2014 archive
Drinking Liberally Virginia Beach 0
Fun and fellowship for liberals. Join us and talk about anything in a relaxed atmosphere.
When: Thursday, February 27th, 6 p.
Where:
Croc’s 19 Street Bistro
620 19th Street (Map)
More here.
The Fifth Freedom: The Freedom To Hate 0
Via Delaware Liberal, which adds commentary you should read.
Also, Josh Marshall has a wonderful post which deserves a read.
Fun with Computers 0
Three computers in one: A VNC connection to Debian Sid running the Fluxbox window manager on a P4 Dell tower overlaying a Virtual Machine of OpenSuse running LXDE on a Mageia 4 computer running E17.
This is the first time I set up a VNC all by my lonesome. Once I found the right helpful website and punched the correct hole in the server firewall, it was much easier than I had expected.
Bitcoin Magic 0
Driftglass presents the best explanation I’ve seen yet.
The Secesh 0
Still fighting after all these years.
The Voter Fraud Fraud 0
Gutting out the vote in Ohio.
Predators 0
Stay classy, Virginia Republicans.
New Toy 0
I just got the email that my new laptop is ready to be shipped. Extra bonus fact: Microsoft has never been near it. It’s Linux out of the box.
I’m retiring the oldest machine (it’s starting to lag under the demands I place on it, particularly photo editing, as it only has a gig of RAM), putting Mageia on it, and giving it to Second Son, who is currently computerless except for his phone.
Who would have envisioned 20 years ago that a house would have more than one computer? And today I have two on this desk. (KVM switches are your friend.)
Haves and Have-Nots 0
Persons who have health insurance don’t want you to have health insurance.
Afterthought:
Dissing the poors. It’s a Republican thing.
The Nugget of Nugent 0
Dick Polman thinks he knows why Republicans keep Ted Nugent around.
So why do Republicans – like Mitt Romney in 2012 – abide this guy in the first place? . . . .
But the thing is, Republicans don’t view Nugent as a mistake. They think he’s useful, that he serves a purpose, that right-wing politicians like Abbot can parade him with cynical intent.
Nugent is viscerally in touch with the haters in The Base – and the haters tend to vote heavily, especially in Republican primaries (Abbot’s first task is to win his March 4 primary). Nugent can travel the low road and say all the vile stuff that the politicians aren’t free to say. And after the haters guzzle Nugent’s red meat, the politicians play tut-tut on the high road. What a deal: Nugent does the dirty work while they keep their hands clean.
In other words, because hate sells, and hate is what they got.
More at the link.
Sharia and Sharia Alike 0
There’s a quotation, likely apocryphal, often attributed to Winston Churchill (though I have not found an authoritative citation) to the effect that
Of course, the United States will have fascism, but it will be called “anti-Fascism.”
Case in point:
I should have realized this, but it took the Professional Left Podcast (subscribe now if you haven’t already; it’s fun and it’s free) to remind me that Arizona’s “Let’s All Hate on the Gays” legislation is nothing more than Sharia law, fundy style.
Bonus Babies 2
At Psychology Today Blogs, Thomas Hills highlights the fraud of of the bonus babies. A nugget:
A recent article by Jacquart and Armstrong looks at the evidence. Their evidence consists of a review of numerous experimental studies and records of performance of thousands of firms and CEOs.
The conclusion is as simple as a day old bird: CEO incentives do not buy better performance. If anything, incentives make performance worse.
Follow the link for the evidence.
The Climates, They Are A-Changing . . . 0
It’s February in the Mid-Atlantic States.
Two weeks ago, we had eight inches of snow and temperatures in the Fahrenheit twenties. Yesterday, it was 70 Fahrenheits. And it’s still February. I grew up in these parts and can testify that this is not How It Used To Be.
In the Bangor Daily News, Gwynne Dwyer has a theory.
. . . it was the people of the rich countries in the temperate zone – North America, Europe and Japan, mainly – who industrialized early and started burning large amounts of fossil fuel as long as two centuries ago. That’s how they got rich. Their emissions of carbon dioxide over the years account for 80 percent of the greenhouse gases of human origin that are now in the atmosphere, causing the warming, yet they get hurt least and last.
Well, what did you expect? The gods of climate are almost certainly sky gods, and sky gods are never fair. But they have always liked jokes, especially cruel ones, and they have come up with a great one this time. The people of the temperate zones are going to get hurt early after all, but not by gradual warming. Their weather is just going to get more and more extreme: heat waves, blizzards and flooding on an unprecedented scale.