Memes Upon A Monday Morn...

Eewwwww!

I do a lot of my writing at the neighborhood watering hole. It's got a classic corner bar vibe that you don't often get in suburbia, so when I'm not writing there's a cast of local regulars with whom I can chat. You know, "where everybody knows your name", like the old TV theme song went.

For a fairly small joint, it is well-provisioned with restrooms, having three unisex one-holers.

The nicest and best-lit of the trio, which also has an old bar stool sitting in the corner that gives me a handy place to set my iPad and camera, is also the farthest from the water heater. Far enough away, in fact, that on brutally cold winter days I'll sometimes set the hot water tap running when I enter so that it'll be warm already by the time I've finished my business.

Yesterday, as I approached that bathroom door, I could see the light underneath it that usually indicates occupancy (although some people don't turn off the light when they leave) but a woman emerged just as I was arriving.

Perfect! The water would already be warm!

Except, of course, that when I finished up, I noticed that not only was the tap handle dry, the water was ice cold.

That nasty, nasty ho'. Ick.

I used the paper towel to dry my hands and to operate the doorknob.

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Meme Dump...

Crash! Boom!

That was some storm that blew through at about 0300.

Thunder woke me, and the lightning strobing through the window shade and the rattle of hail against the side of the house kept me awake. It was noisy enough to get the attention of the cats, but not so noisy as to send them looking for cover.

I haven't gotten out and about, but with the sustained wind speeds I heard the weatherfolk bandying about on the televisor this morning, I'm sure there are some downed limbs and trees in the neighborhood.

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Clunk.

Lincoln's second attempt at a luxury pickup truck, the Mark LT, was less of a flop than its first one, but that's only because the first one was a flop of historic proportions.

(Ford sold 35 times as many Edsels as they did Lincoln Blackwoods.)

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Saturday Morning Memes...

Meme Dump...

Tab Clearing...

• Portugal likely to axe F-35 purchase. Buy stock in Airbus, Dassault, and Saab. Kraus-Maffei, too.


• Happy Pi Day!


• Super Nintendo hardware is running faster as it ages.

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Meme Dump…

Tab Clearing...

• Fundamentally unserious people.


• Gold bar scammers.


• Chevy SS (née Holden Commodore) sets Jacksonville-to-San Diego record in 23 hours and 35 minutes, including stops to change a tire and to get a ticket for 97 in a 60.

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Writing Elsewhere...

• Realistic threat assessments and the right tool for the job.


• 1966 Chevy II


• Wildlife with the Nikon D2X and the 80-400mm zoom.

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Middle of the Week Memery...

Meme Dump…

 

Monday Meme-ing...

Tab Clearing...

• Vintage Sony Cyber-shot review, from the days when four megapixels was pretty normal.


• What's driving the Tesla slump?


• "The dude whose brain turned to glass." Does that mean his thoughts are transparent?

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Fresh Memes!

"The knives come out earlier every year. The Ides of March have become so commercialized."

That Time of Year

I'm on the record as preferring DST to Standard Time. I personally don't have much use for sunlight before 0745 or so, so hack that bit off and stitch it to the other end of the day where I still might be out and about doing stuff.

It's the moving the clocks that's annoying (although it's less annoying as we're down to two battery-powered wall clocks and a microwave that don't reset themselves.) If it were up to me we'd leave the clocks on DST year 'round and spare me the horror of sunset at half past lunch in the dead of winter.

Most people hate the spring time change worse because that's the one that steals an hour of sleep. I, on the other hand, prefer the spring change because...at least for the next week or so...the cats will be pleasantly surprised by the arrival of mealtime rather than driving me up the wall for thirty or forty-five minutes ahead of dinner, begging for food.

(Remember to put fresh batteries in critical safety equipment: smoke detectors, CO2 detectors, weapon-mounted lights or lasers, electro-optical sights, et cetera.)

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Meme Dump...

Tab Clearing...

• The Electronic Frontier Foundation is worried about the so-called "Take It Down" Act.


• As many as 12,000 North Korean troops involved in the Russian counteroffensive against the Ukrainian salient in Kursk.


• How is a cop supposed to keep an eye out for people violating 23 V.S.A. § 1095b (Vermont's ban on cell phone use while driving) when he's too busy watching Matt Walsh YouTube rants about trans people or whatever? You can tell it was distracted driving because he was so distracted he hit and killed a bicyclist.

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Garden Surprise

The odd artillery shell in the dooryard garden came with the house when they bought it in the Eighties, and was even painted to match the window trim. They'd always assumed it was a dummy. The missus even cleaned her gardening trowel by rapping it on the shell to knock the dirt off.

Only it wasn't a dummy...

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Thank God it's Friday's Meme Dump...

