From Pine View Farm

2011 archive

Facebook Frolics 0

Another reason not to use Bing!

Microsoft added more Facebook features to Bing today so people searching on Bing can see what their friends think of various search results.

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Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Third Thursday Dinner 0

  • What: Virginia Beach Democratic Committee Third Thursday Dinner
  • When: May 19th, 6:00 PM
  • Where: Kelly’s Hilltop Tavern, 1936 Laskin Road, Virginia Beach, VA 23454 (map), in the nonsmoking section.

This week, there is a guest speaker:

    Michael Signer, 2009 candidate for Lt. Governor, and current head of the Dominion Project PAC will be speaking about the New Dominion Project and its goals.

Show up, order off the menu (separate checks), socialize, and talk politics–or whatever else interests you.

These tend to be smaller gatherings, highly informal, and a lot of fun.

Also, don’t order the “Philly Cheese Steak.” It’s not Philly, and it’s certainly not a “Philly cheese steak.”

See the Facebook page for more information.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Always welcome visitors politely.

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Trademarking Valor 0

In a world where everything is marketing . . . .

That is, in Disney World:

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Disney Enterprises Inc., submitted three applications for the trademark two days after bin Laden was killed.

In the application, the trademark would cover clothes, footwear, toys, games, Christmas ornaments, snow globes and other items.

This is absurd and sick-making, not only due to the greed, but also due the disrespect to the military and to the pure icky cynicism it betrays.

Via Le Show.

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RonPaulCare 0

Proctor and Ossman figure out Ron Paul’s health care plan. The revelation comes about 22 minutes into the podcast at the link:

“He wants to legalize heroin and he wants to get rid of Medicare.

I’ve got it!!

You legalize heroin and get rid of Medicare, so when people get sick, . . . they just shoot up and everything is cool!

Note: Next Monday, the “Current Show” link will update to a new show and this show will be moved to the Show Archive.

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QOTD 0

Clarence Darrow:

History repeats itself, and that’s one of the things that’s wrong with history.

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Spill Here, Spill Now, Write It Off 0

The Miami Herald editorializes:

Under questioning from Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, BP America Chairman and President Lamar McKay defended as a “standard business expense” the decision to seek a tax write-off for the costs associated with the spill, which would generate $11.8 billion in tax savings. Considering that much of the cost involves compensation for victims and legal expenses associated with the spill, it’s wrong to ask taxpayers to pick up any of it. This is no ordinary cost of doing business like paying for insurance or the copy machine — there’s nothing “standard” about it.

“Surely, the Gulf oil spill was the result of wrongdoing, and yet you want to claim that as a tax credit,” Sen. Nelson said.

BP, he added “may be entitled to this under the law, but that doesn’t make it right .?.?.” Exactly.

Reading the opening of the editorial is worth clicking the link.

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Wilmington News-Journal Webmaster FAIL 0

If were that girl’s parents, I would consider this juxtaposition to be most unfortunate:

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Freedom Riders 1

Leonard Pitts, Jr., talks with a veteran of the Freedom Riders,* young folks who offered their lives to end Jim Crow. The article appears today to mark tonight’s PBS documentary.

A nugget:

Everybody thinks they could get on that bus. It’s an easy thing to say. Then you remember the savagery, the violent attacks from people mortally outraged that these young men and women traveled in integrated groups and ignored segregation signs in bus-station restrooms and coffee shops. And you remember that the rules of engagement required pacifism: a willingness to get hit, and not hit back.

A bus was firebombed in Anniston, Ala. In Birmingham, police gave the Ku Klux Klan 15 minutes to beat riders to their heart’s content. Yet no Freedom Rider ever raised a hand in defense.

Get hit, don’t hit back. “You have to change your whole way of thinking,” Rip told me. “You have to love your fellow man, just like the Book says. He’s beating on you, kicking you, you’ve still got to love him.” It was not just a high Christian ideal, but also sound and effective strategy, the idea being that through the willingness to sacrifice your body, you made it clear as air to a watching world which side had the moral high ground, and which did not.

