We're Going to Need Something Else to PANIC About

Making the worst of a horrible situation

Talking to friends, I realized what kind of shape we're in: financially, without hope, and looking for some tiny bit of... something... to make life tolerable.
In a nod to positivity, we've said the following:

• The car overheated. It only cost $250 to fix!!!
• The dog got sick. The vet bill was only $375 WITH blood work!
• I opened the curtain and there was only 95% cloud coverage. There was even a tiny spot on the sidewalk that looked like it might start drying...
• I put my frozen dinner in the microwave. Yes, it came out black, but I finally figured out how to set the power level!
• Only 4 of my friends died of coronavirus!
• My retirement account only lost 25% during the Great Coronavirus Panic of 2020!
• the dog only got half of the thanksgiving turkey!

It's kinda sad when this is what we're excited about.

Although it does speak to the resilience of the human spirit...

Please comment with yours.

• Things that are certain in life: death, taxes, and rain on the night the trash has to go out and/or when the bins have to come back. I kid you not.

We continue with news of The Great Coronavirus PANIC of 2020
Today's report is brought to you by Mrs lefty, woman on the street:
It's really dead out there.
Thank you, Mrs lefty.

A brief call to several local businesses had entire malls closed and entire malls open. Restaurants were open, but I wasn't allowed to go outside to visit them. Every website had the same disclaimer:

UPDATE ON COVID-19

We apologize for coronavirus and for being a business and for being open, because our families have to eat too. We want you to know we have taken every precaution to keep our customers and employees safe. If an employee feels sick or has vomited up his intestines, he can get a note from his doctor and miss work that day. He won't be paid, though.

We have engaged the services of the best cleaners in the entire state. They show up in a nuclear green pretty serious-looking truck. They all wear hazmat suits and carry bottles that have 'Coronavirus Eradicator' written on them, in crayon.

I'm not kidding... they all say something to this effect. Ok, they don't say nuclear green - that was.... what's that thing called? Poetic license.

Wait, we have a bulletin from Mrs lefty:
Mrs lefty, I understand you were out checking on your mother in law today.
Yes, lefty, I was.
And how was she.
Well, lefty, she was in a panic.
Why is that?
She didn't have any bottled water.
A quick check on her yesterday revealed 6 one gallon jugs of water under the sink.
Exactly, lefty, but that's not enough for her. She drinks water, you know.
6 gallons?
No, but she wants to have it there just in case.
Good thing she doesn't need any toilet paper.
Heh heh heh, lefty. Back to you in the studio...



All of the past and current democratic primary candidates released a statement, blaming President Trump for the virus.

They were going to blame Hillary Clinton, but changed their plans when they started to disappear, one at a time. The coroner reported that they all committed suicide while handcuffed, shooting themselves twice in the back of the head, then hiding the gun.

• Know who's suffering the worst from The Virus?
• Hypochondriacs - the people who always think they're sick. They're feeling left out (and sick, of course) and are jamming emergency rooms across the country.
• The National Guard has been mobilized, and have been authorized to shoot these people

Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-Uranus) is pleading with the president to mobilize the military to fight coronavirus. Do you want to explain it to him or should I?

In an attempt to stop a Hawaiian lava flow, the army bombed it in 1935.
WTF is wrong with us? We also bombed the Moon. There are other options... we don't have to bomb everything we see.

• Everybody could use a little more cash. Since I don't make anything from blogging, I do what I can. I stand out on a corner, selling toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Mrs lefty ho's me out and calls me 'her main bitch,' whatever that means. She said if I do over $5,500, I get my own corner. If I do under $5,500, I take a beatin'.

A spokesman for Hollywood said that they are losing $20 billion, more or less, each weekend. As a result, Meryl Streep, Robert DeNiro, and Rob Reiner have released a statement, blaming Trump personally for the virus.



Things are pretty good at the lefty mansion.
Mrs lefty lets me out every 6-8 weeks (whether I want to or not).
But now that she's keeping me indoors because of the Flying AIDS, I suddenly want to go out. Why is that?  Maybe if I get her to tell me we're going out, I will calm down and go back to sleep in the basement.

• What do you have when you find an open pie container, with most of the pie hollowed out but not the crust, and a spoon in the middle?
• Kids

Israel takes step toward monitoring phones of virus patients.
Monitoring? We call that spying when the CIA/FBI/NSA does it.
Now is the time to watch carefully. See what goes on with restrictions and official reactions. Don't let it bog you down - just notice it.
Israel has some technology - they also use it to spy on us.

In his address, Netanyahu acknowledged the technology had never been used on civilians. But he said the unprecedented health threat posed by the virus justified its use. 

In the US, this would be largely the same, except it would be 'for the children.'




Today I identify as  Dolly Parton



List of Free Software and Services During Coronavirus Outbreak

• Creepiest headline: What is a smart diaper and how does it work

In case you slipped and clicked the MS Edge browser icon...it's also sending serious data back to MS. Win 10 wasn't enough...

• Apple bans COVID-19 games.
• what an odd little company

Next time you complain about your period, remember MRKH Syndrome: the girl that was born without a vagina. Not kidding and not giggling.

