“The other party’s nomination battle is still playing out. The candidates are an interesting group with diverse opinions. They’re for tax cuts and against them. They’re for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They’re for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They’re in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that’s just one senator from Massachusetts.”

— George W. Bush, 2/23/2004

Best Shooting Glasses?


I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that these are slightly less than legit:

BEST Shooting Glasses UV Blacklight Flashlight Yellow Safety Eye protection by iLumen8. See Dog Cat Urine with Amber Black Lights Night Vision Ultraviolet

Seriously, one of the included accessories is a “Crush Resistant Storage Box”. It’s a cardboard box with a logo sticker on it.

There are a number of short, oddly-written five-star reviews, too.

In an honest universe...


…today’s headlines would simply have read, “Mentally Ill Spy Wins Early Release”.

The last thing you'll ever see...


(via)

Drunker on the inside...


(original source lost; image search turns up a bunch of fake blogs filled with text and pictures stolen from other sites and randomly thrown together, sigh)

Cheesecake: bunny ears


Can you imagine what the world would be like today if Hef had gone with his original “stag” logo and theme? Antlers just don’t have the same impact. Then again, as our lead bunny-girl’s companion illustrates, what if he’d gone with a kitten theme and started the catgirl revolution decades early?

more...

Acurite 5-in-1 Weather Station


So, someone got me one of these for my birthday, and I finally got around to building a stand for the outdoor sensor (basically an oversized tameshigiri stand made with pressure-treated lumber).

A promised feature was remote access to your data through an iOS/Android app, so I downloaded the app …and it didn’t work. Surprise! You have to:

  1. register your purchase online (and the form wouldn't let me hit Submit until I added demographic data...),
  2. plug the USB cable on the indoor sensor into a computer,
  3. download and run their PC/Mac app in the background,
  4. and leave your computer on at all times to report the data.

I have two words for that, and the first one starts with “F”.

So, delete the Mac app, delete the iPhone app, unplug the cable, and now I have a standalone weather station. Oh, well, at least it wasn’t an Internet of Things Thing that sat on my wireless and took orders from The Cloud.

Update: now that the sun is down, I can report that the backlighting on the screen is bright. I won’t be needing a nightlight downstairs any more.

Weasels gonna weasel


Lying under oath to steal children: was that wrong? should we not have done that?

Trott: You mean to tell us due process is consistent with a government official submitting perjured testimony and false evidence? How is that consistent? I mean I hate to get pumped up about this but I’m just staggered by the claim that people in the shoes of your clients wouldn’t be on notice that you can’t use perjury and false evidence to take away somebody’s children. That to me is mind boggling.

Lin: In criminal proceedings we know this to be true because . . .

Trott: No, no! It’s a court proceeding with a liberty interest, a fundamental liberty interest at stake.

Lin: And on the reverse side . . .

Trott: And you’re telling us that these officials [weren’t] on notice that you can’t commit perjury and put in false evidence?

Lin: I understand broadly the principle that common sense tells us that lying is wrong and lying to . . .

I saw the ocean...


…and the ocean sawed back.

Teeth of the sea, Patrice Carré

(by Patrice Carré, via)

“Need a clue, take a clue,
 got a clue, leave a clue”