cell tower site, so all phones in the area connect to it, and the owner has 100% of the information flowing through it.  Not that anything important happens in DC, you know, around the White House....

The FBI did some research and discovered they belonged to Israel. The FBI is pissed, calling the Israelis Copycat and Thiefy Thiefy, for stealing their toy. 

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said, "No intelligence work in the US, no spies."  Yeah, ok.  The Mossad is famous for its spying and have been doing it in the US for quite a while. They just got caught.

In a previous post, I talked about foreign aid. The largest recipient is Israel, at something like $8+ billion. Do you think this bolsters my argument that we should cut off all foreign aid?  Hell, it's our money....

Large Question: How is Israel so popular and well-defended in the US? Most presidents and all Congresses kowtow. Does Israel get pictures of them from Epstein?

No thank you, I'd rather file taxes.

It's only September, but here's an early winner for Tweet of the Year:

Instead of more debates, the Democrats should settle this the obvious way: whoever can go door to door and forcefully confiscate the most AR-15s in the next 6 months gets to be the nominee.  @liberty4masses

I haven't seen the local news in quite a while, so I sat down. I was stunned.
There was a huge story about a man whose dog shredded a box, put in the wrong spot because the postal worker was afraid of the dog. They interviewed the dog owner, who spent a long time pontificating about the postal service. They spoke to the postal service, who had a statement and apologized. THIS IS NEWS.

Then it was Major Coverage of the tv star who paid tens of thousands to have her less than intellectually gifted kid pass a test. Oh my God, she's being sentenced! Then there was some anti-police grafitti on a jogging path, featuring interviews with a neighbor and the police chief.

I live in a large metro area. There is never a shortage of news. Democratic debates just happened - that might qualify as news. Not here, apparently. No wonder I stopped watching news. This is the Taylor Swift song of news: vapid, containing nothing of value, but nice. With a good beat - we can dance to it. I give it a 3, Bob.




Heroes of the Stupid

The Ontario government lost $42m selling cannabis in the last year.

from TV news: We tried to reach out to the man who died in the accident, but he was unavailable for comment.

Florida couple accused having sex in the back of a police car following arrest.

Florida man smokes meth, snorts coke, takes Xanax, passes out, wakes up and masturbates in the hospital, police say.  He's a middle school science teacher, obviously in the midst of doing some Science.

Florida: Crossdresser robs bank, steals cop car. Did it fabulously




SJW Stuffiness

Pete Buttigieg is not gay. He's a heteronormalized man who has sex with other men. There's a difference.


NY City Commissioner: replace male statues in Central Park with women.


PC couple are keeping their toddler's gender a secret so the child can decide later.      The child's religion too?

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]

Vermin Supreme Has Ideas

A JetBlue flight was interrupted when iPhones were sent a picture of a suicide vest. An iPhone feature allows people within 30' to send pictures.

More iDevice-related terror.

iPhone privacy tips.


If you use WhatsApp or Telegram, you'll want to turn this setting off. Now.


Police can start with almost no information about a person of interest and instantly know intimate details of their lives. Interested in the latest assault on our liberties?

• Police in Tennessee have requested people not flush their drugs, because it could lead to 'meth-gators'.

Dear lefty

• How many SJWs does it take to change a light bulb?
• None. Light Bulbs are a tool of the patriarchy.

Reaching way back, Robert Plant's first two post-Led Zeppelin tours and albums featured a relatively unknown drummer called Phil Collins. Must've been a tough road, being famous with Genesis then drumming for Robert Plant.

But, you're asking yourself, what did Zep look like at their first concert?




Florida

A Florida man was sentenced after raping his baby daughter and posting footage to the web. I'm sure he'll be very popular in prison.

The Florida DMV sells your personal information to private companies and marketing firms...  hint: they're not the only ones.

A Texas woman lived with her dead mother for three years.
Texas must be a city in Florida.

A Florida man has been accused to cutting off his neighbor's genitals after catching him having sex with his wife.



A thief in Philly stole a man's car, with his kids inside.
The man took off after his kids, caught up with his car, and yanked the thief out.
Neighbors offered their assistance and somehow the thief wound up dead.

Instant Karma.

• I just watched Penny the Wonder Cocker catch a bird. She's fast.

Batteries and Self-Driving Cars
My buddy was looking at hybrids. The one she saw recommended replacing the batteries every 5 years, at $8k. I wonder if it's covered under the warranty...

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but the green push to electric cars blindly ignores the cost of manufacturing batteries, generating electricity at home and charging stations, and disposing of old batteries. Doesn't seem that green to me.

Along the same lines, driverless cars are not ready for prime time, yet we hear about them as if they're flawless. Even the testing has someone at the wheel, just in case. This also ignores the privacy and security aspects.



Rhubarb ain't what it used to be?

We attended a hamfest over the weekend. Before you laugh about porcine references, a hamfest is an electronic radio flea market. We had a blast, looking around at stuff for sale. While I was looking at something, a guy at the next table hailed Mrs. lefty. He asked if she liked her vegetables. He handed her a bunch of rhubarb, along with directions to cook it. When she asked what she owed him, he said nothing. Hams are some nice people. If we get randy, we can flog each other with it. Or she could cook it. I'm voting for the former.

As I type this, there is a tv show with a segment on rhubarb.

Since we were looking at radios and other goodies, I scored a small mixer and microphone. The others got carabiners, electronics learning kits, and assorted toys. It was a fun time.

• In order to grow almond trees, you need to plant two kinds of trees: male and female. Don't look outside unless you really want to watch trees fuck.

President Trump continues to endear himself to the rest of the world via tweets. Responding to criticism from the Anti Defamation League, that $8 billion is not enough aid for Israel, Trump suggested they go back to Israel. When informed the members of the ADL were American-born, he said they hated America and were antisemites. Democrats said the tweets were racist and sexist. CNN is reporting from the Trump toilet. Israel said everyone hates the ADL. A spokesman for the White House said it was moving to New Jersey.

• Someone needs to tell dress manufacturers not to run a seam right up both breasts. The newslady has a glaring yellow dress on, with what look like huge nipples....
• Oh.

SJW Sayings

We're just past the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. It was an incredibly important event worldwide. There's some great footage of people in other countries, lined up in front of television stores, watching the event and wishing the astronauts the best. Meanwhile, back home....

• Democrats of color protested the moon landing as sexist, racist, and a display of white supremacy.
• Women in tech organizations demanded new missions to be women-only.
• Liberals said that if the aliens invade and try to kill us, they should be granted immediate citizenship.
• Republicans are desperately searching for a way to become invisible.
• Moon landing skeptics were locked in a small room at NASA, with no net access.
• The president said that if the astronauts had any complaints, they should go back to the moon.

[Twitter] Since at least the 1950s, "communist" has become a popular coded word for nigger. Let's be real. Black Russians?

Rihanna is accused of cultural appropriation. On the cover of Harper's Bazaar China, her hairstyle and jewelry are similar to Chinese styles.

