From Pine View Farm

2010 archive

Oh Noes 1

Drinking? In college!

Who woulda thunk?

Virginia Tech has removed a sorority from campus because of several incidents of alcohol consumption inside the chapter’s house.

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The Price of Living in a Civilized Society 0

Comment from Blue Virginia:

There’s so much anti-tax rhetoric out there, and of course almost nobody enjoys paying taxes, but Shayna Englin has a great point here that is too often forgotten – without taxes, we wouldn’t have our quality of life, our military, our police and firefighters, Social Security, Medicare, safe food, safe water, Metro, roads, bridges, airports, parks, or just about any other “common good” you can think of. Oh wait, I forgot, Glenn Beck et al. say that taxes are “socialist,” right? No, Glenn, they’re called “American.”

Aside: I wish I owed more taxes this year. That would mean that I made more money.

Via Not Larry Sabato.

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Epic Fail Fail 0

The Guardian:

When Business Week reports that an iPhone app has been developed to celebrate the internet cult Epic Fail, you know – to use another meme that has penetrated popular culture – it has reached tipping point.

In truth, this probably means the putdown phrase has now – ahem – jumped the shark . . . .

In other news of fail, I was listening to Linux Outlaws yesterday when Fab tried to say “a fail on my part” and failed on his part.

Read more »

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Drive-Through Teller 0

Here.

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“Mouse. I Don’t See No Stinking Mouse.” 2

Laptop Cat

H/T Susan for the pic.

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The End of a Brand 0

Bret and Bart will be sad.

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Signs of Spring 0

90 Fahrenheits and sunny today.

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Shiftless 2

I’ve said for years that shifting gears should be part of Drivers’ Ed (not that anyone listened–now that I’ve got a blog, even more persons get the opportunity not to listen to me).

Little did I know that it was excluded as an anti-crime measure:

Police in this Lehigh Valley town (Fountain Hill, Pa.–ed.) say two men tried to rob and carjack a pizza-delivery driver but were defeated by the vehicle’s standard transmission.

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“All Your Internets Belongs to Us” 0

Clay Shirkey describes how major media is responding to the digital world (emphasis added):

To pick a couple of examples more or less at random, last year Barry Diller of IAC said, of content available on the web, “It is not free, and is not going to be,” Steve Brill of Journalism Online said that users “just need to get back into the habit of doing so [paying for content] online”, and Rupert Murdoch of News Corp said “Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use.”

Diller, Brill, and Murdoch seem be stating a simple fact—we will have to pay them—but this fact is not in fact a fact. Instead, it is a choice, one its proponents often decline to spell out in full, because, spelled out in full, it would read something like this:

“Web users will have to pay for what they watch and use, or else we will have to stop making content in the costly and complex way we have grown accustomed to making it. And we don’t know how to do that.”

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Bare the Stearns 0

Robert Reich discusses the secret bailouts of AIG and Bear Stearns–bailouts that took place before any bailouts were authorized:

Much of what Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner did (when Geithner was at the New York Fed) in 2008 was presumably necessary. But the public has no way of knowing. The public doesn’t even know who else the Fed has bailed out, or what entities it will bail out in the future. All we know is the Fed secretly bailed out Bear Stearns and AIG and thereby subjected taxpayers to risks that remain even today, without informing the public. That’s not a record on which to build public trust.

Fitzgerald was right: The very rich are different.

And they have their own rules, which they don’t want anyone else to know about.

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QOTD 0

Pete Seeger, from the Quotemaster:

Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.

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Cre(a)ti(o)nism 0

South Dakota has passed a law:

The South Dakota Legislature thinks that scientific laws are made up by people to suit agendas.

Accordingly, they have invented some agendist stuff to make a political declaration that climate change is a myth.

Follow the link to link to read the text.

Next: South Dakota decrees that bumble bees can’t fly.

Read more »

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“Petty Gossip” 0

Petty blankety-blank gossip?

Read more »

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If I Had a Hammer, I’d Hammer in the Morning, I’d Hammer in the Evening, All over This Land 0

The “nuts” in “wingnuts” do boggle one’s mind.

Via Atrios.

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Analogy 0

Weatherman:Climatologist::Stretcher Bearer:Doctor.

Here and here.

The issue isn’t whether the Earth undergoes periodic natural climate changes. It certainly has and will continue to.

The issue is whether adding large amounts of extra, artificially created (that is, man-made) carbon dioxide to the atmosphere has significantly altered the periodic natural climate change. Any argument that distracts from this question is a herring of the brightest red.

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But They Only Gypped Some 0

In a world without walls, who needs Windows (to borrow a phrase)?

Homes built with Chinese-made drywall should be stripped of all the problem wallboard, electrical wiring and natural gas piping, federal product-safety regulators said Friday.

The stuff gives off fumes which are not only dangerous to persons, but which also corrode metal.

Quality construction at a price that’s right.

It’s Bushie FEMA trailers on steroids.

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There’s an App for That 0

If we have to use coal–and it appears we shall have to for some time–we shouldn’t kid ourselves: Clean coal ain’t.

Via Article IX.

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Lies, Damned Lies, and Republicanism 0

Making stuff up. It’s what they do best. It is, in fact, all they got.

McClatchy:

In articles and speeches, on radio and TV, conservatives are working to redefine major turning points and influential figures in American history, often to slam liberals, promote Republicans and reinforce their positions in today’s politics.

The Jamestown settlers? Socialists. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton? Ill-informed professors made up all that bunk about him advocating a strong central government.

Theodore Roosevelt? Another socialist. Franklin D. Roosevelt? Not only did he not end the Great Depression, he also created it.

Joe McCarthy? Liberals lied about him. He was a hero.

If you are too busy to read the article, watch the video.

Via Balloon Juice.

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Watch What People Do, Not What They Say 0

Mithras elucidates.

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Life under the Regency 0

Kook-kook-ka-choo, from the Virginian-Pilot (which could be considered liberal only by Virginia standards, which means it’s almost moderate):

Respectfully submitted this 3rd day of April 2010, come now the plaintiffs, the taxpayers of Virginia, and move this Honorable Court for an order restraining and enjoining the defendant, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, from intentionally and negligently turning his office into a public nuisance.

Read the whole thing. Lots of chuckles around the seriousness.

More at the Slant.

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