• Data of millions of eBay and Amazon shoppers exposed
• Haven't we had enough of this? It's the same cause every time..

If you've got a few million to burn, check out McClaren's ELVA - it has no windshield.   For that price, it should sexually gratify you too.

• Now that we're all working from home, let me give you my first tip
• turn off... ummmm... anything you might be watching... when the boss calls.

Please use birth control - you don't want your kids to be known as coronavirus babies

Let the Whining Continue

There was a successful cryptojacking attack on the LA Times.
Why?
Because somebody did not secure their Amazon Cloud setup.

Are you beginning to see commonalities?



The moon will be getting its first mobile telephone network next year. This will be used for high-definition streaming from the surface back to earth, in preparation for the first privately funded moon mission.

Shortly thereafter, there will be live streaming of porn to and from the moon, quickly followed by ministries beaming the bible up to the godless heathens that might be occupying the dead satellite. The joke will be on the ministries, as the side of the moon perpetually in the dark is a monitoring station for the aliens who created us.

The connection will be crystal clear with no dropouts until the first subscriptions are sold, at which point service will go immediately to hell, with the 4G connection dropping to 1G, and only texting possible.

• Apple Cofounder Steve Wozniak (friends call him Mary), admits he was scammed out of $70,000 in bitcoin.
• In unrelated news, the new iPhones have gone up $200 each.

The other day, a black woman wrote on social media about how great it was to be alive to experience the creations of Black geniuses of our time, specifically plays and movies.

This lady must be very young, and obviously has an agenda.

Although I never got the chance to see him firsthand, Jimi Hendrix's music will live on forever. As will Freddie/Albert/BB King, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Billy Preston, Robert Johnson, and scores of others.

Fortunately, I can say I have lived during Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton, as well as Frank Zappa, Eric Johnson, and Robin Trower. It just never occurred to me to be thankful that I was alive to enjoy these white geniuses of our time.

It would be difficult to do this now, but if you were to ask Jimi, he'd tell you that music was colorless. Musicians are colorless to me. I sure don't refer to Jimi as a great black guitar player. Or Jeff as a great white guitar player. They're pioneers of the guitar, beyond just talented.

Every now and then some tiny part of me called The Inner Hippie pops out.
He wants to know why we can't see art as art. He says that until we do, we will be divided.

Cellbrite, an Israeli company is now a favorite with the US Government, as it can unlock iPhones. Are we surprised? This is our government, completely out of control, under the pretext of National Security. Even worse, it's going to be difficult for iDevice owners to be Smug for any reason other than the price they paid for the device.

• NSA director Mike Rogers says the president hasn't given the NSA the authority to battle Russian interference.  He's right - the NSA would never do anything without authorization or that would violate anyone's privacy.

• About a year after I sounded the alarm over Marshall amplifiers with Bluetooth capabilty, Big Fish<tm> in the security industry are now sounding the alarm. Greater validation would be had if anybody saw my original claim.

No more experienced a politician than Oprah Winfrey said that she'll run for president if God tells her to.  Great, another attempted leader who hears voices. Don't forget - God also spoke directly to George Bush.

• 800 illegal aliens in Northern California avoided capture because the mayor warned them about ICE raids. Perhaps they should deport the mayor too.  Justice Department is seeing if this amounts to obstruction of justice charges.
• I was always told you can't pick and choose which laws you will obey.
• Rest assured that if you or I .....

I have an old laptop. It's very capable still, but needs a new keyboard.  This would be its third keyboard. For some reason, I go through them. I'm not sure why. It would have absolutely nothing to do with pounding it when it doesn't function properly. Last time I made the mistake of buying a keyboard from an unnamed country that makes chips that spy on us. It was very reasonably priced and the writing on the keys wore off in short order. I'm looking at proper keyboards and they're going for ridiculous prices. I'm starting to remember why I went Chinese. One official keyboard from the laptop manufacturer would cost half of what the laptop now sells for used. In related news, one can get a hell of a laptop deal on Ebay, especially if you're familiar with the model. Never hurts to have a spare machine.

As a grizzled IT veteran, I can tell you that you haven't lived until you've had to perform surgery on a laptop. This being the 2000s, there was a YouTube video showing the procedure, as well as sites with instructions.

Currently, the keyboard has no letters on a number of keys, one being I. Just to be amusing, the I key also requires an extra press or two to register. If it weren't for spellcheck, I'd be missing a blog full of I's.  An't that a btch? I must also keep both eyes on the screen at all times, as the keyboard has a habit of highlighting whole paragraphs and deleting them while I type. Spaces don't show up or happen twice, as do Rs. It's like having gremlins in the machine and not knowing when they're going to strike. Yes, I can use an external keyboard but space considerations make it difficult.

And just for fun, sometimes one of these things happens when I'm typing on a different machine.

• California just approved driverless car testing. Until now, the law mandated a backup driver.
• The California Mayors' Association has called for a halt to driverless vehicles, stating that they take jobs away from illegal aliens.
• Besides - what could possibly go wrong?

But I'm Not Dead Yet!

