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Donald Trump Releases List of Supreme Court Picks

I thought this quote from Ed Whelan was funny. The part about Erick Erickson was added since I first read the article:

Ed Whelan, a former clerk to Justice Scalia and a prominent conservative legal commentator, praised several of the names on the list but reserved judgment about whether conservatives should trust Mr. Trump to follow through on what he says he will do.

“It’s a good list of some of the outstanding judges who give ample sign of being faithful to the Constitution,” Mr. Whelan said. “Whether a President Trump could actually be counted on to pick folks like this is a different question.”

Some of Mr. Trump’s most vocal conservative critics remained doubtful despite the credentials of the judges on the list. Erick Erickson, the conservative blogger who has been working to derail his campaign, insisted that Mr. Trump still could not be trusted with the court.

“Like every clause of every sentence uttered in every breath Donald Trump takes, this is all subject to change,” Mr. Erickson said. “He will waffle, he will backtrack, and he simply cannot be believed.”

Trump's List Of Possible Supreme Court Nominees Includes A Judge Who Mocked Trump

And it's not just a single incident of Twitter mocking.

DONALD J. TRUMP RELEASES LIST OF POTENTIAL UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT JUSTICES

Steven Colloton

Steven Colloton of Iowa is a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, a position he has held since President George W. Bush appointed him in 2003. Judge Colloton has a résumé that also includes distinguished service as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa, a Special Assistant to the Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and a lecturer of law at the University of Iowa. He received his law degree from Yale, and he clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Judge Colloton is an Iowa native.

Allison Eid

Allison Eid of Colorado is an associate justice of the Colorado Supreme Court. Colorado Governor Bill Owens appointed her to the seat in 2006; she was later retained for a full term by the voters (with 75% of voters favoring retention). Prior to her judicial service, Justice Eid served as Colorado’s solicitor general and as a law professor at the University of Colorado. Justice Eid attended the University of Chicago Law School, and she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.

Raymond Gruender

Raymond Gruender of Missouri has been a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit since his 2004 appointment by President George W. Bush. Judge Gruender, who sits in St. Louis, Missouri, has extensive prosecutorial experience, culminating with his time as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. Judge Gruender received a law degree and an M.B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis.

Thomas Hardiman

Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania has been a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since 2007. Prior to serving as a circuit judge, he served as a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania since 2003. Before his judicial service, Judge Hardiman worked in private practice in Washington, D.C. and Pittsburgh. Judge Hardiman was the first in his family to attend college, graduating from Notre Dame.

Raymond Kethledge

Raymond Kethledge of Michigan has been a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit since 2008. Before his judicial service, Judge Kethledge served as judiciary counsel to Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham, worked as a partner in two law firms, and worked as an in-house counsel for the Ford Motor Company. Judge Kethledge obtained his law degree from the University of Michigan and clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Joan Larsen

Joan Larsen of Michigan is an Associate Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court. Justice Larsen was a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law from 1998 until her appointment to the bench. In 2002, she temporarily left academia to work as an Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. Justice Larsen received her law degree from Northwestern and clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia.

Thomas Lee

Thomas Lee of Utah has been an Associate Justice of the Utah Supreme Court since 2010. Beginning in 1997, he served on the faculty of Brigham Young University Law School, where he still teaches in an adjunct capacity. Justice Lee was Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Civil Division from 2004 to 2005. Justice Lee attended the University of Chicago Law School, and he clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Lee is also the son of former U.S. Solicitor General Rex Lee and the brother of current U.S. Senator Mike Lee.

William Pryor

William H. Pryor, Jr. of Alabama is a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He has served on the court since 2004. Judge Pryor became the Alabama Attorney General in 1997 upon Jeff Sessions’s election to the U.S. Senate. Judge Pryor was then elected in his own right in 1998 and reelected in 2002. In 2013, Judge Pryor was confirmed to a term on the United States Sentencing Commission. Judge Pryor received his law degree from Tulane, and he clerked for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

David Stras

David Stras of Minnesota has been an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court since 2010. After his initial appointment, he was elected to a six-year term in 2012. Prior to his judicial service, Judge Stras worked as a legal academic at the University of Minnesota Law School. In his time there, he wrote extensively about the function and structure of the judiciary. Justice Stras received his law degree and an M.B.A. from the University of Kansas. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas.

