Elephantiasis at the Zoo

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Replace the HOSTS file.
Head here, download the file, and follow the directions. Works on Windows, linux, probably Mac. There's an explanation of how it works, if you care. It's updated monthly or so.  Nothing's perfect, but it will definitely help.

ANDROID users: if you use UC Browser, uninstall. It breaks several goog mobile app rules, and puts more than 500 million users at risk. Try Firefox, Bromite, Tor, and Privacy Browser (from f-droid repository). Privacy Browser is really what it says, doing more to block crap than any other browser.

• The king of Thailand has stripped Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi of her royal consort title, as well as all royal titles, decorations, status in the royal guard, and her military ranks. Also the name that was really hard to spell.
• Royal consort?  Damn... I wonder if Mrs lefty would allow that
• We have that here, but it never had an official title.

Know what would be neat?
Good phone service.
The providers have no trouble charging you exorbitant fees, yet there is no service guarantee, especially quality of service. I just dialed a call and the phone sat there, deliberately doing its impression of a tree. I heard it dial, unlike a tree, but that was it. What's going on when this happens?

Then there's the coverage, or lack of thereof. If you live in a remote area, good luck... you're probably fortunate to have landlines that work during a storm. And electricity.  How about dropped or fuzzy calls? They're certainly not rare.

With cell phones being around for longer than many people, things should really be sorted out by now.  We're being bent over a table by phone and cable providers. Incidentally, people outside the US laugh at us... our internet speeds are lower and way more expensive, cable is way too expensive, and pharmaceuticals are astronomically more expensive. Cable companies operate at the city level, paying politicians to see that there are only one or two providers available, so the price can be kept high. If competition were allowed, the price would drop. It's good to be an American.

• Former Faceyspaces workers: we routinely suppressed conservative news

Dear lefty

• Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
• Because he was dead.

ThermionicEmissions asked its California Consultant why electricity was turned off on purpose in northern California (called Public Safety Power Shutoff events). They had a lot of fires, which turned out to be the power company's fault, so a power outage was called, so as not to cause more fires.

Errr.... ummm... what civilized part of the country shuts electricity off? What civilized power distributor causes fires?

About 5 minutes after the above, I read that the PG&E CEO said California can expect blackouts for a decade.

• Wife made a snack for dinner, at around 3am. I came down to a baking pan full of.... things. Breaded things. I figured I'd tempt fate and try one. It was batter coated and had a unique texture.  I still have no idea what it was.

After the horrible incident of racism in British football, Business got vigilant. Two racists in the crowd were arrested.
Ummmmm...... good thing the US freedom of speech hasn't eroded this far.

• An Oregon engineer wants to change traffic lights so yellow is longer, avoiding many tickets.

No thank you, I'd rather test out new Rough-O toilet paper, made from real trees.

• Did you hear about the defrocked priest?
• He got thrown out because he refused to molest little boys.

I have a vague memory of, at some ridiculous hour of the morning, my parents' phone calling mine. Mine called my brother. His called the parents. The phones didn't ring - they just said there was a call. Checking the logs, there was no outgoing call on any of them. All at the same time.  Go ahead, explain that.

There's an awful lot of talk today about Russian groomed and funded candidates, meddling in elections, and undermining of our electoral process.

We'll just comment that if you read the entire Mueller Report, the only major ticket that didn't receive any ads from Moscow was ours.

-Libertarian Party

Today I identify as a bottle of horseradish mustard




I have no trouble whatsoever with people wanting to change their gender or much of anything else, so long as it harms no one. However, competing in sports is one exception. Male and female bodies are different - it's a fact of nature. So when a trans person competes, there's an advantage for male to female because they still have a male body, albeit softened a bit.

Heroes of the Stupid

The New Jersey Department of Taxation wants to remind everyone that pumpkins used for decorations are subject to sales tax. Pumpkins used for food or in food preparation are tax free.





SJW Shenanigans

ANY GENDER CAN GET THEIR PERIOD - Twitter

The Seattle school district is planning to infuse all K-12 math classes with ethnic-studies questions that encourage students to explore how math has been “appropriated” by Western culture and used in systems of power and oppression.


