Leaderboard

Brøderbund is the software company that created the Carmen Sandiego games. And Mordor is, well, Mordor. I downloaded gimp and learned just enough to make a matching avatar. I haven’t used it since. When the forum software changed and we had to upload our avatars again I had to first download it from the Wayback Machine. As long as we’re talking about old times, who wants to discuss the chat feature?

I listened carefully to the announcement made by the White House today about the US trade deal with the UK – with the UK ambassador to the US present. Hopefully @HaggisShuu can give us some across the pond point of view. The new deal sounded terrific and an opening for prosperity for behalf of both countries. I believe that such trade deals make better allies and promote peace. The old “global” initiative looked very scare to me and a quick and easy means for a single entity to make a global power grab. This new kind of trade agreement allows so many countries to participate in trade with lessor fears of threating interests. It will be interesting to me to see how those involved in secret combinations respond. The Traveler

For those who have missed it - The camera set up to monitor the chimney at the Vatican spotted a family of seagulls camped out on the roof, including a baby. There are now memes in circulation regarding these seagulls, ranging from "they're just waiting for the announcement as well" to "one of the seagulls just got selected pope". Most of the ones I've seen so far have been rather good-natured and silly.

I tend to be more of a listener than a talker. And I have also lurked on most boards for a significant period of time before joining them, including both this one and the one for which I originally used this name. The picture I made, using a couple creative commons images as templates, to go along with the name. And what I've heard about the Florida Man stories is that we hear so much about Florida men because their freedom of information laws make it particularly easy to find the weird crimes if someone's looking for something to write about.

Google: [Streaming cogitation...] Apparently it's a bag (aka sack) made by / for the French (or Gauls)... (Why not call it a French sack, or a Gaul sack, or spell it Gaulic or Gaullic? Gallic for "of the Gauls" is absurd... Gallic Sac would make more sense... ) Meanwhile, back to the Sack of the Gauls, it appears to be depicting the Garden of Eden. No doubt @Carborendum has had something he considers a brilliant insight or revelation or something and, as he seems to enjoy, instead of just telling us, he wants to make us feel ignorant, unworthy, or perhaps to go learn all the Gaulish history that the average American school student never heard of. Perhaps he wants us to focus on the embroidery (that is the depiction, not the stitch-work (probably)), but probably also in relation to the fact that the "sack" (which seems more like a bag to me) is old and from(?) Gaul. (Golly, this is getting fun.) Hmm. What is that in Eve's hand? Does she have a purse-dog? Pet monkey? Can anyone tell what that is? (At least, I assume it's Eve. But how do we know this isn't some other tree and fruit and 2-people story of significance to the sack-owner or the Gauls?) I assume person on the right is a man, though it's kinda hard to tell, to be honest. Eve's free hand appears to be gesturing toward the tree. Hmm, they're both fully clothed. Clearly this isn't the "forbidden fruit" scene. (I mean, if the Gauls are the French, it's highly unlikely they were so prudish even back in the day as to put clothing on Adam and Eve.) Well, now we have to start over with some other story about two people, a lap dog, a tree, and a piece of fruit. When did lap dogs become a thing? [Klaw says we have to stop this and pay attention to him!! < Yes, he said it with two exclamation marks.] [...cogitation to be continued.]

It sounds like a win. America is the UKs biggest trading partner so a trade deal is definitely a good thing. However, at the same time, I am upset about the timing of it. Any wins being attributed to the labour government is a terrible sign, because it's gives them credibility with the public, and Labour needs ousting at the next election. I don't know if anybody has been bothering to follow UK politics, but Reform UK ( a fairly recent, anti-establishment party) trounced both Labour and Conservative parties in elections for local council earlier this month. Recent polling shows if a general election were to be held now, Reform would have a supermajority, the Conservative Party would be left with 12 parliamentary seats (out of 650) and Labour would be replaced as the opposition by the Liberal Democrats. I am desperate for this outcome, I despise labour and the Tory's. So I'm grateful for the win, I'm sad it's labour who got it. In other news, the Labour government just signed a trade deal with India. And it sucks. The trade deal lined up to bring in £5 billion over several years (essentially nothing in government spending terms), allows for Indian nationals to settle in the UK and not have to pay national insurance (a form of income tax which is used to pay for the NHS). Employers also have to pay some national insurance on behalf on their employees. So what this boils down to is that, Indian nationals are now cheaper to hire, and now pay less tax than actual British citizens. And because India is part of the commonwealth of nations, Indians living in our country get to vote in our elections. Superb deal if you are in Indian citizen looking to move to the UK. Horrific deal if you already live in the UK. With this in mind, when I first saw the announcements about the US trade deal, I expected it to be just as awful, because Labour clearly can't negotiate a good deal.

<gallic shrug>

Wait, is this English chat, or French (aka Gaul) le chat?

Wait! I've got it! The title and the image are red herrings! Look at the instructions: We're supposed to be thinking about the third-person singular neuter pronoun! This is all about gender identity or gender politics or some other crazy thing! No wonder the gender of the person on the right is ambiguous. Why it's entirely possible I misgendered the person on the left - maybe they and their lapdog are "it"s! I'll bet they're not even Gaulites. They're probably from Portland or former NSA employees or something... Well, if I didn't have an appointment to get to, I'd spend a lot more time streaming my third-person singular neuter cogitatifying, but there's no more time for that.

I heard that after all the fanfare that the new Pope call a special meeting with the cardinals and high-ranking bishops within the Vatican. He announced that he had some good news and some bad news. First the good news he said, “A few moments ago I received a phone call from Jesus Christ.” Everyone was shocked. After that news how could there be any bad news? Now the bad news said the Pope, “He was calling from Salt Lake City, Utah”. The Traveler