Diane Sykes

Diane Sykes of Wisconsin has served as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 2004. Prior to her federal appointment, Judge Sykes had been a Justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court since 1999 and a Wisconsin trial court judge of both civil and criminal matters before that. Judge Sykes received her law degree from Marquette.

Don Willett

Don Willett of Texas has been a Justice of the Texas Supreme Court since 2005. He was initially appointed by Governor Rick Perry and has been reelected by the voters twice. Prior to his judicial service, Judge Willett worked as a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, as an advisor in George W. Bush’s gubernatorial and presidential administrations, as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, and as a Deputy Attorney General under then-Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. Justice Willett received his law degree and a master’s degree from Duke.

http://en.zimagez.com/zimage/screenshot2016-05-1508-21-36.php

This is just a screenshot of my desktop - took it while playing around with different wallpapers. I may add some different screenshots later - or not. Pulled both of these wallpapers from this site: http://racodesign.com/

Feel free to post shots of your desktop! It may give me ideas.

Oh - this is Linux, in case someone failed to notice that. Specs?

guy@sabayon-pc /opt/foldingathome $ inxi -F
System: Host: sabayon-pc Kernel: 4.5.0-sabayon x86_64 (64 bit)
                      Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 Distro: Sabayon Linux amd64 16.04
Machine: Mobo: Supermicro model: H8DM8-2 v: 1234567890
                      Bios: American Megatrends v: 080014 date: 10/22/2009
CPU(s): 2 Hexa core Six-Core AMD Opteron 8439 SEs (-HT-MCP-SMP-) cache: 6144 KB
                      clock speeds: max: 2800 MHz 1: 2800 MHz 2: 2800 MHz 3: 2800 MHz
                      4: 2800 MHz 5: 2800 MHz 6: 2800 MHz 7: 2800 MHz 8: 2800 MHz
                      9: 2800 MHz 10: 2800 MHz 11: 2800 MHz 12: 2800 MHz
Graphics: Card-1: NVIDIA GK208 [GeForce GT 630 Rev. 2]
                      Card-2: NVIDIA GK208 [GeForce GT 730]
                      Display Server: X.Org 1.17.4 driver: nvidia
                      Resolution: 1920x1080@60.00hz, 1920x1080@60.00hz
                      GLX Renderer: GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2
                      GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 358.09
Audio: Card-1 2x NVIDIA GK208 HDMI/DP Audio Controller
                      driver: snd_hda_intelsnd_hda_intel
                      Card-2 Plantronics driver: USB Audio
                      Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.5.0-sabayon
Network: Card-1: NVIDIA MCP55 Ethernet driver: forcedeth
                      IF: enp0s8 state: down mac: 00:30:48:c8:16:72
                      Card-2: NVIDIA MCP55 Ethernet driver: forcedeth
                      IF: enp0s9 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full
                      mac: 00:30:48:c8:16:73
Drives: HDD Total Size: 8561.7GB (6.6% used)
                      ID-1: /dev/sda model: MKNSSDCR240GB size: 240.1GB
                      ID-2: /dev/sdb model: WDC_WD3200AUDX size: 320.1GB
                      ID-3: /dev/sdc model: HUA722020ALA330 size: 2000.4GB
                      ID-4: /dev/sdd model: HUA722020ALA330 size: 2000.4GB
                      ID-5: /dev/sde model: HUA722020ALA330 size: 2000.4GB
                      ID-6: /dev/sdf model: HUA722020ALA330 size: 2000.4GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 22G used: 15G (69%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
                      ID-2: /home size: 168G used: 3.0G (2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
                      ID-3: swap-1 size: 33.56GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3
RAID: Device-1: /dev/md127 - active raid: 5 components: online: 4/4 - sde1 sdc1 sdf1 sdd1
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 65.2C mobo: 52.5C gpu: 50C
                      Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 0 fan-1: 0 fan-3: 0 fan-4: 0 fan-5: 0 fan-6: 0 fan-7: 3132
                      fan-8: 3375
Info: Processes: 333 Uptime: 1:08 Memory: 2759.9/20078.0MB
                      Client: Shell (bash) inxi: 2.2.19

Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private

The New York Times interviewed dozens of women who had worked with or for Mr. Trump over the past four decades, in the worlds of real estate, modeling and pageants; women who had dated him or interacted with him socially; and women and men who had closely observed his conduct since his adolescence. In all, more than 50 interviews were conducted over the course of six weeks.

