From Pine View Farm

2013 archive

Break Time 0

Off to drink liberally.

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Tuesday’s Blue Moon 0

"Blue Moon" 2013-08-20


Click for a larger image.

More about blue moons.

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Tumblr Tomfoolery 0

Loose lips sink ships get student banned from social media for five years.

That should work out well.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

More polite family time.

A Shaler man shot his entire immediate family this morning, killing his daughter and himself, Allegheny County police said.

James Edwards’ 19-year-old daughter, Laurin, also is dead and his 51-year-old wife and 21-year-old son are in critical condition at a hospital this morning, according to county police homicide Lt. Andrew Schurman and the Allegheny County medical examiner’s office.

If the wife and kids had been armed, no doubt the family would be sitting in a circle singing “Kumbaya” at this very minute.

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Town Hall Toons 0

Why are Republicans having all that Obamacare defund fun? It’s not just the windmills.

The panel gets to the politics of it towards the end of this discussion.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Be polite in the school cafeteria.

A 5-year-old kindergartener has reportedly been detained at a school in Tennessee after a handgun discharged in the cafeteria.

Shawn Pachucki with Shelby County Schools told WMCT that police were called to Westside Elementary School following a gunshot that happened in the cafeteria at around 7:30 a.m. Pachucki said that the child brought the gun to school in a backpack and it accidentally discharged.

If the other kids had been packing, they could have been polite right back.

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Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0

Slight positive trend and one surprise:

The fewest workers in more than five years applied for U.S. unemployment benefits over the past month, indicating the labor market continues to improve.

The number of claims in the month ended Aug. 17 declined to 330,500 a week on average, the least since November 2007, a Labor Department report showed today in Washington. Compared with a week earlier, claims rose by 13,000 to 336,000, in line with the median forecast of 48 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

(snip)

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits increased by 29,000 to 3 million in the week ended Aug. 10. The continuing claims figure does not include the number of Americans receiving extended benefits under federal programs.

(snip)

Those who’ve used up their traditional benefits and are now collecting emergency and extended payments decreased by about 51,800 to 1.5 million in the week ended Aug. 3.

The surprise is that Bloomberg’s “experts” were in the ballpark.

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Twits on Twitter 0

Shrink-wrapped twits.

As far as I am concerned, any good that Oprah Winfrey has done is outweighed by her unleashing Dr. Phil on an unsuspecting world.

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Failing Grade 0

Gian Gentile assesses the results of the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq and its older cousin in Afghanistan.

Many years ago the British historian and strategist B.H. Liddell Hart pointed out that the object of war should be to produce a “better state of peace.” If that is what earns a war a passing grade, then the United States deserves a failing grade for Afghanistan and Iraq.

During the American occupation in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, as many as 250,000 Iraqis died and 1.4 million were displaced. Nearly 5,000 members of the U.S. military were killed, with many thousands more suffering life-altering wounds.

Read the rest about how we and they were Bush-whacked.

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QOTD 0

Megan McLaughlin:

It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change.

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Drinking Liberally Virginia Beach Tomorrow 0

Fun and fellowship for liberals. Join us and talk about anything in a relaxed atmosphere.

When: Thursday, August 22nd, 6 p.

Where:
Croc’s 19 Street Bistro
620 19th Street (Map)

More here.

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Denial Is Not Just a River in Egypt 2

At Psychology Today Blogs, two psychologist try to understand America’s failure to face the reality of climate change and to what extent even thinking about the possibility thereof may have become a societal taboo.

A nugget:

Pythia: Indeed these days we can more easily speak about sex or money than our overfished oceans and vanishing species. But just like social conventions once prohibited us from discussing sex, what are the cultural reasons that reinforce this repression around climate change?

Mary: One reason Americans don’t talk about this is because we don’t get good information. For twenty years now the culture has been mired in the least productive of all topics, which is “Do you believe in climate change?” It’s as if we were talking about whether or not we believe in extraterrestrials! Climate change is no more a matter of belief than microbes are a matter of belief — it’s an empirical fact based on evidence provided by international scientists.

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Chilling Effects 0

Groklaw performed a major service to the community and the polity in reporting on and explaining the legal issues in the scurrilous SCO patent trolling suit.

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“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” 0

The resident curmudgeon at my local rag goes where I feared to (I guess that’s one of the perks of being a curmudgeon): Regency Wedlock.

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News, Ripped from the Ticker 0

Bad taste warning, as usual.

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The Voter Fraud Fraud 0

Republican:

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

This day’s news brings a surfeit of politeness.

A 3-year-old was shot and killed Tuesday night, allegedly by a family member during an argument, Gwinnett County police said.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Set aside family time, politely.

Police said on Monday that a Christiansburg man shot his stepson in the house they shared, drove to Pulaski, shot another stepson and then killed himself.

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QOTD 0

Ben Hecht:

Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away.

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You Can’t Make This Stuff Up 0

Electronic vehicle unlock clicker goes very wrong.

There are certain things I prefer not to run with buttons even as I tend to wind up every day on LQ.

Unlocking my vehicle’s doors and operating the windows are two of them. I fear, though, that the next time I buy a vehicle, it will come with an extra superfluous layer of buttons and screens, just because it can.

And, no, I don’t want GPS built into my vehicle.

I’m old.

I know how to read a map.

It’s really not all that difficult. And, actually, it’s kind of fun. You see stuff that doesn’t fit on that screen.

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