From Pine View Farm

August, 2011 archive

And Now for Something Completely Different 0

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Dreamthievers 0

Support efforts to air this in Eric Cantor’s district.

Via C&L.

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Carwash Blues 0

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Cooking with Gasoline 0

From today’s local rag:

Sunday morning – with no power and a case of cabin fever – presented the perfect moment to attempt manifold cookery. I’d heard stories about construction workers warming lunches on truck engines, but the idea had the flavor of an urban myth.

Not so, say the authors of “Manifold Destiny,” a chatty, how-to-cook-on-your-car-engine cookbook. Chris Maynard and Bill Scheller trace the idea of cooking with heat generated by propulsion back to the Huns, who tenderized meat by tucking it beneath their saddles.

Recipes at the link. Let me know if you try one, because I’m not planning to.

Aptonym: the food writer is named “Eaton.”

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“Be Prepared” Is a Sometime Thing 0

I was in the hardware store yesterday and watched a guy return three flashlights and two dozen batteries.

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Cantor’s Cant 0

Eric Cantor’s constituent disservice: RSVP Town Hall.

See The Richmonder for details.

Also, letting ’em rot.

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Reseg Reprise 0

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Facebook Frolics, GI Dept. 0

Social Media Handbook 2011

View more documents from U.S. Army

Via OhMyGov!

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iBrick 0

She probably could not have figured out how to use it anyway.

In a new variation on the “brick in a box” scam, a South Carolina woman who thought she purchased an iPad from two men in a McDonald’s parking lot discovered yesterday that the purported tablet was actually “a piece of wood painted black with an Apple logo.”

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QOTD 0

Francis Bacon, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):

Base and crafty cowards are like the arrow that flieth in the dark.

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Copywriteswrongs Reprise 0

They need to hire back a few of those copy editors.

Misspelled headline

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Losing Legacies 0

I see that Charles Krauthammer has a column about Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’m not going to read it. I like to keep an open mind, at least on topics where I still have questions, but Krauthammer’s history of intellectual dishonesty and absolute wingnut hackery has taught me that, when he knocks on my mind’s door, to lock the damned door.

He’s not worth the effort, not even to know the latest wingnut fable.

Instead, if you wish to read about Dr. King, read the post I excerpt below written by a fellow who grew up black in the South. Here’s a snippet (emphasis in the original):

So anyway, I was having this argument with my father about Martin Luther King and how his message was too conservative compared to Malcolm X’s message. My father got really angry at me. It wasn’t that he disliked Malcolm X, but his point was that Malcolm X hadn’t accomplished anything as Dr. King had.

I was kind of sarcastic and asked something like, so what did Martin Luther King accomplish other than giving his “I have a dream speech.”

(snip)

My father told me with a sort of cold fury, “Dr. King ended the terror of living in the south.”

H/T ABL.

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The Nostalgia Party 0

The good old days weren’t, unless you are Ron Paul.

Dick Polman comments on the point-counterpoint of Paul’s calling for the end of FEMA in the midst of flooding and death from a tropical storm. A snippet:

What year would this guy prefer that we live in, 1900? When there were no federal warnings of looming natural disasters, when there was no federal help for the newly homeless?

Actually, the answer to those questions is, quite literally, yes.

Here’s Paul again, arguing last Friday that Washington should go back to the good ole days, when it played no role in disaster preparedness or response: “We should be like 1900. We should be like 1940, 1950, 1960. I live on the Gulf Coast. We deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.”

What’s wrong with those remarks? Pretty much everything – starting with the fact that Paul didn’t even bother to visit his congressional district after it was hammered in 2005 by Hurricane Ike. Most notably was Paul’s invocation of 1900, which happens to be the year when Galveston was decimated by a hurricane that killed upwards of 8000 people (as vividly rendered in the book Isaac’s Storm).

In Libertarian World, elegant theory trumps messy reality any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

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Rhinestone Cowboy (Updated) 1

Tom Papantonio’s language in this disturbs me, not because of any profanity, but because of his use of words like “hick,” “rube,” and “bumpkin.”

As a country boy, I dislike those words and others like them, which are often used to dismiss persons because of their backgrounds, rather than engage them in discussion based on their knowledge and abilities. (That’s part of why I could never fully enjoy The Beverly Hillbillies, despite plot lines in which, just before the last commercial, the good-hearted rubes always bested the cold-hearted banker.*)

I have also found that belittling folks, however richly they may have earned it, does not win friends, but it may influence people–to hostility. Indeed, it’s likely to fire up Perry’s supporters, who are already feeling mighty aggrieved.

Nevertheless, I recommend attempting to disregard Papantonio’s intemperate language and to listen to the facts that his guest brings to the discussion. The substance starts about two minutes in:

Rick Perry is an empty boot.

______________________

*Yeah. Right.

Addendum, Comment Rescue Dept.:

Dick Destiny comments:

Late in the segment they start going on about cyberwar and Richard Clarke being a savior. Which makes ‘em a bit guilty of a bit of the same kind of alleged bad thinking they accuse Perry of.

Goodness, there’s enough to criticize Perry over without going off on Yellow Peril tangents.

He has a point.

I agree that the whole cyber-war stuff is hype designed to generate full employment for consultants.

I purposely lowered my BS filter because I could not resist the irony of Perry’s embracing one of the few companies that even the Bushies could not love.

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Now You Too Can Have Your Own Trigger 0

I guess I’m old and cranky, but I find treating the family pet in this manner to be somehow profoundly disrespectful to the pet.

And slightly icky.

The taxidermists at Huffman . . . also stuff house cats, dogs, parakeets, snakes and just about anything else that fits into their 3-foot- tall freeze-drying machine.

For clients, who pay from $800 to $1,800, the final product allows them to keep their best friends around forever, resting near the fireplace, at the foot of the bed, wherever.

Afterthought:

After talking with a friend, apparently it is just me.

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A Thank You 0

Yesterday, I sent a little email to the Editor of the Sacramento Bee in response to this article, in which he solicited opinions on how to deal with vile and disgusting anonymous comments on the the paper’s website.

I linked him up to a column by the Editor of my local rag, in which he evaluated the Virginian-Pilot’s experience after it banned anonymous comments on its opinion pages.

Late last night, Eastern Time, the Editor of the Bee emailed me an acknowledgement, which was clearly not canned, since he quoted the contents of my email and referred to it in the text.

Given the amount of email that persons in his position get, I consider that a classy act.

I am impressed.

I wanted to thank him publicly (not that I expect him ever to see this, but a one does what one can).

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Facebook Frolics, Ask Amy Dept. 0

See the second item.

One more time, the internet is a public place.

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Make TWUUG Your LUG 0

Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.

Tidewater Unix Users Group

What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.

Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.

Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)

When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, September 1.

Note: Meetings are normally on the first Thursday of each month.

Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)

Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)

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Republican Family Values, the Gift that Keeps on Giving 0

More here.

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QOTD 0

Heywood Broun, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):

For truth there is no deadline.

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