In the expectation of minimal online time over the weekend, without ruling out the possibility of finding lots of links in minimal time...Link hunting is like beachcombing, anyway. Some days you could do it all day and all you'd get would be the exercise. Some days you find something worth picking up in the first five minutes.
Unfortunately these days a good half of my online time seems to be taken up by harassment from Microsoft.
They're trying to sell everybody games. I think life's too short. Even if playing computer games helps people become better combat pilots, the Army has better sense than to want me flying any planes, even drones.
They're trying to sell everybody on using Microsoft Edge instead of Chrome or Firefox. For about a year we had a deal where a sister used Edge and I used Chrome. I had more fun with the computer than she had. I don't know that Edge was to blame for this. I know that Chrome has my history and passwords while Edge has hers, so I could do without Edge altogether. And, the way Microsoft has been pushing the matter, I'd rather. Nothing I'd want to use would ever need to be pushed.
They're trying to sell everybody a whole new computer. This year. Microsoft has some bills coming due and needs to sell new computers with software people rent rather than buy. I don't rent.
I don't support toxic electronic waste, either. Here comes Karma, Microsoft: you wanted to whip people into a froth about plastic waste to distract them from glyphosate, and what's the biggest source of plastic waste? Electronics are. What's the biggest source of toxic mineral waste? Electronics are that, too.
I mean, if I walk into Wal-Mart and see one of those Wang word processors we used back in the 1980s, completely refurbished so that it'll run the original Wang word processing package and also do basic calculator functions, that I might buy. To keep it out of a landfill. Screaming-new future toxic waste, I don't buy.
Microsoft needs to shift its focus toward repairs and maintenance rather than sales of any more computers. Most people who use computers at all seem to have collections already.
Microsoft is the textbook example of corporate hubris. They think they're too big to need to do what customers want. Hahaha! How did that work for General Motors, Microsoft? How did it work for IBM? What about Pfizer?
No matter how many stockholder a corporation has or how many of them vote to cheat the customers, a corporation's primary reason for existence is still to serve its customers. If it's not doing that, it may cease to exist. Microsoft is close enough to a monopoly that it might take the whole Internet with it when it goes.
I made a policy decision this weekend that I recommend to anyone who would prefer to keep the Internet going:
(1) While your "older" computer--you know, however shiny-new it is, Microsoft wants you to think of it as "old" the week after it was bought--is connecting to the Internet, complain every single time Microsoft harasses you. This includes but is not limited to
(a) "updates" that interfere with your work (or games, or movies--what you define as your computer's proper work is your business)
(b) randomly changing the size, color, orientation, etc., of your screen display
(c) anything that causes your computer, or certain programs, to run very very slowly
(d) anything that causes your browser to crash, or interferes with recovery if you cause it to crash
(e) anything that allows your mouse to react to shadows as if they were touches
(f) and probably several other things that you might think were caused by a virus or mechanical failure, but they're not--they're caused by Microsoft. Overheating, for example. Today's computers really are likely to overheat if the temperature in the office is over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but if a computer built after 1990 overheats when you're comfortable, either its little fan is broken, the wiring in your building is about to ignite, or an Internet connection is sending you programming that is causing your computer to overheat. Or "losing" your settings--automatically resetting your computer to jump into the view you hate, restyle your documents into Ugly Wasteful Web Format, or restart programs you've disabled.
Microsoft wants to pretend that nobody complains about these things, only about how to load on more "updates" and games. Microsoft needs to receive a bombardment. Microsoft needs a loud, clear message that every minute of your computer time--while a client is waiting, while people at the computer center need to get home to their families, while you're paying for connection time, whatever--is yours not theirs. And that interruptions to your work will cost them money.
(2) Demand that Microsoft disavow its stated intentions to make the Internet unavailable to computers using Windows 10 or Windows 7 and, instead, work toward the goal of making it accessible to computers using MS-DOS circa 1985. The goal needs to be one computer per lifetime and no wasted computers or parts.