Their accounts — many relayed here in their own words — reveal unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct, according to the interviews, as well as court records and written recollections. The interactions occurred in his offices at Trump Tower, at his homes, at construction sites and backstage at beauty pageants. They appeared to be fleeting, unimportant moments to him, but they left lasting impressions on the women who experienced them.

What emerges from the interviews is a complex, at times contradictory portrait of a wealthy, well-known and provocative man and the women around him, one that defies simple categorization. Some women found him gracious and encouraging. He promoted several to the loftiest heights of his company, a daring move for a major real estate developer at the time.

He simultaneously nurtured women’s careers and mocked their physical appearance. “You like your candy,” he told an overweight female executive who oversaw the construction of his headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. He could be lewd one moment and gentlemanly the next.

In an interview, Mr. Trump described himself as a champion of women, someone who took pride in hiring them and was in awe of their work ethic. “It would just seem,” he said, “that there was something that they want to really prove.”

Pressed on the women’s claims, Mr. Trump disputed many of the details, such as asking Ms. Brewer Lane to put on a swimsuit. “A lot of things get made up over the years,” he said. “I have always treated women with great respect. And women will tell you that.”

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/13/flight-logs-show-bill-clinton-flew-on-sex-offenders-jet-much-more-than-previously-known.html

Flight logs show Bill Clinton flew on sex offender's jet much more than previously known

Former President Bill Clinton was a much more frequent flyer on a registered sex offender’s infamous jet than previously reported, with flight logs showing the former president taking at least 26 trips aboard the “Lolita Express” -- even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail for at least five of the flights, according to records obtained by FoxNews.com.

Clinton’s presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported, but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by their initials or first names, including “Tatiana.” The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls.

“Bill Clinton … associated with a man like Jeffrey Epstein, who everyone in New York, certainly within his inner circles, knew was a pedophile,” said Conchita Sarnoff, of the Washington, D.C. based non-profit Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking, and author of a book on the Epstein case called "TrafficKing." “Why would a former president associate with a man like that?”

Epstein, who counts among his pals royal figures, heads of state, celebrities and fellow billionaires, spent 13 months in prison and home detention for solicitation and procurement of minors for prostitution. He allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends on “Orgy Island,” an estate on Epstein's 72-acre island, called Little St. James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Virginia Roberts, 32, who claims she was pimped out by Epstein at age 15, has previously claimed she saw Clinton at Epstein’s getaway in 2002, but logs do not show Clinton aboard any flights to St. Thomas, the nearest airport capable of accommodating Epstein's plane. They do show Clinton flying aboard Epstein’s plane to such destinations as Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, China, Brunei, London, New York, the Azores, Belgium, Norway, Russia and Africa.

Among those regularly traveling with Clinton were Epstein’s associates, New York socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein’s assistant, Sarah Kellen, both of whom were investigated by the FBI and Palm Beach Police for recruiting girls for Epstein and his friends.

Official flight logs filed with the Federal Aviation Administration show Clinton traveled on some of the trips with as many as 10 U.S. Secret Service agents. However, on a five-leg Asia trip between May 22 and May 25, 2002, not a single Secret Service agent is listed. The U.S. Secret Service has declined to answer multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed by FoxNews.com seeking information on these trips. Clinton would have been required to file a form to dismiss the agent detail, a former Secret Service agent told FoxNews.com.

In response to a separate FOIA request from FoxNews.com, the U.S. Secret Service said it has no records showing agents were ever on the island with Clinton.

A Clinton spokesperson did not return emails requesting comment about the former president’s relationship and travels with Epstein. The Clinton Library said it had no relevant information and does not keep track of Clinton’s travel records.

