Sorry For The Delay Folks- apparent technical difficulties on my end. The interface between chair and keyboard evidentially went FUBAR yesterday after some unplanned schedule changes here Monday & Tuesday resulted in a failure on my part to upload the issue for autoposting.

Thanks to Impish for pointing this out to me.

Well we finally got ride of Tropical Strom/Depression Bill and all his associated baggage late Friday. To be clear, according to the weather guessers he finally left us officially alone sometime Late Thursday night after gifting us about 4.5″ of rain in roughly 36 hours. Then his entourage kept coming thru and dumping on us while looking for Bill and left us with roughly an additional 3″. Even as later as Saturday afternoon we had Thunder storms and showers.

Fortunately we managed not to flood as we have in the past by some miracle though at one point the standing water on the patio was within a 1/4″ of starting to enter the track to the sliding door and about 3/8″ of an inch from entering our storage area.

House keeping note: Impish will be doing Saturday’s issue as well as next Wednesday’s issue  (if he knows what’s good for him!) since I’ll be doing the Independence Day Holiday issue a week from Saturday.

Look for a special announcement about the party form him next Wednesday.

That’s all I got for now. I need to get back to work on the Independence Day issue, the preparations for the party plus make sure a bunch of new features over there at DL/LL Party Pavilion get finished in time.

You Know You’re Drinking Too Much Coffee When:

*Juan Valdez names his donkey after you.
*You ski uphill.
*You get a speeding ticket even when you’re parked.
*You answer the door before people knock.
*You just completed another sweater and you don’t know how to knit.
*You grind your coffee beans in your mouth.
*You sleep with your eyes open.
*You have to watch videos in fast-forward.
*You can take a picture of yourself from ten feet away without using the timer.
*You lick your coffeepot clean.
*You’re the employee of the month at the local coffee house and you don’t even work there.
*You’re so jittery that people use your hands to blend their margaritas.
*You can type sixty words per minute with your feet.
*You can jump-start your car without cables.
*All your kids are named “Joe”.
*You don’t need a hammer to pound in nails.
*Your only source of nutrition comes from “Sweet & Low”.
*You don’t sweat, you percolate.
*You walk twenty miles on your treadmill before you realize it’s not plugged in.
*Charles Manson thinks you need to calm down.
*People get dizzy just watching you.
*When you find a penny, you say, “Find a penny, pick it up. Sixty-three more, I’ll have a cup”.
*The Taster’s Choice couple wants to adopt you.
*Starbucks own the mortgage on your house.
*You’re so wired, you pick up AM radio.
*People can test their batteries in your ears.
*Instant coffee takes too long.
*You channel surf faster without a remote.
*You’re offended when people use the word “brew” to mean beer.
*You speak perfect Arabic without ever taking a lesson.
*Your Thermos is on wheels.
*Your lips are permanently stuck in the sipping position.
*You have a picture of your coffee mug on your coffee mug.
*You can outlast the Energizer bunny.
*You don’t even wait for the water to boil anymore.
*Your nervous twitch registers on the Richter Scale.
*You can’t even remember your second cup.
*You help your dog chase its tail.
*You soak your dentures in coffee overnight.
*Your first-aid kit contains two pints of coffee with an I.V. hookup.
*You speed walk in your sleep.
*You have a bumper sticker that says: “Coffee drinkers are good in the sack.”
*You haven’t blinked since the last lunar eclipse.
*The only time you’re standing still is during an earthquake.
*You spend every vacation visiting “Maxwell House.”
*You’ve worn out your third pair of tennis shoes this week.
*Your eyes stay open when you sneeze.
*You chew on other people’s fingernails.
*The nurse needs a scientific calculator to take your pulse.
*Your T-shirt says,   “Decaffeinated coffee is the devil’s coffee.”
*Cocaine is a downer.
*You buy milk by the barrel.
*You’ve worn out the handle on your favorite mug.
*You go to AA meetings just for the free coffee.
*You forget to unwrap candy bars before eating them.
*You’ve built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.
*People get dizzy just watching you.

With regards to the underscored line above: I’ve never worn a handle off but I have worn the glazing around the lip of a mug totally way.

That’s Wednesday our Receptionist giving us a little reminder and lift in our day.