(3) Be prepared to do without Internet connections if Microsoft makes any further attempts to force any sales of anything. Remember how much more money you were making before the Internet, anyway. Let Microsoft know that it will learn to do business in our frugal, Green way, and communicate in our logical and mutually respectful way, or not at all.
(4) Let your elected officials know that, if the "tech giants" don't obey their customers, they will no longer be "giants." Microsoft, and likewise Google, Amazon, Facebook, and X, can easily become tech has-beens...like Wang. Insist on legislation that preserves your anonymity, protects your investment, discourages censorship, punishes spying as the crime it is, and affirms complete freedom of expression.
(5) It's better to have to work with Linux for a few years than it is to let Microsoft continue in the misbelief that Microsoft can decide when we buy computers or programs. Seriously? The way Microsoft is dragging, some days, it's more efficient to work with a manual typewriter.
Fashion
For those who can listen to the music, it's recommended, but this comment is mostly about the outfit: Whyyyyy?
Again, it's not that her whole life history and character can be accurately inferred from the shorts that look as if she'd just outgrown them and not been able to afford new ones, poor little thing. (Though in the case of Haley Reinhart this effect was probably planned by an agent. She could afford shorts that fit.) It's that, considered purely as a fashion statement, those short shorts make her legs look pasty and puffy.
So once again I asked Google for some casual heat wave wear--bearing in mind that sunburnt thighs feel even worse than swampy-sweaty thighs, and that a decent skirt does a great deal to cool and fan the legs and prevent that swampy-sweaty feeling.
Still shows a lot of leg, but it doesn't really scream and point to the flab on the upper thighs. Everyone has a little flab up there. When it's not obvious, that's because most women know better than to call attention to it.
Positively pretty.
Wearing white bottom pieces always seems a bit like tempting fate to me, but if you don't mind not sitting on the grass, not eating, not picking up a pen, dodging your pets, being a fussbudget who wipes off every seat you sit on, and still having your skirt ruined by a passing child with a lollipop...
The bare leg thing does not appeal to me. I never consciously plan to stay indoors or on freshly mown lawns all day. Anyway, places where lawns are mown usually have sewers where mosquitoes breed. I like a little protection, myself. But if you're tall and want to look shorter, and want to show off that your legs have not yet been scratched up by venturing away from mown lawns, why not?
It's knit fabric, so it'll probably stretch, but it would be fun to wear.
The good news for us "Winter" types who look sickly in pretty pastel colors is that the pastel colors don't make us look nearly so bad on a skirt (or slacks) as they do on a shirt. Though bottom pieces that are lighter in color than top pieces have to be carefully chosen not to make us look more bottom-heavy than we are.
If we're not bottom-heavy at all, this look can work.
Short slacks might reasonably be considered more "modest" than short skirts. They don't have to accentuate rolls of fat. They can gracefully hide them.
They can even be part of that parody-of-a-man's-suit look Reinhart was rocking.
They can even be bright-colored, for those who want that effect.
So...maybe Reinhart was opening for an older singer and wanted to make her a source of relief to the eyes, I don't know. Would it kill fashion critics to be charitable in interpreting the "message" sent by fashion mistakes?
Food
Blood and fat in meat are the usual suspects in cases of food poisoning. Pork is also especially likely to be a source of food poisoning. Kosher and halal meats are prepared by different people who recite different prayers, to the One God Christians also worship and unbelievers doubt, but the relevant point is that they're prepared by minimizing the blood and fat and not using pork. It's not a sin for Christians to eat kosher or halal meat. So it seems to me that unless the kosher and halal meat cost a great deal more, either kosher or halal or both should be the default option
Gender
Scientifically, I think Brian Yapko's long rant is inaccurate. Ninety-nine point something in a hundred humans are either male or female, not both--at birth. Then there's the fraction of one percent who have mixed DNA, a physical condition, not "in the mind" or subject to change; then there are the unfortunate males who may be physically "feminized" by a toxic combination of endocrine-disrupting pollutant drugs and estrogen-fattened meat. And then there are the poor souls who have been so badly miseducated about what their gender identity means, probably most often girls who have been molested if not raped, that they think they need to change their sex to be happy.