Martin Weinberg, Epstein’s current attorney, did not respond to multiple inquiries. Epstein said in a court filing said that he and his associates “have been the subject of the most outlandish and offensive attacks, allegations, and plain inventions.”

However, hundreds of pages of court records, including reports from police and FBI agents, reviewed by FoxNews.com, show Epstein was under law enforcement scrutiny for more than a year.

Police in Palm Beach, Fla., launched a year-long investigation in 2005 into Epstein after parents of a 14-year-old girl said their daughter was sexually abused by him. Police interviewed dozens of witnesses, confiscated his trash, performed surveillance and searched his Palm Beach mansion, ultimately identifying 20 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 who they said were sexually abused by Epstein.

In 2006, at the request of Palm Beach Police, the FBI launched a federal probe into allegations that Epstein and his personal assistants had “used facilities of interstate commerce to induce girls between the ages of 14 and 17 to engage in illegal sexual activities.”

According to court documents, police investigators found a “clear indication that Epstein’s staff was frequently working to schedule multiple young girls between the ages of 12 and 16 years old literally every day, often two or three times per day.”

One victim, in sworn deposition testimony, said Epstein began sexually assaulting her when she was 13 years old and molested her on more than 50 occasions over the next three years. The girls testified they were lured to Epstein’s home after being promised hundreds of dollars to be his model or masseuse, but when they arrived, he ordered them to take off their clothes and massage his naked body while he masturbated and used sex toys on them.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida prepared charging documents that accused Epstein of child sex abuse, witness tampering and money laundering, but Epstein took a plea deal before an indictment could be handed up.

On Sept. 24, 2007, in a deal shrouded in secrecy that left alleged victims shocked at its leniency, Epstein agreed to a 30-month sentence, including 18 months of jail time and 12 months of house arrest and the agreement to pay dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse.

In exchange, the U.S. Attorney’s Office promised not to pursue any federal charges against Epstein or his co-conspirators.

Florida attorney Brad Edwards, who represented some of Epstein’s alleged victims, is suing the federal government over the secret non-prosecution agreement in hopes of having it overturned. Edwards claimed in court records that the government and Epstein concealed the deal from the victims “to prevent them from voicing any objection, and to avoid the firestorm of controversy that would have arisen if it had become known that the Government was immunizing a politically-connected billionaire and all of his co-conspirators from prosecution of hundreds of federal sex crimes against minor girls.”

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida did not respond to a request for comment about the deal.

Other politicians, celebrities and businessmen, including presidential candidate Donald Trump, have been accused of fraternizing with Epstein. Trump lawyer Alan Garten told FoxNews.com in a statement Trump and Epstein are not pals.

“There was no relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump,” he said. “They were not friends and they did not socialize together.”

Thanks for the kind message. I have been looking to submit more through the recent dry spell, but the usual sources did run pretty thin. Perhaps we could put call-outs for Soylentils to submit good primers and how-to's they have found to fill those rough patches?

China will unveil a 100 petaflop supercomputer next month after investing $500 million to develop domestic chips after US ban on Intel Xeon exports to China

US Supercomputer Chip ban delayed China's 100 petaFLOP computer by 8 months and contributed to Intel laying off 12,000 employees

Well - I work in a plastic factory. Production makes thousands of identical parts, every night, some of them to be assembled with other parts before they leave the plant. Parts need to have flash trimmed off of them, sometimes, and various other tasks have to be performed before packing the parts into boxes for shipping. All light work - the worst part of the work is the heat. Plastic has to be melted before it can be injected into a mold, so it's hot. That really is the worst part of the job.

Well - this week, we've had THREE new hires walk out of the plant, mid-shift, literally CRYING! Crying, because they can't perform the tasks. Worse - it was one female, whom I can overlook, and TWO MALES, which is very damned hard to overlook. Women have always had license to cry, but GUYS?!?!?!

I might understand, if the job were difficult. It really isn't though. No one in production lifts weight over - ohhhh - maybe twenty pounds. There is no physically demanding task to be done. Well, aside from standing on your feet for eight hours. Just a little moderate coordination, just a little bit of strength, and just the tiniest bit of perseverance, you get through the shift, and then you can sit and rub your tired feet all you want.

