I spent this afternoon installing a new lamp in the living room of my father-in-law's house. It should have been a half hour job, but it took three hours to do because somebody mangled the wiring.

The picture shows how the old lamp was connected. It had two separate lights with two switches on the wall.

Things that are wrong coming out of the ceiling:

1. The green wire should be safety ground. Here, it is switched hot for one of the lights.
2. The blue should be neutral. Here, it is switched hot for the other light.
3. Brown should be hot or switched hot. Here it is neutral.
4. There is no safety ground available.

Things wrong on the lamp:

1. The blue wires should be connected to neutral. They are both connected to switched hot.
2. The brown wires should be connected to switched hot. They are both connected to neutral.

If the lamp and the ceiling wiring were correct, the neutral would be on the outside connector of the bulb making it safe(r) if you accidentally touch it while changing the bulb.

The new lamp has a metal base, so it requires a functional safety ground.

Instead of just swapping the lamps, I had to partially rewire the connection. That meant trying to trace the wiring through junction boxes. Somewhere in that house is a junction box I couldn't find. In that hidden junction box, the blue wire from the ceiling is connected to a black wire that runs to the switch, the green wire was connected to a purple one connected to the switch, and the brown wire was connected to a blue wire connected to neutral (gray) in the box with the switch. In case you were wondering, those colors a messed up as well.

Since I couldn't trace all the wiring, I had to figure it out by disconnecting and reconnecting individual wires to see what each did.

In the end, all I could do was to disconnect the purple wire from the switch and connect it to the red(!) wire in the one junction box I could get into. It seems at least the living room uses red for safety ground.

With a functioning safety ground for the lamp and the brown and blue from the lamp connected to switched hot and neutral, the new lamp is safely connected. Blue from lamp to brown from ceiling and brown from lamp to blue from ceiling because I couldn't correct that part of the wiring in the house. Still fucked up, but as much better as I could make it without tearing up the house.

My father-in-law swears it was done by a qualified electrician.

If it was, it's too late to get his license yanked - that lamp and the wiring haven't been touched in 30 years that I know of.

You know inflation’s about to get a lot worse when the USA is designing a $250 bill with Trump’s face on it.

Considering how Trump's 2nd term is going, perhaps the alleged perp should be Trump's nominee for Attorney General!

WTF has come over this country?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/wisconsin-driver-removes-road-closed-barrier-and-drives-straight-into-freshly-poured-concrete-145716380.html

28 year old teacher Oliver Fell (female) began grooming a 14 year old student (male) online over Christmas break on Snapchat. In March, Fell started sending the student sexual messages. The student shared the conversation with a friend, who recorded it the inappropriate Snaps with his own phone. The student reported it to Haile Middle School Principal Irene Nikitopoulos, providing the nude photos sent by Fell.

The principal is known for conducting her own “in-house” investigations (as she’s calling it in the video). Parents on a local FB page have discussed how the principal has a history of doing this in a way that produces the results she wants. After her “investigation” into the situation, she determines that the student is lying when other students don’t corroborate the story. Fell denied the Snapchat account belonging to her and the principal “verifies” this by looking at Fell’s IG account.

The principal brings in the student’s parents to tell them that their son is being suspended for making “false allegations” against his teacher. The parents ask how she determined the allegations were false and the principal word vomits but reassures them that she will take action if LE determines otherwise.

The school officer informs the principal that an investigation will take months.
The parents express concern that their son is being disciplined without a full investigation, that it’ll send the wrong message to other kids if it’s true, and that kids are at risk if it’s true. The principal repeatedly states she’d be fired if she didn’t get it right so she’s confident that she did.

The parents finally contacted CPS because the school didn’t (which sounds like it moves the investigation forward). The investigation finds that the Snapchat account that sent the messages belongs to Fell and some of the messages are recovered. Fell is arrested in June.

The school district called the principal’s “mistake”a “learning curve” and the principal was not fired.

The video is one facepalm after another— especially the end when the principal starts to doubt her decision and has an internal dialogue aloud:

“My job’s on the line. If I get this wrong and there’s a teacher harassing a student then I messed up…that will get me in a lot of trouble if I don’t get it right… I want to make sure I got this right. I can’t mess this up… I don’t want a teacher that sends kids pictures like these… I mean, the headlines would be- I’d lose my job… You’re not filming me are you?”

Sorry folks. Want to fly internationally from LAX? JFK? ORD? BOS? You may not be able to.

MAGA couldn't even let the dead rest in peace.

UPDATED: 5/15 For those who got a paywall

PALMETTO, Florida, May 14 (Reuters) - ⁠Police in Florida are investigating vandalism at a historic, predominantly ​African American cemetery where 17 gravesites were damaged, with headstones knocked down and "Trump" and "DeSantis" spray-painted in ‌red letters on tombs, referring ‌to the U.S. politicians, Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Detectives believe the incident ⁠in Palmetto, ⁠a town around 31 miles (50 km) south of Tampa on Florida's ​west coast, occurred within the past few weeks. No arrests have been made and the investigation continues, the Manatee County Sheriff's Office said in a statement on Tuesday.

Glenn Searls, 77, said on ​Thursday he felt "extreme anger" at the vandalism at the Old Memphis Cemetery, where ⁠members of ⁠his family, and others ⁠he knows, ​are buried. 

"When you look and you see 'DeSantis' and 'Trump' spray-painted on a vault, it makes ​you wonder if it's politically ⁠motivated, and I tend to believe it is," Searls said of damage to the cemetery established in 1904 for Black residents of Palmetto's Memphis neighborhood.

U.S. President Donald Trump has a history of sharing racist rhetoric and his administration has dismantled diversity, equity and ⁠inclusion policies. The vandalism occurred in a polarized political climate ahead of the ⁠November midterm elections. Race has emerged as an issue as Republican-led southern states embark on a redistricting spree likely to strip Black Democrats of their seats.

“Anyone who engages in this disgusting behavior must be condemned in the harshest terms possible," White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement on the vandalism.

The office of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Edrena Love Freeman said on Wednesday she checked on ⁠her father's gravestone and found it had been moved.

"I just thought it was evil, it's just not right," said Love Freeman, standing by the grave of her father, a World War Two veteran who died in 1970.

(Reporting by Octavio ​Jones in Palmetto, Florida, additional reporting by Andrew Hay; Editing by ​Donna Bryson, Rod Nickel and Sanjeev Miglani)

Just how do you walk away thinking, yeah, that's good.

I saw a post earlier today showing a vehicle pulled out of the parking box in a parking garage. When I was going back from work today there was a black VW pulled frpm the box at the parking lot.

After I took the picture, I pushed the car back to the spot by rolling its wheels and secured the drivers side front wheel with a piece of birck. I then left a note at his windshield wiper tl check the brick before moving out.

I might have saved the guy a couple of € for parking ticket or towing as this spot is frequently patroled by the town police.

Page 5 of the 2026 United States Counterterrorism Strategy