From Pine View Farm

2011 archive

You Can Dial, but You Can’t Hide 0

Verizon sells your soul:

Verizon has posted changes to its privacy policy stating that it will now share user location data, Web browsing history and demographic information with marketers.

While Verizon insists that it will not provide third parties with any information identifying users on a personal basis, it will give them a wide array of its users’ information, including websites they frequent on their Verizon devices, places where their devices have been, and demographic categories such as gender and age range. Verizon will also share user interests with marketers, such as whether they’re a sports fan, own a pet or what sort of restaurants they frequent.

If you think that someone who has your age, sex, and where you go and when you go there can’t figure out who you are and where your children attend school in a matter of minutes, you need to think again.

If you are unlucky enough to use Verizon, follow the link above for information on how to opt out of this.

Via GNC.

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Sign the Petition 0

Microsoft, which is congenitally unable to innovate–everything they sell was created by someone else and either bought or copied and coopted by Redmond–except in “marketing,” has another strategy for ruling the world‘s pocketbooks.

Learn more here and share the link.

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Rapturous Thinking Once More All Over Again 0

The old fraud is still at it:

A California ministry has again predicted the end of the world is at hand.

The Oakland-based Family Radio International that stirred a global frenzy when it predicted the rapture would take 200 million Christians to heaven on May 21, now says the cataclysmic event will destroy the globe on Friday (that is, today–ed.).

But the world on Friday was undergoing its usual give and take with no signs of such an event.

Either that or a lot of us didn’t make the cut.

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Wingnut Birthers Turn on Their Own 0

Rising star of the right, Florida Senator Mario Rubio, is being attacked by birthers. Some of them are reasoning that, since his parents were Cuban refugees and not citizens, he is not qualified for office, though he is a natural-born United States citizen.

Daniel Ruth reports:

Yes, brothers and sisters, the birthers, many of whom still insist President Barack Obama is really the product of some coo-coo-ca-choo between Nelson Mandela and Jane Fonda in a Kremlin love nest, are back bigger and loopier than ever.

It seems pretty clear that since young Marco Rubio came into this world in Florida and since he was born quite naturally, he is a United States citizen with all of the attendant rights and privileges, including someday rising to the White House if that is what fate has in store for him.

The birthers have hung their pelts on the rather tenuous writings of a relatively obscure 18th century Swiss philosopher, Emer de Vattell, whose 1758 book, The Law of Nations, argued “natural born citizens” should mean only the children born of parents who were already citizens of that nation.

These (and let’s whisper this very quietly — crazy) people are attempting to argue who should and who shouldn’t qualify to become president based on the scribblings of a Swiss guy, writing in French, more than a decade before the start of the American Revolution. That would appear to be about as intellectually honest as a Republican presidential debate.

There is a certain pleasure in watching the crazies attack their own.

That does not render them less crazy.

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Twits on Twitter 0

Wingnut twits.

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QOTD 0

Barbara Jordan:

But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.

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“The Turning of the Screwed” 0

Wall Street couple dismissing OWS when their son calls on them to donate to it
CLick for a larger image.

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“Stink Creek” 0

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Republican Family Values 0

On the Let Women Die bill.

Thank you for devoting your time in Congress to drafting bills that legalize the murder of pregnant people in order to prove how very pro-life you really are.

Via Contradict Me.

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Criminal Minds, Sins of Omission Dept. 0

I read this entire article about degress of* sociopathy and there was no mention of Wall Street.

_______________-

*That’s of, not in. A degree in sociopathy is called an “MBA.”

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Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0

Still over 400k:

Jobless claims dropped by 6,000 to 403,000 in the week ended Oct. 15, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey called for a drop to 400,000 applications. The four-week average fell to the lowest level since April.

Some companies are still paring their workforces at the same time demand has fallen short of the level that may spur businesses to expand staff. The lack of employment growth, which is limiting consumer spending and restraining the recovery, underscores the challenge for President Barack Obama, who is trying to push Congress to pass parts of his jobs initiative.

Firing more persons and further decreasing demand will no doubt remedy this situation.

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Start the Day of Rightwing 0

Fox News Cereal:  Koo-Koo Puffs, Great with Kool-Aid

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QOTD 0

Lu Xun:

To be suspicious is not a fault. To be suspicious all the time without coming to a conclusion is the defect.

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Circling the Wagons 0

Shaun Mullen takes a look at Occupy Wall Street. It’s a good read.

A nugget:

To see the Dom Perignon and Beluga caviar set standing on chair chairs in their penthouse suites hysterically shouting “Eek!” at the Occupy Wall Street mice tells you all you need to know about how jealously they guard their prerogatives, which of course include controlling the lives of the 99 percent. And that they are less concerned about losing those prerogatives than people knowing just how rigged the system is in their favor.

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Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0

Whoops.

The highest court in Massachusetts ruled that a homeowner who bought a foreclosure that hadn’t been properly conducted by the foreclosing bank in 2006 didn’t have legal ownership of the property.

By all rights, when banksters steal something, it’s supposed to stay stolen, dammit.

Via Atrios.

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Melted Pot 0

It must be tough for Republicans to love America so much but hate almost three-quarters of the people living in it.

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Cell Cell 0

’nuff said.

Lake Stevens (Washington–ed.) police say officers arrested the 35-year-old man earlier this month after he tried to break into a home for a second time to retrieve the cell phone he left the first time he broke in.

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The Voter Fraud Fraud 0

LOVE=Likely Obama Voter Extraction
CLick for a larger image.

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The Galt and the Lamers 0

Teabaggers going Galt to fight the Red Menace.

Tea Party Nation sent to their members today a message from activist Melissa Brookstone urging businesspeople to “not hire a single person” to protest the Obama administration’s supposed “war against business and my country.”

Words fail me.

Via the Bob and Chez Show.

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The Ultimate Herman Cain Ad 0

From Peter Bergman.

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