Discussion last Friday between Impish and myself.

Advanced Training Required:

A child found a gun in the House … or maybe it was on the Senate side. It was somewhere in the U.S. Capitol, however, and that was just one of three times so far this year that a member of the U.S. Capitol Police has forgotten their gun in the restroom. Legislators learned of the issue from the media, and questioned the Capitol Police chief about it. Chief Kim C. Dine said more lock boxes for officers’ guns were being set up on the Hill, and the penalty for abandoning a gun might be raised from five to 30 days’ suspension for a first offense. Also, “we are now providing additional training on what to do when you have to go to the bathroom.” (AC/WNEW Washington) …The U.S. Capitol: where people who need advanced training on how to use the bathroom are issued guns.

Man claims he danced on patrol vehicle to save children from vampires

LEE COUNTY, Fla. – Disco fever or dancing with the devil?  Either way you look at it, this man’s moves have landed him in some hot water.

44-year-old Christian Radecki of Cape Coral was arrested April 7th after he was caught on surveillance video bumping his car into the back of a Lee County Sheriff’s Office marked patrol vehicle.  He then began dancing on the patrol vehicle’s roof while music blared from his car, and then broke the windshield wipers and took an American Flag from the neighbor’s yard.

Redecki, a convicted sexual offender, was arrested for Disturbing the Peace and Criminal Mischief after the neighbors called the police.

According to a Cape Coral Police report, Radecki said it all began when a “woman with fangs” came to his door, threatening that a human sacrifice was about to occur involving vampires.  “Therefore, Radecki made the conscious decision to get the Sheriff of Nottingham to help him stop the slaughter of small children,” the report states.

Radecki told officers that he had not taken any recreational drugs or alcohol, has not been diagnosed with and mental health conditions, nor did he take any prescribed medication.

Radecki was taken to Cape Coral Hospital for medical clearance, then transferred to the Lee County Justice Center in apparent good health.

For the record, his dance playlist started with Hall & Oates’ “Rich Girl”, and ended after Supertramp’s “Goodbye Stranger.” – Katrina & The Waves – Walking On Sunshine might have been a better choice for dealing with Vampires.

A bather whose clothing was strewed,
By winds that left her quite nude,
Saw a man come along,
And unless we are wrong,
You expected this line to be lewd.

There was a young lass from Australia
Who painted her ass like a Dahlia
The shape it was fine
And the color divine
But the aroma–well, that was a faihlia

There was a young lady named Kite
Whose speed was much faster than light.
She left home one day
In a relative way
And returned on the previous night.

I once took our vicar to tea;
It was just as I thought it would be:
His rumblings abdominal
Were simply phenomenal,
And everyone thought it was me.

Audi Autonomous Office Chair

With summer time in full swing I thought a few easy picnic food recipes might be in order.

Tomato, Onion and Cucumber Salad

Total Time: 5 min
Prep: 5 min
Yield: 4 servings
Level: Easy

Ingredients

5 medium plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise, seeded, and thinly sliced
1/4 red onion, peeled, halved lengthwise, and thinly sliced
1 Kirby cucumber, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
A generous drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, about 2 tablespoons
2 splashes red wine vinegar
Coarse salt and black pepper

Directions

Dress the tomatoes, onions, and cucumber with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper.
Let stand while you prepare dinner, about 20 minutes. Re-toss and serve salad with crusty bread for mopping up juices and oil.

I like to add a little dill and garlic powder to mine. Some how the dill reminds me of Summer. Kirby cucumbers are the same thing as ‘English’ or ‘Burpless’. If you don’t have them or can’t get them look for smaller young cucumbers with the lighter skins or use pickling cucumbers

Mixed Berry Slab Pie with Chocolate

Yield: Makes One 13″x18″ Pie

Total Time: 1 hour

This makes a massive slab pie, easily serving a small army or a few teenagers. At first it may seem intimidating to roll the dough so large then transfer it to the 1/2 sheet pans, but this dough handles quite easily and if you happen to break it, you can always patch with dough scraps. If you have less to feed, then you can always divide the recipe in half and use a 1/4 sheet pan, but there are always neighbors who will take the leftovers so we encourage you to give the full recipe a shot!

