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A timeline of failed attempts to address U.S. gun violence.

Guns, heat waves, oral biome, duck sauce, Great Salt Lake, inflation, recession, iPhones
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Published Wednesday, June 08, 2022 @ 2:30 PM EDT

Jun 08 2022

Cease fire

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Matthew McConaughey's full White House press briefing statement on gun violence. (Video)

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FTC to probe CVS Caremark, Express Scipts and other pharmacy benefit managers. These businesses, the biggest of which are run by companies that also operate health insurers, have been criticized by doctors and patients over their formularies and other concerns about drug access.

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A 'dangerous and deadly heat wave' is on the way, the weather service warns. More than 25 million people are under heat alerts, and more than 50 daily high-temperature records could be broken through the weekend - including in Death Valley, California, one of the hottest places on earth.

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Dentist warns against one habit that leaves 'the baddest, toughest' germs in your mouth. The biggest problem is that people either neglect their mouth or go to the other extreme by disinfecting and sterilizing it to such a degree that they disrupt the balance of the oral microbiome.

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Queens man accused of killing Chinese food delivery worker is obsessed with duck sauce, other condiments, say police. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz previously called Hirsch's demand for duck sauce an "obsessive point of contention." On Tuesday, a police source told the New York Post that his whole refrigerator was discovered to be filled with duck sauce, calling him a "hoarder."

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As the Great Salt Lake dries up, Utah faces 'an environmental nuclear bomb'. Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, windstorms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah's population.

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What is a recession? A really good explanation. (Video) Also, what is inflation? in six minutes (Video).

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iPhones will be required to use USB-C charging by 2024 under EU policy. Provisional EU agreement applies to additional electronics, laptops to follow. Let's hope the policy spreads to the US as well.

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Late night watch: President Biden will visit "Jimmy Kimmel Live" tonight.

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Miscellany:

Birthdays:

1867 - Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect, designed the Price Tower and Fallingwater (d. 1959).
1910 - John W. Campbell, American science fiction writer and editor (d. 1971).
1918 - Robert Preston, American captain, actor, and singer. (Video)
1925 - Barbara Bush, American wife of George H.W. Bush, 41st First Lady of the United States (d. 2018)
1927 - Jerry Stiller, American actor, comedian and producer (d. 2020) (Video)
1933 - Joan Rivers, American comedian, actress, and television host (d. 2014). (Video)
1940 - Nancy Sinatra, American singer and actress. (Video)
1951 - Bonnie Tyler, Welsh singer-songwriter. (Video)
1955 - Tim Berners-Lee, English computer scientist, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web.

On this date in:

1789 - James Madison introduced twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress. Ten were eventually adopted, known as the Bill of Rights.
1887 - Herman Hollerith received a patent for his punch card calculator.
1912 - Carl Laemmle incorporated Universal Pictures.
1949 - George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published.
1953 - The United States Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.
1964 - Jan and Dean released the single "The Little Old Lady (from Pasadena)". (Video)
1966 - the National Football League and American Football League announced a merger effective in 1970.
1968 - Gary Puckett and Union Gap released "Lady Willpower". (Video)
1979 - "The Source," the first computer public information service, went online.
1984 - the film "Ghostbusters" was released. (Video)

Today is:

Best Friends Day, Betty Picnic Day, Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day, Name Your Poison Day, National Caribbean American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Thomas Paine Day, Upsy Daisy Day, World Brain Tumor Day, and World Oceans Day.

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Comments and observations:

Credit card debt soared by $17.8 billion in April, the second highest amount ever. The highest was March, when it soared by a staggering $25.6 billion. Consumers are completely tapped out. They're using their credit cards to buy food and pay for other essentials.
-Peter Schiff

Categories: Climate change, Dental Care, Drugs, Economics, EU, FTC, Great Salt Lake, Gun laws, Guns, Heat Wave, Inflation, iPhones, Matthew McConaughey, Recession, Weather

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25+ best memes about jumping off a cliff

Zero tolerance, zero brains; Bob Dylan; solar storms; spermageddon; canine-spread coronavirus
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Published Monday, May 24, 2021 @ 12:00 AM EDT

May 24 2021

One of the problems associated with being thrown into Facebook jail is ignorance of the alleged offense.

The announcement states that your post has violated Facebook's "Community Standards," a dense, 27-page litany of offenses that will get you kicked off the platform.

I found the section which I believe addresses my post:

"We care deeply about the safety of the people who use our apps. We regularly consult with experts in suicide and self-injury to help inform our policies and enforcement, and work with organizations around the world to provide assistance to people in distress.