Vermin Supreme for President - free ponies

Condoms in the Workplace

Did you know the web was largely text-only at the beginning? From the command line, you fired up Lynx, a text browser. If there were images in the page, all you saw was [image]. It has been suggested we go back to lynx, if only for reducing the load on our computers. 

In case you're curious, email was handled by programs like elm and pine, also from the command line. No email programs on your computer. No html. No emojis. No wallpaper, no pictures, no viruses.... All monitors were black and white (or green or yellowish). You couldn't see a picture no matter how desperate you were. I would go back to this email in a second, It's still available.


Magecart hackers infect 17,000 sites through misconfigured Amazon S3 buckets.   This is THE CLOUD, people. It's bad enough you don't keep your data in-house, but sending it to THE CLOUD without correctly configuring the highway is pure idiocy. And this is the latest and greatest hack - you just scan for open buckets and hack away.


The City Mayors' Association has voted not to pay any more ransoms when they get infected with ransomware.

That's nice.

The City Mayors' Association hasn't voted on backing up their networks, patching the machines, and training the employees not to click on phishing emails.

This policy will suddenly be recalled. As soon as the next city gets hacked.


Microsoft pushed another Win 10 update, this time including a telemetry file. For those of you not familiar, this is the Designated Spying Section of Win 10. If you turn it off, the spying won't stop entirely.  RECOMMENDATION: use a safe, secure operating system that doesn't spy on you.

•  PRO TIP: if you need some political wisdom, consult Ron Paul, not Ru Paul. Trust me.

Dear lefty

• How do we achieve world peace?
• Boom boom. Just enough boom boom so there's little time to do anything else, but you still want more.
• this offer not valid on any day of the week ending in Y. Priests and Boy Scout leaders not eligible. If you sell counterfeit NFL jerseys, ICE will break down your door and deport you.

Fine Florida Finesse

A Florida woman was arrested after ruining $2,000 worth of ice cream by spitting, picking her nose, and urinating into containers.

This is not some 15 year old looking for net cred (she's well past 30). At least the police are catching these idiots. Next up: sneeze guards on ice cream freezers.

A Palm Beach, Florida, principal has been removed after questioning the factual existence of the Holocaust, to protect Holocaust deniers from having to hear propaganda forced on them.

A Florida woman was charged with a felony after her daughter was filmed licking tongue depressor in a medical center.

• Stevie Wonder told London fans he's getting a kidney transplant in a few months. A donor has been found. Good luck, Stevie. 
• In unrelated news, a Cleveland man scored backstage passes for life to Stevie Wonder concerts, plus an all expenses paid vacation with Stevie.

Why do I love our Hyundai?
Aside from many other reasons, it has held together through an uncountable number of people hitting it. It was happening at least monthly. It was personal. Fortunately the accidents stopped.

Until today, of course.
Wife shops at Costco, which I can't stand due to crowds and incontinent, entitled old people. One of these incompetent grannies backed right into our parked car, then jumped out, screaming, and demanded the police be called (she probably couldn't operate a phone, no less a car). Yes, it's personal.

Costco, you're on notice.
You owe us for every ding caused by these aged oafs. You owe us for grief suffered from the dings and grief suffered because of these antedeluvians clogging up the incredibly wide aisles. They leave their carts in the middle and walk off.  I wonder if they ever find their way back. Old people are a treasure, except your old people. You need to modify your client base or set up special shopping hours for them only (so they can run into each other and scream).

To make the experience complete, Costco didn't have Raisin Bran. What kind of insane asylum is out of Raisin Bran? The last actual insane asylum I visited had Raisin Bran in the kitchen. Just not Costco.



We don't mess with genetic engineering on humans, but we're having a blast with fruits. These exist:

pluot - plum crossed with apricot
apriplu - apricot crossed with plum

This is the same principle as greenish blue and bluish green. Partly sunny and partly cloudy. Slightly pregnant.




The year was 1968. Apollo 8 launched and orbited the Moon. While around the dark side, where communications don't work, astronauts saw a light; one suggesting it looked like a campfire.

In the capsules is a recorder, which takes down all audio. Upon return, the audio was transcribed, then classified, of course. Recently the transcription was declassified, and the discussion about the light was read for the first time.

Apollo 11 saw something similar and managed a photograph. It's pretty convincing. Even NASA's Denial Squad Guy fully admitted they saw it and didn't try to poo-poo it.  The non-NASA Denial Squad tried too, but were debunked.

There is still no answer (available) as to what they saw.




Ever wonder what happens when priests get caught molesting children?
Opus Bono steps in with help, money, shelter, defense.... and they're well-funded.

Everybody deserves legal representation, but these people sicken me.
If there is a hell....




SJW Stuff

A Virginia man was arrested after burning a flag in the parking lot of a Walmart. The sheriff acknowledged the person's right to burn a flag, but arrested him for 'doing it in a public place with the intent of intimidating others.'

That charge is still a speech charge. When does burning a flag count as intimidating others? Having large, threatening-looking men at polling places is intimidation. If this shining example of a sheriff wanted to 'teach him a lesson' he might have considered something around a disturbance on someone else's property. It's Walmart's parking lot, not his. He should have burned the flag on his own property. But we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, plus the police there don't like flag burners, so they have to lob any charge that might stick.

Does A Brexiteer Wear Mouse Ears?

Florida News

A daycare worker was caught on camera throwing toddlers.
This is now a problem?

Florida man detains burglar by holding his iPhone like a gun until police arrived.
Thieves, like politicians, always send their best and brightest...



India plans to launch a lunar mission in July.
Yes, they're going to be the first fourth nation on the moon!
They're looking for water and other goodies, like all lunar visitors. And, according to Apu Nehasapetapetaloma, to open the moon's first Kwickie Mart.


CERN, the Large Hadron Collision people, just had their academic credentials from Microsoft revoked, causing a tenfold increase in license fees. As a result, CERN has a new effort called MAlt - Microsoft Alternatives. They're looking for open source software.

Let's see.... open source...  hmmmmm.... get rid of Windows and other MS software... hmmm.... I wonder what could possibly work for them....

In completely unrelated news, I upgraded to the latest version of Xubuntu linux (19.04) the other day and things are running better and faster.



Dear lefty:

• If Boris Johnson wins the election, will his 'hairstyle' become popular in the UK?
• No, but his teeth will.
• in North Korea, Kim ding Dong's hairstyle is all the rage (among people who wish to remain alive).

Ever since Obama, there have been charges of America sending billions of dollars to Iraq. Trump mentioned it too. I have a memory of the money being a return of money frozen by a previous administration. Anyone have a reading on this?

Speaking of Iraq, the warhawks are beating the drums again. We just sent a Rather Large Ship to that neighborhood. Whatever happened, we need to remain out of it. History shows the Powers That Be cause a False Flag event as a pretext to war (Weapons of Mass Destruction, 9-11).

• Toronto won its first basketball championship. No one knows how. It's the Jamaican Bobsled Team all over again. It wasn't easy -  they had to build stadiums and import black people.

According to the BBC, the countries using the Euro have agreed to have a common budget. What? Now explain how the conspiracy theorists are nuts because they refer to the coming New (one) World Order.

