From Pine View Farm

November, 2015 archive

“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Play politely.

A 14-year-old girl had to be flown to a hospital after being shot by a 7-year-old boy playing “deer hunter” on Saturday, the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office said.
The boy was visiting a home on E. 310 Road in the northeastern part of the county when he got a .22-caliber rifle from a bedroom and said he was going to play “deer hunter,” the sheriff’s office said.

No adults were at home and the gun was obviously unsecured, but no charges will be filed because it was just all good clean fun and boys and their toys and all that.

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Fumble 0

Image of Martin Luther King saying,

Via Job’s Anger.

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The Snaring Economy 0

Uber uber alles.

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QOTD 0

Carl Rowan:

It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.

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Paris Burning 0

Now read this, then this.

(Open tag fixed.)

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The Scandalmatizer 0

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“This Is a Test, and It’s Pledged Work . . . .” 0

Jill McCorkle thinks she has found a better way to vet our candidates. A nugget:

Here is what I think would be the proper way to have an election: Each candidate must report to a designated school on a given morning, then proceed into his or her own classroom with only a blue book and two sharpened number two pencils with erasers. Each will be thoroughly searched—no crib notes allowed—and a monitor will be assigned to ensure no cheating: the candidate’s only resource is his or her brain. They will then have four hours to write out their platform—their beliefs and ideals and what they hope to accomplish when elected. At 8:00 A.M. the voice on the PA system will instruct them to begin and at noon will say that time is up.

Then each candidate’s statement will be published just as it appears in all newspapers across the country. The statements will also be read aloud by unbiased parties on the radio and television at appointed times. Period.

Spend a few minutes toying with notions of the essays that the Republican hopefuls might produce . . . .

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Walkering Back to the Gilded Age 0

James Causey details Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s latest ploy to humiliate the have-nots.

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Gambling Gambols 0

Daniel Ruth notes that two Florida legislators want to pass a law declaring that playing “Fantasy Football” for money is somehow not gambling. Not Coincidentally . . . .

And now we know the going rate for Rep. Matt Gaetz-R, Shocked, Shocked, and Sen. Joe Negron, R-Three Card Monte, is $10,000 each. That’s the amount of the legalized bribes the political committees operated by these two Florida Legislature pit bosses collected from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.

And what did the association get for their $20,000 ante? Under bills sponsored by Gaetz and Negron, the fantasy sports sites would be formally regarded as games of skill and not gambling. That would counter a 1991 legal opinion — and a rather accurate opinion at that — written by Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth that prohibited the fantasy leagues from collecting money and disbursing winnings.

Read the rest.

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The Kings of the Welfare Queens 0

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“Don’t Fence Me In” 0

Image of Ronald Reagan in front of Berlin Wall saying,


Click for a larger image.

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Be a Soldier 0

Marc M. Dion explains how.

Via The Progressive Populist. Subscribe now. You’ll be glad you did.

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QOTD 0

Will Rogers:

If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?

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Meta: Cleaned Up the Sidebar 0

Updated a few links, dropped Geekazine (it’s been five years since I blogged there and Jeffry is a really nice guy, but there are limits), and moved the This Week in Blackness link from the RSS feeds to the blogroll, as TWIB is now the Twibularity and a requires a subscription for full access.

It’s well-worth the subscription and I pay it quite happily. If you don’t want the subscription, there’s still excellent free content. You can listen to TWIB Prime at Balloon Juice.

Also drat. Didn’t realize I was showing the blogroll twice, as I spend most of my time in the back room.

And, no, there are no poker games in the back room. Now, if I could get a foursome for bridge, a game that doesn’t require betting to make it interesting . . . .

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Paris 0

If you want to follow events in Paris, you will probably get the best English-language coverage at TheLocal.

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Java Jive 0

The coffee break starts about three minutes in.

Via Raw Story.

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Nagomatic 0

Reg Henry has a Fitbit fit.

He has a point. Fitbit and the like are stupid tech. Ditch the nagomatic and go for a bicycle ride.

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Facebook Frolics 0

Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

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Artful Dodgers 0

Dick Polman analyzes Republicans’ responses during the recent debacle debate. A snippet (italics in the original):

But the question was limited to the gap in job stats.* Let’s check out Fiorina’s response, which I will annotate.

Well, first of all, I must say as I think about that question, I think about a woman I met the other day. I would guess she was 40 years old. She had several children. And she said to me, you know, Carly, I go to bed every night afraid for my children’s future. And that really struck me. This is America. A mother is going to bed afraid for her children’s future.

Note how she dodges the question right away. When a politician begins by conjuring the perfect voter anecdote, you know that he or she is in trouble.

_____________________

*Job creation rates under Clinton and Obama compared to those under President George the Worst.

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A Picture Is Worth 4

Picture contrasting old cops helping old lady to modern cops wearing armor and pointing assault rifles:  \

Via Job’s Anger.

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