Ingredients:

Dough Ingredients

• 8 c (1000g) Flour
• 1 c (200g) Sugar
• 2 t (10g) Sea Salt or Kosher Salt
• 1 lb. (455g) unsalted cold Butter, cut into 1/2″ pieces
• 3 lrg. Eggs
• 1/2 c (120ml) cold Water

Slab Pie Filling Ingredients

• 1 Pint (12 oz. or 340g) Blueberries
• 1 Pint (12 oz. or 340g) Raspberries
• 1 Pint (12 oz. or 340g) Blackberries
• 1 c (200g) Sugar
• 3 T (24g) Cornstarch
• 1 1/2 c (270g) Chocolate Chips
• Cream for brushing top of slab pie
• Powdered Sugar to dust slab pie

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400° F. Set aside two 1/2 sheet pans (18″x13″) You’ll use one for the slab pie, the other as a template.

1. Combine berries in a large bowl. In a medium bowl whisk together pie filling sugar (1 c) and cornstarch until well combined. Add sugar mix to berries and gently toss to coat berries. Set aside.
2. Make Dough. In a large bowl, whisk together dough flour, sugar, and salt. Pinching with your fingers or using a pastry blender, incorporated butter into mixture until no large pieces of butter remain and mixture has a crumbly texture.
3. Whisk eggs and cold water together. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture, then pour egg mix into well. Working from the center out, combine egg and flour mixes together until the dough holds together. If necessary adjust with a little additional flour or cold water if dough is sticky or if not holding together.
4. Divide dough into a 2/3 and 1/3 portion.
5. On a large floured surface, roll out larger portion of dough to a 24″x19″ rectangle (I’ll roll out slightly larger then trim edges straight to the dimensions), dusting the underside and top of dough with flour a few times while rolling out to keep dough from sticking.
6. Gently roll the dough around the rolling pin, then unroll it over the first sheet pan. Adjust dough so it sits evenly into sheet pan then dock the pastry by pressing in with your fingertips several times making indentions across the bottom of the pastry.
7. Layer in chocolate chips. Layer in berry mix. Set aside.
8. Roll out remain 1/3 dough portion to just larger than 18″x13″. Flip your second sheet pan upside down and gently press into dough. Use impression to cut dough to size, gently roll it around rolling pin, then unroll it over the slab pie to form top crust.
9. Fold excess dough bottom, up and around to meet pie top and gently pinch to form top edge. Brush top and edges with cream. Using kitchen scissors or a knife cut slits into top of slab pie.
10. Place in oven and bake 30-40 minutes or until top is golden. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Dust with powdered sugar, slice and serve.

Don’t forget the Dream Whip!

Don’t Sweat It

No-bake pretzel bars for hot summer days

Makes: 12 to 16 bars | Start to Finish: 1 hour 30 minutes (includes chilling time)

Ingredients

1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
2 cups mini marshmallows
¾ cup creamy natural unsweetened peanut butter, well stirred
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon kosher salt
4 cups thin pretzel sticks, roughly chopped
4 cups unsweetened puffed-wheat cereal
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted
½ teaspoon smoked salt (or additional kosher salt)

Directions

1. Lightly grease a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking dish and set aside.

2. In a large saucepan set over medium-high heat, combine the sugar with the corn syrup, then bring the mixture to a boil. Turn off the heat, stir in the marshmallows until about half of them are melted, then stir in the peanut butter until well combined. Add the vanilla and salt. Mix in the pretzels and puffed wheat until well combined.

3. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish and, using lightly greased hands, pat it firmly into the dish. Drizzle with melted chocolate and sprinkle with smoked salt. Refrigerate for 1 hour or until firm. Once firm, slice into small bars with a hot, wet knife, then serve.

Can police search your gadget without your permission?

As you know technology is something that evolves daily. And many of the government’s privacy laws have been slow to catch up. California is now another state that requires police officers obtain a search warrant before snooping through your cellphones, tablets and computers. Warrant laws about these electronic gadgets are pretty varied depending on the state you live in, and it can be difficult to determine what’s what with the ambiguous verbiage and lengthy provisions.