Shopping Time

My luck has been good lately, which was probably just setting me up for yesterday. Mrs. lefty had lots of shopping to do....

WALMART
Her: Could you tell me where the milk is? I can't find any.
Them: I'm sorry, we don't have any.
Her: Milk?
Them: Milk.

How could the largest vendor in the country not have milk?
It's like Monty Python's Cheese Shop sketch....

Well, we don't carry milk here.
You don't carry milk? It's the single most popular shopping item in the world.
Not much call for it around here, Sir.

Her: How about yogurt?
Them: We have this yummy probiotic stuff.
Her: It tastes like particularly bad dog excrement. What else?
Them: Oh, nothing.
Her: You have a huge food department.
Them: Yes we do. Largest in the area.
Her: and all I'm asking for is normal yogurt.
Them: I'm sorry, we don't carry normal foods.

Her: Dare I ask about potato bread? It takes much longer to turn blue and fuzzy than white bread.
Them: Since you asked, we will no longer carry it.

Her: Snapple's on sale.
Them: Yes, but we don't have the flavor you want.


LOWES
Her: I just spent a long time trying to find a 3/8" ratchet.
Them: that's because we don't carry them separately. You have to purchase the complete kit.
Her: But I already have doubles of all the sockets.
Them: Now you'll have triples!
Her: You bought the name Craftsman from Sears, which stocked everything. Why don't you?
Them: Because we don't have to. Now STFU and go buy the complete kit.


This is why Mrs. lefty doesn't allow me to shop.

Decorating?

Didja ever walk into a house and marvel at the decor or style?

My parents' place is antiseptic, yet warm. Mom got it from her mom, who scrubbed the bathroom tile with a toothbrush.

The rest of the family has it all together, with different styles and lots of space.

Then there's our house.

There is no style. There is no decor. There's barely any space. At least the walls are painted. Our method is buy something and stick it Over There. Or put the groceries on the floor.  Nice poster, let's thumbtack it to the wall. Has anyone seen the dog?

We are two decor-impaired people. And one who is directionally-impaired.

But let me say something positive: The show Hoarders rejected our application because we have clear paths and the piles of stuff don't come past our knees.

We sit there and look around, trying to imagine how one would 'design' a room. The closest I've gotten is a fake lisp and imitation of one of those home design 'experts' from tv. Don't let the LGBTQrstuv lobby tell you they have no representation on tv: straights have no representation on home improvement shows. If any straight guys happen to wander onto screen, they look gay.

Let's say we like southwest decor. The closest we'd get is painting one wall salmon and another wall turquoise. Maybe putting out a token figurine skeleton that says, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity". Viola - Instant Decor.  

We are horrible examples. It's sad. Maybe we can start a GoFundMe to get us some decorating lessons. Let's face it - even with lessons, we'd find a way to make it ugly. I was thinking about having a person with decorating skills move in, but Mrs lefty says no. I'm sure it had nothing to do with her being stunningly attractive. The bonus would be someone to babysit me when Mrs lefty visits family out of town. But noooooo......

So until we somehow acquire skills, the house will remain Decor by Tornado.

The president recently celebrated a birthday.
In case you're curious what he got from other countries....


Kim ding Dong, Supreme Haircut, North Korea, sent a hand-delivered note.

Teresa May (RIP) sent the Trump Balloon
Boris Johnson said he couldn't make it.
The Queen said, "We ARE amused."

Mohammed Somethingorother, Lord High Poobah, Iran, issued a press release stating the door was closed for birthday wishes and he had a much better hat than MAGA.

Vladimir Putin, King for Life, Russia, said that Trump's birthday was adequate, but Soviets have much better birthdays and he could kick Trump's ass in any sport.

China, asked for comment, said, "Who Tlump?"
"China has the advantage on America because Chinese food is really McDonalds and Burger King. Suggest Tlump stuff egg rolls..."

Australia sent a card that said "Good on ya, Don," but the postal kangaroo died and the card never made it.

Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Acceptance, Canada, sent an autographed picture of himself in his newest minidress. Melania was horrified. Donald hung the picture in the Oval Office, proclaiming Justin the best Canadian ever, after the other 40 million. The other 40 million spat in a hat then refused to send it because Americans have guns.


It's a sad day when North Korea sends the best gift.

Horton Hears Voices

A Florida man was arrested after going on a multi-state crime spree, ending with him being found naked, inside a chicken coop in New York. This sounds like meth: discuss.



Dear lefty:

• If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?
• The one down the block that has huge branches falling down randomly, because it's being eaten by some bug no one can identify.

We bid fond farewell to Dr. John (Mac Rebennak - 77) who passed from a heart attack. If you don't know who he is, you probably remember his hit "Right Place, Wrong Time." He was a very influential musician (piano and guitar, gruff vocals) and helped keep Louisiana on the musical map.

• Remember Ring Dings? The small round chocolate cake with white filling and chocolate covering? There's now a vanilla covering and white cake. Trust me on this, they're worth a try.
• You don't get this kind of information from normal blogs...

This week's imaginary reader participation exercise:

Moon landing: true or hoax?

• Ancient Jewish curse: may your in-laws be Joan Rivers, Rosie Perez, and Fran Drescher

My life would be even better if I never heard these words or phrases again:

• guac
• game changer
• no brainer
• imma
• easy peasy
• not tonight
• the best EVer
• your dog has cancer

Dear lefty:

• As a future Miss America, how will you make the world a better place?
• sue the Miss America pageant until they allow men
• fix everything for the children
• remove the stigma from having facial hair and wearing ball gowns
• eliminate abortion after birth
• legalize drugs - mandate them if necessary
• put an end to the scourge of doorbell-licking
• tube top Tuesdays!

Penny's Corner

The chemotherapy continues. Everyone is very happy with her progress and she might not need the final treatment - they're going to re-evaluate her. How does one re-evaluate chemo? Yes, the dog continues to not have cancer? Additionally, this might mean not having to take a third mortgage on the house.

The chemo has been no help whatsoever with her licking my pants and sofa cushions. Mrs lefty doesn't even lick my pants, why should the dog?

Penny loves spending time in her yard. Currently she's installing some large holes in the lawn. She's much more excited about installing holes than I am, but then again, everybody is more excited than I am.

• In a controversial decision, the BBC has decided to stop airing news. They discovered that some people were sad and others triggered by events in the news and the BBC apologises for any offence it might have caused. Instead, there will be a constant display of puppies, kitties, and shrubbery.

I've been to a total of two car shows, so I'm what you'd call very experienced and opinionated. Actually I'm opinionated to begin with, hence this blog. Also hence the way people remember they had something to do when I show up. 

I like car shows, but have no idea why. The cars are nice, many of which were made before my mother ever had the idea she could make babies. Some before my mother ever had the idea she existed. 