"While we do not allow people to intentionally or unintentionally celebrate or promote suicide or self-injury, we do allow people to discuss these topics because we want Facebook to be a space where people can share their experiences, raise awareness about these issues, and seek support from one another."

"We define self-injury as the intentional and direct injuring of the body, including self-mutilation and eating disorders. We remove any content that encourages suicide or self-injury, including fictional content such as memes or illustrations and any self-injury content which is graphic, regardless of context."

Here's the offending cartoon:

I maintain this isn't a cartoon about suicide- it's a cartoon addressing the power of social media to influence otherwise sane people to do insane things. If anything, it's an anti-suicide cartoon.

I've appealed prior suspensions and won, because it was obvious the artificially intelligent bot or stressed human outside contractor didn't grasp the concepts of satire, parody, or irony and made a bad call. Most of the time Facebook admitted it was in error and unhid the post. But I don't think it's going to work in this instance, because self-injury is one of those categories of which Facebook seems to have a zero tolerance policy. There is no way to contact any human at Facebook to offer a defense. And a small potatoes page administrator with a mere 10,134 followers really can't create enough media outrage to get Facebook executives involved.

I suspect Facebook adopted this policy to aggregate a number it can use in its "we're doing our best, but we can't catch everything" defense. They can point to their mountain of context-free suspensions and say, "Look, we suspended n accounts in the last month for violating our policy against self-injury."

Supplementary viewing/reading:

Little evidence supports the claimed effectiveness of zero-tolerance policies.

"The whole principle is wrong (censorship); it's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak."
-Robert A. Heinlein

"The written word will soon disappear and we'll no longer be able to read good prose like we used to could. This prospect does not gentle my thoughts or tranquil me toward the future."
-James Thurber

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"The first way to answer the questions in the song ('Blowin' in the Wind') is by asking them. But lots of people first have to find the wind."
-Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman. He's 80 today.)

Actor Gary Burghoff is 78 today. The video above is the 1984 pilot episode of a M*A*S*H spinoff that wasn't picked up.

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The first text message: On this day in 1844, Samuel Morse sent the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from a committee room in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate a commercial telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington D.C.

On this day in 1940, Igor Sikorsky performed the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.

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NOT REAL NEWS: a look at what didn't happen last week.

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Pentagon's UFO footage- and Obama's curiosity- ratchet up expectations for a big reveal. When Congress passed the $2.3 trillion omnibus appropriations bill in December, it included a requirement that the Pentagon and a number of intelligence agencies prepare a report laying out what they know about UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), which is the new military-speak for UFOs. The report is expected to be delivered as early as June 1, and at least part of it will be made available to the public.

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Good news for a Monday morning: "...greater coffee consumption is associated with a decreased risk of all-cause mortality."

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Liz Cheney's GOP primary challenger admits to impregnating 14-year-old when he was 18. Liz Cheney's GOP primary challenger admits to impregnating 14-year-old when he was 18. The Facebook video he released, called "Senator Bouchard takes on the fake news media," claimed "I was young" and "you've heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it's like the Romeo and Juliet story," he said, neglecting several glaring differences like the Shakespearean characters were fictional and neither was running for Congress in the so-called "family values" party.

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Can the news be fixed? The fix is already in. Oh, you mean like repaired.

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The Great Amazon Purge... "About three weeks ago, several major Amazon brands were suddenly kicked out. Most people were unaware of the names of more than 12 disappearing Chinese companies, such as Mpow and Aukey. However, these two sell a number of electronic devices, such as phone chargers and external batteries for smartphones. If you click "Buy" on Amazon's first phone charger or wireless headphones, it could be from one of the sellers currently suspended."

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Alabama will now allow yoga in its public schools (but students can't say 'namaste'). But on the other hand, Alabama becomes latest state to legalize medical marijuana.

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Life as we know it:

Solar storms are back, threatening life as we know it on Earth.

A massive heat dome is about to make the Southeast sweat. "Temperatures starting on Monday will run between 10-15 degrees above normal, and border on record maximum temperatures, both for daily highs and lows."

Spermageddon: Could men be infertile by 2045? One word: parthenogenesis.

New coronavirus discovered- and dogs are spreading it. It could be the eighth coronavirus known to cause illnesses in humans.

