From Pine View Farm

March, 2011 archive

No Place to Hide 0

Two minutes. Watch it.

Via the ACLU.

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God Spake in Elizabethan English 0

Literalist Christians are their own worst advertisement.

In fact, words fail them. Or they fail words. Or something.

Frankly, I think literalists should be required to learn Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, so they could be literature literalists. Maybe then will they get a clue (emphasis added):

The 2011 translation of the New International Version Bible, or NIV, does not change pronouns referring to God, who remains “He” and “the Father.” But it does aim to avoid using “he” or “him” as the default reference to an unspecified person.

(snip)

Before the new translation even hit stores, it drew opposition from the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an organization that believes women should submit to their husbands in the home and only men can hold some leadership roles in the church.

(snip)

At issue is how to translate pronouns that apply to both genders in the ancient Greek and Hebrew texts but have traditionally been translated using masculine forms in English.

(The “Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” could probably better be described as the “keep ’em in the kitchen and bedroom” party.)

Follow the link to see some samples from the text. Some of them are, indeed, awkward, but, really, this is much ado about not much of anything, for God did not spake in Elizabethan English in the first place.

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QOTD 0

William Faulkner:

If I were reincarnated, I’d want to come back a buzzard. Nothing hates him or envies him or wants him or needs him. He is never bothered or in danger, and he can eat anything.

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Bearish on Climate Change 0

Real bear-ish.

Kevin Wright, a longtime officer in the Aspen area for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, urged residents to get back into their bear-friendly habits now rather than waiting until later in the season, when bears typically emerge. Bears usually stir in April, he said, but this year one yearling was spotted by a property manager Monday and a bear was hit and killed by a vehicle recently in the Eagle Valley, Wright said.

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day 0

Four-leaf clovers . . .

Clover – watch more funny videos

. . . green beer.

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Internet Zombie Drones 0

Automating FUD. This is not good.

From the Guardian:

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

A Californian corporation has been awarded a contract with United States Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US armed operations in the Middle East and Central Asia, to develop what is described as an “online persona management service” that will allow one US serviceman or woman to control up to 10 separate identities based all over the world.

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PSA 0

This is currently running in Times Square.

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Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0

Back under 400k. Appears to be a very anemic slightly positive trend:

Applications for jobless benefits decreased 16,000 in the period ended March 12 to 385,000, in line with the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey, Labor Department figures showed today. The four-week average of claims dropped to the lowest level since July 2008. The number of people on unemployment benefit rolls fell, while those getting extended payments rose.

Fewer firings along with increased hiring and a lower unemployment rate may help lift household spending, which accounts for 70 percent of the economy. Federal Reserve policy makers this week said the expansion is getting stronger and the labor market is “improving gradually.”

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Fox News: Origins Issue 0

Non Sequitur

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How To Turn Heroes into Villains 0

Smoke the teabags.

Rall

More Rall here.

Via Balloon Juice.

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Let the Poor Man Be 0

It’s bad enough to be in the middle of a family dispute when you are still alive, but this is ridiculous.

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QOTD 0

James Madison, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):

In framing a system, which we wish to last for ages, we should not lose sight of the changes which ages will produce.

Aside:

So much for originalism.

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NFL Luck Out 0

Sure, the players are paid a lot of money–well, a few of them are (most of them aren’t in terms to the toll the game takes on them when the average career is less than four years).

It is difficult to support the owners, who are all have-cake-eat-too.

Not enough money? Since the NFL gets its money from taxpayers and fans, that means they don’t get enough money from us. Don’t you feel cheap? Well, you should.

When the owners asked taxpayers around the country for hundreds of millions of dollars for new stadiums, some of you objected, and some owners had to pick up some of the cost. That has left them nearly broke and able to pay the average quarterback only $10 million a season.

At least we think they’re nearly broke. The owners refused to show their finances to the players, just as they refused to share them with taxpayers. They are, after all, private businesses. Except when they aren’t, like when they demand tax subsidies disguised as “public-private partnerships.”

If you consider yourself a pro football fan and give a darn about the lock-out. follow the link.

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Facebook Frolics 0

Police say an Australian teenager hijacked a girl’s Facebook page and posted an open invitation to her 16th birthday party that drew more than 200,000 positive replies.

An arrest has been made.

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Faux Civity 0

Some Guy with a Website

Via Some Guy with a Website.

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Oh Noes 0

Online activist group Anonymous has released a cache of e-mails which it claims show impropriety at Bank of America.

The leak, which includes correspondence between staff at BoA subsidiary Balboa Insurance, details plans to delete sensitive documents.

Possible impropriety at a bank.

In other news, salt is salty.

Coming up, water is wet.

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Twits on Twitter 0

Warning: Mild Language (but it’s worth it).

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Ed-olution 0

Ed Schultz, of The Ed Show, is from these parts and was back visiting over the weekend, so the local rag profiled him. It was interesting.

Here’s bit of it:

Schultz’s politics have flipped in the last 15 years. Early on, after changing the format of his radio show from sports to politics, he was a conservative.

(snip)

The shift came in the mid- to late ’90s, when his radio show was based in Fargo, N.D.
“I was taking my show on the road and going into rural America and seeing some infrastructure that was crucial to the country starting to crumble,” he said. “I found myself aligning with what the Democrats were trying to accomplish.”

Schultz said the conservatives’ recent “radical and discriminatory attacks” on public education and teachers’ unions hit home. His mother, Mary Schultz, was an English teacher at Granby High School; his father, George, was an aeronautical engineer for the government. Schultz, the youngest of five children, described his life in Norfolk as “very typical and very middle-class.” Education was paramount.

“We’ve had multiple generations of success with public education,” said Schultz, a 1977 graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead, which he attended on a football scholarship. “But all of a sudden, the conservatives have decided to target public education, and I struggle with that whole premise.”

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QOTD 0

Eric Hoffer:

The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets.

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A Picture Is Worth . . . 0

Scotus baseball.

Strike Zones

Via Balloon Juice.

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