June, 2012 archive
Brendan Makes a Phone Call 0
Brendan’s back, and he’s on the phone again.
Droning On, Apocalypse Pending Dept. 0
At the Chicago Tribune, Robert C. Koehler takes a critical look at the ethical implications of raining robotic death from the skies. A nugget:
When we murder by drone, we may be both perpetuating an inhuman, bureaucratic control over random enemies and, at the same time, satisfying an age-old lust to play god.
If you follow only one link from this site, make it this one.
Droning On, SkyNet Dept. 0
Asia Times reports:
It’s fitting that Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050 has been put together by Tom Engelhardt – editor, MC of the TomDispatch website and “a national treasure”, in the correct appraisal of University of Michigan professor Juan Cole – and TomDispatch’s associate editor Nick Turse, author of the seminal 2008 study The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives.
I haven’t decided whether to get it yet, but I probably shall. I know I should. And you should too.
Get it here.
The Privatization Racket(eers) 0
A charter member of the “Milking it for all it’s worth” club in Florida:
It also proved a dramatic point about the state’s $1 billion charter-school industry: that the freedom granted to charters can open the door to for-profit companies with little interest in following the rules or achieving student success.
As the charter school movement refocuses on profit over education, expect more like this.
Football uber Alles, Dept. of Humanities Dept. 0
. . . where those in authority circle the wagons to protect their own because it’s the “humane” thing to do.
A snippet from Karen Heller’s column today:
How many young boys ago was 2001?
(snip)
Investigators uncovered e-mails, which were reported Monday, by Spanier and now-suspended athletic director Timothy Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz suggesting that the “humane” treatment of Sandusky was to not inform law enforcement.
It’s the ultimate corruption of the rich and powerful: exempting themselves from standards of society, because, well, they can. After all, he wears nice suits; he looks good in meetings; he brings us good press; he’sjust . . . well . . . pukka sahib, eh, what.
(And if you this is only the condition at football factories, read the financial pages for Pete’s sake.)
The Munchausen Strategy 0
Eric Zorn sums up Republican campaign strategy, which is, quite simply, to make stuff up (emphasis added):
(snip)
They seem to figure if they repeat this often enough, you’ll believe it.
Why do they lie? Because they keeping getting away with it.
Horsing around with Public Funds 0
All she wanted wasa a source of stable funding:
Marshals have been overseeing the care of the horses since shortly after Rita Crundwell, 59, was arrested in April on charges she pilfered more than $53 million over nearly 22 years as the town official with almost sole control over finances. Prosecutors have said she used the money to fund her championship horse breeding business as well as a lavish lifestyle.
Maybe her daddy should have given her that pony back when she was six . . . .
Dustbiters 0
While I was enjoying the nice June weather last night and looking for signs of the times, the FDIC was busy spreading vanishing cream on more financial geniuses. These dodos are extinct.
The Farmers Bank of Lynchburg, Lynchburg, Tennessee
Sign of the Times 0
I should report this, but I decided not to go there.
Geek Alert: Linux Questions Interviews Pat Volkerding 0
Pat is the benevolent dictator of Slackware, the oldest named Linux distribution still actively maintained (it’s older than Red Hat and Debian by a matter of months). It was also my first and remains my preferred Linux distro.
In the course of the interview, Pat manages to quote both Einstein and Lao Tsu. Read it now.
QOTD 0
William Butler Yeats, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Life is a long preparation for something that never happens.
Meta: Adventures in phpMyAdmin 0
My two or three longtime readers will remember that this site started out self-hosted with dynamic DNS from no-ip.com (whose service was excellent and whom I recommend unconditionally). The free domain name from no-ip was frankwbell.no-ip.info.
About two years in, I got the current domain name.
I finally went back through the SQL tables and changed all the references to “frankwbell.no-ip.info” to “pineviewfarm.net.” I did it the hard way, with phpMyAdmin search, because I didn’t have the energy to work out an SQL query to do it all in one swell foop.
Now, in the first two years or so of posts, the pictures should display and the internal links should work once more.
Only five years behind schedule.
I think this is my favorite set of now-resurrected pictures.
Torturous Logic 0
From Thoreau: it’s too short to quote, too true to miss.