Neurologists studying the brains of nine people as they died discovered that the brain continues to work for minutes after the heart stops beating. The observation concluded that the brain dies with a final wave of activity called "spreading depression". They liken the sensation to living in Philadelphia.

Think about this... when does one die? At what point do they go toward the light and see the Easter Bunny? How much faster is rebooting a brain than Windows? How long has Nancy Pelosi been dead? I have questions...

• If you attend a number of schools in England, it's possible you're on camera, broadcasting live to a website. Why? Bad default security on the webcams, as well as no one concerned about security at the school to change the bad default passwords.
• This illustrates why it's important for everyone to change the default passwords on any device. You wouldn't want your BabyCam to be broadcasting live to some web page accessible to the world. Unless you're an exhibitionist, you also wouldn't want your bedroom security camera to be broadcasting to the internet..

A quantum physics experiment has proven quantum communication is possible with a single particle. If any of us has any clue about quantum physics, this is pretty exciting news, done by superposition, the phenomenon through which particles can effectively occupy two places at once.

Quantum particles can be on, off, or both; proving they're female.

Revenge of the Lions

• a woman was killed by a lion at a South Africa game lodge today.
• Earlier this month a suspected poacher was mauled to death and eaten by a pack of lions close to South Africa's famed Kruger National Park.
• Lions 2 - Humans 10,247

In Chicago, congressional candidate Benjamin Thomas Wolf is featured smoking pot in his campaign ad. He supports legalization of marijuana. His competition supports a needle exchange. He is featured shooting heroin.

• Ryan Seacrest's former personal stylist, Suzie Hardy, alleges sexual aggression; grinding his erect penis against her while clad only in his underwear, groping her vagina, and at one point slapping her buttock so hard that it left a large welt still visible hours later.
• Reached for comment, Seacrest apologized and said that he just wanted to see what it was like to do it to a woman.

The Offended Files

Residents of a nudist community in Florida (where else?) are upset because their mail carrier refuses to deliver mail. The carrier says she is 'offended by their naked lifestyle'. The Postal Service will not force her to go where she's not comfortable. No word on whether they are going to ask someone else to deliver the mail. Several hundred male carriers have volunteered for the job.

• The Catholic church is considering married priests to ease the shortage of clergy. Because orgies and molesting children aren't a serious problem yet.

Hillary Clinton, upset that America is celebrating the 15 month anniversary of her not being president, is warning the person who was elected that "The Russians are still coming."  All over the country, dead horses continue to let out low moans.

• It's not that we're not serious about security, it's just that we don't care. Manufacturers are currently using compromised firmware in implantable devices... you know...  like pacemakers... So if you feel like dancing or clutching your chest, it's not your imagination.
• Remember that minor Equifax hiccup that divulged ridiculous amounts of your personal data? Just announced: 2.4 million more US consumer names and partial drivers licenses stolen. The unrelated news is that the CFPB dropped the investigation and refuses to reopen it.

There's another new tv show. This is never good news. To say it is horrid would be synonymous with new. It's called My Four Wives. No, this does not refer to multiple personalities. It's some dude with four wives, families, and houses.

Why?


Perhaps the second or third question to come to mind is what the hell this guy does to be able to afford four families.... most of us can barely afford one.  Four mortgages... I can't afford my dog.

Now let's get to the crux of the biscuit: four wives.
Four.

Wives.
How many of us can say we mastered the art of one spouse?

Did the fellow simply not get it right the first time and insist on making the same mistake three more times? Does he have some fatal desire for nagging? Was his own personal army not building up quickly enough, so he enlisted three more factories? Wouldn't it be faster to adopt? What does the will look like? He must be fabulously wealthy because he can't possibly have time to work.  What have the psychologists had to say about this horrible need to hurt himself - can't he just cut, like everyone else? If he hasn't had a vasectomy, his wives should make sure he doesn't get within ten feet of them at all times. If he goes to a bar, do the four of them form a human shield around him? Does he sleep with more than one at a time? Do they like girls too? What does he put in their milk - they look fabulously happy. Too happy, in fact.

He obviously didn't do this because he likes supermodels.
Maybe the families are a corporation.. Jason Sperm, LLC. Four Too Many, Inc. The Fertility Group.

You have to figure he's a member of one of those polygamous Mormon sects. I have nothing against Mormons or polygamy; one should be able to choose the instrument of one's own death. You want more than one wife? Go ahead - it's your funeral.

The commercial showed them all flying somewhere.  Never mind four houses... this is how you can tell the guy has too much money: that many plane tickets. Whenever they need to go somewhere, they don't call an airline, they call a tour guide. "I need thirteen for Polygamy Class - it's right before Coach."

• After intense taste-testing, we recommend that if you wish to try Chocolate Lucky Charms, you go with Chocolate Frosted Flakes with Marshmallow Bits.  Trust us on this.

from @RealPeerReview
Here's a classic paper written by a male feminist:

I have heard more plausible stories of little green men from meth addicts.
The author was subsequently stripped of his skirt by actual female feminists.