The cloud of confusion surrounding the issue in California finally lifted on Wednesday. State senators unanimously approved State Bill 178, which requires law enforcement to obtain a search warrant from a judge before poring through the content on the phone and location data stored within it. For many of us, our personal electronics are private. Messages, pictures and emails stored away on them are just meant for our eyes.

There are now six states that require a warrant for police searching personal electronics. It’s not good news for everyone though! Law enforcement collectives like the California District Attorneys Association and the California Police Chiefs Association have said publicly they don’t like the new law. The California State Sheriffs Association sent San Francisco senator Mark Leno a letter explaining why they don’t approve.

In the letter, the group says the new bill, “… conflates existing procedures for obtaining certain electronic information under state and federal law, contains burdensome and unnecessary reporting requirements, and will undermine investigations that are fully compliant with the 4th Amendment.”

Unlike many other technology privacy laws, SB 178 is crystal clear. It says a warrant may only be issued to search your gear if there is “… evidence that tends to show a felony has been committed, or tends to show that a particular person has committed a felony, or when there is a warrant to arrest a person.” That means unless you’re doing something bad the police already know about, you are safe from police snooping through your electronic gear.

Federal law has gone back and forth with its stance on search warrants for personal electronic devices. In a decision last month, the Federal Court of Appeals went against its own decision that said investigators need a warrant to extract cellphone information from wireless providers. Federal law enforcement no longer needs a warrant to search any of your electronics; they can search through your stuff whenever they see fit.

However you can still protect yourself against this because as with just about everything else there is a loophole. Under any circumstance, even with a warrant the police cannot force you to give them the passcode or encryption keys to any of your electronic devices.

The Fifth Amendment protects you from being forced to give the government self-incriminating testimony. Courts have generally accepted that telling the government a password or encryption key is “testimony.” A police officer cannot force or threaten you into giving up your password or unlocking your electronic devices. However, a judge or a grand jury may be able to force you to decrypt your devices in some circumstances. Because this is a legally complicated issue, if you find yourself in a situation where the police, a judge or grand jury are demanding you turn over encryption keys or passwords, you should seek immediate legal help.

My new phone uses and optical thumb print reader, some use facial recognition some tablets I’ve hears use other forms of biometrics. These the police can obtain from you without your consent (think fingerprints). While these things make accessing your phone secure easy and convent it also leave you open to searches. That’s why as a back up to this I use an app which I mentioned last week called CM Security to passcode protect all critical function and personal data. Once the print reader unlocks the phone there are a limited number of things that can be accessed without a passcode. I use a 6 digit passcode. This means that any law enforcement representative attempting the brute force access method,  even using the new robot that does the 4 digit PIN codes are a rate of one every second will take roughly 20 hours to access your phone if you used a truly random code. BY adding those extra 2 digits I turn the 10,000 possible combinations to explore into 1 Million and I’ve turned that time frame into 80 days. Plenty of time for me to get legal help and a court order to prevent them from searching my phone.

I also strongly suggest that you contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well and they have lawyers who are extremely well verses in such things who can and will assist your attorney in representing you for the purposes of the searching of your electronic devices.

Lastly know that all of this doesn’t mean a hill of beans at the border.

The border search exception is a doctrine of United States criminal law that allows searches and seizures at international borders and their functional equivalent without a warrant or probable cause. This doctrine is not actually an exception to the Fourth Amendment, but rather to the Amendment’s requirement for a warrant or probable cause.

The courts are all over the place on how this applies to electronic devices and what is on them.

Currently, the main area of contention concerning the border search exception is its application to the search of the electronic files and information contained in travelers’ laptops and other electronic storage devices for illegal materials including child pornography. Two notable decisions have been rendered with the respective intermediate appellate courts backing the United States Government’s position that the search of electronic devices falls under the category of property searches and that the devices are functionally and qualitatively equivalent to other closed containers. According to this position, the Government asserts that it may open, login, and search through all the electronic information stored on traveler’s electronic devices.

The only federal appeals court to address this issue directly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, has disagreed with the government’s position. The en banc Court held that property, such as a laptop and other electronic storage devices, presented for inspection when entering the United States at the border may not be subject to forensic examination without a reason for suspicion. United States v. Cotterman, 709 F.3d 952, 956–57 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc).

