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.

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.

We Need Commonsense Truck Laws

It was a fine morning.
The wife had taken off at some unearthly time to take the parents to the airport. They were flying to somewhere (allegedly) warm.* It was so early, she had to scrape ice off the windows.
Back home, I had to get the trash out before the trucks did their parade down the block. Fortunately they didn't have their marching music blasting from the trucks this morning. The Crazy Lady was peering out her spyhole front window, shaking her head disapprovingly, as her trash goes out three seconds after the Minimum Allowable Time strikes the previous day.

Running late, I looked down at Marshall, who looked up, expectantly.
Ah yes, The Dance of the Medicines.
As you know, he isn't very good with taking his pills, depending on your definition of good. He has figured out all manner of not taking his pills, worse than a psych patient in a locked ward. We have tried all sorts of hiding places, like peanut butter, cheesecake, lunchmeat, tuna loaf, Tastykakes, and whatever else is around. This week we're back to turkey. I carefully roll the pill in turkey and present it to His Highness. He quickly sniffs it and gobbles it (sorry). I notice the chewing isn't at his usual rate, which signals Shenanigans. Not hearing the pill drop on the floor (he spits them out while eating the lunchmeat), I turned to give him another pill and there he sat, pill attached to the side of his mouth. Now if you're a black dog, you should probably not hide your white pills on the side of your face. Yes, he's smarter than we are, but according to science, he sees black and white.. perhaps some color.

Running later, it was time for breakfast. No, not mine - his.
Marshall gave up dog food a while ago. As he is doing his best to train his parents, he hasn't had to touch the stuff since. I guess it's not so bad - the stuff costs more than our food, plus we know what he's getting. Unfortunately there was none of it about, so I went with the No Fail Option: tuna. Or as he prefers, "Smells Like Cat Food." Never a problem with tuna. It comes in its own juices too, which drives him nuts (further).

Then it was time for my pills. There's the one to prevent diving under the desk and sitting there for the rest of the day. The other one to counteract the side effects of the one that prevents diving under the desk. The most disgusting pill known to man: vitamin B. I've seen people willingly choose the stuff they give to prisoners with a death sentence over vitamin B.  Then there's the pill that keeps me off the mail lady. The postmaster was very clear about this, so I try not to miss any.

It's not that my wife takes a lot of pills, but the pharmacy truck pulls up after the mail lady leaves.

• All we hear about these days is the opioid crisis. I mention this because the dog takes a non-opioid, very mild pain reliever. Recently we discovered that the Mother In Law also takes this pill. Mother In Law was very unhappy to discover that the dog's dosage is higher than hers and is on the phone to the doctor now.
• As for the Great Opioid Crisis of 2017, a presidential order will result in further chasing of our tails and, importantly, genuinely sick people not being able to get their pain medication. Remember the signs on the pharmacies that said "We do not carry Oxycontin"?

We cannot go a few days without Internet of Things news, and today's is a real winner. LG has a Smart Vacuum. Yes, you read that right. For the bargain price of $549, you get a vacuum that streams video to a smart app on your phone.  The problem is that an attacker can intercept the video, hack the account, and 'gain control of the device'. While it might sound like someone else doing the vacuuming, it could allow access to the home network. So someone can look around your house. 

There are patches to secure the device, but these depend on the vacuum owner having the latest version of the app. What are the odds.....? By the way, over 400,000 of these vacuums have been sold. We're just asking for it. 

Back in my days of customer service, I was taught that when I say NO, I should offer an alternate solution. Well, I left customer service because I hate people, but I want to help. What I'm going to do is keep my house just like its owner: dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. I managed to use vacuums all my life that didn't have a video system that streamed to my phone. You did too. My vacuum is not required to see, as that's a function I can handily perform. My tv does not need to listen to me or send details of what I watch to the manufacturer. My toaster does not need to communicate with anything, other than to tell me when my toast is done (DING). I can survive without my fridge showing me what's in it and telling me what I need to buy at the store.

It's not that I can't see the value of certain smart appliances. A friend has his tv set up through his network and can control it with his voice. Another talks to his Google box, which gives him handy answers to questions and reminds him of things. That's pretty cool... this is the future we read about. What we didn't read about was the technology spying on us and hackers taking over our home network. It's your choice.

• Because of all the ship incidents recently, the Navy has made sweeping changes, including improved training for sailors. 
• Do. Not. Hit. Other. Ship.

China and the US signed an agreement not to hack each others private sector companies for commercial gain in 2015. After the signing, hacking dropped ninety percent. This is really an accomplishment, except that the intrusions haven't entirely stopped; the Crap Cleaner malware left signs that China was involved. 

Taken on its own, an agreement not to hack private sector companies kinda willingly pushes aside the small matter of hacking government systems. 

Mom... Russia is looking at all our files.
Yes, Dear, but they've agreed to ignore files on regular people's computers.

• Tenth graders in California (where else?) are being taught that their sex partner must say 'yes' every ten minutes or it's rape.
• Omitted from this all-encompassing piece of knowledge is what to do when you have multiple partners at the same time.
• Also missing is whether 'oh my God' is an affirmation.
• Who reports the 'rape' if the partner waited til eleven minutes to say 'yes'?
• Do both partners have to do the Rape Dance afterwards, if any laws were broken?
• Can't the president just build The Wall around California?

Parents: you're doing a great job by monitoring your kids' internet use, on their phone, computer, and tv. Unfortunately, the Circle with Disney program you're using has been found to have twenty two vulnerabilities. You're still practicing good parenting, though... instead of monitoring, you're teaching your children to hack. This is a very valuable skill in the 2010s.

• Because you're an aspiring linux guru, here's 3 tools to help you remember linux commands.

Apple will share face-mapping data from the iPhoneX with third-party app developers. Although not as alarming as the headline sounds, this is bad news.

• There's a lawsuit. Yes, there's always a lawsuit, but this one's a winner: a woman is suing Sephora (it's a makeup store, guys) because one of their lipstick samplers gave her herpes. No word on whether the sampler was called Ron and if it was applied in the back room.

Hold onto your hats, kids.... an independent Special Committee has cleared four Equifax executives, including the CFO, of insider trading, after they sold shares just before a major data breach was revealed. Yes, there may be more facts in evidence of which we are not aware, but please... the selloff occurred over a few days, right after they discovered the breach (a month before it was made public). Let me phrase it differently: if you or I had done this, we wouldn't have internet access in jail.

• Offshore law firm Appleby got hacked recently and the hacker dumped an awful lot of information for everyone to see. Yeah, yeah, another breach, it's Monday. Wanna hear a few bits of information?
• secret financial dealings between commerce secretary Ross and a Russian firm part-run by Putin's son-in-law
• millions of dollars of investment in Facebook and Twitter from Russian state companies
• Yes, I like to watch things burn sometimes.. especially when information like this comes to light. They're dirty all the way up to the top.