• A Big Security Dude<tm> found a paper postulating that space aliens could send us malware capable of destroying humanity. In retaliation, we'll send them Windows.

In legal news, Google is being sued by a fired YouTube recruiter for wrongful termination.  Google was unhappy that their workforce was largely white and Asian males, so they tried to 'rectify the situation by working harder to find candidates who could do the job and who are also traditionally underrepresented minorities.'

Per the lawsuit:

In April of 2017, Google’s Technology Staffing Management team was instructed to immediately cancel all Level 3 (0-5 years experience) software engineering interviews with every single applicant who was not either female, Black, or Hispanic and to purge entirely any applications by non-diverse employees from the hiring pipeline. Plaintiff refused to comply with this request.

Despite lacking legal law linguistics, this sounds illegal.
Google vows to defend itself, saying that it has a “clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity.."  Unless they're white or Asian males, of course.

How many times do you hear that any job area is populated by Asian males? Numerically, that's odd. On the other hand, hockey is completely free of Asians, while basketball and football are majority African American. Do you suppose the NFL will be sued by a recruiter because he refused to hire more whites or Asians?

My head continues to explode over a topic that's becoming more visible lately: Universal Basic Income. 

A CNBC article explores this topic in greater detail. 

The premise is that the government gives everybody a basic income.

I keep thinking I'm not understanding this correctly and asking Who's gonna pay for this?

I wrote previously on Stockton, California, which has a pilot program, handing out $500 monthly. This doesn't bother me as much, as it's being done on a private grant. But in the future....

Who's gonna pay for this?

Understand that the government has no money. All government money comes from We the People. So when the government is going to provide a basic income, where is the money going to come from? 

A poll shows 48% of Americans support a UBI.

These are obviously the ones who haven't asked Who's gonna pay for this?

A proponent of UBI, speaking at the World Economic Forum had this to say:

"The claim is often made that if you give people a basic income, they'll become lazy and stop doing work," Standing said. "It's an insult to the human condition. Basic incomes tend to increase people's work rather than reduce it."

Apparently this fellow has never heard of welfare.

But wait - it gets better....

"People are saying, 'Look we cannot let inequality continue to grow, because the political consequences could be a disaster'," Standing said, pointing to the recent rise of more authoritarian figures. 

You don't think there's any bias there, do you?

The most popular solution is the federal government sending a monthly check to everyone, regardless of earnings or employment. An estimate of the cost to provide everybody with $10,000 annually is three trillion dollars.  This is more than 3/4 of the entire yearly federal budget. It's allegedly more than the military budget, so there's no worry of it ever coming to pass.

Who's gonna pay for this?

Americans are a sad lot, with 80% saying that companies that benefit from artificial intelligence should pay higher taxes to fund UBI.  They also support changing the name of the country to United Socialists of America.

One reason I vote libertarian is to protect myself from people like this.

To be clear, I support helping people who need help due to disability or short term for job loss. UBI would take everybody's money and give it to... everybody.

Read the article. Your head could explode too!

Happy Hendrix Holiday

Every day is a Hendrix day but November 27 is Jimi's birthday.  Many Happys, Jimi.

• San Francisco's Municipal Railway system was hit by a ransomware attack. This allowed the passengers to ride free, as the ticket system was down. Insert joke about malware not always being bad. The hackers demanded $73,000. The Railway folks vow not to pay ransom. From my reading, they might want to tighten up the system in one or 1,000 places.
• Just in - in a Monty Python-esque bit of news, the hacker was hacked. Yes, the fine gentleman responsible for the Muni ransomware hack had his email address hacked by a security researcher. How? He guessed the security question, allowing him to reset the password on the email account. Let that be a lesson to you, whatever that means. Oh yeah, strong account security, on everything including throwaway email accounts.

2016 hasn't been too good a year, what with the election nonsense, musicians and others dying, and over 900 recorded security breaches. And those are the recorded ones. Not counted are the hushed and the as-yet-undiscovered ones. There are two types of businesses: the types who have been hacked and the types that don't know they've been hacked. Read the link or just take my word for it. Pass the tissues, please.

• if you have any sort of iCloud account and are receiving calendar or sharing spam, do not reply or decline. If you do, the account will be flagged as live and you'll get more spam. 

Over in the UK, vegetarians and vegans have discovered that the five pound notes are made with a substance derived from animal fat. My singular (identified) vegan reader is going to be glad they fled the UK. How do I know I have a vegan reader? These Google blogger controls are very sophisticated.

• Russia is a funny place. A holocaust-themed ice dance is drawing condemnation. Hmm... ice... probably not Springtime for Hitler then... Hitler on Ice? That's Not my Nazi? Six Million Jews Can't be Wrong?

A giant shield built to cover the damaged nuclear reactor in Chernobyl has been moved into place.  In other news, the Kremlin has announced that Lenin's death certificate has been filed.

• If you're thinking about a night out in Brussels, be aware of a Dancing Tax. Yes, a tax on dancing. And by all means, do NOT go to the bathroom.

Are you, by chance, a Canadian who was caught drunk driving? Those wacky Canuck lawmakers have a punishment for you.. worse than death.. you may be forced to listen to Nickelback. I thought this was against the Geneva Convention but what do I know...