But then, oh then, there's the cult of "transhumanists" who want to play God, to tinker with the sexes and all the other body functions of humankind. Some of the more "conservative" types Out There always suspected as much. Like the foot binders and neck stretchers and other body mutilators throughout history, they want to control even the physical shapes of their fellow humans. In their sick fantasies they'll be the potters and the rest of humankind will be the clay. Peter Thiel publicly admitted this. They want to sell people on the possible benefits of "change," any and all change, in the bodies God gave them and never mind the more probable damage...they really are capable of thinking "What a cute little curvature of the spine, I'd like to see more children like that." Or "What a sheepish sort of face--why can't he be made to grow wool all over?" They'll do it, too, if we let them. In the past their spiritual ancestors bound feet, stretched necks, scarred skin, chopped off sensitive parts, deliberately deformed children's limbs and necks so that they'd grow up with disabilities that made them more effective beggars...In The Prince and the Pauper Edward is supplied with a deliberately induced skin ulcer for begging purposes. In real life it might have been an arm or leg, deliberately broken, set in a crooked position for life.
It's too bad if the people with mixed DNA think more public attention to their condition will help others see them as human beings rather than freaks--now. It may be a blessing in disguise if the physically feminized men get a solid message from the rest of society, "Stop spraying chemicals outdoors forever, and don't eat any kind of meat until your hormones re-balance and you feel more male than female again," instead of being told how cool and trendy they are. Human beings should not tolerate the "transhumanists" and, if that means expressions of attitudes like Brian Yapko's hurt some people's little fee-wings, those people just need to get over it.
Our bodies are the temples of our Creator. We are the living Body of Christ. We are responsible for maintaining the miracles that are human bodies in the way God designed them, and, if people want to say that that means no tattoos, no transplants, no face lifts, no false eyelashes, not even any lipstick, I think that should be easier for everyone to tolerate than this insanity of inflicting "change for its own sake" on other people's bodies.
As a good lower-case-l liberal I ask people just one thing: If we want the young to learn to love the bodies God gave them, that must include the physically gender-confused bodies. If Jack is a boy and Jill is a girl and they need to deal with that, well then Jazz is a DNA chimera and everyone else needs to deal with that, too. Whatever shape it takes. And people who know Jazz personally need to find ways to integrate per probably asexual, which does not mean autistic, personality into social life that's not defined by gender alone.
Homelessness
This guy's analysis nails it, I can vouch for some of his tips and tricks working for people who are frugal not homeless, so I'm willing to trust him about the actual homelessness.
Hurricane Helene
Young Tennessee singer wrote this song about the town of Erwin, Tennessee, which was almost washed away, not quite. I've heard some things about Erwin...well, people have heard some things about Gate City. Anyway, "Whiskey Revival" is about imperfect people who have faith. The footage of Erwin is pretty because it is a pretty place. And damaged.
Independence Day as Celebrated by the Contrary Burro
Unfortunately, left-wingers' "declaration of interdependence," and celebrations thereof, are more insidious than the Babylon Bee imagined, but this 2020 post was too good not to quote:
"
While Americans celebrate Independence Day with fireworks, barbecues, and merrymaking, Democrats celebrate Dependence Day by staying inside and weeping over all the freedom going on outside. The celebrations conclude with the reading of the Communist Manifesto and the singing of "Imagine".
"
Music
LOL at Google for posting the question, "What's so special about Mark Knopfler?" and answering that he picks his guitar with his bare, undoubtedly cow-heel-textured fingertips instead of using a pick. I suppose that's the most objective answer, but the correct answer at least also includes that, though generally classified as a rock singer, he has a voice that's actually pleasant to listen to. Most rock singers tend to scream in the general direction of a tune and, if a tune can be identified and they make enough noise, they've sold a record...