Strangely, I have only one complaint: next to the 58 Chevys there are always the 2012 Camaros, with more chrome than a dealer's lot of new cars. The engines inevitable have dual quad carburetors and that blower thingie that requires cutting a hole in the hood. How do you drive with that monstrosity blocking your view? Apparently you don't.  It turns out the size of the owner's penis is inversely proportional to the height of the engine (or so I hear). In any case, I don't want to see these things (or their penises) - the older cars are more fun to look at. 

At one point I saw something I've never seen before. It was ancient. It had wooden tire spokes. The windshield was a round piece of glass, attached to the steering wheel column. There were no doors. Turned out to be a Ford Model T! It won the award for the oldest car I've ever seen. The old folks who came with it looked like they worked on the assembly line. The sponsor has an ambulance standing by, in case any of the entries died. There's a contingency plan to get the bodies out of there without anybody noticing. They do this by disguising the ambulance as the car from Ghostbusters, so it passes unnoticed.

We remembered that the cars of our youth were not stock if there was a huge engine that came through the hood. Some cars were jokes and junk when they originally came out but now they're old and vintage, like my guitars (and me, sometimes). The restorers truly did a great job, down to the seats and covering. Seeing the late 50s cars made me wistful for the guitars made those years (no, I was not around then). If I can find a late 50s lefty, it's somewhat expensive, in the way houses are expensive. Many of the transmissions on the cars are lacking PRNDLs - instead they have numbers like 1 2 3 4. I don't like that kind. Real men are secure enough to have their gears shifted for them. 

Be skeptical when you see people in high places speak against Fake News. They try to make it sound ridiculous, like newscasters talking about people seeing UFOs. It is a fact that the CIA infiltrated newsrooms, like the one with Walter Cronkite, and planted stories as an experiment. They even had people on the payroll. From very early, there was a gentlemen's agreement not to print certain 'interesting' behaviors of presidents (JFK for one). So fake news isn't a recent phenomenon. There are YouTube videos with snippets of newscasters all speaking from a script - all using the same words. 

The news now just pushes agendas. You will see certain themes, among them inflammatory stories of people doing damage with guns. You will not see stories about someone with a gun saving others. You will see the talking heads laugh off UFOs. You will see a great emphasis on sports and social media input. Local news is somewhat less biased but generally fluff and downright stupid. If you want news from an alternate viewpoint, you can tune in news from a different country, but they're also pushing an agenda - it's just harder to see. 

Some news networks have been caught making things up and staging national news, but they're local and on a set, trying to look like they're on scene. Most news networks are against the president, except Fox. This says people up the food chain are scared. Of course Fox just waves the flag, so they're not much better.

Don't laugh off claims of Fake News. Trump did not invent the claim - he's just the first to verbalize it. You've been consuming it forever.

I am gross and perverted

I'm obsessed 'n deranged

I have existed for years

But very little has changed

I'm the tool of the Government

And industry too

For I am destined to rule

And regulate you

I may be vile and pernicious

But you can't look away

I make you think I'm delicious

With the stuff that I say

I'm the best you can get

Have you guessed me yet?

I'm the slime oozin' out

From your TV set

You will obey me while I lead you

And eat the garbage that I feed you

Until the day that we don't need you

Don't go for help . . . no one will heed you

Your mind is totally controlled

It has been stuffed into my mold

And you will do as you are told

Until the rights to you are sold

That's right, folks . . .Don't touch that dial

Well, I am the slime from your video

Oozin' along on your livin' room floor

I am the slime from your video

Can't stop the slime, people, lookit me go

I Am the Slime - Frank Zappa

I Found Bladder Leak Underwear That's Actually Pretty

well, that's what the commercial says.
They're wrong.

• For the first time in 40 years, Pizza Hut is changing its pan pizza recipe. Focus groups show the original one wasn't close enough in taste to its cardboard container. They fixed that.

We got some tornadoes recently, in AR, OK, OH, PA, NJ and NY.
The damage was horrendous.
But once again, knee-jerk humanity came out, pulled out its camera, and took video of the tornado. When did Take Video win the battle with Survival Instinct?

Bob Arkansaw knew the tornado was on its way and did the only thing he could: he whipped out his phone and took video of it.  Over there, on what remains of his house, is a small red stain that was once Bob.

Dear lefty:

• Is there a colostomy bag that's actually pretty?
• You're single, aren't you...

A Florida (you knew it was coming) man was arrested after assaulting his mother with a corn cob. Did they close all the schools in Florida? Are the clouds seeded with valium? Do they grow corn or was it imported? Imported corn causes the most damage - don't ask how I know....

A Florida woman didn't flush the toilet. When her roommate complained, a fight ensued, which involved yelling, spitting, and swinging a plunger. Plunger Control! Sensible people do not need to own plungers.

• the Canadian Border Patrol seizes about two tons of amphetamine per year. They're frightfully quick, but have no teeth, eh?

A typical locomotive, with a 12 cylinder diesel engine, once powered 1,600 houses during a power outage. Each engine piston is larger than an entire car engine and the engine weighs over 30,000 tons. Trains are also an efficient means of suicide, if you ignore cleanup.

• In case you woke up at 3am, wondering about Earl Grey tea, what makes it unique is oil of bergamot: this is what makes it taste like drinking soap.

A man who peed in a Memphis cereal factory has got 10 months in prison. When released, he will work for Shredded Wheat, helping to improve the taste.





Isn't Pervasive Surveillance Wonderful?
Someone kills a female, puts her body in a suitcase and throws it out. It is discovered at the trash dump. All haulers are interviewed: one remembers picking the case up at a dumpster. A neighbor's security camera fails to capture the killer depositing the case.

Detectives examine the suitcase, discover it's new, and pull the UPC code. The UPC shows it was only sold through Walmart, of which there are two locally. Walmart magically pulls the sales records and finds two people bought this suitcase. The first was at 9pm, so they pull up the security camera for the specific checkout lane. Records indicate the lady who purchased the case was a Walmart Rewards member, so they pull up everything she's done and check on her, to find she's got no criminal record.

Second person to purchase this suitcase (3am) was wearing a distinctive shirt, so it was easy to track him throughout the entire store.  A good look was provided by the cashier overhead camera; he also purchased disposable gloves, and calmly walked out. In fact there were several angles of him walking out. Then two parking lot cameras gave two views of him in the lot, plus what vehicle he got into and what direction it left in. The videos matched a verbal description of the man, plus the color and type of vehicle. He was arrested for murder.

That's how pervasive surveillance was used to track down a killer. Not mentioned was the rich amount of data available from his cell phone or electronic data going to the store.

None of us murder people (I hope), but are you comfortable with this level of surveillance? This is only physical... electronic surveillance is much worse. You may say to yourself that you're not guilty, so it's ok. It is not ok. We deserve freedom from this kind of monitoring, regardless. Just like certain agencies monitoring your email, phone calls, and browsing. We have Amendments prohibiting this sort of thing.

Please give this some consideration.

Party this weekend!!!

My Hair Hurts

Theresa May has announced she'll be stepping down as Prime Minister of England. Insiders say that she was unable to get the country to stand by its own vote.

A likely candidate is Boris Johnson. This guy is a shoe-in because his hair looks like he was attacked by a lawnmower: it will bring the UK and the US closer in follicles.