• Who's got time to watch the 37 Harry Potter films? Watch this shortcut instead.

Today's Helpful Tip: How to stop feeling guilty about everything.

* Shoot yourself.

Next week: World Peace

If you're looking for somewhat less deadly suggestions, although I can't imagine why, try here.

• Equality strikes again! Congress, bastion of rationality, has taken women being required to sign up for the draft off the table. Oddly enough, no feminists demanding equality has complained about this. Equality means equality in everything. Or rather, equality when it suits them.
• Having said that, I don't think men should register either.

If you use Firefox through Tor, turn off javascript (like we do anyway) or use another browser until a patch is released. This is for Windows only. Try using the NoScript addin.

• The New York Times asks the question: Can tv be fair to Muslims? ThermionicEmissions answers: not til long after they're fair to the left-handed.

The FDA has agreed to Ecstasy trials for PTSD patients. It's an exciting time for those with PTSD. And before you ask, you can't just go out and get some PTSD. You can sign up to serve in Afghanistan but I don't recommend it.

• An Australian man handed over a breast implant to police, thinking it was evidence of a crime. The 'evidence' was revealed to be a jellyfish. Australian breast implant manufacturers call foul and demand jellyfish alter their appearance to look less like implants.

Hillary Clinton presented a humanitarian award to Katy Perry the other night. Dubbed 'The Axis of Incompetence Tour,' no one can figure out why. A failed politician known for corruption and lying, presenting an award to a singer known for her breasts.

• President-elect Donald 'Me' Trump has announced he is cutting ties with his businesses to focus on running the country, leaving them to his children. Ivanka is excited, hoping for a salary rivaling Chelsea Clinton's.

To no one's surprise, Marshall the cocker is running the house, to an unprecedented degree. He used to bark to go outside. Now he makes a pitiful whining noise. Having discovered whining works, he is now doing a full scale study on Human Behavioral Patterns and whining most of the time, just to see how many times he can make the humans do things until they start refusing. By 9:15am, he has gotten fed twice, been served cold bottled water, and gone outside four times. He counts the experiment as a success and it will be peer-reviewed and written up in Dog Psychology magazine. The humans, out of their minds from constantly being bossed around by a quadruped, are looking into a doggie door, which will not work, due to other quadrupeds possibly using it.

Concrete Windows

According to Reuters, the US military aid to Israel will be at least $38 billion. That's billion, with a B.
This needs to be stopped. Stop the money flowing to any country. Lower taxes. You wanna send aid? Go ahead and contribute voluntarily.

• Two US bombers flew over South Korea in a show of force. No one told them it was North Korea which fired off a nuclear bomb.

Is the transgender bathroom brouhaha a distraction or a significant need? How many transgendered people would this impact? Can they use current washrooms? One of my disabled buddies was against making every concrete corner into a ramp.  I have no position as yet: you tell me.

• Bradley/Chelsea Manning has been approved for a sex change. Tell me, why is it easier for a psychiatrist to order a sex change than to get his patient out of solitary confinement?

In the Ultimate Irony Department: Hillary will be featured on the cover of Womens Health magazine.

• Good news for iDevices: iOS 10 is rolling out. Bad news for iDevices: iSO 10 is rolling out. There are reports that the 'upgrade' is bricking phones. As with any upgrade/update, wait for the bugs to be worked out (not that any of us here use iDevices)

Basic Security: do NOT plug a found USB drive into your computer. At best, it'll be harmless. At worst, it will literally fry your computer. It could have a less harmful virus. In any case, Just Don't Do It.

• are you a Last.fm user? 43 million passwords 'leaked'.  Change your password NOW.

Yeah, I'm late to the party, but my advice is solid: if your phone supports wireless charging, invest in a charger. 

• An Indian media company has launched a Spanish-language Bollywood film channel. In the US. Because demand has been outta site. There's too much here to come up with the appropriate slur.

Top US military and national security officials stated that climate change is a 'significant and direct' threat to the US military. Unfortunately, they can't find a country to invade over it.

• An old guy shot three people at a senior citizens complex in Cheyenne, Wyoming. This proves we need common sense legislation around septuagenarians with guns. 

The tank made its debut 100 years ago. About the only good thing it did was to allow Joe Walsh to ride down Hollywood Boulevard with one. I'd like one for my lawn but my locality has a specific ordinance against tanks on lawns, hurriedly enacted just after I moved there.

• Hopefully this won't (or will) be helpful: if your older relative goes nuts, it might be something as simple as a urinary tract infection. It's easy to diagnose and easier to treat. A UTI can look like dementia.

Many people may not realise the beer in their pint glass contains isinglass, a gelatin derived from the swim bladders of fish. Drink up!

Pneumonia, Parkinsons, Pexhaustion, Pwatever

Friends: thanks for reading. Although this blog is the 'best kept secret' on Google, I appreciate you loyal folks.