I've always liked Dave Barry's description of a recent rock concert (in Florida, of course) as men stomping around and screaming angrily because someone has stolen their shirts. Take it from a classic rock connoisseur--Barry's even performed classic rock. Elvis Presley could sing, despite distracting people by dancing at the same time. The Beatles could sing. Jim Morrison could sing. Janis Joplin could sing, when she wasn't yelling. Madonna Ceccone can sing, when she's not caterwauling. Gordon Lightfoot could sing, in his nasal way. Stevie Nicks could sing. Simon & Garfunkel could sing. There is a reason why we remember their names. Even when the great rock singers were making their legendary records, a majority of rock singers could not sing. It's not that the new crop are so much worse--it's that few records by people who couldn't sing have lasted since the 1960s.
Anyway no worries, kids, this is not rock music, this is educational. This is history. This is one of the multitude of reasons, apart from the food, why (1) sharing a meal at McDonald's is not considered a date and (2) so many people who have alternatives never go into McDonald's.
Weather
In addition to US Independence Day, the Fourth of July deserves to be remembered as a day that can be remarkably hot or cold. In the same decade. Demonstrating, once again, that weather quirks don't add up to "global climate change." Though cities that are a great deal hotter than surrounding rural areas can add up to dangerous levels of local warming.
...whereas in 1920, it was cold enough that some parts of the US saw snow. None of the oldtimers who remembered this event claimed that the snow stuck on the ground--only that it was a cold wet day when some of the precipitation took the form of sleet and/or snow. (Google now turns up a photo showing about four inches of snow on a street in Colorado, which is not confirmed to have fallen in July.)
Windows
(The real thing, not merely Microsoft...)
Hardly even news by now, but...this is "The Legacy Traditional School," where fifth-graders planned to murder a classmate and might actually have done it if one kid hadn't panicked and told an adult. (That was a good, brave kid. Even if another kid was correct in suspecting that the plot was to play at murder rather than commit it, even if the would-be slayer intended to drive a knife into the wall beside the intended victim, that still would probably have led to a fight in which someone would have been hurt. An adult should always be nearby when a game requires somebody to play dead.)
Hmm. I have no idea how many times my brother and I, and occasionally other friends, "killed" each other in games. I don't think it ever even occurred to us to open a real pocket knife, which we carried, to lend realism to a murder scene, or tie even a shoelace around a neck. It was pure fantasy. After a chase ended with the Escaping Prisoner being caught, the Prisoner might be shot or hanged or beheaded, but that part was pantomimed without props. Possibly because we were good and tired from the chase, which was the interesting part of that game.
"Boyfriends and girlfriends" was another game that's not new to many schools, if any. I had a "boy friend" who bought snacks for me, and one who bought trinkets, in primary school; their parents gave them the pocket change the game required. One of the sisters was even formally challenged to fight a smaller, younger sixth grade girl whose "boy friend" had been looking at my sister. (Sister took a mental health day, teachers were warned, and the fight never happened.) My brother had a different "girl friend" each year; one year it was twins. We took it as seriously as other kinds of school friendship, which wasn't very. Kissing is not the interesting part of a second grade romance. I felt so badly betrayed by a fourth grade "boy friend" that I didn't admit any charitable feelings toward any other boys up into grade eleven, but that too was part of playing the game. The interesting part: seeing what people outside your immediate family will put up with. Provided that people hear their friends telling you which boys liiike you and you advising those boys to go jump in the lake, not having a boyfriend can be more empowering than having one.
So what's wrong with kids who would even think seriously about stabbing a straying fifth grade "boy friend"? Well, for one thing, the girls lacked a healthy sense of Southern Belledom. You don't stab a straying boyfriend; you replace him. You don't want a boyfriend dead; you want him grovelling and promising never to look at another female again. You show him what he's missing. You have a good time with your second choice. You might even let him do things you never let your first choice do--which, in grade five, might mean playing with those expensive art pencils you weren't supposed to bring to school. A mere male could beat him up but only you can make him buy you a chocolate bar every single day.
But also...what's wrong with that picture of their schoolroom? No windows. No trees. Well, it's Arizona, you might argue; they don't have trees, they may not even have saguaros. That might be part of the problem. Are human beings meant to grow up without trees?
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