Fists, Rocks, Chains, Knives, and Guns

UK Knife Crime Protection Orders would impose sanctions - including bans on using social media - on anyone aged 12 or over suspected of being involved in knife crime, even if they have not been caught with a blade....

While Americans snort and fall down laughing, this brings up several points:
First, the UK is very silly.
Second, the UK is a staging ground for what's coming.
Third, nothing changes.

Let's face it - we can pretty much replace knife with gun. This makes the panic more interesting and enlightening. You know the criminals are saying, "We can't stab him - we'll be locked out of Faceyspaces!" I'm sure we can agree that threats of punishment are useless, just as they are for most crime. You can get the death penalty for murder - does that stop anybody? I will admit that no one has ever proposed a social media ban for murder (or even shooting). How a social media ban would work is yet another interesting topic. Don't forget, the UK has made it 'illegal' to say Bad Things about people online... the police will visit. This also trips up the American concept of due process - you're punished before you're proven innocent or guilty... somewhat draconian, wouldn't you say?

This brings home that people will find a way to assault others, whether verbally or with implements. Banning any of them won't help - people will just use others. The problem goes deeper, a concept we won't bother discussing at the moment. Eventually people will be assaulting others with phasers, tasers, lasers, masers, ray guns, and invisibility beams. We'll see the same impotent responses too.

• Apparently there was a sale on candy.... three very large party packs of caramel M&Ms just appeared. The first one is almost done, because it's like crack to me. I'd think she wanted to kill me with chocolate, but we don't have enough life insurance to make it worthwhile for her (on purpose). 

Dear lefty:

• Is there anything good about Philly?
• Yes, leaving it to get to the surrounding suburbs.

Washington state declared a state of emergency over an outbreak of measles.

Not to be outdone, Alabama declared a state of emergency over expected bad weather.

California is about to declare a state of emergency over a shortage of cosmetic plastic.

Florida (God's waiting room) has been hit hard with a shortage of waitresses for the 3-4pm dinner shift.

A homeless Georgia man is accused of breaking into a funeral home and raping a woman's corpse.

When asked why, he said that raping a man's corpse would be gay.

• for some reason I really want to be here right now. To play and to feel....

It was a new day. A new week. There was sun outside. The temps were above single digits.
The children, recently frozen to the ground, were being collected and taken inside.
The snow lost its battle with temperature, I lost my battle with the printer, and a lot of people continued to hate the president. The marital conversation with the baseball bats had taken a temporary break, and I got invited to perform at an album release party. I accepted before they told me how they wanted me to perform.

• To the families of passengers on Flight 234: When we say we'll have you on the runway in 5 minutes, we're not kidding. We will let you know when we find the rest of the plane.

A 4 year old boy in Washington state found a handgun and shot his 8 months pregnant mother in the face. Fortunately her condition has improved, and the child, much to his disappointment, will not remain an only child.

• A Texas man was killed when his vape pen exploded. RIP.
• Nobody listens to me when I say smoking kills.

Dear lefty:

• Sonny Smellenbad, of Selma, San Francisco, asks why he has so much trouble smelling salts
• Because when you were born, your mother didn't know if you were hers or not.

President Trump gave his 2nd State of the Union speech recently. 

Opposition boycotted the speech, saying Trump lied. Asked what he lied about, they said it didn't matter - whatever it is, they're against it.

• I hate to say this, but the 4th season of Monty Python suffered greatly from the absence of John Cleese. Reached for comment, Mr. Cleese said, "The season is dead. It's a stiff. It's bleedin demised."

Hey, it's been at least 5 minutes since my last rant, so here's another. We call this Let's Ship with UPS:

Some work equipment developed an attitude so they sent me replacements. They came with a UPS return label, which was their first mistake. I sealed the box up and went online to schedule a pickup. That was my first mistake. Like most of us, avoiding human contact is a bonus.  Got through all the forms online with no grief, then it asked me for payment. It's a prepaid label, complete with tracking number. Naturally there is no way to indicate this, although I certainly tried.

