From Pine View Farm

February, 2020 archive

“Open the Hangar, Here Comes the Airplane” 0

Honest to Betsy, you can’t make this stuff up.

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What Puts the “Anti-” in “Social” Media? 0

Gene Geher, an admitted Facebook Frolicker, suggest that “social” media presents us with an “evolutionary mismatch.”

He identifies ten specific problems; follow the link for a brief discussion of each one.

  1. People can be nasty behind screens.
  2. Social media creates unhealthy social echo chambers.
  3. Social media is not for the impulsive at heart.
  4. Infidelity rates have increased due to social media.
  5. Social media makes bullying easier.
  6. Social media creates permanent records—of just about everything.
  7. Cell phones are truly addicting.
  8. The natural world is suddenly less interesting than the virtual world is.
  9. Social estrangements are made too easy on social media.
  10. People can deceive in the domain of mating* like never before.

_____________________

*Not just in mating, folks.

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A Note to Purity Testers 0

Shorter PoliticalProf: Vote in the real world.

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A Distinction with a Difference 0

The writer of a letter to the editor of my local rag makes a fine point:

Accusations of socialism toward the Democratic Party confuse social programs with socialism.

Follow the link for the rest of the letter; it’s the fourth one down on the page.

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QOTD 0

Maria Edgeworth:

We cannot judge either of the feelings or of the characters of men with perfect accuracy from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversations, their half-finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real characters.

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Memory Lane 0

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Gag Rule 0

Frame One:  Man labeled

Via The Bob Cesca Show Blog.

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“Barrnacle Bill” 0

Title:  Barrnacle.  Image:  Old Ironsides (the U. S. Constitution at sea.  Beneath it, a giant growth in the image of Attorney-General Barr's head.

Via Job’s Anger.

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The Gaetz Crasher 0

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

As all “responsible gun owners” (sic) know, politeness takes practice.

An 18-year-old from Festus was shot Sunday (Feb. 23) while he was changing targets at a shooting match at American Legion Post 253, 849 American Legion Drive, in Festus. It appeared to be an accidental shooting, Festus Police Chief Tim Lewis said.

“A young man who was changing targets ran out to the target area and was shot,” Lewis said. “The victim was shot in the left arm, left chest area. He took the full blast.”

Lewis said the victim suffered serious injuries from the shotgun blast . . . .

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“But It’s S-S-So Obvious!” 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Don A. Moore makes a strong case that common sense isn’t.

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The Thought behind Those Prayers 0

Goat on phone says,

Click for the original image.

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QOTD 0

William McFee:

Doing what’s right is no guarantee against misfortune.

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Originalist Sin 0

Joe Patrice explores the con that is “Constitutional Originalism.” A snippet (emphasis added):

It (originalism–ed.) has always been a lie of course, but it’s a pretty successful one.

The conservatives on the Court have all but given up the facade of Originalism, granting cert in a gay rights case signaling an intent to protect Catholic Social Services who got cut off by the Philadelphia adoption program for refusing to place children with same-sex couples. The basis for the looming decision, previewed over the last several years by Supreme Court Oracle Justice Alito, is that religious freedom requires government respect the religious freedom to violate discrimination laws. The only problem with this plan is that the conservatives have already ruled that the “Originalist” read of religious freedom is the exact opposite. Apparently there are more different “Originals” in the First Amendment than there are in Ray’s Pizza establishments.

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Twits on Twitter 0

Words fail me.

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Just the Vaxx, Ma’am, There’s No Vaccination for Stupid Dept. 0

NJ.com attempted to talk with two New Jersey State Senators their anti-vaccine stance. Here’s how it went (emphasis added):

Of the two, only Pennacchio would come to the phone. He acknowledges that he contacted no actual scientific experts before introducing these bills, yet insists, “What I want behind this is the science.”

He said he read articles on the Internet: “Social media is full of them.”

We wondered, if he doesn’t trust the overwhelming scientific consensus that vaccines are safe, does he believe the 97 percent of scientists who say human activity contributes to global warming?

“Am I Encyclopedia Britannica?” he countered.

The stupid. It burns.

(More stupid at the link.)

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Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0

Trumpled in translation.

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All the News that Fits 0

Will Bunch talks about the latest (!) white supremacist terror attack, this one in Germany, and laments the failure of the press to give it the coverage it deserves. A nugget:

Over the last decade we’ve seen CNN, Fox News and other networks give breathless breaking-news-chyron, wall-to-wall coverage of various mass shootings, stabbings or truck attacks on pedestrians across the European continent and in the United Kingdom — but only when those attacks are carried out by Islamists. An attack by a right-winger against mostly Muslim victims barely dented the bottom of the hour.

That’s disgraceful — and arguably racist.

(snip)

It’s hard not to believe that — with our ADD-addled ability to focus only on the latest outrage of the last hour — we are missing the most alarming and important trend of the last decade. That would be the rise of violent, brownshirt-style, right-wing global extremism and the concurrent era of authoritarian-style rulers on every continent, whose angry rhetoric toward migrants, ethnic minorities or women inspires these terrorists. The world’s indifferent response to similar trends in the 1930s led to global conflagration in the 1940s. Are we repeating those mistakes in the 2020s as we fail to connect the dots?

Methinks he is onto something. We have forgotten the lessons of World War II.

I am not sanguine.

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Epidemiology 0

A first-person account of the spreading epidemic–no, not the new coronavirus, but the old racism.

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Twits on Twitter 0

Racialist twits.

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