And, three millennials walked out of the plant, CRYING, because they couldn't handle it.

FFS, what is this nation coming to? I'm beginning to believe that we DESERVE to be eclipsed by the rest of the world, where they still raise young men and women willing to work.

My first paying job, for which I needed a Social Security number? A place that was competing with McDonald's. I spent my sophomore year in high school working there, but when summer came, I wanted a REAL JOB. A few months of wimpy-assed work, serving burgers and wiping counters was enough for me, I wanted a MAN'S JOB! So, the summer between 10th and 11th grades, I got a job with a roofer.

How many of you knows what a bundle of shingles weighs? Typically, people want 270 weight shingles on their roofs. 270 pounds per 100 sq ft of coverage, each bundle covers 33 sq ft, so a bundle weighs 90 pounds. Here I am, an 85 pound runt, looking at those 90 pound bundles. Hmmmm - heft one onto my shoulder like the other guys are doing, and head on up the ladder. Holy SHIT people, my legs were flaccid rubber by the time I got up there! Did I walk off crying? FEK NO!! Ease on down the ladder, look at that next bundle, flop it up on my shoulder, and off I went again. THIS WAS MAN'S WORK! If they had tried to run me off, I'd have fought them! It took a couple weeks before I built up enough strength to carry ten square of shingles up on the roof without panting like a winded horse.

I haven't spent all of my life doing such strenuous work, but I've always done work that involved some physical labor, at least.

Plastics. This work is EASY! There's just nothing to it. My mama did this work when she was 70 years old. A little bitty tiny woman handled this at 70. Mama was tough as nails when she wanted to be, but she wasn't some hulking Amazon!

And, this week, I see THREE apparently healthy youngsters walk out of the plant, CRYING, because the work is "to hard"!!!

I just don't have the words to express my contempt for the people who are going to be running our country in the years to come. I simply can't imagine how they are ever going to make anything of themselves. Flabbergasted, I am.

I guess it's payback time. The US has exploited much of the world over the past 100 years or so. With candy asses like these set to take over this country, I expect that the US is going to be exploited right up the ass. China is already showing us that they are able to work their asses off. India as well. Korea, and much of the Pacific.

Maybe I'll join all the damned fool progressives who promise to renounce their citizenship if Trump is elected. I can't stand to watch weenie babies trying to do easy work, and failing. I don't have much in common with Koreans, or Indians, but I could stand to spend my last years watching honest men and women earn a living. Watching crybabies whine because simple tasks are "to hard" may just drive me to suicide. Or, drugs, which amounts to the same thing.

Ten years ago I wrote a humorous article titled “Useful Dead Technologies” about technologies that are no longer used that I sorely miss, like furnaces that still worked when the power went out, or things made of durable steel instead of today’s fragile and short-lived plastics.
        A couple of the things on the list have improved since then. Shoelaces, for instance. Ten years ago I wrote:
        “Shoelaces have been designed for hundreds of years to keep your shoes on your feet. No longer. Today's shoelaces are designed with one purpose in mind – to annoy you.
        “What are they making shoelaces out of now? Nylon! Good old frictionless nylon ‘because of its strength’. One wonders if today's engineers even need a college degree, as it seems that some things, like today's shoelaces, were designed by “special ed” students.
        “Because now, not only are they made of a friction-free material, they're round rather than flat, further eroding their ability to stay tied.”
        Since then, they’ve been making them of both cotton and nylon woven together, with all the friction of cotton and the strength of nylon.
        And they’re flat again.
        Another item was knobs on car radios. At the beginning of the century they had buttons for tuning and volume, so you couldn’t turn it up or down without taking your eyes off the road. It was dangerous. Thankfully, they’ve gone back to knobs, even though they’re digital rather than potentiometers.
        The radio in my car now really annoys me, because the morons who designed it stupidly put the volume knob right above the tuning knob rather than the time tested volume on the left side of the radio and tuning on the right. Often when I try to adjust the volume, I’ll grab the wrong knob.
        I also miss the way presets worked back in the analog age. They were simple to operate: to set a preset to a station, you tuned the radio to that station, pulled out on the button, and pushed it back in. These days you simply cannot tune a station to a preset while you’re driving, at least unless you’re a suicidal maniac. What’s worse, every radio has a different way of tuning a preset button, and many are impossible to figure out without an owner’s manual.
        The worst thing about that radio is I can’t change the time on the clock. The car came with a manual, but they put three different models of radio in those cars, and the manual lists all of them. But each of the three says to push a button that simply isn’t on the radio!
        And I just discovered by watching a commercial where they were trying to sell new cars – the morons took the knobs away again, and now it’s even worse than the buttons. Now they have touch screens. There’s no way possible to change the station or volume without taking your eyes off the road!
        I’m all for hiring the handicapped, but I wish they wouldn’t hire idiots to be engineers. Touch screens for automobile controls are brain-dead stupid.
        The following items haven’t all become extinct in the last decade, I simply didn’t think of them when I wrote it. Here are some more.

