Spring springs

 

On embracing weird

Baby bottle craze sweeps Gulf Arab states, sparks backlash

“Such indiscriminate use of baby bottles is not only against local culture and traditions,” read the government statement, “but the mishandling of the bottle during the filling could also contribute to the spread of COVID-19,” an apparent reference to those bringing their used bottles to other cafes.

Oral who?

Oral Roberts hoping to move past upset, focus on Gators

Well, one thing: We don't have to "just get over it," call it what you will

Fallout from riot, virus leaves toxic mood on Capitol Hill

It came to a pressure point this week when a dozen Republicans voted against awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to law enforcement who defended the Capitol, in part because the resolution mentioned the “insurrectionists” who attacked the “temple” of American democracy. Democrats were stunned.

Oh, the data we'll see

One company wants to sell the feds location data from every car on Earth

"Among the thousands of other data points, vehicle location data is transmitted on a constant and near real-time basis while the vehicle is operating," the company wrote in a sales pitch document obtained by Vice.

 Already, massive amounts (gobs and gobs) of data is purchased from non-government sources by federal agencies, including ICE and IRS. Much of it would not be available to the government directly without a warrant. 

If it's worth having it's worth faking

Scammers Selling Fake #COVID19 Vaccination Cards for Just $20

"…with 13% of Americans stating they will refuse the vaccine, there has now emerged a black market for those who still want to enjoy the benefits immunization will bring as towns and cities start to relax lockdowns."

 

You say that like it's a bad thing

Donald Trump wax figure shelved after visitors keep punching it

Sounds pretty therapeutic to me.

(Maybe it's a good thing I'm not a therapist.)

The more things change…

Emergency sites for migrant children raising safety concerns

As roughly 4,500 children wait in Border Patrol facilities unequipped for long-term detention, with some sleeping on floors, HHS has rushed to open holding sites across the country and tried to expedite its processes for releasing children in custody. About 9,500 minors are in HHS custody.

 It's no longer kids in cages; now it's kids in converted oil camps (sounds like fun!). In one camp, the one with the "safety concerns," 10% of the children test positive for COVID-19 according to this AP story.

Several hundred unaccompanied children cross the border each day, AP says.

Everything starts somewhere

The widespread use of proper names for hurricanes dates to World War II, when Army and Navy meteorologists took to assigning storms the names of wives and girlfriends.

Most things also end.

No more Greek letters for hurricanes, and Dorian and Laura retired as storm names

Nothing shy about this

Iowans would no longer need a permit to carry or buy guns under a GOP bill in the Legislature

Supporters say it would remove the need for Iowans to get "a permission slip" to exercise their right to keep and bear arms, while opponents say it would threaten public safety and roll back some of Iowa's background check requirements.

On a monumentally very bad idea

“The right way is that it should be private, the data should be secure, the access to it should be free, it should be available digitally and in paper, and in multiple languages, and it should be open source,” White House Covid-19 adviser Andy Slavitt said on Monday.

"Private" and "free access" don't really sound like they belong in the same sentence, do they?

This Slavitt guy is talking about a proposed vaccine passport scheme to grant expanded privilege to the immunized in a post-covidian world, a plan posing ethical problems to the Biden administration according to an article found this morning on Politico.

Also technical problems, one might add, including "is there an expiration date to this passport" (we have no idea) and "what about all these new strains" (we also have no idea, although the one in Brazil is behaving very badly indeed). 

And if we have a passport for COVID, why not one for measles? Peanut allergy? Non-smoking? Gun-free? And…wait…all those pesky STDs?

Moreover, for a certain ancient generation (of which I am a part) "show me your papers" was the standard fright phrase alluding to Nazi-occupied Europe. So there's that.

What we need to do is get this pandemic under control, not start separating people into even more privileged v. non-privileged groups.

IMO.

Pro tip

 When you buy prunes that say "with pits" on the label it turns out they have pits inside.

