February, 2012 archive
A Gruesome Birthday 0
Shaun Mullen explains. It’s a must-read.
Little Ricky: “Lerning Ain’t Gud.” 0
Mike Papantonio traces Republican attacks on learning and knowledge back to Big Tobacco.
Actually, it goes back much further.
Great Moments in “Yeah. Right.” 0
Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes to Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson in the last scene of Sherlock Holmes Faces Death:
There’s new spirit abroad in the land.
The old days of grab and greed are on their way out.
We’re beginning to think of what we owe the other fellow, not just of what we’re compelled to give him.
Time’s coming, Watson, when we shan’t be able to fill our bellies in comfort while other folk go hungry or sleep in warm beds while others shiver in the cold, when we shan’t be able to kneel and thank God for blessings before our shining altars while men anywhere are kneeling under either physical or spiritual subjection.
That certainly worked out well.
Make TWUUG Your LUG 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source.
What: Monthly TWUUG Meeting.
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room. See directions below. (Wireless and wired internet connection available.)
When: 7:30 PM till whenever (usually 9:30ish) on Thursday, March 1.
Directions:
Lake Taylor Hospital
1309 Kempsville Road
Norfolk, Va. 23502 (Map)
Pre-Meeting Dinner at 6:00 PM (separate checks)
Uno Chicago Grill
Virginia Beach Blvd. & Military Highway (Janaf Shopping Center). (Map)
QOTD 0
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
How is it that in the so-called barbarian ages art was understood, whereas in our age of progress exactly the opposite is true?
Your Tax Dollars at Work 0
Ask the Experts 1
Warning: In bad taste, but not as bad the targets.
The Internet Is a Public Place 0
Alyona discusses the proposed consumer privacy “bill of rights.”
QOTD 0
T. S. Eliot, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Radio is a medium of entertainment which permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome.
Oscars 0
Oh, goody.
Another public exercise in Hollywood’s pleasuring itself to pictures of itself.
I must avert my eyes.
The Voter Fraud Fraud 0
Reports of rampant voter fraud regularly turn out to be somewhere on a scale between hysterical lies and lying hysteria.
Facing South considers the recent kerfuffle in South Carolina:
So the question is, how did this cheap B-movie fiction make it into the public debate in the first place?
Follow the link to see Facing South’s answer to the question at the end of the selection. My answer to it is that Republicans and their sycophants at Fox News will hype for any crackpot (non)story they can find to justifying keeping voters who are not likely to support them from having a say in elections.
Republicans know they are a minority party with no hope of becoming a majority. They have fixed on a strategy of remaking the electorate into one that favors them by excluding those who do not (how shall I put this diplomatically?) fall for their twaddle.
They Started with Two Shower Doors 0
The Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports (print story here) on West Virginians who have learned how to make their own solar panels:
No doubt the local utility is thrilled. Also, pigs, wings.
Droning On 0
The story is about the perceptions of the populace popped by drones.
The widespread perception in Pakistan that civilians, not militants, are the principal victims — a view that is fostered by leading right-wing politicians, clerics and the fighters themselves — fuels pervasive anti-American sentiment and, some argue, has swelled the ranks of al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
But an AP reporter who spoke to about 80 villagers at the sites of the 10 attacks in North Waziristan, the main sanctuary for militants in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region along the Afghan border, was told that a significant majority of the dead were combatants.
I have no doubt that this will be cited to prove that raining death on innocents from the sky is okay if the percentage of innocents is small enough.
This reminds me of the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, and body counts were all the rage amongst the uniformed set.
(Link fixed.)
QOTD 0
Arthur Schopenhauer, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Our Spiritual Betters 0
Moral authority abrogated:
The order, outlined in a handwritten note locked away for years at the archdiocese’s Center City offices, was disclosed Friday by lawyers for Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former church administrator facing trial next month.
