SCREENGRAB.
Most of us learn early in life the delicious temptation of “Do Not Touch” and manage to get over not having license to touch every thing on the planet. Apparently, Mike Pence never got that particular lesson. He might have made an effort at a less obvious, furtive slide of the fingertips anywhere except under the note with “DO NOT TOUCH” on it. And here Pence thinks he’s the perfect model of morality in the christoverse. Tsk. For shame, Mikey.
The Guardian has the story, along with many of the reactions across Twitter.
The sign itself, he didn’t touch that.
Perhaps that was his defense, I didn’t watch. There is that ‘critical equipment’ part, though, which doesn’t allow for that particular excuse.
As the late, great Pratchett notes in The Last Continent, the truly enlightened put up signs saying “Do not touch -- even to see what happens”.
His excuse is “but Marco Rubio dared me”. Gah. Most small children know better.
Anne:
:Blinks:
And these people are running the country. Right.
I have a robot at my* lab. It often runs tests that last days or even weeks, and is behind an invisible IR -light safety barrier. There is big A4 sign affixed to it “DO NOT CROSS”, as well as red line on the ground delineating where the barrier runs.
Whenever new managers are visiting, and the robot runs, they poke their noses and/or fingers through the barrier, thus stopping the test and setting off the alarm.
Every. Single. Time.
And just like NASA in this case I have to smile and pretend it is not a problem. I can start the test again and no harm done blalblabla.
It is a problem, even when no harm is done.
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* -- for the nitpicky -- it is not my lab as in ownership sense, but it is my as in me being responsible for its running.
I heard NASA’s response to his excuse was: “It’s okay. We were going to clean it anyway.”
The way I’m reading that, it sounds like a pretty good burn. I hope they meant it that way too.