• Trump allows Barr to declassify surveillance documents around the Russia investigation. Perhaps if we send postcards, he'll declassify ufo documents.

Dear lefty:

• Why do I have trouble with relationships?
• You're too clingy. That and your micro-penis.

Making dietary changes is hard. We shouldn't have to do it... it lowers quality of life. Candy and CocaCola is a perfectly nutritious breakfast, but nooooo..... After that special diet most of my life, I had to make sacrifices. People used to tell me that sugar is poison. They don't tell me that anymore because they're afraid of getting hit. Again. They don't understand the sacrifices I've made... Morning coffee is sacred to everyone. I went from three tablespoons of sugar to two teaspoons. I'm still shaking, after a year. Don't let anyone tell you it's easy.

• In Australia, a man was fined at the airport for not declaring his nuts. Perhaps he identifies as female. Regardless - be proud.. show your nuts!

A man allegedly hiding drugs in his rectum accidentally shot himself in the testicles. That's the ugliest case of gender confusion ever.

• Florida (YAY!) banned 'childlike' sex dolls. 
• Florida is God's Waiting Room - what would they do with.... ewwww

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the state has no obligation to protect personal information. They did, however, restate that they have an obligation to take your money and fritter it away on any old thing, then raise your taxes.  Privacy - from the people who brought you the DMV.

• ThermionicEmissions applauds Gillette for inclusiveness, in its commercial about a father teaching his trans son to shave. Inclusiveness: what we all want to see.

Through the mid 80s, there were scheduled burns of garbage at Area 51. These were toxic materials from the Stealth program. Employees started developing cancer and demanded information. (Mr.) President Clinton signed an order stating that Area 51 was off-limits for investigations, on national security grounds. People continue to die, but it's a patriotic death - for national security. 

• If you live with someone who has ADD and you're bored, buy a house fan. While putting it together, put the front on upside down, so the logo is upside down. THIS is why I'm going to hell.

40 Years Gone

I watched Dan Rather interview Robert Plant.
Dan's in his later 80s and is a solid interviewer.
Fortunately at the bottom of the screen, they referred to Robert as "Led Zeppelin singer", because some of us might not know that.

It seems like last year that I heard Robert's young son, Karac, died.
Per Robert, it's been 40 years. My heart bleeds for him and family.
Where the #&@) did time go?
Remember - when you're in school, bands are a religion. You had to have their likenesses all over your books and clothes. You argued with your friends. You paid even more outrageous prices for good tickets, sometimes camping out. Am I dating myself? Do I put out on the first date?

The Zep is one of my favorite bands - you can't deny them. They paved the path, sometimes through hotels and bars. The whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. RIP John Bonham, rock's greatest drummer.

If you've spent time listening to Plant's lyrics, you might guess that interviews are 'interesting', and this one was. The answers tended to go on. I tended not to understand some of it... a combination of flowery and over my head. It's odd for my 69 year old hero to refer to Tony Bennett.




Dear lefty:

• What do you call a fat, bloated, actively nasty, expensive parasite that does nothing?
• Congressman

The current legislative hoo-ha is around allowing males who identify as females (or transexuals) to play on women's sports teams. Tennis luminary Martina Navratolova says it will kill tennis. Since men have a physical advantage, it seems reasonable to keep the genders separate.

If I identify as black, will I be more talented at sports? Or talented at all? Will my wife enjoy the bonus?

• Google stored plaintext passwords since 2005.
• Now Google has all your information and everyone else has your password.

Washington is the first state to legalize human composting.

So let's hurry up and get those bodies in the ground. Ignore the screaming.

• North Korea called Joe Biden an imbecile for Kim criticism.
• keep him away from your wife and kids, Kim.

When thinking about politics and laws, think of this simple statement: You own yourself.

It's News Time again!

FOX: We're here on an aircraft carrier for Fleet Week, made from 9-11 steel.
CNN: Democrats consult professor of psychology - says Trump losing grip on reality
CBSN: Harriet Tubman won't be on any currency

Apropos of nothing, the US has no test for aging or sickness or mental state on the Supreme Court or Congress.  While one would assume they're all crazy, there is no test or requirement for sanity. Witness Justice Ginsburg falling asleep, Hillary's tremors and tripping, and Pelosi's gaps and halting speech. And Harry Reid's black eye.

• A Mississippi lawmaker punched his wife because she undressed too slowly
• If only there were a law for this...

The Patriarchy Strikes Again:

According to the UN, female artificial intelligence voices reinforce existing gender biases.

• I don't know if this should worry me, but QVC just called to ask how Mrs lefty is doing.

Taleban supporter John Walker Lindh is being released from prison after 17 years. What to do?  Accuse him of selling drugs so he'll be put away for life.

A Florida (YES!) man did not pull over for police because his passenger was giving him sexual favors. There's a man with his priorities in order!

Iqbal Goes to the Circus

Enriched uranium and neptunium 237 were detected at an Ohio middle school, which will be closed for a year.

The child made a nuclear reactor. If you don't want the kids doing great work, don't encourage them.

• A diabetes drug may cause an infection that destroys the genitals.
• "I'd give my penis for well-regulated sugar."

In Florida, they're seeing 88 degrees today. Here it's cold and rainy.
Yesterday it was 94 in Miami. Here it was cold and rainy.
Why the unrelenting gloom and rain on the east coast?




Dear lefty:

• If you hate the weather so much, why don't you move?
• Because Arizona pays me to stay away so their climate doesn't go to hell.

A Texas man blames the West Nile Virus for infecting him, causing him to distribute child porn.

Next up: the West Nile Virus assassinates a public figure and raises taxes.

• Keep an eye on the 'Iran Crisis'. Trump has already suggested a huge armed force to deal with it. The warmongers are winning. 

The US Navy warned that 5g phone service is likely to interfere with weather forecasts. The FCC did the only thing it could do: started auctioning off the 5g frequency spectrum.

UK Snowflakes

England's Jerry Springer, Jeremy Kyle, just had his show shut down. Why? A week after taping, a guest killed himself. The episode was not aired.  It featured a man accused of cheating on his fiance, who took a lie detector test and failed. She left him, he killed himself.

While we here at ThermionicEmissions are sad for this fellow and family, we can't understand why the show needed to be canceled.  Granted, 'free speech' cannot be applied equally to the US and UK, but this is a matter of personal responsibility. Personal responsibility has gone out the window in general, but in the UK, they're more worried about offending someone and 'protecting' people from bad words and antisocial behavior.

We have Jerry Springer. 

I hate Jerry Springer and all the show stands for, but would never insist it be forcibly removed. If he wanted a permanent vacation, though, I'd gladly support him.

Kyle will 'work on other projects' with the network (ITV).

I suggest thinking hard about this to figure out where you fall.

Don't take my word for it.... I'm the guy who would love a tv show featuring people tazing Judge Judy.

• While we're on England, it's illegal to sell certain kitchen knives to people under 18, as well as illegal to carry them. I just saw this on the news.

Hate

Online social sites are under fire for 'hate speech'.

