September, 2012 archive
Droning On 1
Like Savoir Faire, Skynet is everywhere. Der Spiegel reports:
Police and firefighters use drones to monitor protests and borders. They film crime scenes from above and measure levels of toxic materials in the air during major fires. Companies deploy drones to inspect pipelines and measure progress on construction sites. Architects, surveyors and photographers also use the airborne assistants.
iNapped! 0
This didn’t turn out quite the way the mope expected.
Rojo allegedly refused to return the iPhone 3GS unless he was paid $40. He then offered to meet Barr and exchange the iPhone for the ransom.
The woman, however, contacted cops.
The hearing is next month.
News Ripped from the Ticker: WMD Dept. 0
Warning: Some tasteless imagery.
The WMD section begins at the two minute mark.
Pimping Endless War 0
In wingnut world, war is a magickal thing (emphasis added):
Speaking at the United Nations on Tuesday, President Barack Obama said that containment was not an option and the U.S. would “do what we must” to stop Iran.
But during an interview with MSNBC, Giuliani said that the implicit threat of military force did not go far enough.
. . . because the last two invocations to bloody Mars cast a magickal spell unbroken to this day in the fantastickal wingnut world sans history and accordingly sans lessons therefrom.
And, besides, other people have children to spare.
Realignment, Southern Strategy Style 2
The BooMan sums up the realignment of the Republican Party. The assessment is harsh. It is also accurate.
It is Nixon’s odious Southern strategy come to fruition.
With that lone exception, all the prudes and bigots and tsk-tskers and money-grubbers and polluters and religious freaks and misogynists and fraudsters and warmongers have aligned with the conservative movement.
Yankee Republicanism is dead. All we have is the reactionary right aligned with a bunch a greedheads. You won’t find an inch of daylight between Pat Robertson and Mitt Romney or Mitt Romney and Paul Wolfowitz or Grover Norquist and Mitt Romney. We have the worst of all worlds.
I would not have said “aligned with the conservative movement.”
In these modern times, “prudes and bigots and tsk-tskers and money-grubbers and polluters and religious freaks and misogynists and fraudsters and warmongers” are the conservative movement.
The Southern strategy has consumed its creators.
Drinking Liberally Virginia Beach Tomorrow 0
Fun and fellowship for liberals. Join us and help our chapter leader celebrate her birthday.
When: Thursday, September 27th, 6 p.
Where:
Croc’s 19 Street Bistro
620 19th Street (Map)
More here.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Cure hiccoughs politely.
Killeen police say the Fort Hood soldiers were drinking alcohol and watching football when the incident happened Sunday night.
An arrest affidavit says Spc. Patrick Edward Myers of Spartanburg, S.C., apparently pointed a gun at the victim’s head to scare him and stop the hiccups. Myers allegedly thought the gun had dummy rounds when it discharged.
QOTD 0
Phil Ochs:
The young Americans of whom he spoke have become the old Americans of whom he spoke.
The Gospel According to the Donald 0
I have a gut reaction to Liberty University. And it’s a decidedly negative one.
It was started to indoctrinate students with Jerry Falwell’s version of Christianity, which I find (to use Falwellian terminlogy) decidedly un-Biblical, insofar as Christianity is supposed to be based on the Gospels, rather than on Leviticus. (I feel the same way about Regents, Pat Robertson’s outfit, just down the road. They are in the tradition of Bob Jones and Oral Roberts Universities–designed to wash brains, not nurture them indoctrinate students in a particular politico-religious ideology, with an accent on the politico.)
Nevertheless, I commend the students for greeting the Donald’s Gospel of Revenge with silence.
In a speech where he also called President Barack Obama “a Teflon president” who seems to win favorable press coverage no matter the circumstance, Trump counseled Liberty students to “get even” with those who wrong them in business.
“I always say don’t let people take advantage – this goes for a country, too, by the way – don’t let people take advantage. Get even. And you know, if nothing else, others will see that and they’re going to say, ‘You know, I’m going to let Jim Smith or Sarah Malone, I’m going to let them alone because they’re tough customers,” said Trump . . . .
He also recommended that the students get pre-nups when they marry.
“Facts Are What People Think” 0
Farnsworth bemoans his public school education in history, you know, the one based on stuff what actually happened.
Meme the 47%, the Wingnut Way 0
Chauncey Devega decodes the code. It’s the odious Southern strategy once more all over again.
Romney’s narrative of “makers” and “takers” is rooted in the Republican Party’s ability to put a black and brown face on poverty in America by the use of what has come to be described as “the Southern Strategy.” Since at least Richard Nixon, conservatives realized that by linking anti-poverty programs to people of color that white support for these policies can be undercut.
Droning On 0
There is no such thing as a “surgical strike.”
It exists only in the imagination of those who think war is a video game (and those who monger war).
Dulcet Tones 0
I have another podcast up at HPR.
This one may be of wider interest than the others I have there. It describes how I use the free and open source Gnu Image Manipulation Project (commonly called the GIMP) to edit pictures for posting here. The GIMP is freely available for Unix, Linux, Mac, and Windows.
I based the podcast on this picture.
It is hardly an exhaustive description of the GIMP, which is a huge and powerful program, but, if you are interested in exploring the GIMP and freeing yourself of proprietary image-editing programs that cost umpty-ump hundreds of dollars, I think you will find it a useful introduction.
For detailed tutorials on the GIMP, you can do no better than this.
The Fee Hand of the Market 0
Your friendly local entrepreneurs at work.
The compensation, averaging $57 per cardholder, will go to customers charged for add-on products such as “Payment Protection” or “Wallet Protection.” Regulators said telemarketers for the Delaware bank followed misleading scripts and often sped through fee disclosures, leading customers to believe that the bank was touting benefits that came free with their cards.
Don’t know whether it’s a policy change or I have just been lucky, but I have noticed, the last couple of times I’ve activated an updated credit card, a notable absence of the sales pitches that used be be inflicted on me while in activation hell on activation hold.
Revolt of the Machines 0
First, they lull you into a sense of security, and then . . . .
About 80 percent of bridge strikes in New York state, where parkways with low overpasses are supposed to be closed to commercial traffic, are caused by GPS misdirection, Schumer said. Even if the roads are well-marked, GPS devices may not note restrictions on trucks and buses, he said.
Senator Schumer wants the government to update GPS technology.
In the meantime, maybe the truckers should consider supplementing their gadgets with a fallback technology.
I believe it’s called “road sign.”
