First Amendment follies

~ Patrick O'Grady
Asked if he would serve as national security adviser, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) replied: "Let me sleep on it. OK, nope."
Asked if he would serve as national security adviser, Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) replied: “Let me sleep on it. OK, nope.”

I didn’t get my Enemies of the People email newsletter this morning, which means I don’t know what we treacherous media types are supposed to be lying about today, so I’m just gonna have to wing it.

Word is that King Donald the Short-fingered will be holding court today in Florida. You’d think that at some point he might stop applying for the job and start doing it, but that’s what you get for thinking. Not a fan of thinking, the Orange House. Not a fan. Sad! Weak! Man of action! Get that thinking out of here!

Speaking of thinking, the techies at Wired magazine suggest that the paranoids among us — Who? Where? — consider using locked-down Chromebooks and cheapo burner phones that can be wiped and destroyed whenever the secret police decide they need to run their sticky little fingers through your data.

There are $30 Android smartphones out there? Seriously? Who knew? Not me, comrades. Herself just scored a new iPhone 7 and I think she had to pay a $30 cover charge just to get in the door.

Me, I muddle along with a 5-year-old iPhone 5, which I use mostly to receive communiques, dispatches and orders from Herself, take the occasional photo on bike rides, and transmit my activities and location to the State in case its minions wish to discuss pressing matters of national security with me in a windowless basement room at some undisclosed location.

Hmmmmm. Thirty-buck prepaid smartphone, y’say? Bought anonymously, with cash? Something else to think about. …

45 thoughts on “First Amendment follies”

  1. Yeah, those thirty buck prepaid phones might come in handy. I might leave my i-phone sitting in a porta potty somewhere to fool the secret police while I am off somewhere else plotting my next Enemies of the People strategy.

    So you didn’t get your EOTP newsletter this morning either? Yeah, I had to make do with the Journal, which is more and more resembling fish-wrapper.

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      1. The guys at Pod Save America are rumored to have two T-shirts coming out next week: one with in “enemy of the people” logo, and the other with a badge that says “Russian intelligence officer”

        I’m sure they will be quite popular at Viennese coffee shops and enemy of the people social gatherings

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  2. Fifteen dollar flip phone (no gps or data, just voice) using pre-paid phone cards. $25 buys 250 minutes for 90 days, and I have never used them all. Hardly turn the thing on. Sandy has the same thing. I want one so if I crash I can call for medivac. The mind boggles when you think about what meta data from a smart phone, especially with GPS turned on, can tell a skilled intelligence agent about you. Damn near everything.

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    2. True dat. Most folks don’t realize what they give away on the innertubes. I spend enough (probably too much) time on the iPads, iMac, and iPad Touch. Aye, aye, aye, I don’t need another iDistraction in my pocket.

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    5. Me too. Too dumb for “smart phone”. Too cheap as well. Wife has an android thing she paid less than $200 for online. Her colleagues with I-Craps and various Samsung “Hot-Pockets” thought hers way-cool and were shocked that it cost just a couple hundred $. Seems to work just fine as long as you’re smart enough…but if the authorities can find her, it won’t be hard to find me…

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  4. That Turk’s pretty smart. Looks like Harwood is the same. NPR got around that smokescreen of “wanting to spend more time with family” pretty fast, thanks to yet another White House leak. Seems he had the temerity to want to pick his own staff, and not use the one provided by President Bannon. Shocker!

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      1. Although, Stephen Colbert’s theory was that Petraeu couldn’t get his parole officer to sign off on a job putting him in the nuclear chain of command

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  5. I still have a fully functional iPhone 3 and 2 that I spent way to much money on to just throw away. My iPhone 3 still holds a charge even. It seems to me that our “buddies” at the computer industry are really good at the “planned obsolescence” thing. They’re really good at filling up landfills with old computer stuff.

    My question to you fearless leader is are you still using the Apple supplied remote keyboard for your MacBook Pro? That thing just eats batteries. I tried using rechargeable batteries on mine, but they only lasted a few hours. So instead of buying batteries every week I bought a USB 2 hub and a full-size USB keyboard and mouse. ( hope you guys are still not mad at me, we share more than we disagree with.)