ING's data center in Bucharest, Romania, was knocked offline over the weekend during a fire extinguising test. Are you ready for this? It was caused by inert gas. No so much the gas itself, but the noise of the escaping gas. It got to the heads on the hard drives, ruining them. The site went offline and the company relied on its backup data center, seriously inconveniencing its customers. Good to know: noise will not affect solid state drives. So don't fart too loudly in front of your computer.

Can you believe I get paid for this shit?
Just kidding.

• Apparently the version of android tracks you even if you uninstall Google Maps. Lovely. The only way to avoid this is to disable GPS and only activate it if/when you need it. I saved myself by disabling GPS when I got the phone. You might also want to do this.

Seagate, the hard drive manufacturer, is in trouble. Their H/R department fell for a phishing scam, released all sorts of W-2 data, and now the employees are suing.  Does phishing rhyme with fishing?

• If Hillary Clinton had a heart attack outside her ambluance and fell on the ground, her supporters would say "she just needed a nap - why are you picking on her?"
• Speaking of Hillary supporters, they're lining up to meet her and catch her pneumonia as a remembrance.

BREAKING: three people killed, tripping over adapters needed to use headphones with new iPhones. See Airpod samples.

• Elon Musk says pending Tesla updates could have prevented fatal crash. Oopsie.

A woman is suing the manufacturer of her (phone-connected) dildo because it knows too much about her. Folks, if you buy a FitBit, a VagBit or anything else phone-connected, the data will flow upstream from your phone. Rest assured it will be used for marketing, at very least. If you can deny internet permission for the app, do so. Otherwise, firewall it or just Don't Use It.

Again, I use No Root Firewall on my phone. As the title indicates, you don't need to root your (android) phone to use it. The moment I installed it, I saw a frightening amount of data leaving my phone. Why do my file manager, internet radio and others so desperately want to contact Faceyspaces? Why do apps need to go to the internet when I'm not using them (or at all). No Root Firewall is not for everybody - you have to have a real interest in privacy and a few moments here and there to decide what YOU want to let contact some address outside of your phone. Allowing one app might allow all sorts of addresses you don't need to contact, so you have to go with granular permissions (yes, it may contact the addresses it needs to do its job but not Faceyspaces or ad networks).

• Today is International Chocolate Day. What 'they' are not telling you is that EVERY DAY is International Chocolate Day. Don't be fooled.

A man using stolen wifi from a neighbor's unlocked system downloaded and distributed child porn. Whose house do you think the authorities raided? That's right.  Secure your wireless.

• As we know, I'm no Trumpian, but I find the charges of racism to be manufactured. If he said to deport illegal aliens, that's not racism- it's the law.
• Come on with the Hillary Health Hoo-Ha. The woman is sick; all that remains is a correct diagnosis. First it was dehydration, then is was pneumonia, per her own campaign. Then the press that she owns said she tripped. Lie upon lie, although her supporters say this is all Trumped up. The Kool Aid is unbelievable.
• Meanwhile the Great Unwashed are most concerned with Various Activities performed by millionaire football players during the national anthem. Can you say diversion?

Happy 70th to Freddie Mercury. Rock on.

• Got a Samsung 7? I'd do something with it before it does something to you. They're catching fire and exploding. Using one is now discouraged on airplanes. Discouraged? Ban the damn things. Those hoverboard things were banned... do you want one of these on a plane? Btw, this is not the only phone with this problem.

Help Save the Texas Prairie Chicken

In Backwards World: at the recent Democrat debate, Hillary interrupted Bernie. Bernie told Hillary that he was not done speaking yet. The social media-sphere went crazy, proclaiming Bernie sexist for interrupting Hillary.

• Rescuers are still valiantly searching for Flight MH370. Huffing and puffing. Using their best people. They remain hopeful.

I'm going to go ahead and be un-PC, as if this blog were anything else, and state flat out that Curvy Barbie is NOT curvy; she's fat. The fact is, skinny and average women can be curvy, yet larger women seek to co-opt the term. I don't care what size you are and if you claim it's a preference or result of some malady... facts are facts. Big is big.

• Today we celebrate International Women's Day. Also International Breast Awareness Month. Also International Higgs Bosom Month.
• Apparently it's also National Pancake Day. Another incursion by the Pancake Lobby.

So how about that Trump?  You have to be doing something right when your entire party is conspiring to beat you in the election. Like him or hate him, he's made waves.

In other election-related news, Michael Bloomberg will not be running for president. Essentially this means our large sodas are now safe.

• Sportscaster Erin Andrews has won $55 million in a lawsuit over illegally taping her in the nude. Man, I can't even get my wife to tape me (not that she's got a spare $55 mil laying around).

Ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman has been diagnosed with cancer. Hopefully he'll be ok. Cancer has been getting way too many headlines these days, including a brother-in-law.

In other music news, AC/DC is rapidly approaching Lynyrd Skynyrd status in terms of luck. Their drummer is accused of murder, a guitarist developed early dementia, and now their singer is close to complete hearing loss. The tour has been canceled for some reason.

In even more music news, this time very good, Joe Walsh and the original Bad Company have announced they're touring. For info, go to joewalsh.com or pollstar.com. See you there.

