From Pine View Farm

July, 2014 archive

Who Fuels the Crazy Train? 0

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No Carnivores Need Apply 0

Rekha Basu considers the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision to green-light theocracy.

Let’s say that I’m an observant Hindu who keeps a strict vegetarian diet because my religion frowns on killing animals. And let’s say I own a software company that employs only vegetarians, because I don’t believe I should be forced to subsidize meat-eating with the money I pay in salaries. Could I get away with that that sort of discrimination?

Apparently I could, if you follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s logic in a ruling Monday that a company should not be forced to subsidize an activity that offends its owners’ religious beliefs.

Do read the rest.

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“Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses . . .”, Reprise 0

Statue of Liberty saying,

Via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

Afterthought:

What we do have is a country of muddled asses.

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Suffer the Children 0

For Republicans, it’s not a quotation from the Bible. It’s a policy.

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“No” Means “No” . . . 0

. . . or does it?

The definition of “consent” in Norfolk State University’s sexual misconduct policy consists of 166 words. The College of William & Mary uses 257 words to spell it out. It takes 438 at Virginia Wesleyan College.

Most of the verbiage appears to be about persons who are unconscious or (intimidated into being) silent and on how much struggling is “struggling enough.’

Words fail me.

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The Voter Fraud Fraud 0

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Makers and Takers 0

Read Sarah Palin’s resume to become a host of “The View.” Just do.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

More accidental politeness and yet another gun that achieved the singularity and fired itself:

A man who lives in northeastern Baxter County is recovering from a gunshot wound to his upper left chest on Monday afternoon. Jeffrey Lanham, 42, told sheriff’s deputies that a .22-caliber revolver accidentally fired.

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QOTD 0

Marcus Aurelius:

The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like the wrong doer.

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Break Time 0

Off to drink liberally.

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The Galt and the Lamers 0

One more time: a Libertarian is a Republican who’s ashamed to admit it.

Via PoliticalProf.

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Both Sides Not 0

Steven M. blasts the establishment media’s pretense that “both sides do it.” A nugget:

For years, the mainstream press has been in denial about the true extent of the Republican Party’s insanity. When the insanity is acknowledged, it’s ascribed to just one particular faction of the party, or assumed to be a waning phenomenon.

He goes on to explain how the insanity is neither limited to a faction nor temporary, but, rather, a modus operandi. Do please read the rest.

.

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“A Good Walk Spoiled” 0

Was it bait-and-switch or simple incompetence at the old hole-in-one contest?

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“Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses . . .” 0

A letter-writer to the Roanoke Times nails it. A nugget:

That the strongest, wealthiest nation in the world can find billions at the drop of a hat to fund a war or so and millions to help the needy far from our own borders, but turn away the desperate and fear-driven and helpless closer to home — with such hatred and viciousness — may demonstrate why we are so increasingly disliked, scorned and threatened.

(snip)

And what are we now — bitter, self-serving, fearful NIMBYs wielding pitchforks, torches, placards and fists?

Democrat to Republican:

Image via Bob Cesca’s Awesome Blog.

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Garbage In, Garbage Out 0

Via Lee Camp.

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Wars and Mongers of War 1

Culled from a larger article about a veteran’s efforts to provide a means of therapy to other veterans by encouraging them to write about their experiences, here is the nasty truth that the mongers of war want you to ignore (emphasis added).

More than 2 million Americans have deployed in the post-9/11 wars, and they’ve all come back with something. Besides physical wounds and full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder, there are subtler torments: “moral injury,” an affliction separate from PTSD that comes from experiences that transgress deeply held moral beliefs; the weird desire to go back to a place they hate, because now nothing else makes sense; the feeling of extreme isolation, because whereas before they lived among people they’d have died for, now they live among people who barely know there was a war; the nagging certainty that they’ll never feel as alive as they did over there, or as connected to others, and that nothing will ever feel as important.

I encourage you to follow the link and read the rest.

The mongers of war want you to think that war is a John Wayne movie. In the movies, though, unlike in wars, everyone gets up and goes home whole after the shooting stops.

Read the rest, then ask yourself, “Why is it that men too old to serve are so eager for war?”

Old men lie. Young folks die.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Be polite to your girlfriend’s parents.

Pennsylvania state police at Kiski Valley said Joseph Stoll Jr. of Irwin showed up at the home of Dana Rodericks, 40, of Delmont, at about 1:30 p.m. Saturday and got involved in a verbal altercation with Mr. Rodericks. Police said Mr. Rodericks asked Mr. Stoll to leave, at which time a physical confrontation ensued.

Police said Mr. Stoll initially drove away but returned with a shotgun and threatened to kill Mr. Rodericks. That’s when Mr. Rodericks daughter, who was not identified by police, got between her boyfriend and her father and persuaded her boyfriend to leave.

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QOTD 0

Ursula K. Le Gun:

There are no right answers to wrong questions.

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News, Ripped from the Ticker 0

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Hook, Line, and Sinker 2

Dick Polman recounts a tale of teabaggers’ swallowing whole a clearly satirical piece about President Obama. A nugget–follow the link for the rest of the story:

As the publisher of National Report (source of the satire–ed.) remarked in an interview last year, “We have been targeting tea party types recently, (because) they are the most gullible, and are willing to spread misinformation across the Internet with little/no research…they are to blame for their own stupidity.”

(snip)

What fun, to play a prank on these gullible fulminators. Yet, in the end, we’ve got to admit that there’s something a tad depressing about our vast idiocracy.

Fear and hate make for remarkable blinders.

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