Has the president’s email been hacked?
A few minutes after sending a public comment to the White House criticizing what he calls “junk health insurance plans” that the administration is proposing, David Morris received a robo-reply. Within this “letter” from Donald Trump — which included the line: “I appreciate your taking the time to send your thoughts and suggestions. I always enjoy hearing from the American people.” — the president prided his administration on having made “real change,” and so forth.
But embedded in the words of the letter at three points were Asian characters, which Morris and a friend translated via Google. The recipients weren’t sure whether the characters were Chinese or Japanese.
In one section, the letter invited correspondents to follow a link “to learn more about how my Administration is strengthening our Nation (character) economy, and ushering in a new era of American prosperity.” The character translated in Chinese to “crazy”; in Japanese, to “dildos.”
Morris suspects that the auto-reply function may have been hacked.
Since the October 2015 introduction of his website, Fedupwithdonald trump.com, Gary Tobin has been monitoring comments on the presidency left on the site. Tobin says that the biggest response has been from people who reside (in order) in the U.S., then Canada, then Russia.
Sometimes, he translates the comments to see what audience he is reaching. A message received last week, translated from Russian, named a website and then said it “offers to buy a warm floor in Moscow inexpensively and as quickly as possible. We offer a delivery service and convenient ways of paying for orders?”
Is this an offer for an apartment rental in Moscow? Robo-generated by the word “Trump” in the site’s name?
“Should I be turning over my records to Mueller?” asks Tobin.
Ken Maley turned up this quote from then post-presidential Teddy Roosevelt, who more than 100 years ago was advocating that the United States become involved in the war in Europe when then-President Woodrow Wilson was advocating neutrality: “To announce that there must not be criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” Seasonal notes: Sign Charlie Varon saw outside Thorough Bread cafe and pastry shop on Church Street: “Where your diet comes to die a horrible and delicious death.”
But that’s not the only place that’s saying the heck with dietary restrictions. In honor of Pi Day — Wednesday, March 14, celebrating the number 3.14 etc. etc. — some 1,500 slices of free pie will be served following a 1:30 p.m. procession at the Exploratorium. The apple, lemon, banana cream and pecan pies are from the science museum’s Seaglass Restaurant.
The day is one of the Exploratorium’s Community Days; visitors pay what they can. Staff is hoping that people pay in increments of 3.14; if you were to pay that minimum, you could buy yourself a piece of pie for $3.14.
Dave Scheff was arriving at work on Monday morning when he heard a fellow passenger comment, “Weird waking up in the dark.” “Yes,” another passenger responded. “I forget, did we go from Fahrenheit to centigrade, or the other way around?”
Ambling through the Internet, Joseph Leonard stumbled across a recipe, on http://munchies.vice.com, for “weed-infused matzo ball soup.” With Passover coming up, I did some further research and uncovered a reference in the Jewish periodical the Forward to a similar recipe from “The 420 Gourmet,” which refers to them as “potzo balls.”
Allen Matthews and his family took an evening walk in Piedmont the other day, and watched an older man driving a classic Triumph convertible, speeding down Oakland Avenue. At one crosswalk, where a young couple was pushing a stroller across the street, the car plowed straight ahead. The driver yelled, “Sorry, my brakes are bad.”
Man-about-town Adda Dada was on the scene at the Ferry Building, gathering place for the ninth annual World Nude Bike Ride, when he overheard another observer, a woman, asking the sensible question: “What’s the point of wearing your underwear around your knees at a nudity rally?”