What is hate speech? In the US, there is no hate speech - it's all speech.

Certain snowflaky elements define it as people saying bad things about other people, from anti-LGBTQ to neo nazis. I don't agree with any of these groups (including the snowflakes) but, as an American, I support their right to say it. The precious snowflakes want to limit speech, even in the US. These are the dangerous people.

As a libertarian and American, I know the government cannot make laws moderating speech of private entities: they don't belong there. 

There is a meeting coming up of social media companies in France, asking what can be done about 'hate speech'. It's not their job, but they either want to appear they're doing something, or actually do something. The only problem here is that it's already being applied in a one-sided manner, generally banning the right side, less so the left side. There are constant accusations on both sides. 

Howard Stern had the KKK Guy on his show, as a recurring caller. People were horrified. I think Howard did a great thing, allowing his listeners to hear what this person said and that the KKK is still alive. Plus they got to hear a completely stereotypical southern idiot racist. Keep your enemies in the light, where they can be easily monitored.

Remember: if you silence one group, you are giving approval to silence any group - including yours eventually. You also wind up with a very one-sided echo chamber. Already Faceyspaces, Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram have joined with payment processors like Paypal, in de-platforming right-leaning people and organizations. Of course they have that right, being private entities, but one can't help but notice this is all swinging one way. Eventually the remaining side will start to eat itself, having dug its own grave.

Just because someone says something doesn't mean you have to like it or listen to it.

MC Hammer Found Alive?

McDonald's has apologized after a toddler was found sucking on a condom in a restaurant.  Unrelated: McDonalds introduces the McCondom.

• A man was arrested for threatening to kill President Trump at his rally. 
• Only the bright ones get caught.

What are the odds?

A Florida (shock!) man impersonating a cop got arrested after pulling over a real cop.

Dear lefty:

• Why are peaches fuzzy?
• same reason your mother is

Watch out, kids.... new SJW research reveals that dogs are a tool of white supremacy and gentrification. I wonder if cancerous dogs are the tool of white veterinarian supremacy....

Although it's possible I might be overloaded, the load itself seems to be overloading:

• Zombie Dishes: put them in the sink, wash them, and they're back the next day.
• Zombie Trash: it appears each week, after having taken it out the previous week.
• Zombie Ants: yes, it's that time of year again. We saw them warming up in the yard, their miniature fortresses in the ground. The weekend saw them in the house, in Popular Ant Places, like the washer and my bedroom table. Even in my house, there is no food in either place.
• Zombie Grass: it appears out of nowhere. I'm told it's weeds, but I can't tell the difference. I mowed last year - what does this pestilence want from me?

Now available: Elton John's Early Demos. This is a 4 volume set of Sir Elton's demos for some of his biggest songs. Sometimes he changed the titles, but here are the working titles:

Don't Let Your Son Go Down on Me
The Bitch is Black
I Guess That's Why They Call Them the Jews
Saturday Night's Alright for Crossdressing (J. Edgar's Song)
Goodbye Conventional Marriage
Candle In the Gin
Philadelphia Dungeon

• Suffice it to say that chocolate covered ants, considered a delicacy on some planets we don't visit, comes up severely lacking when served without chocolate.

The LAPD has run over a woman sunbathing on a beach.

Perhaps they should legislate those orange glow vests....

• Pennsylvania news: three men are accused of having sex with a few different animals. This was obviously the first volley in a campaign for governor.
• a PA woman died after falling into a meat grinder.  Well, at least she didn't fall into a tree grinder- those things are messy.  Unrelated: sale on sausage this week only.

Dear lefty:

• What is a hoosier?
• Even the people who live there can't tell you, which says a lot.

The lefty household would like to thank the Poseidon Corporation for their flea and tick medicine for dogs. Penny is flea and tick free. The ticks now crawl onto us, but they don't bite her. Success!

You're Not as Good at That as You Think You Are

A woman called 911 because someone 'stole her heart.'
I'm not 100% positive, but there might've been drugs involved.

• Today's Florida News: Zookeeper injured by rhino.
• Wanda Smith (84) missed a turn, headed for dinner at 3pm, and wound up in the rhino exhibit.

Dear lefty:

• Why do you watch those aircraft crash shows?
• So I can identify my body after a crash.

Wife gave her sister's dog a toy. Every time Wife visits, the dog brings the toy over to her.

Either the dog shows uncommon intelligence or he really wants her to return it.

• To my British cousins: you have til April 1 to get your Porn Licence, if you want to surf pr0n on the web. If this doesn't cause a riot, you people are doomed.

Family get togethers were sometimes fun while growing up. Mostly to be avoided.

Now that we're older, it's a different kind of hideous: it has become political. 

I couldn't help noticing the democratic wing was at the left side of the table and the old fart republicans were on the right. I noticed that there were great similarities among the democrats. As the lone libertarian, I sat a little off center. Strangely enough, I found I had more in common with the republican wing than the democrats. To rephrase, I found I didn't hate the republican ideas as much as I hated the democratic ideas. These same democratic ideals made it to a later get together, when little children were wearing Ruth Ginsburg t-shirts. C'mon, leave the kids out of it, please. They'll make their own mistakes as they get older. Like religion, your endless harping will drive them in the opposite direction.  You know, because I have extensive child-rearing experience.

Stolen from Twitter:

• I was standing in the line at McDonald's yesterday and just as I got to the counter my boyfriend kissed me and then loudly said 'you are the best sister ever' and walked away and the girl in McDonald's looked at me in disgust and I've never wanted to die so much in my life

I stumbled into some interesting music videos online. A lot of them were from Eric Clapton's guitar concerts. I just saw Springsteen bring John Fogerty to the stage. This is actually the first time I've seen Springsteen; forgive me - I only watched it for Fogerty. The man's a classic. Sheryl Crow was out and about, which is great for me. Albert Lee, Vince Gill, Keb Mo, and others were twanging away. Vince Gill is humongous. His guitars looked more like belts that guitars. Highly recommended. vaughnlive.tv has a ton of channels.




Dear lefty:

• What's the only thing worse than a Springsteen concert?
• Two Springsteen concerts
• I can't even get a rise out of the people who get here from Google searches on Springsteen.

Allow me to summarize the R. Kelly fracas:

R. Kelly grew up in a family so poor, his mother couldn't afford a first name. This haunted him all his life, so he screwed underage girls. It's clear cause and effect, Your Honor.

• Definition of creepy: you call your phone provider to make a payment
• It says, "Hello, [first name]."

Because of the abject failure of Vanilla Coke, Coke has introduced Orange Vanilla Coke. Coke obviously gets the good drugs.

• Don't forget to keep up with your Stupid Buzzwords: This week it's Rom Com (romantic comedy).

Happy as a clam?

How does one measure happiness in a bivalve?

Is there a Clam Happiness Scale?

• Know what's great about this time of year?
• Very little, except for Reese's products with white fudge instead of chocolate. They have my endorsement.

Dog, The Peroxide Hunter:
Yes, I've mentioned this before. A lot.
It flummoxes me every time, just tuning past it.
It's still on the air, meaning people are still watching it.
How is this so?

