From Pine View Farm

Author's archive

“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Settle differences of opinion with politeness.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Discriminatory? I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

In the Baltimore area, Sixteen-year-old Taki Allen was swarmed by armed officers outside Kenwood High School after an AI gun detection system misidentified his crumpled Doritos bag as a firearm. The incident happened just 20 minutes after football practice this past Monday (10-20-25).

Allen, a Black student, was eating chips with friends when the AI triggered an alert. Within minutes, eight police cars arrived, officers pointed guns at Allen, handcuffed him, and searched him for weapons..

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Birds of a Feather 0

In the Las Vegas Sun, letter writer Tom Harper observes that Donald Trump has but one interest. A nugget:

Whether it’s using the White House as a prop to sell cryptocurrency or talking leaders of Qatar into gifting him a jumbo jetliner, President Donald Trump has always been about making money and never about helping his fellow man.

It appears somehow appropriate that he now commands leads a political party that seems no longer to care for the common good.

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QOTD 0

Ben Fountain:

Nobody ever came to America with a starry-eyed dream of working for starvation wages.

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A Tune for the Times 0

Mr. Newberger salutes the Squeaker of the House.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Once again, one of those “responsible gun owners” exposes a portable phallus to children,

Investigators say a 1-year-old child found the gun and accidentally fired it.

The 1-year-old child was hit and a second child was shot when the bullet fragmented, detectives said.

We are a society of stupid.

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That Was the Week That Was 0

Mary Trump looks back at last week’s Trumpling.

From the Youtube page:

This week Mary unpacks the GOP’s Gaslight Playbook — the upside-down rhetoric that flips truth into lies. From Speaker Mike Johnson and Karoline Leavitt to Fox State TV, we show how Republican doublespeak fuels chaos. Plus, a look at Donald’s East Wing demolition at the White House, the perfect symbol of broken institutions and twisted narratives.. It’s Trump Trolls Trump Week 39.

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Republican Family Values . . . 0

. . . can be summed up in the immortal words of Marie Antionette: Let them eat cake.

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Putting the “Demo” to Democracy, One More Time 0

The White House labeled

Click to view the original image.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Psychopaths? Not according to Justin Gregg, who argues that AI is amoral (which could be worse). A snippet:

There is something important about the human mind that complicates this analogy. Unlike AIs, psychopaths are sentient. . . .

AIs, on the other hand, lack all of these capacities. The concept of “harm” means nothing to them. As Nerantz points out, “to understand what it means to harm someone, one must have experiential knowledge of pain. AIs, thus…are a priori excluded from the possession of moral emotions, whereas psychopaths, as sentient humans, can, in principle, experience moral emotions, but they, pathologically, do not.” Psychopaths can intellectually and consciously understand the nature of their deficit, can make new analogies involving the capacities that they do possess, and can thus alter their behavior in deference to that awareness.

AIs cannot.

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The ICEmen Cometh 0

At ProPublica, J. David McSwane and Hannah Allam make a case that the Trump maladministration is attempting to turn ICE into their own secret police. Here’s a tiny bit from their article:

Current and former national security officials share the mayor’s (of Santa Ana, CA–ed.) concerns. They describe the legions of masked immigration officers operating in near-total anonymity on the orders of the president as the crossing of a line that had long set the United States apart from the world’s most repressive regimes. ICE, in their view, has become an unfettered and unaccountable national police force.

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QOTD 0

Isaac Asimov:

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

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And Now for a Musical Interlude 0

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Dred Scott Redux 0

Bird labeled

Click for the original image.

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A Pillow of the Community 0

David posits that Mike Lindel, aka Mike Pillow, personifies the MAGA business model.

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The Rule of Lawless 0

SFgate’s Drew Magary is somewhat distressed at the realization that we are now living in a (my words, not his) klepto-idiocracy.

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Facebook Frolics 0

Bigoted AI-slop Super Bowl half-time show frolics.

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Going Rogue State, Reprise 0

At the Idaho State Journal, Jim Jones, who served as Idaho Attorney-General and then on the state Supreme Court, looks at the Trump maladministration’s practice of blowing up boats because (to cut through the crapola) their crews are brown. Here’s a tiny bit from his article:

The boat attacks also violate rules of international law that top U.S. military lawyers have urged the services to observe. With its scofflaw attitude, the Trump regime has tarnished the reputation of the United States as a beacon for the rule of law. We became the most powerful nation on Earth because of our dedication to lawful conduct. When we repeatedly demonstrate that the U.S. will not follow U.S. and international law, our reputation, trading relations and economy will suffer.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

True to their word? Psychotherapist Paula Fontenelle expresses skepticism, as she reports that

(some–ed.) AI companies say their apps are 18+ but there is no verification. I said I was 16 and nothing happened.

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QOTD 0

Hunter S. Thompson:

In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

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