Categories: Alabama, amazon.com, Anthony Bouchard, Bob Dylan, Coffee, Covert Comic, Dogs, Drugs, Facebook, Fact check, Gary Burghoff, Helicopters, Igor Sikorsky, James Thurber, January 6, Liz Cheney, M*A*S*H, News Media, Republicans, Robert A. Heinlein, Romeo and Juliet, Samuel Morse, Self-injury, Spermageddon, Suicide, Telegraph, The Sun, Weather, William Shakespeare

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Overdrawn at the memory bank
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Published Saturday, July 30, 2016 @ 9:09 AM EDT

Jul 30 2016

While wandering through Rite Aid the other day, I picked up a bottle of cognizin citicoline, a supplement that appears to be effective in enhancing memory and mental focus.

So, when filling up prescripion organizer for the week, I looked forward to adding yet another pill.

But I don't remember where I put the bottle,

Categories: Drugs, KGB

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On drugs...
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Published Sunday, November 16, 2014 @ 10:07 PM EST

Nov 16 2014

A Libertarian is just a Republican who takes drugs.
-Bob Black

As long as there's sex and drugs, I can do without the rock and roll.
-Mick Shrimpton

Death comes at you no matter what you do in this life, and to equate drugs with death is a facile comparison.
-Jerry Garcia

Drugs have taught an entire generation of American kids the metric system.
-P.J. O'Rourke

Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them.
-Dr. Martin Henry Fischer

I believe in prescription drugs. I believe in feeling better.
-Denis Leary

I don't do drugs. I am drugs.
-Salvador Dali

I don't use drugs; my dreams are frightening enough.
-M.C. Escher

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
-Hunter S. Thompson

I never took hallucinogenic drugs because I never wanted my consciousness expanded one unnecessary iota.
-Fran Lebowitz

I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.
-Mitch Hedberg

I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.
-Milton Friedman

I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.
-Keith Richards

If anybody comes up to you and says, 'My kid is a conservative- why is that?' you say, 'Remember in the 60s when we told you if you kept using drugs your kids would be mutants?'
-Mort Sahl

If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they'd have to bring out the tanks to control you.
-Dick Gregory

If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
-P.J. O'Rourke

If you don't have sex and you don't do drugs, your rock 'n' roll better be awfully good.
-Abbie Hoffman

If you need drugs to be a good writer, you're not a good writer.
-Rod Serling

It is no defense of superstition and pseudoscience to say that it brings solace and comfort to people... If solace and comfort are how we judge the worth of something, then consider that tobacco brings solace and comfort to smokers; alcohol brings it to drinkers; drugs of all kinds bring it to addicts; the fall of cards and the run of horses bring it to gamblers; cruelty and violence bring it to sociopaths. Judge by solace and comfort only and there is no behavior we ought to interfere with.
-Isaac Asimov

My idea (in taking drugs) was pain reduction and mind expansion, but I ended up with mind reduction and pain expansion.
-Carrie Fisher

Not all drugs are good. Some are great.
-Bill Hicks

Our generation was right about civil rights; we were right about Vietnam; we were right about poverty. Unfortunately, we were wrong about drugs.
-David Crosby

Pop music is just long hours, hard work and lots of drugs.
-Cass Elliot

Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.
-Jane Wagner

Sex and drugs don't go half as well as some people believe. Very often you're forced to choose.
-Christopher Hitchens

Success and failure are both difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, meditation, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.
-Joseph Heller

The government could take away all the drugs in the world and people would spin around on their lawns until they fell down and saw God.
-Dennis Miller

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.
-Noam Chomsky

There were a lot of casualties. Things change and drugs change.
-Marc Maron

Think about it. Would you work for a company that couldn't tell the difference in the quality of its employees' normal work product and the work product of someone on drugs without performing a test?
-Unattributed

When we were growing up we knew the side effects of the drugs we were taking. Cocaine, side effects were paranoia, ninjas-on-the-lawn; quaaludes, side effects were talking in tongues, English as a second language; marijuana, side effects were laughter, Frosted Flakes.
-Robin Williams

Why are there no recreational drugs taken in suppository form?
-George Carlin

Win The War, On Drugs (bumper sticker)
-John Alejandro King (The Covert Comic)

You know how I got addicted to cocaine? I tried it. The problem with drugs is that they work- right up until the moment they decimate your life.
-Aaron Sorkin

Categories: Drugs, Quotes of the day, Quotes on a topic

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The siege continues
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Published Tuesday, January 22, 2013 @ 12:27 AM EST

Jan 22 2013

To quote the great Robin Williams, "I feel like dog drool on a cat's lips."

Some OTC antipyretics and back to bed.

Categories: Drugs, KGB

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Just saying...
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Published Monday, January 14, 2013 @ 12:06 AM EST

Jan 14 2013

Categories: Drugs, Lindsay Lohan, Patrick Stewart, Star Trek

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