Which leads me to a thought I had the other day:

It’s common to hear folks say that “Americans are reluctant to talk about race.”

I have come to disagree.

White Americans are reluctant to talk about race, for to do so requires us to confront the legacy of white American society’s deeds.

______________________

*Where I grew up, many of the grown-ups considered the Freedom Riders to be “outside agitators” come to destroy Our Way of Life(TM). Some persons still hold that point of view.

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Atlanta Braves’ Secret Offensive Weapon 0

Broken bats.

He (Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay) needed some luck and got none. Dan Uggla and Eric Hinske both reached on back-to-back, broken-bat singles to put runners on first and third with no outs in the fourth.

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The Voter Fraud Fraud 0

The Booman sums it up. A nugget:

Let me make this as clear as I can. There is no epidemic of voter fraud in this country. People who are not eligible to vote do not vote. If we have an epidemic, it’s the opposite; people who are eligible to vote are staying home. Voter ID laws are ostensibly about making sure people are who they say they are, but there’s a reason that only Republicans are interested in enacting these laws. What they want is to limit the number of minorities who vote. Period. And they don’t care that they are disenfranchising a bunch of elderly people, too, who no longer drive and have no other need for a photo ID.

It’s a racist, voter suppression drive. That’s all it is. It isn’t what they say it is. As someone who spent a year of my life working to register voters in our inner cities, I can tell you that a lot of young urban people do not have a driver’s license because they don’t have a car. And they don’t have a state-issued photo ID because they don’t need one. If you make having a photo ID a condition for voting, you are definitely going to limit these kids’ representation in the electorate. And that’s the point.

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False Play of Trump 0

And this surpises us how?

Donald Trump says he’s not running for president.

The reality TV star said in a statement Monday that he won’t seek the Republican nomination.

I don’t know that I agree wholeheartedly with those who have said all along that he was only in it to pimp his lousy television show; Trump has had enough success as an empty suit blowhard that he could easily think he could pull off yet another con.

Then reality ate his lunch and his lousy television show and the horse he rode in on.

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The Internet Is a Public Place 0

Science 2.0 reminds us of a news a recent news story:

A US court just slashed alimony payments (Cardone v. Cardone, 2011 WL 1566992, Conn.Super. April 4, 2011) to an ex-wife because of her blog posts, which detailed how she was sailing around the Caribbean for months with her new boyfriend while she rented out her apartment. The poor sap ex-husband had been paying for 10 years and the court reduced it by 70% because she was clearly living with someone else and being subsidized by her ex-husband. Get back to Connecticut for a moment. The guy was being forced to pay until she died or got remarried. 10 years.

The article goes on to suggest five rules for staying out of this sort of trouble.

No, “don’t get married” is not one of them, though “don’t get divorced in Connecticut” does make the cut–they are five rules for on-line behavior. Share them with your friendly local on-line hothead.

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Government Fishing Expeditions 0

Your Fourth Amendment rights are being nibbled away. The ACLU is fighting to protect them.

More here.

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Twits on Twitter 0

It’s reaching a critical mess.

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QOTD 0

A. Conan Doyle:

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

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The Galt and the Lamers 0

Kung Fu Monkey:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

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Seen on the Street 0

Sidewalk chalk art by Holland Winslow at the entrance of the Chrysler Museum in honor of the Tiffany Lamps exhibit. Posted with permission.


Click for a larger image. You will be glad you did.

Read more »

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Pornistan 0

Andy Borowitz (full report at the link):

After seizing an enormous cache of porn from his compound in Pakistan, the CIA said today that it now has a new theory about fallen al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

“It’s clear that Osama bin Laden acted alone,” said CIA director Leon Panetta. “And he spent most of his waking hours doing just that.”

I fail to understand the fuss.

A porn stach stash is normal; it’s mass murder that is not.

Also, Noz has a thought.

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Meta: Seen on the Street 0

I have created a “Seen on the Street” category and aggregated all the “Seen on the Street” posts–pictures and reports of found items I find interesting, creative, striking, funny, or otherwise notable–under it.

You can access it from the sidebar, over there

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“Categories” is the next to the last item.

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