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    1. Yeah, the industry leaves too much behind too soon, methinks.

      I really liked my 12-inch G4 PowerBook, but it’s essentially useless these days. Ditto my original iPod Touch. Both still work, incidentally, as does the black Intel MacBook, which is likewise nearing the end of its functionality.

      I’m still using the wireless Apple keyboard and mouse with the MacBook Pro, and I’ve had surprisingly good luck with rechargeable Energizer batteries. I keep a drawer full of ’em and rotate them through the mice and charger until they fail.

      But with the iMac and G4 Power Mac I use USB keyboards and mice. The only downside to using a USB mouse instead of a Magic Mouse or trackpad is you lose the ability to scroll/swipe with a fingertip.

      As to being mad, sheeyit, I ain’t mad at nobody around here. Everybody’s welcome around the Mad Dog cracker barrel as long as there isn’t any casual gunplay.

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      1. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t

        Make something new, it’s not new enough

        And then everyone complains that the old stuff doesn’t work

        I guess Tim Cook has the compensation of making millions of dollars, in lieu of five star reviews and thank you notes from his customers

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    2. Perspective

      For under $1000, you have a computer more powerful than the Univac put the first man on the moon

      Then again, we only use them to post pictures of our restaurant appetizers and forward fake news

      So maybe we would be better off with a Univac mini at home and a steno-pad and ballpoint pen in our pocket

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      1. Smart phones are too expensive and totally unnecessary.

        Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to look at carbon fiber bikes with electronic shifting. 🚴‍♀️🚴🏽🚵‍♀️🚵

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      2. hhe Apollo computers had 64K total. I saw that they used to hand solder the programs that were in the command module and the lunar module. Imagine if they had the power of just my little Mac. On the other hand it’s really not a good idea to rest the lives of three people on a computer that fails all the time!

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  6. This is a campaign rally, so there is no way we can except one of his Supreme Court nominations during campaign season

    In fact, all official government business should be put on hold until 2020.

    It’s only prudent

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    1. Dunno if I want to see any more contraptions like this Cervelo. I always giggle when I read “the fastest bicycle” claims. Do these reviewers understand the ENGINE (unless this one has a hidden motor in the frame somewhere) is NOT included? Seems they’re all pretty much the same speed just sitting there without a rider.
      On the “smart” phone obsolescence angle I read somewhere that pretty everyone world-wide who wants one now has one. This is when any industry starts to create mindless variations and almost instantly obsolete products to capture that last buyer before their competition does. Just look at the bike biz – MTB, full-suspension MTB, ‘cross, “aero”, chrono, endurance, gravel, fat, 27″, 29″…and now….”smart”?

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    2. There may be a slight backlash in the works, if the new Honda Civic hatchback is any indication. It’s a “basic car,” with a six-speed manual gearbox, no Apple CarPlay, and actual volume knobs and radio-station buttons on the sound system.

      All the dumb “smart” stuff they’re grafting onto automobiles these days is one of the reasons I’m still driving a 2005 Subaru Forester.

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    3. After driving my used (2013) Yaris SE hatchback for the last six months, I am sold on small hatchbacks. The problem with the Yaris is that in order to get a bike in on a rack, my old faithful Saris Traps Triple Track, I would have to fully recline the front passenger seat and rest the back wheel on it. I think the Corolla IM and this Civic would allow a bike on my rack to fit without interfering with the front seats. That would be sweet. I would put a hitch rack on the Yaris, but they don’t make them for the SE model. I think it is because the rear bumper interferes with the receiver. Maybe a hacksaw, Dremel moto-tool, and a BFH would adjust that bumper so it would work?

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    2. I didn’t catch the Sweden thing. Had to look it up. Oy, I think Orange Julius was breathing in when he burned his lips on an exhaust pipe. Watched it on Fox, so it must be true. He needs a competency hearing, like yesterday.

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  11. Sheeze, I think he does less damage at the fluff rallies than governing. At least our rights aren’t getting descimated whfn he’s getting his ego stroked

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