As many as 4 million people have Web browser extensions that sell their every click. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. (WaPo)

I went down to the Digital Spy Bureau to apply to be a digital spy.  they welcomed me with open gigabytes.  "you're just the type we need" they said.  "you are sneaky, insincere, nosy, dogmatic, and lack social skills."  I had to agree with them -- no false modesty for me.
my first assignment was to gather data on an old woman who never got any junk mail in her senior citizen's apartment building mail box.  this was very suspicious, perhaps an extinction level event, so my superiors needed me to go online and find out about her agenda.  trouble was, she didn't have an online presence.  no email, no Facebook, no nothin'.  when I told this to my superiors they threw me into a foot locker.  I am still there, tapping out messages by morse code.  I hope to heaven this message gets out.  if you are reading this, please go to the Silver Dish Thai Cafe on Center Street in Provo and look in the last booth on the left -- you will see a foot locker.  if I'm not in there you'll know I've been digitized for my country.  send my regards to Jeff Zucker.   

An Iowa official and Tupac stan was fired. He says it wasn’t because of the ‘thug life’ cookies. (WaPo)

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

I read the headline in the newspaper three times, and still didn't understand it.  I called the editor of the paper and asked him what the heck was the meaning of that particular headline; it seemed like gibberish to me.
he answered very smoothly:  "that is our new streamlined approach to the news -- an algorithm picks out the words at random and we print them as such.  our subscribers find it very engaging."
"it ain't engaging to me" I told him and hung up.  then I poured myself a glass of buttermilk and read a paperback out in the backyard while dozens of Russian milkweed pods broadcast their divisive seeds across my lawn.  a boy in a grey t-shirt and grey shorts, wearing black dress shoes, walked respectfully up to me and waited.
"want some buttermilk?" I asked him.  "no thank you" he replied politely.  "I am here at the instigation of the editor to bring you in."
"instigation?" I said.  "that's a pretty big word for a mighty small boy."  at that, he smiled.  we became great friends for the afternoon, tossing a frisbee back and forth.  but he still brought me in that evening, and now I may never escape this hellish job of stuffing Sunday supplements by hand each week. 

A GOP lawmaker thinks rise in Lyme disease is due to a secret tick experiment. A scientist squashes that idea. (WaPo)

millennia ago, the Ticks came to earth and began experimenting on us.  at that time they were monstrous huge creatures, the height of a green bay tree.  they put poison ivy in the Garden of Eden.  they gave Noah hydrophobia. then their own evil experiments backfired on them, shrinking them to their current insignificant size.  but they still possess an unpleasant curiosity.
their work with the Pentagon is well known in certain circles, and their very insignificance works to their advantage.  they sit on leaves in the gardens of important people, eavesdropping.  riding along all unbeknownst in a shirt pocket is one of their favorite activities -- this takes them into top secret facilities around the world, where they can crawl about and wreak havoc on not only our enemies but even on our allies. they don't care who they serve, as long as it causes misery and destruction.  if the Russians ever find out what the Ticks are still capable of, we can all kiss our pinky rings goodbye.    

BYU grad tells U.S. Senate panel he would impartially apply law if confirmed as federal judge (Deseret News)

(dedicated to @dennisromboy)


I tried to impartially apply the law to my kids when they were little.
"Time for bed" I announced each night at 8.  this only caused them to caper about like demented lemurs.  "All must go to bed at 8" I said sternly one night in July. "Even you?" they mocked back.  "No, not me. I'm an adult and can stay up as late as I want."  they scattered before me like a sack of emptied marbles, and I didn't see them again for twenty years.  

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard announces seizure of oil tanker accused of smuggling fuel in the Strait of Hormuz

(dedicated to @LizSly)

I went to get my car out of the impound lot.  they hauled it away cuz I was parked too long in the same spot.  or so they said.  Personally, I think it's a racket.  sharks are not only found on the high seas, you know.  there are plenty of other sharks around.  they ought to be muzzled.  that's what I said to the guy in front of me at the impound lot.
"I happen to be a shark muzzler" he said back to me.
"No, really?" I said.
"Really" he said.  He showed me his bare arms, covered with scars and bleeding welts.
"You could have gotten those anywhere" I scoffed at him.
"Watch this" was his only reply.  he pushed his way to the front of the line and grabbed  the man at the desk by his shirtfront.  he lifted him up and pulled him across the desk; the man turned into a great white shark and began thrashing about, biting his arms.  the shark muzzler slipped a leather muzzle over the sharkman's head and dragged him off.  "Sorry to doubt!" I yelled after him.  "We need more of your kind!" 

