>^-.-^< @kot@mastodon.social

One time I was folding some freshly dried laundry and sorting it out on the bed when I felt a little tired and thought I'd just rest my eyes for a few minutes. After a while I woke up surrounded by soft, clean, warm laundry, and it was one of the best, comfiest feelings you can imagine. I recommend it.

If you have a very thick skin, it's really interesting to browse sites like 4chan and analyze the kinds of rhetoric being used by shills who are trying to spread chaos. It's oddly similar to intelligence agency psyops methods and brainwashing techniques used by the Soviet Union and Mao's China back in the day.

I felt the need to post even more of my hideous poetry, but then a wave of compassion overtook me, and so I resisted. Lucky for you.

If ever circumstance conspires
with tears to line your gentle cheek,
And all your aspirations sink
beneath a cold, uncaring sea,.

Don't hesitate to call on someone
close to help your spirit mend,
But try to make it someone else,
I'm really not that good a friend.

<3,
Kot

It's so much easier to read the news these days. The cringe factor has fallen way off, and one even sees a few bits of justice, hope, and sanity poping up like little flowers now and then.

Gore Vidal was one of the wittiest and most entertaining conversationalists ever, and his satirical State of the Union messages were brilliant. So how could his books have been so uniformly boring and poorly written?

One of the (truly) most beautiful women in the world is also one of the (truly) kindest and most compassionate.
https://apnews.com/article/sexual-and-reproductive-health-reproductive-rights-humanitarian-crises-health-united-nations-6d183f8678f60d628478be5a66575f8b

RIP Fry's Electronics :(
https://www.shacknews.com/article/122935/frys-electronics-rumored-to-permanently-close-nationwide-tonight

NSA is utterly humiliated and out-classed daily by the Russian SVR. Cyberspace is the battleground for the modern cold war, and Russia is routing America.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/us/politics/solarwinds-hack-senate-intelligence-russia.html

Google's "Project Shield" (their version of a Cloudflare-like service) is broken. The Associated Press news site https://apnews.com is apparently using it, and it's blocking legitimate users. I'd recommend against using Project Shield. It would be nice if Associated Press dropped it too, before they lose a lot of readers (like me).

All of that utilities deregulation, privatization, small government, and isolation really worked wonders for Texas, didn't it? They really showed the world how to do it right! Let's all learn from Texas' success.

Who says wild mountain lions and deer can't be buds?

If I could send two things to all the people with broken water pipes right now, I think it would be these, or similar:

It's #caturday

We could all learn a lot from Finland.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/01/why-is-finland-able-to-fend-off-putins-information-war/

Hm, apparently Gab (another nest of far-right nutcases like Parler) is offline, and their Twitter account went away. I wonder what could have happened?

Midori browser for Android, available on F-Droid, has Tor proxy option (through Orbot). It looks like it's based on the old Lightning browser source code, but updated with a few new features. Looks good after trying it for a few days.

Love is the answer.

Nice to have in a blizzard:

A dozen 1-gallon jugs of water
A week's supply of open-and-eat canned and/or dried food
A complete set of warm wool clothing including heavy socks, gloves, balaclava, sweater, coat, and longjohns
Warm waterproof boots
Bic lighters
A camp stove and plenty of fuel
A candle lantern and plenty of candles
A good 4-season sleeping bag and pad
A folding camp toilet seat and plenty of plastic bags
Toilet paper and alcohol hand wipes
A week's supply of vital medications

Q. What did Rush Limbaugh use for birth control?

A. His personality.