@ white trans people
Being trans doesn't absolve you of your privilege.
Yes you are marginalized.
You're also still white.

Sleeping with the Enema

A large number of android antiviruses are full of holes.


Hey, how bout those cellular carriers who don't throttle video speed except when necessary?  Oops.

I hate like hell to enable this, so consider it a warning in case you want to. 
10 Best Free VPN Chrome extensions.
Why not?
Chrome is Google. Isn't that enough? This browser phones home.
READ the VPN companies' privacy policies and logging disclosures. Some of them are beyond bad. The performance isn't always that good. If it's free, how do they make money?  
Opera has a built-in VPN, but the browser is Chinese. They don't have a great privacy record.




Dear lefty

• What would you do if I sang out of tune?

a. get you a huge record contract
b. You'd be the singer in my band, and we'd go to the next song
c. stand up and walk out on you



As is pointed out to me frequently, freedom of speech is not absolute.
---> Chicago man arrested for threatening to commit massacre at abortion clinic.  I'm pro-life and I'll kill you to prove it.

• Pro Tip: Prostrate is laying on your back. Prostate is up your butt. You should avoid mixing them up. Trust me.

ThermionicEmissions is kicking off a new feature today.
It's called "I'd Rather".

No thanks, I'd rather wear a MAGA hat to the next Democratic debates.

If you have any ideas, comments, complaints, whining, praise, or offers of chocolate, use the Comment button. If you have no comment, use the Comment button.

Don't forget to tell your friends, or people you don't like, to come by and read the blog. Google informed me that we had one visitor yesterday. I want to keep this streak going. If we hit over 20 members, I'll make the blog free.

• Why is Dwayne pronounced du-WAYNE?
• Who taught the South that "Do whut?" is an acceptable substitution for "Could you repeat that, please?"

Twitter is under fire for thousands of ads attempting to influence voting.
In other news, people read ads?

• Giving back: I love stories about animals assisting and saving people. We had a small chance to give back when over 100 humans volunteered to help a few stranded whales get back to sea.

In the background as I type is a drawn out debate on how we watch tv and movies, mostly about using cell phones. One lady said she doesn't like it because it ruins the 'viewing experience.' I try to avoid personal insults as arguments so I won't say 'blithering idiot'. Ok, fine, lady, but who cares what you think? People can watch however they want. They can choose to ignore the entire show and look at pr0n on their phones. So long as they're not bothering anybody, what does it matter? At the movies, however, these people require a serious learning experience.




Dyatlov Pass

A group of hikers went exploring the tundra in the Urals and wasn't heard from.
A few weeks later, a search party found their bodies. They were in really bad shape.. some huddled together, some half naked, some half a mile away, all fleeing something.

The tent was shredded. Examination showed knife cuts. The cuts were made from the inside of the tent. A scrap of paper left there said 'the Snowman exists.'

Autopsies were performed. The medical examiner said no human could have produced the damage that was inflicted upon the bodies. One was missing its tongue.  One student, Yuri Yudin, headed home before the incident. He recently passed away, but identified one of the belongings as being from the military or KGB, indicating someone made it to the scene before the rescue party. Not included were claims of huge footprints.

In short order, the Russian government shut the investigation down. It's been a mystery for 50 years.

Some say an animal. Some say aliens. Cattle mutilations showed tongues removed. Some blame an avalanche. Some indigenous folk who were alive at that time said 'Menk,' meaning Yeti/Sasquatch. Footprint casts from the area are huge. The Russian government put together a group to bring back a Yeti, disbanded in 1959, right before the hikers left. Everything else is classified. Links are to Wikipedia, Dyatlov Pass, and the An American Nationalist blog, with its own theory.

These are the facts as I know them. Draw your own conclusions.




SJW Streaks

Tourette's charity wants apology over award-winning joke.
Make sure to choose at least one topic to be offended by..

I used to perform with a comic who had a stutter and built his act around it. Time went by and he cured himself. Unfortunately, he had no more act.

[Twitter]
"....robots can be trans"

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.