FaceApp went viral with age-defying photos. Now Democratic leaders are warning campaigns to delete the Russian-created app ‘immediately’. (WaPo)

there was this guy at the State Fair who said he could draw me as I would look in twenty years.  I thought he was full of it, but he only charged two dollars so I sat down on the metal stool in front of him and let him have at it.
the result was very disturbing. I had a lot of wrinkles.  my hair was all grey.  my earlobes were as long as summer sausages.  and I was a woman.  I asked him if this was really me in twenty years.  he said it didn't have to be.  he could redraw my future self for another two dollars.  I gave him two more dollars and he started again.  he drew in a professional, disinterested manner -- no creepy turning up of eyeballs or muttering mumbo-jumbo.  this time I still had the wrinkles, but my hair wasn't grey -- it was gone.  I was completely bald.  and I was a man -- a man with small red horns on his bald head.  "I suppose if I give you two dollars more you can draw the future me differently than this?" I asked him sarcastically.  He said he could.  
okay, so I was worried.  I gave him two more dollars and told him that would be the last he'd ever get from me.  He just sat there a moment, doing nothing, then handed me a blank sheet of drawing paper,  "What does this mean?" I asked him.  
"You'll find out" he replied, then vanished in a cloud of blue butterflies.  

Two Republican senators emerge as opponents to 9/11 victims bill. (WaPo)

money makes me tired.  my mother said that God threw it out the window.  my dad didn't say anything at all about it -- but he always left his trousers on a dining room chair when he went to bed, and there were always Eisenhower silver dollar coins in them -- I used to make quite a haul that way.  and when our daughter was ten I refused to pay three-hundred dollars for her to go to horse riding camp for two weeks.  not a skill set she could use in the future, the way I saw it.  but her mother forced me to pay for it by remaining calm and supportive of my resolve not to dip into our savings.  that was a dirty trick.  the more supportive she got the more I felt like a rat.  until finally I coughed it up  -- I even went down to the Goodwill Store on Larepenteur for a pair of riding boots for her.  true, they were actually old Army boots, but she never knew the difference.  after she came back from camp she never rode a horse again, and she's nearly 40 now. 
The whole thing makes me tired; let's drop the subject. 

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert kicks off Days of '47 with cattle drive on Capitol Hill. (Deseret News)

try herding kids, Governor.  that's something that will challenge your temper, your vocabulary, and your faith in humanity.  I took six of my kids on the bus once to get a heating voucher in the middle of winter.  there was no one I could leave them with.  I fumbled with a handful of change and balled up dollar bills -- exact change only, you know; public transportation hasn't made change for anyone since before peanut butter met jelly.  the kids formed a swarm to take over all the empty seats, surging in like the tide at the Bay of Fundy. just as I lassoed one into a seat, another one would break loose and head for the tall timber.  by the time we got to where we were going I had lost most of the utility bills I had to bring along to show to the clerk. they had been trampled underneath the stampede.  she refused to give me a voucher.
now here's the strange thing; on the bus ride back home those same long horned kids were as sedate as granite.  wouldn't move a muscle or let out a whine.  I never could figure that out.  if you can explain it to me, you certainly deserve to be Governor. 

Trump Sets the 2020 Tone: Like 2016, Only This Time ‘the Squad’ Is Here. (NYT)

I've never run for office in my life, so I'm an expert on the process.  the first thing you do is sign up a bunch of like-minded people to hurry around a rented office with lots of papers in their hands.  you must have dozens of constantly ringing phones in the office, with your subordinates rushing to answer them like it was the end of the world.  that's the way I've seen it done in the movies.
then you gotta stand in front of a giant photograph of yourself looking all pompous and important and declaim something generic and easy to chant, like "Better Politics Means Better Lives!" 
I think that's all there is to it.  I might have missed something, but if I did it can't be very important.  these are the main points.  
if you happen to get elected you can expect a beautiful woman, or a handsome man, to complicate things for you -- but the real person to look out for is the cigar chomping fat cat who drips money out of his bulging pockets.  he is what is known as a Vested Interest.  keep him at arm's length.  you should spend all your time working for the Little People.  and I do mean leprechauns -- there's no strings attached to their gold, chum. 

A Prosperous China Says ‘Men Preferred,’ and Women Lose. (NYT)

(Dedicated to @amyquin)



the best year of my married life was when Amy went to work as a Special Ed teacher when we bought our house in Wichita.  I was sick of being fired from job after job for insubordination and lollygagging, so I told her I would stay home and she could go out and get a job.  and she did.  by golly, she did.  a good one, too, with health benefits and free school lunches. she had a classroom assistant.  she had it made in the shade.
meanwhile I stayed home to watch the kids, cook, clean, and exchange banalities with the neighbors about crab grass.  I took a great deal of pride in hanging up line upon line of cloth diapers to dry in the rude Kansas sun.  Amy took the car to work, so I never went anywhere during the day with the kids -- we stayed home and found garter snakes under the porch and they helped me pound flour and eggs into a lumpy mess we called spitzen, for dinner.  our house had no basement, so we looked for rainbows and not tornadoes.
but then one of the students bit Amy on the hand and she had to slap the kid's face to make him let go. Her classroom assistant ratted her out to the principal.  there was an inquiry.  Amy lost her job.  we became itinerant tinkers.