From Pine View Farm

April, 2015 archive

And So It Begins . . . . 0

Take Dick Polman’s quiz on Hilary Derangement Syndrome.

My two or three regular readers will recall I was no fan of how she conducted her campaign in 2008, but I believe she redeemed herself with her conduct subsequent to the 2008 Democratic Convention and her competent and honorable service as Secretary of State.

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Rand Gestures 0

Amanda Marcotte thinks the has found a method in the mads. Emphasis added:

It’s the libertarian thing: Paul gets fussy and starts throwing his pacifiers any time someone prods him over what exactly he means by this “libertarian” thing. Whether it’s when they’re prodding to find out where his supposed libertarianism conflicts with the Republican Party platform or whether it’s when they’re exposing the hypocrisy of a “libertarian” who opposes abortion rights and legalized same-sex marriage, Paul gets angry and insists that their job is to simply glide over any of these friction points.

In other words, Paul wants his “libertarianism” to be a cipher. He wants you to believe he’s a freedom-loving freedom freedomer, but doesn’t want you to actually know what he means by that, but instead to just assume that whatever his views are, they must align exactly with yours. As a strategy, it’s actually pretty smart. Paul wants younger, more independent voters to think he’s a different kind of Republican but he also wants older, more religious voters to think he’s the same kind of gay-hating, woman-suppressing Republican they prefer to vote for.

One more time: A Libertarian is a Republican who is ashamed to admit it.

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QOTD 0

William Howard Taft:

Politics makes me sick.

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Hey! Rubio! 0

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Eagles 0

Some pictures from my brother in Virginia’s Northern Neck:

Eagle in tree

Read more »

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“Stick with Susie; It’s Gonna Be a Doozy” 0

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Politeness is a family affair.

Police in Cleveland, Ohio, say a three-year-old boy picked up an unattended gun inside a home and it went off, shooting a one-year-old boy in the head and killing him.

NRA Paradise is here.

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Light Bloggery 0

Preoccupations through Tuesday.

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QOTD 0

Diogenes:

I am called a dog because I fawn on those who give me anything, I yelp at those who refuse, and I set my teeth in rascals.

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Misdirection Play 0

Jeffrey Gillespie finds the response to the non-debunked Rolling Stone UVa. rape story to be dismaying. An excerpt (emphasis added):

The Rolling Stone profile, which reported on a now-discredited story about a gang rape at a University of Virginia frat house, has received much scrutiny. There is a tone to the backlash that is disturbing; much like the Bernie Madoff affair in 2008, which gave bigots nationwide the perfect anti-Semitic foil, the falsified UVA story is already being gleefully exploited by right wing elements in the press as an exemplar of the hysterical feminist agenda. In extreme cases, conservative elements in the media are attempting to conflate the issue to the point of suggesting that the rape culture is some fantastic invention, a simple effect of feminist propaganda combined with left-wing political maneuvering.

But when you live in a country where 20 percent of women have been the victims of sexual violence, there’s really no possibility for overreaction. There’s only the need for a moment of silence, a moment to let that shameful statistic sink in, and then there’s work to be done.

The irony is that, except for some details, such as names, dates, and places, the Rolling Stone story was true. What it described does indeed happen all too frequently and authorities and society regularly wink at it until forced into action.

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

Call upon name of the Lord:

Nullify! Nullify!

. . . because nullification worked so well the last time.

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‘Tis the Season 0

Man:  My tax refund!  Free money!  Obviousman:  No, it's not.  It means you gave the government an interest free loan and are now just getting repaid.


Click for a larger image.

The VP-Finance of my one of my employers believed that, if you qualified for an income tax refund of no more than $50.00, you had managed your tax liability effectively in the previous year.

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The Galt and the Lamers 0

Part One:

Part Two:

Via Kos.

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“Discrimination Then, Discrimination Now, Discrimination Forever” 0

In the Charlotte Observer, Taylor Batten sums up South Carolina’s amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court gay marriage case. The crux:

(South Carolina Attorney-General–ed.) Wilson’s argument in a sentence: The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment were OK with the states discriminating against women, so surely they’d be OK with us discriminating against gays.

Looks as if South Carolina called Saul.

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“Better Call Saul” 0

It seems that the anti-gay folks are having trouble getting good lawyers to advocate for bigotry and homophobia.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Demonstrate politeness.

Investigators determined Metzger, who lived at the house, was showing a shotgun to a friend when it accidentally went off, according to a news release.

Emergency medical personnel took Mr. Metzger to University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

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QOTD 0

Lawrence Welk:

There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them.

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Skybridge 0

From my brother in Virginia’s Northern Neck:

Rainbow in evening sky

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Hijacked! 0

Heh.

Police departments in midcoast and northern Maine said they have paid ransom to hackers to keep their computer files from being destroyed, WCSH-TV reported Friday night.

The Portland station said the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office and four towns paid $300 to the hackers after a virus, called a “megacode,” was downloaded on a computer system they share. Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Bracket said that the computer system was unusable until the fee was paid, and that the hackers claimed the program, called “ransomware,” would wipe the entire computer system clean if the fee wasn’t paid.

They paid the ransom in bitcoins.

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Hey! Rubio! 0

Daniel Ruth eagerly anticipates Mario Rubio’s announcing his candidacy for the Presidency:

Unlike some of his opponents, Rubio can point to a significant piece of legislation he proposed that would have addressed sweeping immigration reform. Bold. Visionary. Courageous. That’s the good news.

But Rubio turned and ran away from his own bill — immigration reform, what immigration reform? — once the tea party crowd started getting all twitchy. Now there’s a profile in quivering for you. And this guy thinks he can stare down Vladimir Putin?

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