Thermostats that don’t need batteries
        In the twentieth century, thermostats were simple yet clever devices: a mercury switch on the end of two dissimilar metals. The metal would bend one way or the other depending on temperature. When the metal reached a certain shape, the mercury would roll down the inside of the switch and close the circuit.
        Shortly before the turn of the century they came out with programmable thermostats, and they were indeed superior despite the one disadvantage of needing a battery; perhaps it could be done, but I don’t see how you could have a programmable thermostat without one. But they could be set to turn themselves down at bedtime, then warm the house back up before you arose in the morning. More comfort, lower heating costs.
        Fast forward to a couple of years ago when the landlord had a new furnace installed in my house. With the new furnace came a new thermostat. The old thermostat was programmable, the new one isn’t.
        But it’s digital and still needs batteries.
        At first I thought they had to be digital because mercury has been shown to be toxic, but on second thought you could simply have a copper ball replacing the mercury. Such a switch would be easy to engineer.
        Folks, digital thermostats have been in use for a couple of decades now. Why aren’t new homes designed to have a low voltage DC supply to thermostats so batteries wouldn’t be needed?

Sticky Menus
        When GUIs first came out they were a great improvement over the old CLIs. Easy to use and hard to screw up. Click on a menu heading and the menu drops down. Nothing happened until you clicked somewhere. If you clicked on an empty space the menu closed. Click on a different menu and that menu opened.
        So some moron had the bright idea that if you had the file menu open and simply mouse over the edit menu, File closes and Edit opens.
        This incredibly stupid change drives me nuts, especially in Firefox and GIMP. I have nested bookmarks in Firefox, and after clicking a folder I have to slowly and carefully slide the cursor over, making sure the cursor never goes over a different folder, as the folder I want will close and the one I don’t opens.
        GIMP drives me nuts, too, especially trying to select the “rectangle select” from the “selection” menu, as the “filters” menu will open when I’m trying to navigate to “rectangle select”.
        Folks, losing sticky menus was an incredibly stupid, productivity killing thing. BRING THEM BACK!

Rectangular cabinets
        Stuff used to have cabinets made of wood. The better stuff had rounded corners, because they were safer.
        Every large CRT TV I ever owned was rectangular, before 2002 when I bought a forty two inch Sony Trinitron. It takes up a huge amount of floor space, and you can’t set anything on it because it’s stupidly shaped. My DVD and VCR and converter box should be able to sit on it, but nothing can.
        The rectangular shape is far from extinct, but more and more things seem to be eschewing it.

Useful user manuals
        Some would criticize me for this one, saying user manuals always sucked, and they would have a valid point. When I was young, user manuals were complete – and completely unreadable to many if not most people. I had trouble making heads or tails out of more than one, and I could read at a post-doctoral level at age 12 (although I didn’t understand the math).
        DOS 6.2 came in a box with two floppies and a thick user manual. Windows 95 came with a very thin manual. I don’t remember what XP’s was like, but the manual for this old Acer laptop was really thin.
        Then my phone. Honestly, come on, now, a smart phone is a complex, sophisticated piece of equipment but its user manual is three by five inches and a dozen pages?
        The worst was the “Seagate Personal Cloud”, which is really a network hard drive. Tiny pamphlet with pictures and few words. Look, folks, pictures are good for illustration but lousy for information. I spent twenty useless minutes studying the thing, then finally just plugged it in and turned it on. It didn’t even need a manual!
        I did find a detailed, very good manual for it online. Its printed manual should have added its URL.