Historical Illiteracy

POTUS in the Oval Office to reporters:

"You know, the biggest problem I have with NATO, I really, you know, I mean, I know the guys very well. They're friends of mine. But if the United States was in trouble and we called them, we said, we got a problem, France. We got a problem, a couple of others I won’t mention. Do you think they're going to come and protect us? They're supposed to. I'm not so sure."

You'd think someone would have told him that the only time Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty has been invoked, it was by the US, and France indeed did show up.

Meanwhile, the DEI purge at the Department of Defense seems to have included doing a simple "Ctrl+F" search for "DEI-sounding" keywords of in the filenames of photos to delete because among those scheduled for the memory hole were the Enola Gay and Navy Cross recipient Ensign George Gay.

The database, which was confirmed by U.S. officials and published by AP, includes more than 26,000 images that have been flagged for removal across every military branch. But the eventual total could be much higher.

That was literally Winston Smith's job in 1984, except it's being performed by the Three Stooges.

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Today in History...

On this date in 1952, the film Duck and Cover had its classroom premiere in New York City...

Safe Use of a Weapon-Mounted Light

One advantage of newer, more powerful WMLs is that there's enough bounce and spill to make them useful for searching via reflected illumination. The linked article does a good job of explaining this.

A WML is an integral part of the weapon system, providing light in critical low-light situations without hindering the ability to shoot. It frees up a hand for other tasks and ensures the light is always aligned with the weapon. While it complements a flashlight, it doesn’t replace it – your handheld light is your primary illumination tool. If you’re not justified in drawing your gun, you’re not justified in pointing a WML.

When searching with a WML is warranted, baseboard and umbrella lighting techniques can help avoid muzzling non-threats by illuminating an area without aiming the gun directly at it. These techniques also offer additional advantages.

Go and RTWT. It's worthwhile.

We've come a long way since this old 300 lumen TLR-1s, but even it can be used on baseboards and ceilings.

Interesting times...

Social Security has long been considered the "third rail" of American politics and, while the other shoe hasn't dropped, there's certainly a vibe that it's in midair...

In interviews, eight employees described chaos and the dissolution of a system they have been proud to serve, fueled by DOGE-led cuts to staff, spending and operating systems.

Wait times for basic phone service have grown, in some cases to hours, according to some employees, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal details. Delays in reviews of disability claims and hearings before administrative law judges are already starting.

Employees at a field office in Indiana have been forced to pick up calls for other offices, one employee said, and are fielding phone inquiries for an area covering two-thirds of the state. The phone “never stops ringing now,” the employee said. Phone backups have prevented the staff from processing retirement claims.

There's a saying that society is only ever three missed meals away from civic unrest. I don't know what the exchange rate is between Missed Meals and Missed Social Security Checks, but I really don't look forward to finding out.

Social Security has never missed a benefit payment since the program first began sending individuals monthly benefits more than eight decades ago.

But the recent actions at the U.S. Social Security Administration by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency are putting monthly benefit checks for more than 72.5 million Americans at risk, former commissioner and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley told CNBC.com.

“Ultimately, you’re going to see the system collapse and an interruption of benefits,” O’Malley said. “I believe you will see that within the next 30 to 90 days.”

Ahead of any interruption in benefits, “people should start saving now,” O’Malley said.

Meme Dump...

Tab Clearing...

• Mercedes-Benz was a pioneer in shitty future cars with terrible driver interfaces...


• The shady Palau "residency card" used to skirt crypto laws...


• Prof. Yamane moves "Light Over Heat" to Substack.

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Midweek Memes…

 

That doesn't sound fun...

Sharia cops in the twelve northern states of Nigeria are out busting people for not observing Ramadan and other heinous crimes...

"We do get calls from people who are enraged after seeing people eating in public and we act fast by going to the area to make arrests."

He also confirmed the arrest of other people who were seen with "inappropriate haircuts", wearing shorts above the knee and tricycle drivers mixing male and female passengers.

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Meme Dump...

Tab Clearing...

• Surveillance camera company Flock is taking legal action against a company that is mapping the locations of its cameras.


• Pushback against Amazon delivery drones in College Station, TX.


• Mexico's lawsuit against U.S. firearms manufacturers is worth keeping an eye on. I'm pretty confident in the current SCOTUS on 2A issues, but civil suits are the soft underbelly of the issue. Arguments could happen as soon as tomorrow.

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Memes Upon a Monday Morn...

Oops...

KMUX (San Francisco) is down and needs a critical part replaced but, uh, everybody's government credit cards have been turned off. They can still get a part via a P.O., but that's gonna take longer. Efficiency, comrades!

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March Comes in Like a Meme Dump...

"I had no idea the Messiah was one of those public transit obsessed weirdos."