• Further proving absolutely nothing goes unpunished, Boston bombing survivor Victoria McGrath has died in a car crash.

The US gun industry want to have silencers reclassified as hearing protection devices. I fully support the Second Amendment, but this is pretty funny.

• Apparently a football player called Peyton Manning has retired. Naturally I don't follow sports but I recently saw a picture of him. I truly want to know if his forehead was Photoshopped. You can run movies on it.

It's a shame that the World Anti-Doping Association doesn't go after the real dopes. Meanwhile, if Maria Sharapova feels really bad, we are here for (immoral) support.

• Kardashian: it's not body-shaming to point out that your ass is the size of Texas.

A man has been arrested in the shooting of a pastor who just led prayer at some politician's rally. Let's say it was Cruz's, because he wants to rule a theocracy. Any normal person would abhor shooting an innocent man. But there were mitigating circumstances: the shooter said the pastor was a Martian and was destroying his life. 

And speaking of shootings, the leader of the occupation of an Oregon wildlife refuge was shot three times in the back, as well as many others. The FBI can't account for some of the shots. The county prosecutor called the shooting "justified and necessary:" Like RFK, I guess.

• Black feminists at the University of Missouri feel their Safe Spaces invaded by feminists who aren't 'black enough'. This school will shortly eat itself.

A tissue thought to be from an airplane washed up on the British shore yesterday.  This might be tied to similar tissues on Flight MH370.

• I'm flummoxed but this week a gun killed someone, a car drove into a pole, and the Elvis estate is suing a Las Vegas casino. It's been a banner week for inanimate action!

Jared's Folly

You think because I referenced Subway that I'm going to have a whack at Jared and the allegations of kiddie porn. Or a poke at Subway for the quality of their sandwiches. Or even the old bit about twelve inches not being twelve inches. But noooooo....

Every week I go to lunch with a friend at Subway. Exactly every two weeks, a large, loud African-American woman starts SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HER LUNGS at the poor Indian guys behind the counter. The specific topic doesn't seem to matter, but it generally revolves around a feeling of being owed something. The volume will start loud and then go through the roof. The entire (alleged) restaurant goes quiet, as the woman ratchets up in temper and volume. She badgers the hell out of an employee across the counter. This is made more interesting by the two-way language difficulties.

Eventually somebody will threaten to call the police. One arguer kept telling the employee to 'GO AHEAD -CALL THE POLICE', as she backed out the front door. Another encouraged calling in a tone that shook the building, as her girlfriend/partner got up to the cash register and yelled even louder.

An African-American couple looked at each other uncomfortably and left without finishing their food.

Finally one of the employees decided to end the play by giving the bellowing monster what she wanted. I'm going to guess this was to end the noise (our ears were bleeding) or because if he called the police, he'd be retired long before they arrived. In Philly, the police cannot be bothered to show up unless you specifically say GUN.

After it was over, I stood up on my chair and yelled `YOU... I'M GOING TO STAND HERE AND SCREAM AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS UNTIL YOU GIVE ME WHAT I WANT.'  The restaurant laughed and applauded. My job there was done.

As we walked out, we noticed six policemen approaching, obviously by accident. I wanted to suggest they come back in two weeks.....

• What in the multiverse is up these days?  When I read the news, I often wonder when we officially switched to 1984 or some other science fiction novel set in some black, ugly future. The nonsense was piled upon us a piece at a time, so most of use didn't notice (the Kardashians were on). Every time I read a story about immigration, my head spins. Let me see if I understand this correctly:

1. We are allowing hundreds of thousands of (mostly) Mexicans to stream across the border, due to it being largely porous. If we're that concerned about 'terrorism', why are we allowing this?
2. Our border with Canada is sealed tight, as are the international airports.
3. The occupant of the White House and his accomplices welcome the illegals, referring to them as undocumented.
4. The illegals are treated to healthcare, education and drivers licenses, on our dime. We, who can't afford our own insurance, are forced to subsudize insurance for people who can't be bothered to follow the immigration laws of our country.
5. An administration that won't enforce its own immigration laws.
6. An administration that fails to deport illegals in most cases, even after they commit serious crimes and sneak back repeatedly.
7. DC wants to give illegal aliens the right to vote.

• So tell me - what's going on here? Am I completely missing the point? Am I so turned around that I'm abnormal(moreso) and this situation is perfectly ok?

Speaking of insurance, I had a real Insurance Experience the other day. My wife went to pick up some meds and was told the insurance refused to pay for them because they needed a precertification.  Mrs. leftystrat has been on this medicine for five years and it's cheap and generic; no reason not to pay (other than the fact that insurers don't want to pay any claim). The pharmacy faxed a form to her doctor for precertification.

A week later(!), she called her doctor to see where the process was. As it turned out, the process wasn't. No record of request or action so they said they'd call the next day.  I should mention that it's a good thing we had a backup supply: if this were an antidepressant, she'd be shooting from the roof or in schoolyards by now.

The next day the doc's office told her it should be waiting for her at the pharmacy. A little later she the office called back to say that the pills weren't entirely waiting for her at the pharmacy. The insurer called the pharmacist but he was being uncooperative [no way this could be true- they're like family]. 