Automobile hoods and trunks that didn’t need props
        Before the 1970s, to open a hood you opened the hood latch, and springs opened the hood and held it open. It was an ingenious design where it didn’t spring open, you lifted it a little first. Trunks worked the same way. It didn’t matter if it was a Volkswagen, a little Plymouth Valiant, or a big luxury Cadillac.
        Then the Arab oil embargo hit in 1974 and the price of gasoline doubled in a matter of months. People started replacing their American gas guzzlers with compact Japanese cars that had far better mileage.
        The more weight a vehicle carries, the worse its mileage is. Part of the raising of gas mileage was replacing the heavy steel with a lighter material when possible, and those springs and the rest of the steel assembly for them were jettisoned, replaced with that stupid hood prop.
        Soon American auto makers started following suit. I don’t know if big sedans and luxury cars ever went to hood props, but I know my ‘67 Mustang had no hood prop, nor did my ‘74 LeMans. My 76 Vega did, though, as did every other car I owned until I bought an ‘02 Concorde. Rather than springs or a hood prop, it had lightweight hydraulic struts for both the front and back.
        It was far better than a hood prop, but not as good as the spring mechanism. Those springs lasted forever, but the struts fail in a few years and you wind up propping up your hood and trunk with a stick. Either that or shell out for new ones.

Bumper Jacks
        All cars and trucks used to have bumpers, and there was a slot on each end of each bumper. The slots were for flat tires. If you had a flat, you got the jack out of the car, hooked it into the slot, and jacked it up with its handle like you were pumping water out of a hand operated well pump. This was easy on the back, as you were standing up. It took very little effort to jack up the vehicle.
        Now they all have scissors jacks, and I hate them. You have to get down on your hands and knees to slide it under the car, and jack it up by cranking it. It always takes skin off of your knuckles and takes twice the effort and three times the time.
        Yes, the new jacks take up far less space, but the trade-offs simply weren’t worth it.
        I miss the full sized spares, too. If you had a flat, you changed the tire, got the flat tire fixed, and simply put that one in the trunk instead of having to change the “doughnut” to put your real tire on.
        At least we have fix-a-flat now.

Ex-Chemist In Massachusetts Was High On Drugs At Work For 8 Years

Nearly every day for eight years, a former chemist in Massachusetts was high on drugs — drugs stolen from the lab where she worked.

An investigation by the state attorney general found that from 2005 to 2013, Sonja Farak, 37, heavily abused various drugs including cocaine, LSD and methamphetamines and even manufactured her own crack cocaine using lab supplies. Though Farak was arrested in 2013 and sentenced to jail in 2014, the findings from the state's investigation into the scope of her misconduct were just released Tuesday.

During her career as a chemist, Farak worked for two years at the Hinton Lab in Jamaica Plain, Mass., and then for nine years at the state drug lab in Amherst, Mass. According to the attorney general's report, "her responsibilities involved testing, for authenticity, various controlled substances submitted by law enforcement agencies" and testifying "in court as to her test results, which served as evidence in criminal cases."

It's that time again. Time to pay tribute to those willing, nay eager, to say that which a lot of people do not want to hear. Be their motives sincere or simply to wind you up, they are the souls brave enough to be unpopular with the masses. Here are the top ten by sheer number of times modded Troll and (of the top 50 of the previous group) the top ten by percent of their comments that have been modded Troll. These are not an "all time" list, only the ones that haven't fallen off the end of our moderation log table. By count: NickTrolls%Troll Ethanol-fueled50117% Runaway19562617% jmorris18412% The Mighty Buzzard18111% aristarchus1558% Hairyfeet1459% frojack1262% zugedneb8624% khallow706% VLM672%

By percent: NickTrolls%Troll zugedneb8624% Ethanol-fueled50117% Khyber2015% jmorris18412% The Mighty Buzzard18111% jasassin3010% Hairyfeet1459% aristarchus1558% Arik418% TLA148%