Fish Hunting

A Dread Gambling Menace with amusing graphics. As Ambrose Bierce said, those who engage in the business known as gambling are despised by those who engage in the gambling known as business.

Thanx to Metafilter

Today’s Trumpery

50 years ago Lenny Bruce came up with the ultimate minimal political slogan: “Vote for me; I don’t wet the bed.” I keep being reminded of it and will no doubt be reminded even more in the coming days. The latest dry-sheets announcement from Mr. Trump is his Diversity Moment: two female appointees, one of whom has not expressed more enthusiasm for child labor than for public schools, and Ben Carson. Since Dr. Carson has already said he doesn’t want a Cabinet appointment, Mr. Trump may be forced to get to know a second Black person.

I for one welcome our new digital overlords

Google’s AI translation tool seems to have invented its own secret internal language.

Thanx to andrewducker

Separated by a common language

Famous movie lines translated into Aussie

Thanx to andrewducker

“We protect the vulnerable”

Empathy is a two-way street.

What I'm Thankful For

1. nellorat
2. womzilla
3. Some of the smartest, nicest, most interesting friends & acquaintances in the world, specifically including those belonging to my dreamwidth/livejournal and Facebook reading lists, my electronic and postal mailing lists, and the two apas I am still in.
4. My body. It’s an evolved animal, the product of millions of years of fighting, breeding, and dying, with all the problems that would suggest, but as far as we know, the human body is the only vehicle mind has. (It's a ride.) I’m thankful for mine in particular because it’s a strong one. It has survived 70+ years of as little exercise and nutritional correctness as I could get away with giving it, and now requires only moderate amounts of both. It has survived much abuse of assorted substances (and the only one of those I wouldn’t do over again is tobacco) and now survives without them.
5. My nation. Like my body, not the ideal place to inhabit, but good as actually existing ones go. My predecessors stole a good land from the natives and gave it good laws, including a constitution that still does much to protect us. When my own forebears came here much later, the immigration laws were tougher, and there were opportunities for people like them, who combined ability with pigmentational correctness, and they thereby flourished.
6. All other minds, past and present: those who created computers to expand my mind and a Net to join it to others, medicines that allow me to survive the previously fatal weaknesses of my body, and words and pictures that have enriched my thoughts, and all those I have forgotten or taken for granted.