From Pine View Farm

January, 2017 archive

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses
Oh, Forget It, Reprise
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Image of US Flag being hidden behing Donald Trump's wall.

Via Job’s Anger.

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“Undermined from Within” 0

I don’t know to what extent I buy this, but the truly scary thing is that it does not sound impossible.

You can find another take in the same vein here.

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QOTD 0

Nelson Mandela:

No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones.

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Fantasy Alt-Football 0

This is good for a snicker.

(You can stop listening at about the minute and a half mark; the rest is promo.)

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“Five Signs of Totalitarianism” 0

Christopher Lebron lists them at the Boston Review. Do any of them sound familiar?

      Sign 1: Leader Insists on Mass Public Adoration.
      Sign 2: Regime Controls the Truth.
      Sign 3: Regime Suppresses Knowledge Producers.
      Sign 4: Regime Invents Common Enemies.
      Sign 5: Leader Is Surrounded by Cronies and Sycophants.

Follow the link for a detailed discussion of each one.

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The Voter Fraud Fraud, Bait-and-Switch Dept. 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Roy Eidelson exposes the con. A nugget:

In short, complaints of rampant voter fraud are really just an elaborate cover story, constructed to hide repugnant attempts to gain electoral advantage by disenfranchising Americans. Paul Weyrich, for decades a leading voice of the conservative movement, indirectly acknowledged as much almost fifty years ago. In a speech in Texas back in 1980, he explained, “I don’t want everybody to vote. …Our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.” That master plan hasn’t changed in the intervening years.

Read the rest.

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Lies and Lying Liars
(and the People Who Love Them)
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Warning: Language.

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It’s Just the Cost of Doing Giving Americans the Business 2

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Truth:Trump::Oil:Water 0

In The Charlotte Observer, Frank Harris observes:

We have a president with no regard for the Constitution who swore on the Bible that he would uphold the Constitution. A president who eschews news and information that does not please him; who won’t release his tax returns while holding who-knows-what kind of financial deals with other countries. A president who wants everyone to fall in line and agree and never criticize him or his administration; who it seems would like nothing more than to lock journalists up.

It is the stuff of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes. Like oil and water, Trump and truth don’t mix.

More at the link.

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“Liberty and Justice for Some” Is “Liberty and Justice for None” 0

Lady Liberty, wearing a headscarf, being handcuffed by immigration official.

Via Job’s Anger.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

The hunt for politeness continues apace.

The victim, whose identity had not been released, and his father were hunting deer with two friends when one of the friends, a 41-year-old man from Forked River in Lacey Township, shot him, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s office.

When you go deer hunting, be sure to cover up your little furry white tail. After all, why else might your hunting companion mistake you for a deer?

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QOTD 0

Logan Pearsall:

There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.

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Facebook Frolics 0

Faking it.

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All the News that Fits 0

Facts never survive the Reince cycle.

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Bubble Boy in Alt Land, Reprise 0

Warning: Language.

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Bubble Boy in Alt Land 0

Title:  Voter Fraud.  Image:  Donald Trump knotting tie in front of mirror as he says to himself,


Click for the original image.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

And a polite society is a clean society.

“One subject reported that he was cleaning his firearm and it discharged, striking both himself and the male seated next to him,” Nashua police Sgt. Andrew Karlis said in a statement. “Both subjects are reported to be in stable condition.”

Whenever I cleaned my guns, I first made sure they were not loaded.

Why? Because I’m not stupid.

I am sometimes thoughtless, inconsiderate, selfish, preoccupied, self-centered, conceited (as I was informed in the sixth grade), full of myself, occasionally arrogant, and headstrong.

But not stupid.

It seems that NRA Paradise is peopled by the stupid.

Afterthought:

Why is it that, in police reports, men become “males” and women become “females”? (I know that men and women are “males” and “females,”–when I was a teenager, my parents gave me a book on The Facts of Life and Love for Teenagers* that informed me of that startling fact–but, really, now, synonyms and all that . . . .)

Inquiring minds want to know.

Read more »

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Stray Thought, Going Rogue Dept. 0

The uncomfortable truth–the one that no one dares to talk about–is that the United States of America has Trumpled its way to becoming a rogue nation.

The next stop is pariah.

Frankly, if things continue on the course of the past week, I’d not be surprised if civilized nations begin to impose sanctions on the Trumpled States of America within the next six months.

Distressed and depressed. Not surprised.

Stop the madness now.

Read more »

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Twits on Twitter 0

The BBC looks at Twitter Bots:

On Twitter, bots are accounts that are run remotely by someone who automates the messages they send and activities they carry out. Some people pay to get bots to follow their account or to dilute chatter about controversial subjects.

“It is difficult to assess exactly how many Twitter users are bots,” said graduate student Juan Echeverria, a computer scientist at UCL, who uncovered the massive networks.

Mr Echeverria’s research began by combing through a sample of 1% of Twitter users in order to get a better understanding of how people use the social network.

However, analysis of the data revealed some strange results that, when probed further, seemed to reveal lots of linked accounts, suggesting one person or group is running the botnet. These accounts did not act like the bots other researchers had found but were clearly not being run by humans.

Via Schneir on Security.

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If One Standard Is Good, Two Must Be Better 0

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