The wife gave up and paid cash for the meds. This was NOT alright with me. I got on the phone with the drug coverage people, who wanted the prescription number. There is no prescription number, so I cursed a bit and hung up. Then I called the main number, waited whilst being told how valuable I am, eventually arriving at an actual human. SHE explained that there's a medical coverage I.D. and a drug coverage I.D. The insurer approved the medicine under the medical I.D. and whenever the pharmacist tried to put it through, it got rejected. This person grasped the situation immediately (she'll be fired next week) and said all we had to do was move the precert from one number to the other (I almost fell out of my chair). 

You know what's coming, right?

She couldn't transfer the precert - she had to connect me with the Precert Department (aaaaaaaaaargh!).

The Precert Department did not tell me how valuable I was, which was a harbinger of things to come. Earl answered the phone and I explained (slowly and patiently) the situation. He was much more interested in the dosage and amount of the medicine than actually fixing the problem. Then he stated he could fax a form to the doctor to get the process started. I kept telling him (slowly and patiently) that the process was already started: all he had to do was move the precert. He kept telling me (slowly and patiently) that he would fax a form to the doctor to get the process started. Once again I explained to Earl how easily it could be fixed. Once again Earl said we'd have to start the process over.

It was at about this point that I decided it would be best to dispense with slowly and patiently. I raised my volume and lowered my pitch, explaining to Earl that I needed them to pay for this medicine TONIGHT and how was he going to make that happen?

At this point I heard a higher-pitched YAAAAAY! The pharmacy called my wife and said it finally went through... there was celebrating (and we ate Robin's minstrels). I bid Earl a fond adieu, only to discover that the insurance company only covered half the cost of the pills.  Ain't insurance grand?

• Speaking of insurance (and we were), I found an article stating that insurers are asking for twenty to fifty four percent cost increases next year.  HUH?  It seems that because more people are insured (thanks, Obama), the insurance companies (who wrote the laws) aren't making money on the deal. What was Obama's response? Call the state regulators and tell them to examine the rate increases carefully. Why is it that he and the rest of the criminals aren't run out of office hastily? We got screwed last year and now they're adding another helping of Screwed Soup. 
• Everybody who voted for Obama, raise your hand.  Good - YOU pay for my insurance. It's YOUR fault. 
• And don't go voting for Hillary, you kool-aid drinking socialist New World Order sycophants.

So there are three children whose parents are going through a nasty divorce. They refuse to see their father so a judge, full of good intentions, sentenced them all to Juvenile Detention for the entire summer. It came down to a pissing match between three recalcitrant children and a judge. In these cases, the judge always has the bigger member, even if female, as is the case here.  Aparently the kids really don't want to visit Dad, as all of them chose detention over visitation. This would be funny if it weren't so serious. Who are we kidding - it's funny now.

• Portland, Oregon, has taken on a very controversial Neighborhood Beautification Program. When I was young, it was common to throw your old sneakers over the power lines. I have no idea why. In Portland, they are doing the same thing, only with dildos. Just like sneakers, they are going up in pairs, in beautiful white and bright orange. Bright orange? I didn't know they came in bright orange. Excuse me.... I have to run an errand......

A divorced couple is fighting over frozen embryos. The female half wants to insert them into a surrogate, which isn't going over well with the male half.  Hey - leggo my embryos!

A Moment of Music

These guys have been slagged off unfairly, as a copycat band and as a grunge band. Stone Temple Pilots are a refreshing surprise of musicianship, writing, versatility and heroin abuse.  Their hits, and there have been many, are typically loud and raucous. I appreciate some of their more complex songs, which they can't play live, as they're overdubbed and there are too few musicians to reproduce them.

The DeLeo brothers, Dean and Robert, play guitar and bass, respectively. Robert doesn't get recognized for his contributions, which are solid yet busy and sound like James Jamerson (Motown). Dean plays many instrument flavors and tones, making things very interesting to the ear.  Eric Kretz is a drummer in the pounding style of John Bonham (Led Zeppelin). Scott Weiland is a very talented singer with a lot of baggage. Twice, after appearances on the Howard Stern Show, he went back on heroin.  Scott is bipolar, which probably drives this behavior. He's a great frontman, a real chameleon. He was let go and replaced by Chester Bennington, of Linkin Park. Personally I'm not thrilled but he's certainly decent.

Daisy is a rare instrumental. One of Dean's secret talents is slide guitar. He sets his tone beautifully and really uses his slide lyrically, instead of the 'normal' slide routine.

One of STP's surprises is their variety. You can listen to five songs and not know it's the same band. One of my favorite STP tunes is Atlanta. Listen to this and tell me you don't hear the Doors.  Hello It's Late is another change of style. Does this sound like their hit Plush? One of my wife's favorites is Bipolar Bear. Note the acoustic going into the faster chaotic electric section. Like Jimmy Page, DeLeo is a master of layering and many tones. There are all sorts of things going on here that can't be accurately played live, although they manage to pull it off.

These guys play to serve the song - no heroics, except for the whole.  Listen and love.