Shit - human contact.

Well, maybe not. The phone sent me to a voice response system, to which I gave all my information again. I had no idea blood type was so important to shipping. Sure enough, it wanted payment too. So far this is two automated systems that wanted money. I need one of these, so whoever calls me has to pay, with no option not to pay before talking to me. I picked out random words to say to the system, including some rather interesting ones, and finally got shipped to an operator. I could understand most words she spoke, which worried me.  At the end, she told me that since I scheduled a pickup, there would be a $20.17 charge for a pickup.

No there wouldn't.

Bill it to my employer. They sent me the bloody label. It's their friggin equipment. Believe me, they want it back in the region of NOW. They will pay the charge. They're a rather large organization. In fact, they're a really large organization. Bill them.

Nope. She kept with the script.

I wondered how far her training went and did they cover Master-level sarcasm.

She kept with the script, only worded differently.

She was good.

Even after I explained my company's budget, the fact they sent me the label to return it ($437 next day shipping), and read her home address to her, she asked me how I wanted to pay.

I didn't.

She suggested I could get the receiver to call her and tell her how they were going to pay. They wouldn't schedule the pickup until they heard from the company. You worked some jobs at some places - I know this. You had shipper/receivers. Nobody on the planet ever called your shipper/receivers to ask how they were going to pay for a package's pick up charge. Even if they had, the employees weren't about to give out their personal credit cards. Or blood type. 

I shook my head in defeat, as I pulled out my card. That package was going nowhere until *I* paid the charge to have a truck come pick it up. By now those drones were starting to sound attractive, especially versus talking to UPS. The shipping instructions said PREPAID. They didn't say PREPAID except you have to go to a UPS location to drop it off. They also didn't say "you have to take off during work hours to go drop the package off." I was perfectly willing to give them my firstborn, but no....

Next time I have to call UPS, I'll save the trouble and call City Hall instead. Twice the pain in half the time, and no one will pick my package up anyway.

BUT WAIT!!!!

My company was not amused by this and rang UPS immediately. I got a phone number to get a refund immediately. The system gave me 3 choices, one of which it couldn't understand. Repeatedly. Eventually I continued in the system, reaching a Refund Person. Refund person took the details, said, Ohhhh" and had to send me somewhere else.  Of course she did - I needed a refund and went to the refund department - how stupid could I be? Off to Billing, where I got to hear the same jaunty two chords for about 10 minutes, while they hoped beyond hope that I got fed up and hung up. The mean time for holding is 8 minutes, per a study on this kind of thing, so they wait at least 10 before answering.

Another nice lady answered and asked for my tracking number: a 34 digit imaginary code, including the day of the week, week of the year, the employee's employee number and nostril size. This number should have transferred with my call, but industry studies say pretending it didn't got people to hang up faster, avoiding any refund and buffing up the bottom line. Oh dear... the tracking number isn't in the system yet.

Not in the system.
No.
You delivered it this morning.
Yes.
You picked it up yesterday.
Yes.
And charged me for the privilege.
Yes. Think of it as an Uber.
It was prepaid.
Well, you don't prepay Uber. It's the original shipper's responsibility to tell us to pick up the package. You get a preprinted label.
I got a prepaid label. It said prepaid.
I see.
No you don't. These people have shipped a few parcels - they know what they're doing.
You will have to wait until it's 'in the system' for a refund.
You didn't have any trouble charging me when it wasn't in the system.
A refund can't be processed until it's billed, which only happens on a full moon in Decemburary, weekly. You can then request a refund. Or do it online, where you can't hear us laughing at you directly.

Putting Shellfish Up My Nose

You tell me: if the first thing that happens in the morning is that the toilet overflows all over the floor for no particular reason, is it a bad sign?

