In the course of 900+ desktop upgrades that I've done over the last decade and a half I have encountered 3 (L)users, all of them supervisors, who stored all of their important documents in the Recycle Bin. Two of them were lucky, I hadn't yet wiped the old machine when they noticed.

I work in the physical security field (key cards, cameras, alarms, that stuff). It is truly amazing to me the access given to minimum wage cleaning crews, most of whom are made up of illegals. Pharmacies, money counting rooms, executive offices, server rooms, you name it. We're arguing with a customer now about why there is a 'Door Forced' alarm between 11:30 and 12:30 every week night in one of their offices (no cameras in that office, privacy and IP issues), and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have to spend a night in the parking lot staring through the window to watch someone unlock that door with a key rather than a card.

"I don't believe you"

Then you've never worked Helpdesk for any appreciable period of time. People **ARE** this stupid. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this same lady were to call again about the same issue next week. If she's an executive or a security guard then I can pretty much guarantee it. I've had (l)users who suddenly one day forgot how to work the KVM switch that they had been using for two years. I've had lusers call because "someone stole my mouse", when in fact it was just covered by the pile of papers that had avalanched over the top of it. People who slopped half a cup of tea into their keyboard and call because "my computer is leaking". I suggest a visit to the Computer Stupidities page of Rinkworks to see how really, really dumb people can be when they have to work with a device that they think is smarter than them.

Well, I'm impressed. I was going to write about recovering some genealogical data for a co-irker off a 2 1/2" Wang diskette, but I guess it's not as impressive as I thought.

My uncle's cat used to do the same. We'd be laying on the floor by the fireplace smoking and Custer would walk over to the person with the pipe, wait until they had inhaled, and then climb on their chest and wait for them to exhale. After a few hits he'd wander off and watch the rest of the evening from the corner.

You're apparently unaware that international commerce existed before the invention of the 18-wheeler. A piece of Alaskan jade was found in Central America, and Lake Superior copper has shown up in New Mexico and Florida. One of the products that Mayan caravans are known to have traded was tobacco, and I'd be exceedingly surprised if coca leaves weren't carried on the return trip northward. Interestingly, Egyptian mummies have been found with detectable levels of cocaine and nicotine in their tissues.

Addicted Spaniards imported tobacco seeds to South America fairly early in their occupation, IIRC before they even set up their first distillery.

Tobacco is heavily processed

In the Untied States, but not in the rest of the world. Most of the world cuts the tobacco, dries it, and then smokes it. Only here do we sugar it, wash it with menthol, and soak it in formaldehyde.

That seems to vary dramatically from person to person. I knew two poets who wrote while stoned. One did her best work then, while the other would have to throw away almost everything as soon as he came down. The mescaline in San Pedro cactus brought me to a new and life-changing point of view, and I know someone else who changed career path after examining his life while on psylocibin mushrooms.

One of the most delightful pieces of video I've ever seen was the animals getting drunk on fermented amarula fruit in 'Animals Are The Funniest People'. It's about 45 minutes in, and absolutely hilarious.

We must be lucky to have beagles and Peruvian hairless dogs, since they can eat anything. Spicy meat, raw sweet potatoes (which they steal out of the pantry), chicken bones, sandwiches they find in the bushes, dead fish on the river bank, every kind of poop imaginable, you name it. The only problem that any of them have had is the puppy who swallowed an entire sock so couldn't eat anything else until she barfed it back up a couple of days later. And if it really **IS** somehow too nasty to eat the beagle figures that it makes great perfume to roll in. Don't get a wimpy inbred AKC dog, get a real dog that can chase rabbits in the freezing rain for hours, go home and snarf down a pile of leftovers, and snore the afternoon in a pile of rags under the couch.

And with the way that the "modern" US corporations are structured no one wants to invest in anything that won't show profits in less than five years, since by that time the executive suite will have had almost 100 percent turnover as they play musical chairs chasing ever more lucrative pay packages.

First strike would be the power grid

You don't need cruise missiles, a dozen guys scattered around the country with second-hand cars and deer rifles could do the same thing for less than the cost of a single missile, and do it repeatedly with almost no chance of being caught unless they were stupid.

Wow, so poorly informed yet so sure of himself. You need to get out of the basement more often.

Here in King County, WA, we have the delightful privilege of being gouged by Puget Sound Energy for both electricity and gas. Just to the north exists Snohomish County Public Utility District, which provides electricity and water for lower prices. The maintenance on the PSE system is quite poor, and their response time is abysmal. The SnoPUD system is well maintained, reliable, and their response to outages is very fast.

Throughout Snohomish County the small water systems that were created to handle new housing developments are being sold off to the PUD as their customers demand improved service and better maintenance, which the private companies don't want to provide. Customers in Snohomish County have the option to switch their electrical service to PSE's inferior and more expensive system, but for some reason don't do so.

Sure, there's extra bureaucracy at the PUD, but PSE's lust for profits more than makes up the difference.

I wish I had the mod points to vote for that comment.

The medieval Europeans were perhaps the filthiest people in the history of our species. They had to be to survive. Farm animals were brought into the homes in winter (no, normal people didn't have barns), and people slept with their livestock for the increased body heat (no, normal people didn't have blazing fires in the fireplace all winter). Manure was piled against the wall of the house to help keep it warm in winter, and the larger your dung pile the more prosperous you were assumed to be. Baths only happened during the summer months, and clothes would generally be worn until they fell apart without being washed (no, normal people didn't have more than one or two changes of clothes). Smallpox and influenza (and I think TB) crossed from livestock to humans because of this constant intimate contact.

Filth served the Europeans well, too. Without the phenomenal plagues that ravaged the New World the conquest of Mexico and Peru would almost certainly have failed, and the colonization of North America would have been a non-issue as the local people would have easily overwhelmed the invaders.