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, addressing a challenge to Customs’ authority to search electronic files in United States v. Ickes, held that there is no First Amendment exception to the border search doctrine for expressive materials .^[11] The Court based its finding in part on the demands of protecting the nation from terrorist threats that may cross the American border in expressive materials.^[12] in its analysis, the Court stated:

The border search doctrine is justified by the longstanding right of the sovereign to protect itself. Particularly in today’s world, national security interests may require uncovering terrorist communications, which are inherently “expressive.” Following Ickes’s logic would create a sanctuary at the border for all expressive material-even for terrorist plans. This would undermine the compelling reasons that lie at the very heart of the border search doctrine.”

Ickes did not directly address the required level of suspicion for laptop searches because customs officers in this case met the reasonable suspicion standard. However, the only court to address the Fourth Amendment protections of laptops at the national border held that customs may search any electronic device at the border without any level of suspicion. In United States v. Arnold, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a defendant’s contention that search of travelers’ files on a laptop computer intrude upon a person’s dignity and privacy interests to the same degree as searches of a traveler’s body. Instead, the court ruled that searches of electronic materials are legally equivalent to searches of property. As such, Customs’ authority to search electronic materials at the border are limited in only two ways: (1) the search may not cause exceptional damage to the property; and (2) the search may not be conducted in “a particularly offensive manner.”^] These restrictions are applicable to all border searches of property, at least under the jurisdiction of these courts.  According to Arnold, the characteristics that make electronic storage devices unique, including vast storage capacity and the ability to track its user’s habits, tastes, and preferences, are not legally significant. Additionally, the Ninth Circuit held that searching through personal electronic information in a laptop does not constitute an “offensive search.”

Although the Supreme Court has not addressed the standard of suspicion necessary for a warrantless border search of electronic materials, the only jurisprudence thus far, guided by Ickes and Arnold, suggests that customs officers may search any electronic materials (including laptops, CDs, MP3 players, cellular phones, and digital cameras) randomly, without any suspicion, and without any first amendment restrictions.

One major impact of these cases is that commerce may be exceptionally impacted. Sensitive business information, academic materials for conferences, and other types of valuable information may be delayed by these practices. Some devices may be held for years, effectively making this a deprivation of property under the Fifth Amendment. Sensitive information that is withheld that long could lose all value. Many devices depreciate in value over time due to introduction of new devices, and this depreciation of the physical device could also be considered a taking.

My best advice is:

1.) Be sure ALL electronic devices are at least charged enough to power up for 5 or 10 minutes. Dead electronic devices are automatically suspicious and will result in further possibly lengthy examination[s]

1.) Keep nothing on your phone if traveling and crossing the US border but everything on the cloud and do not let any device remember the Cloud access Password.

2.) Use a prepaid phone when you travel and only load the phones numbers and information you need for your trip. If the phone gets stolen of confiscated you’re not out your $400 to $600 smart phone.

3.) Avoid traveling with a lap top unless absolutely necessary. Use a cheap tablet. Again password protect the tablet’s access and any sensitive information with a separate passcode. Access your email via a browser rather than an email app so nothing is downloaded to your tablet. Store everything in the could. once again better to lose a $250 cheap tablet instead of an iPad.

4.) Be frank with the ICE agent if he asks why there is so little on the phone or tablet. Tell him while you accept that you are powerless to prevent this search of your personal electronic without due cause you took steps before you traveled  to limit any potential invasion of your privacy and/ or loss of personal data and devices.

5.) DO NOT give him any passwords under any circumstances. They are empowered to search what is physically in your possess and they can physically touch, not what is stored in the cloud. If you fail to head my warning to use and use any form or removable media (external drive, flash drive or memory card) and it is in your possession they can hook it up and examine its contents because it is physically in your possession.

6.) CAREFULLY READ AND BOOKMARK FOR FUTURE REFERENCE THIS ‘KNOW YOUR ELECTRONIC RIGHTS’ GUIDE by the EFF. IT covers both aspect we’ve briefly discussed above in greater depth and detail. https://www.eff.org/issues/know-your-rights#17

For those of you who lead quiet social trending deprived lives of blissful ignorance and do not understand this reference allow me to enlighten you as to what happens when Coke and Mentos combine: