If you’re getting rid of an old pepper shaker, either give it to Goodwill with the pepper still inside, or simply throw the damned thing away. Do not empty and clean an old pepper shaker. It’s worse than a Tom & Jerry cartoon — fifty or sixty sneezes in a row is exhausting, infuriating, and I’ve (slightly) injured my back.

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Not even an hour after the pepper disaster and still sneezing occasionally, I needed a small container with a lid to store lots of loose thumbtacks. Why not empty this jar of dehydrated garlic down the sink, rinse the garlic away with hot water, and put the tacks where the garlic was?

Predictably if I wasn’t an idiot, the whole apartment now smells like a bad Italian restaurant. It even reeks down the hall, all the way to the mailboxes.Then again, from 18 years of living here and four years without cleaning anything, the apartment had accumulated a musty stink about it. Garlic overdose is an improvement.

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When did Google Maps become such a little bitch? I want the very minimum chance of taking a wrong turn on my upcoming move from Wisconsin to Seattle, and Interstate-90 runs the distance, so that’s my route — but Google won’t allow it. I can override its recommendations, but only temporarily, before Google Maps switches me back to different Interstates, even onto state highways in Montana.

So I’m using Rand McNally’s TripMaker app. It takes orders instead of giving orders, and also seems more user-friendly in other ways. Recommended.

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And now, my internet history from yesterday, minus the porn…  

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• Arnold Schwarzenegger’s anti-war video trends on Russian social media 

Schwarzenegger is hugely popular in Russia, which gives him a unique ability to cut through that nation’s propaganda and reach the Russian people. His 9-minute subtitled speech (scroll down, on the linked page) is very well-written, perfectly delivered, and won’t help, but I respect the effort.

• How Republicans spent decades cozying up to Putin’s Kremlin 

• Poland welcomes Ukrainian refugees with open arms, for now, but it’s going to be a long-term crisis 

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Officials: Florida drawbridge tender lied to police after 79-year-old woman’s deadly fall 

The bridge-tender lied, conspired with her boss, and deleted their text messages after (accidentally but) negligently killing a pedestrian by opening the bridge without checking for traffic. That’s outrageous, sure, but people do bad and/or stupid things all the time.

What grabs me more is the underlying systemic problem, happening all across America, so routine it’s mentioned only in passing, near the end of the article:
Investigators said the Florida Department of Transportation contracts a company called Florida Drawbridge, Inc. to be the bridge-tenders.

The bridge-tender and her boss aren’t state employees; instead Florida saves a few dollars by outsourcing that work to the lowest bidder. Tell me that’s not related to half-assed bridge-tenders skipping basic safety procedures.

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‘Introduction to military logistics:
How to get from here to there, when you have to bring everything with you 

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Introduction to absurd capitalism:
Can you take back the top floors of a building? 

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Whistleblower says intelligence community members filled internal messaging system with hate speech, support for insurrectionists

A lot of people working in America’s murkiest government agencies are rat bastards.

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Stacey Abrams cameos as President of Earth in Star Trek TV series 

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Sounds like the New York Times ran another truly stupid editorial 

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Right-wing vs ‘critical race theory’ is a replay of right-wing vs evolution in the Scopes trial 

It’s a long article, but buckle up — it’s by Jill Lepore, who never writes anything that isn’t an illumination.

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A cop shot his wife and then killed himself, but you wouldn’t know it from this headline.

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One-word newscast, because it’s the same news every time…
• climate
• climate
• cops 
• cops
• cops
• cops
• cops
• QAnonsense
• QAnonsense
• Republicans
• Republicans
• Republicans
• Republicans 

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 Mystery links  — Like life itself, there’s no knowing where you’re going:

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