• I've also mentioned the phenomena when I'm running the fan, I can hear the tv in the next room. Unfortunately, or fortunately, the tv isn't on. It could save all sorts of cable fees if I could change the channel that isn't on, but that's not likely.
• Today I heard the tv again, but this time the fan wasn't running. Excited to see how the inadvertent experiment was coming along, I discovered I was outsmarted: the tv was on anyway.
• This does not help my mood.

No, You're Fat

There's a lot of Weird Shit happening in the world today, especially of the Weird Social Variety<tm>. For lack of better definition, let's call it Fat Pride.

When you see a 'woman of size', wearing clothes made for a woman of size, they say they're comfortable in their skin. Mrs leftystrat, a former woman of size, used to say to me that it was nice that these women were comfortable with their size - you go, girl. It only took one catalog of swimwear for women of size for both of us to agree this was Not Right. After the lingerie catalog for women of size, we were both shocked and put off by the pictures. Don't get me wrong: there should be lingerie in any size that people will buy; but I'd rather not see it in ads. If you haven't seen it, seek it out. It simply doesn't look right. There's a reason the Victorias models are slim.

I don't usually have much to say on the social aspects of this, but being comfortable with or proud of your (large) skin can normalize fat. How comfortable are they going to be with their first heart attack? Will this send the message to large people that it's ok to be large? It's very clearly unhealthy, as established by Medical Science, since way back when Medical Science was young (and thin). Fat hits arteries and restricts blood flow to organs, most notably the brain.

I'm big on the freedom of speech thing and this is ok with me from a speech perspective... whatever the market will bear. I would just prefer, personally, that people don't think this is ok - for their own health. If you want to weigh north of 300lbs (453 liters Canadian), go for it. Just don't explode in public: that stuff's damn near impossible to clean.

Having said that, I am not a Person of Size, but portions of me are growing. Unstopped, who knows how large they will grow. I'd prefer not to complete the Science on that and have taken steps to stop the growth. When I stay steps, I am not speaking physically. What Science hasn't discovered yet is that exercise causes cancer. I do not wish to be on the leading edge of that discovery, so I strenuously avoid it.

What I have done to arrest the growth is to replace one soda per day with a large glass of water. Well, I tried. Have you experienced water when it's not 90 degrees or you haven't completed a marathon jog up the steps? It tastes like... water. Throwing a lemon wedge into it makes all the difference in the world. Throwing some Arnold Palmer iced tea/lemonade into it would make an ever bigger difference, but something tells me this isn't a good idea. This is a huge step for me and I do not take it lightly. Thus far I've replaced a soda with water damn near every day of the week  (*except weekends and a few days during the week). We traditionally eat well, avoiding fast and boxed foods, preparing most meals ourselves  (*except malts, Marshall's favorite). Logically, all things remaining the same, the weight gain would point to exercise, but as I said, cancer won't be the thing to take me out. Or a heart attack.



Next week, ThermionicEmissions reviews "50 Shades of Gay".

• California will be voting on Daylight Savings Time shortly. After that historic vote, California will vote on whether or not gravity should exist.
• Experts expect nothing will happen after the vote, but since it's California, at least they got to vote their feelings.

She Woman Man Haters Club
Uh-oh.... the American Psychological Association has discovered that women outnumber men by more than two to one in the psych field. For the 35 and unders, the ratio jumps to nine to one. Do you suppose there will be urgent efforts to bring the men to parity? A great wail on social media about needing more men? High school programs to direct men into the mental health field?

Along those lines, seen on an announcement for Women Fest:

All women are welcome at the festival, including transgender women and pre-operative individuals. We're also happy to have non-binary people, provided they have a vagina; but not non-binary people with a penis because we have to draw the line somewhere.

Watch your mailboxes. There seems to be a small flood of junk AOL emails. Most of us would comment that any email from AOL is junk, but apparently it is still used (by the clueless). They might not have subject lines but they contain a small amount of text and a link. Also getting deluged with phishing emails from banks and the requisite people depositing a few million into my account, wanting my information.

Your bank isn't going to email you on sensitive matters, especially on your email you give out for nonsense purposes. Call the bank and check if you think the email is real. Don't do this frequently unless you want the person who picks up the phone to snicker when you say your name.

Nigerian princes, kings, ex-officials, and dog catchers aren't going to give you millions of dollars, or even one bottle of chilled YooHoo. 

What do I do?

Don't. Remember lefty's law: just say no. Don't read it, don't open it, don't click on the link and don't leave it in your inbox - mark it spam and delete it. When you see a link, hover your mouse over it: this will show you where the link really goes. Odds are it will be different than the link you're clicking on. If it seems too good to be true, it is.

Similarly, watch what you're installing on your phone. This is primarily an android issue, as Apple vets the authors and apps. If it looks too good to be true, it is. If it has a lot of foreign text in it, avoid. If the reviews look odd, avoid. If there are grammar errors that tell you the author's first language isn't English, avoid. Look the app up elsewhere for any info. Trust your instincts: if the app causes you to pause, don't. You're choosing between possibly destroying your phone's software or being without Fantastic Game of the year. You decide which is more important. Note when the app first hit the market and the download count. Note quantity of reviews and stars.

• About that shiny new browser you just installed on your phone, or, heaven forbid, your computer (remember those things?).... Don't go anywhere on it until you check the settings... they're typically pretty dangerous. The last one I saw had save passwords on, automatically fill out forms on, and accept all cookies, including third party on. This is stuff you want to turn OFF. Save your passwords in a password manager, not your browser. Automatically fill out forms means the browser keeps your data, which isn't safe. Don't accept third party cookies unless you really need them to make the (well known, safe) site function.
• Don't install just any browser until you see what it's built on. I don't use Chrome because it's Google and it phones home. However, there are android browsers built on Chrome. Ever vigilant.

One of the top web vulnerabilities is cross-site scripting.
So don't cross-site script, ok?


Oopsie - Faceyspaces admitted sharing users' data with 61 tech companies. This was revealed in a 747 page PDF delivered to Congress. The recommend step to fix this is to delete your account.




I've been going back and forth about my new job. I didn't want to tell anyone what I'm doing for privacy, jealousy, and hatred reasons. Since I share everything and try to be honest with my readers, I'm going to come out of the closet, so to speak, and let you know about my new gig: President Trump's Space Force. At work, I'm Captain leftystrat. You guys can continue to call me lefty, shithead, or whatever you call me when I'm out of earshot.

I was doing some contracting for the subcontractor of a subcontractor, when I was selected for the program. I'm told the president himself picked me, due to my great love of expanding government and outrageous expenditures funded by taxpayer money. In his wisdom, the President felt that someone endowed with my superior sense of sarcasm and love of government would be a good person to observe the program. As a patriotic American, I was proud to accept and will rise to the occasion, occasionally standing. Don (he tells us to call him Don) is a decent guy, with a great love of pussy jokes.