Why anyone would want to do that, I have no idea. But when your glasses are fogged from wearing a mask…

Just sayin'…

 …American military uniforms today look like the ones we used to make fun of back in the '50's.

Our heroes looked like this:

And I'm not talking about the masks. Masks are good.

Bars without booze are like coffeehouses without coffee

New wave of bars creates buzz without the booze

As in, what's the point?

Storms Gotta Storm, or Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?

 From Texas Monthly:

A Barbecue Wood Shortage Is the Latest Side Effect of the Winter Storm

And

Some on Wall Street Profited off Texas Blackouts. In a Private Call, a Top Regulator Pledged He Would Try to Protect Their Windfall.

FBI, et al.: Don't believe everything you hear…or see

FBI alert warns of Russian, Chinese use of deepfake content

“Currently, individuals are more likely to encounter information online whose context has been altered by malicious actors versus fraudulent, synthesized content,” the FBI warned. “This trend, however, will likely change as … technologies continue to advance.”

Which, it seems, is soon. 

A big win for indecision everywhere

 Siri flips coins. Yeah.

Just tell it "flip a coin" and it'll give you a heads or tails.

I have no idea if it cheats. But really, who cares?

Gronk will get along on $10 mil next year just so he doesn't have to leave Tom

Rob Gronkowski makes up mind after threatening to leave Bucs, Tom Brady

Brady, who last week signed an extension with Tampa, is the only quarterback Gronkowski has played with, as the two now will chase back-to-back titles.

 And who says true love is dead.

[Also…

KHARKIV, Ukraine (Reuters) - A Ukrainian couple who grew tired of arguing are trying to mend their on-off relationship by handcuffing their hands together for three months and documenting their experiences on social media.]

Food fight

Nebraska governor declares pro-meat day to counter Colorado

His statement comes in response to a nonbinding proclamation issued by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) recognizing "MeatOut Day" on March 20, when animal rights activists urge consumers to conscientiously avoid eating meat each year.

The anima rights activists, for their part, say slaughterhouses are abusive to animals, which is sort of like saying water is wet.

Nobody, however, has anything to say about spinach.

Oh go ahead, tell us what you really think

JARED KUSHNER IS WRITING A BOOK ABOUT HOW HE SECRETLY SAVED AMERICA

The president’s son-in-law had absolutely no business working in the White House and yet had his hand in virtually all matters that touched American life, from shutting down the government and furloughing thousands of federal workers in a failed attempt to get Nancy Pelosi to fund the Wall to cutting medical professionals out of the government’s pandemic response and trying to scare the virus off with his MBA.

I'm having coffee with ice cream in it for breakfast

 And that's how much I think about this little cold relapse we're having today. Fie, I say, upon it. It was sixty-something yesterday and will be sixty-something soon again.

14º now, though.

But didn't want to waste the beer

Brewery catapults keg to new Guinness World Record

"Beer is for drinking so we loaded them up with water."

Right.

Raising history

Crews were dredging the river. Instead of muck, they pulled up three cannons and a mystery

"It could (tell) a part of the story of Savannah that has not been looked at in a very long time," Corps district archaeologist Andrea Farmer said of the discovery.

[H/T Iowa] 

We're 20% finished with it already…

 …it's time to start paying attention to the 21st Century problems we face.

Why Big Tech deplatforming should be deeply disturbing for everyone, regardless of your politics

Once thought of as an untameable jungle of free speech, the internet is now a walled garden, increasingly monitored and controlled by a handful of unregulated monopolies. The gatekeepers to the walled garden, companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple, serve as the judge, jury, and executioner for the internet.

New to our Work Avoidance Hall of Fame

 We haven't added anything to our world-renowned collection of time-wasting internet sites for quite a while. Mostly we've been deleting entries, in a desultory fashion, due to the demise of Flash.

Here, however, is a new find well worth blowing off the rest of your day on, or at least the next little while:

Abandoned America

(It's also on the list now.)

3.14

Happy Pi Day