12PM is noon because 12:01PM is clearly shortly after noon. Put another way, the AM/PM "digit" changes at the same time as the lesser significant hours digit changes. -dk

In particular, a few years ago they refused to sell a book "When Harry Became Sally" because of its allegedly anti-trans narrative, at the behest of a few hundred of its employees.

I bought the book at a different ebook seller, and read it from "cover to cover" or whatever one does with an ebook. Its thesis is that it's a bad idea to do gender transition medical interventions on teen-agers, a practice that was rising in popularity at the time of its publication [2018]. As of the date of this comment, 1/11/2025, it's still not for sale at amazon.

I will say that at the time "When Harry Became Sally" was published but not sold by them, they did sell Mein Kamph, but they don't seem to any more.

-dk

People say that Santa lives at the North Pole, but he actually lives in Alaska ... which puts his sleigh and he [as a pilot] squarely under the jurisdiction of the FAA.

Last Fall he got a letter from the FAA informing him that he would be visited by an inspector for his quadrennial renewal of his pilot's license on October 31. He was, of course, nervous in the months leading up to the Big Day. He polished the runners of his sleigh, tidied up the inevitable dings he got in the paint job, and reviewed the manuals so the inspector wouldn't find any goles in his knowledge, and he did a few touch-and-goes on the runway and several local roofs so his skills would be sharp.

Then the big day came. He showed the inspector a meticulous weight-and-balance calculation, and showed that he had carefully metered out the oats for the reindeer, and then he was ready for the test. He carefully went through the checklist, and then he got into the pilot's seat, and the inspector sat in the second seat ... with a shotgun in his lap.

"What's the shotgun for???", he asked.

The inspector winked, and said "I shouldn't warn you about this in advance ... but you're going to have to show me that you can handle the loss of an engine during takeoff."

-DK