• Is Oprah Winfrey really going to run for president? Mrs lefty asked what her qualifications are - losing weight then gaining it?
• I said that's not fair: she recommends books for her drooling legions of fans to read.
• To be absolutely fair, Barack Obama was a little known senator and Donald Trump had no political experience at all, although some argue that his financial experience qualifies him.

VTech, the company that put out toys that collect data (spy) on children, was heavily punished for this, to the tune of $650,000. Yes, they're certainly hurting. They've definitely learned their lesson, yes sir. Oh, by the way, the fine went to the Federal Trade Commission, not the affected families.

VTech has agreed to strengthen security around these devices. Hopefully that trend will catch on. Better yet, stop collecting data they have no business collecting. Who do they think they are - the government?

• A t-shirt company has a new one that says "Little Monkey" on it. The picture of it featured two black children. Imagine their surprise when people got very upset about it.
• Who could have predicted this?
• This company's next t-shirt features a face with a huge nose, with the caption "We Own Everything". It will be modeled by Jewish children.

Recently, at an airport checkpoint, this multi-step drill bit was discovered in a passenger's luggage. 

The bit was confiscated, as it could be used as a weapon.

You know, when the owner whipped out his drill on the plane, then started asking people where he could plug it in. 

On the bright side, it wasn't a box cutter.

• a recent article on blogger safety made several recommendations, the first being not to overshare. This is a valuable tip and valid concern.
• I feel protected, as I have a rich inner life and make all this shit up anyway.

Wireless security has a long and checkered history. At first there was no security. Then WEP security, which is very close to no security. The current standard is WPA2, which takes a bit longer than five minutes to crack (like WEP). It is interesting to note that Verizon was still configuring their home wireless routers with WEP as of a few years ago.

The new standard being worked on is WPA3. It promises the sun, moon, and stars. Unknown to the leaders of the project, the participants are also putting together a pool, where the winner will guess the exact week it will be cracked.

• The NSA is experiencing poor morale. Perhaps they feel bad about what they're doing to people.
• Just kidding - it's attributed to low pay, reorganization and recent leaks.
• In other letter agency news, the FBI Director has once again called for encryption backdoors to be created in mobile devices so that authorities can exclusively use them to access data stored on citizens' devices.
• Make no mistake, the reach of these agencies goes far beyond their authorization. Once there's a potential for abuse, there will be abuse. They cannot and will not be constrained. Contact your representatives and let them know this does not fly. They, of course, will tell you it will 'keep us safe' and it's for the children.

Great New State Laws

A new year, a new set of stupid laws and reactions to them.

In Oregon, a new law allows residents to pump their own gas. Oregon and New Jersey were the only two states that prohibited self-pumping. Having (unfortunately) driven in New Jersey, I have to say it's nice to have someone pump your gas for you every now and then. The folks who operate the pumps are generally men with turbans, from my experience, nearest a bridge.

Oregonians immediately became horrified at this dangerous legislation. They took to social media to talk about the danger of self-pumping and how nobody should be allowed to do so, only "qualified" gas-pumping workers (is there a degree?).

It hurts like hell to be serious, but even this tiny new freedom has people up in arms. Small wonder they don't care and won't vote for liberty.

Not to be left behind, Washington enacted a tax on sugary drinks. Unlike Philadelphia, which couched the tax in terms of care for children, Washington went full Nanny State, trying to discourage consumers from drinking "unhealthy" beverages. This tax has already failed in Philly, as has the burdensome New Jersey tax on cigarettes. Even if you approve of Nanny State tactics, this proves they don't work. People were going to the suburbs to buy soda!

Philadelphia and New Jersey have a long, storied history of cultural and financial exchange.  Quite a while back, Jersey's drinking age was eighteen, while Philly's was twenty one.  So every enterprising young partying soul would cross a bridge into New Jersey to go clubbing. 

