Yahrzeit

George, gone three years, now.

He was my starter cat. I made a lot of mistakes with him, I guess. But he was bottle-fed and hand-reared alone, so he didn't know much more about being a cat than I did.

I used to buy moderately-priced cuts of beef, cook them and share some of it with him. He liked the end pieces that were done more. One time, Eck! suggested that I give him a bit of raw beef because, as she told me, cats go nuts for raw meat.

Not George. He gave me a look of "aren't you going to cook it" and then he tried to bury the dish. Which is hard to do on a linoleum floor, but he got the point across.

George, to the end of his days, thought that people food was what he should eat and that he should sleep on the bed sheets or the pillows, not on top of the covers. He was 90% attitude and I loved him so much.

May peace be upon you, George.

Because It's Friday

PRR K4 #1361, one of the three Official Locomotives of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania:

1361 was restored to operating service in 1987, but ran only a year before a serious breakdown. There have been efforts to restore her to operation, but they've all fallen flat.

Waffle House; GOP's Religion-Based, Pro-Bigotry Legislation

Indiana and Arkansas backed off their "We Don't Serve Yer Kind" laws. If the AP report has it right, the Indiana law would cut the ground out from the Pizza House of Homophobes.

First off, who the hell has ever seen a gay wedding that was catered by a pizza joint? Anyone?

Second, the Homophobic Pizza House did a nice job of trolling the Christian Taliban, by cashing out with a half-million dollar payday. See, normally, a business like that has to have a convenient fire in order to take the money and run.

Probably goes without saying that the Christian Taliban is now feeling like the true victim in all of this. Which seems to be their default position. 70+% of Americans identify as Christian, but the zealots of the Church of the Dead God love to find every possible excuse to cry that they're being martyred.

Then there is Jeb Bush, a political weathervane. He was one of the GOP politicos who supported discriminatory laws, until he saw how unpopular they really are.

A Classic Prank

The 1957 spaghetti harvest is brought in:

Found here, a serious time sink.

Moderation in All Things, People

Including drinking iced tea.

Doctors traced an Arkansas man’s kidney failure to an unusual cause — his habit of drinking a gallon of iced tea each day.

They ruled out several potential causes before stumbling on a reason for the 56-year-old man’s kidney problems. He said he drank about 16 8-ounce cups of iced tea every day. Black tea has a chemical known to cause kidney stones or even kidney failure in excessive amounts.

Almost everything is bad for you when taken to excess. Even breathing.

Justified Easter Egg

I watched the latest episode ("Fugitive No. 1") last night. Um, wow!

Did anyone else catch the reference to an Elmore Leonard book, when Carl refers to Boon as "the hot kid"? That's the title of one of Elmore Leonard's books.

Wynn Duffy's call to 911 was one of the great lines.

Not going to say any more in case you've not seen the episode yet.

Indiana OK's Sharia Law for Contracts

That would seem to be a side-effect of the new "We Don't Serve Your Kind Law" in Indiana. If the parties agree that Sharia law applies to their contract, because of their deeply-held religious disputes, then what would the state's interest be in insisting otherwise.

Hell, if the parties agree, for religious reasons, that they'll settle disputes by pistols at dawn...[1]

Indiana is, like damn near every other state, a "no-fault" divorce state. But if the other party tells the judge that he or she can't be divorced for religious reasons, does the new law strip the judge of the power to grant the divorce? The new law requires a "compelling interest" for the state to override somebody's religious beliefs.[2] What would be the state's compelling interest in granting a divorce. So the couple remains married and they hate each other, like that's not a common occurrence? Would there have to be domestic violence to provide the "compelling state interest"?

Or maybe you'll be able to stop paying interest on a loan, because interest is sinful. Remember, it was once Christian thought that charging interest was sinful (which is why the merchants who needed to float a loan went to the Jews.) So if you're a really traditional Christian and you live in Indiana, why don't you go down to your bank and tell them that, because of your deeply-held religious beliefs, you're going to stop paying interest on your mortgage? I'm sure they'll understand.[3]

Among the other terrible things about this idiotic law, which was enacted by the anacephalic state legislature, is that the law will require judges to inquire as to the nature and sincerity of a person's religious beliefs. Because you're not going to be able to say "my religious beliefs require me to break our deal" and just walk away, nosiree! You're going to have to go to court to assert your beliefs and then the other party gets to cross-examine you on your bigotry, in open court. And then the judge will decide if you're motivated by religion or if you're just an unmitigated asshole.

And then there will be appeals, which means that when your descendants do genealogical research, you'll be forever marked as a hateful asshole. Even if you win.
________________________________________
[1] The Church of Jeff Cooper, its adherents are known as "Bulletfarians".
[2] "Compelling interest" is legal shorthand for "government, you lose, sit down". It is a very high bar to jump over- somewhere between Dick Fosbury and Superman.
[3] Or they'll have a good laugh as they tell their legal department to write up the foreclosure papers.

The Fun Thing About Today: Online Edition

....is seeing the products that companies are offering.

From Safariland, a holster for your lightsaber.

Over at Think Geek, it's kind of hard to figure out which product is real and which isn't. The kid-sized Mad Max cars? The Voltron Cat Condo? More likely the Steam-Powered Gaming Cabinet, just the thing if the power goes out. (They have more items.)

Samsung's SmartKnife. Try not to slice off your ear when you make a call.

The Honda selfie-cam.

Google's Smart-Mailbox.

Ms-DOS for your smartphone.

(More later)

Your Wednesday Wednesday

The Masters of the Internet

They're the subject of the Bing page today.