As a formality, I had to go through an intensive background check. They made sure my listed address was where the checks went. They also talked to my neighbors, who are either completely terrified of me or have no idea who I am. The 6'5" humongous black man who lives down the block works for the mafia and the NFL, which sometimes get confused. He's completely terrified of me. I let him borrow my weed wacker and he was hesitant to take it from my hands. Other neighbors know me only as Marshall's dad. Marshall's mom is incredibly popular with the hood, but parents pull their children into the house when I walk by. I don't know where the reputation came from but I enjoy the hell out of it: the social interaction is absolutely zero.

I got a really spiffy uniform with an actual patch. The Space Force logo is an eagle holding billions of dollars in its talons. At the front of the control center, the logo is a gray alien, with the words "Swamp Gas" at the bottom. The program labored to figure out an appropriate weapon for us to carry, so now we're equipped with super soakers, with Ray Gun written in magic marker on the barrel. More than one of us walking down a hall look most formidable, like Ghostbusters without the sense of humor or decent hair.

To be continued.....

• Bill Gates says the world is a far better place today than ever in history.
• Yes it is, especially if you have more money than God and Zuckerberg. (those two get mixed up sometimes).

A new Swedish law recognizes sex without 'explicit consent' as rape.
Nobody, including the person who drafted the law, knows what this means, other than a judge will have to decide whether there was explicit consent.
Sex in Sweden is about to get weird. And not in a good way. Read this in the voice of the Muppets' Swedish Chef:

HIM: Hello. Do you accept my hello?
HER: Hello, I do. Do you accept my hello?
HIM: I do. Wanna come back to my house for drinks and the possibility of some sex?
HER: I agree to go to your house for drinks but do not consent to sex at this moment.
HIM: I understand. Let's go.
HER: Let's go.

At his house...

HIM: I find there's nothing like chocolate whipped cream vodka to start the night off. Do you concur?
HER: I do not agree that chocolate cream is the best way to start the night, but agree to consume the beverage.
HIM: You are aware that this drink contains alcohol, which can impair your decision-making ability.
HER: I am aware that alcohol has those properties and also tends to make my panties disappear. That notwithstanding, I agree to drink it.
HIM: Excellent. Let the party begin!
HER: I agree. Let the party begin.

HIM: Would you like a third glass of vodka? We can switch to Swedish Fish vodka if you like.... our national beverage.
HER: Swe.. hic.. Shwede ka asheptbl.

HER: Where my und.. unddwr.. pantiesh go? Alwaysh do thish.
HIM: I would like to kiss you.
HER: Ag... aggg... concur.

HER: Now kish me downnnn air.
HIM: To be clear, are you asking me to perform oral sex upon you?
HER: Yesh.. lick mmm mah mmmmm pushy.

HIM: I would like oral sex from you. Is that agreeable?
HER: Ye yah ye no yes yesh, thatsh grand hic... no talkies wif mouf fullnphggggh
HIM: That kinda hurts. Can we have intercourse instead?
HER: yeahyeahyeahyeah putitinmenow hopontoppop
HIM: I just need you to fill out this form in triplicate, agreeing to intercourse, signing at the bottom and initialing at these seven spots.  If you think you'd like anal, initial here. If you'd rather wait and see, don't initial here but initial here.
HER: Yeah, whatevs.. are we gonnadoit now?
HIM: Almost there. What are we doing about contraception?
HER: No probs.. I'm on bill...
HIM: You're on the pill?
HER: No, I was on Bill earlier. And I gots wunna those fishing lures all the way up there, so we're good. Now plows me like middle eashters turned desert into an oasish.
HIM: Where do you want me to finish?
HER: left ear.. right ear.. someone's ear, yeah.
HIM: If we need a vibrator, lube, or barnyard animals, initial here.

One night of hellacious sex and one subpoena later....

JUDGE: Martin Smegma?
HIM: Yes, Your Honor.
JUDGE: you are accused of raping Miss Edith Hoe. How do you plead.
HIM: Not guilty.
JUDGE: Miss Hoe, what happened?
HER: I don't know - what happened? I can't remember anything but a really nasty headache.. oh.. that.... we went to his house, plied each other with liquor and he raped me.
HIM: Your Honor, I have sworn affidavits, showing a positive affirmation to each step of the process of consensual sex. The plaintiff has signed and initialed each form. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find an all night notary?
JUDGE: Mr. Smegma, I pronounce you guilty.
HIM: Your Honor? I have explicit consent. That's the requirement of the law.
JUDGE: Yes, but she got drunk and couldn't consent. Fifteen years in prison.
HIM: You're a prick.
JUDGE: Excuse me?
HIM: I said I think I'm going to be sick.

• What do you do with an invasive species of iguana? If you're Florida (uh-oh), you eat them. The McGuana, flame broiled Iguaper, and the deep fried iguana bits have become favorites at most restaurants (when dinner starts, about 4pm).
• They put Florida at one end and California at the other. This is either for amusement's sake or a cruel joke. Or both.

A study shows coffee may boost longevity.
Between coffee and sarcasm, I am creative and will live forever. [evil laughter]

• For the third time in South Africa, someone has been found alive in a morgue freezer, after showing no signs of life.
• Perhaps she read that Bill Gates said there's no better time to be alive.
• RUN... ZOMBIES!! VOODOO!!!! KOSHER BACON!!!!

Some dude who read the bible and just happens to be a marijuana scholar (a marijuana scholar?) said Jesus used cannibis oil to heal and it might explain some of his miracles.

Asked to point out where in the bible it says Jesus used it, he could not entirely pull out the word 'cannibis', but pointed out that Peter and Paul (before Mary) were sitting around, saying, "Oh man... this shit is great... did you say Jesus gave it to you? Does he have any more?"

And lo, Jesus turned to Peter and Paul and said, in his mercy, "Dave's not here, man."

I tested my new scanner when the printer came out of the box. It scanned and printed, which was really all I wanted. I am not that complex a person.

Unfortunately the forms I scanned in showed up rotated a few degrees to one side. This meant every line on the forms headed uphill. No one has ever seen documents like this, so it needed to be fixed. I re-set the form, made sure it lined up perfectly against the edges, and it came out heading uphill at a steeper angle.

The reason no one has ever seen documents like this is that any normal to complete idiot of a person places a document face down and it gets scanned perfectly. Unless you're this particular idiot. I manually rotated the paper ever so slightly then scanned again. Less uphill but still uphill. After a difficult long day, I had no patience left for lines going uphill. I became very upset. I said things to the scanner... things that, had I said them to the wife, would cause a divorce. Finally I got the document almost straight. Unfortunately there was a page two.. same process, but it was worse. More screaming at an inanimate object. Both of my deaf neighbors heard me. They were napping, hearing aids out, in rooms with windows shut, air conditioners on, and blankets covering their heads. They heard every word. I'm surprised the Word Police didn't stop by for another visit. Even threatening to grind the scanner into a fine powder did not intimidate it. Page two finally emerged, only slightly uphill.

I'm just going to spend the rest of the evening picking bits of printer/scanner out of the neighbors' houses. If I don't make any noise, they'll never know.