Philadelphians also discovered that liquor was more heavily taxed and strangely regulated in their home city, so they also crossed the bridge to buy alcohol. New Jersey just happened to have several very large liquor stores right over the bridge. In addition to pricing, these stores offered selection, a quality that was missing in Pennsylvania, because one can only buy liquor in State Stores, run by the state and staffed by the state. Pennsylvania is one of about two states with this ridiculous monopoly. Many have complained, but the system will not allow any infringement, between the state and the union representing the employees. Plus you can't purchase liquor on Sunday, due to ancient and unconstitutional Blue Laws. You can get beer at distributors, but are limited (six pack?) at bars.

Somebody (the state of PA, with help from its Uncle Vito, who has a controlling interest in delivery of liquor to the east coast) took offense at New Jersey getting all that money for alcohol and managed to convince somebody else to station state troopers near the Jersey liquor stores, to hunt down and kill (I mean ticket) people crossing the bridge strictly to purchase alcohol. No, really. No one knows how they were going to determine this or how many were caught, but it probably had the effect of increasing revenue at the stores farther from the bridge.

Stick with me here.... Philly levied an absolutely ridiculous set of taxes on cigarettes, pushing the per-pack price to around ten dollars. Not to be outdone, New Jersey went even further, pushing their per-pack price to twenty five dollars, and their case price required proof of a second mortgage  (I'm making these prices up).  So New Jerseyans started crossing the bridge to buy cheaper ciggies. As if by magic, cigarette stores popped up almost at the foot of the bridge, some even selling raw tobacco for the do-it-yourself crowd.

So yeah, Nanny State and sin taxes are a miserable failure, driving money away from the area it's supposed to 'benefit'. Let me take just a short moment to reflect the spirit of the Founding Fathers: Nanny State laws are anti-freedom and morally wrong. In a free society, people are free to make their own decisions, even if they're bad ones. If Nanny Stating actually worked, those horrid warnings on cigarette packs would be effective. In the UK, the warnings are so dire and large, you can read them from across the room, long before you can tell what brand they are. WARNING: THIS SHIT WILL KILL YOU.

As for the transit between PA and NJ, New Jersey is getting angry about a perceived trade imbalance. Philly's unofficial response was, "Yo. Fuck you."

In part two of this seemingly endless screed, I'll make up a fake civil war between the states; describing what it will look like and what sorts of projectiles will be lobbed across the water.

• Now would be a good time to get out to your supermarket: mine is blowing out something I didn't know existed.. M&M Caramel. It's like a crunchy little Rolo. I've taken out most of a bag in a day. They're almost as good as Peanut Butter M&Ms. This is the kind of important information you get at ThermionicEmissions. Tell your friends. But not your diabetic friends.

Listen up, iPhone folks: since the 6s, there's a Health app. I don't know anything about it and hadn't heard about it til today.  Police caught a rape/murder suspect and examined his phone. In addition to the GPS location, the Health app tracked him going upstairs and downstairs, which correlated to the location of the victim. So if I had the Health app, I'd disable it on an immediate basis. Uninstall if possible. I know you're not going to murder anybody (well, I hope not), but your location and movement information is yours alone.

• A breach allowed access to the personal information of 30,000 Florida Medicaid recipients. The information included ID number, birth date, diagnoses, and social security number. The breach was the result of a phishing expedition against employees. It was noted that the human factor is the weakest link in the security chain. Sad but true.
• Auto-tech firm Telenav announced on Thursday an “in-car advertising platform” for internet-connected cars. Yes, you will now receive ads on your dashboard. And because your car has sensors, the advertiser will know exactly where you are and will suggest something nearby. What? This isn't your idea of Driving Heaven? No problem - just pay extra to opt out. Toyota, Lexus, Ford, and GM already use the company's connected car products. Doesn't this give you a warm feeling? Like you just peed in your pants...

No matter your mood, the sight of a vigorous tail-wagging will make you smile. Try it.