From Pine View Farm

May, 2015 archive

Misdirection Play, Haters Gotta Hate Dept. 0

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Policy Formulation, Republican Style 0

Caption:
Click for a larger image.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Politeness must start young.

Police say the (two-year-old–ed.) boy was alone in a bedroom when he found a loaded handgun on top of a dresser and accidentally fired the weapon. The boy and his parents were visiting the residence.

Just one of those things, one of those crazy things in NRA Paradise.

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QOTD 0

Henrik Ibsen:

The majority is always wrong; the minority is rarely right.

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A Header. Why Not a Bank Shot? 0

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Speaking of “Them” . . . 0

. . . Marco Rubio is very, very afraid of “Them.”

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“Them” 3

Back when spy movies were all the rage, James Bond was still played by Sean Connery, and the villains were always faceless underground organizations with names such as SPECTRE, SMERSH, and THRUSH, someone I forget who made a parody spy flick in which the bad guys represented a shadowy outfit called THEM. As I recall, the film’s silliness made anything by the Three Stooges look like high art (unfortunately, I can’t remember enough of it to find a citation).

Leonard Pitts, Jr., reminds me that the film may not have been as much parody as I thought at the time:

For all the decades of its existence, American social conservatism has been rooted in a premise simple enough to be fully expressed in just three words:

Us versus them.

As in, an implicit promise to defend the former against the latter. This was its mission when it pushed for immigration quotas in the 1920s, when it animated the Red Scare of the 1950s, when it defined civil rights as a clear and present danger in the 1960s, when hardhats rioted against hippies in 1970. It is its organizing principle even today, as red states pass legislation to protect themselves from Sharia law and some of us define religious persecution as baking a cake for a same-sex couple.

Us versus them.

Always, social conservatism defined “them” as something faceless and frightening against which the rest of “us” must struggle with everything we had, or else be overrun. It is an ideology that has contributed virtually nothing of value to the life of the nation — unless you count mindless panic as a good thing.

He goes on to wonder whether the appeal of such tactics may be waning.

I fear that he is wrong. Fear sells, and hate always finds buyers.

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Your Tax Dollars at Work 0

Recycling:

The Navy has purchased two decommissioned Japanese military helicopters and additional used parts, completing an international deal in the works for more than five years. The U.S. plans to harvest the aircraft for parts to maintain its aging fleet of MH-53E Sea Dragons.

In related news, it would seem that the Sea Dragon has problems much more serious than can be remedied by a few jalopy egg-beaters.

Meanwhile, Congress continues to push the F-35, which nobody wants except manufacturers of weaponry and their sycophants and lapdogs.

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Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0

Maintaining a positive trend:

Applications for U.S. jobless benefits remained below 300,000 for the 12th straight week, signaling the labor market remains firm even as the economy has been slow to rebound from a first-quarter slump.

Jobless claims increased by 7,000 to 282,000 in the week ended May 23, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington.

(snip)

The four-week average of claims, a less-volatile measure than the weekly figure, climbed to 271,500 from a 15-year low of 266,500 the prior week.

The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits increased by 11,000 to 2.22 million in the week ended May 16. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits rose to 1.7 percent from 1.6 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag.

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. . . B-B-But It Was Only “Family Research” 0

Putting aside the culture warrior schadenfreude, I think it might be a bit strong to refer to a 14-year-old boy trying to navigate the teenager hormone zone while growing up in a clearly screwed-up family in the same phrases that one might use for a 50-year-old man (or woman, as recent headlines tell us seems quite possible) lurking in the bushes next to the jungle gym in the playground.

Let’s just stick with the incest thing, okay?

Via Raw Story.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Test for politeness.

Miguel Martinez, 19, was hanging out with his friends last week in a Fair Oaks park when one of his companions fatally shot him, hoping to test out the reliability of a bulletproof vest, the victim’s brother said Tuesday.

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Little Ricky Rides Again 0

Yahoo!

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QOTD 0

Henry M. Jackson:

The poor are the only consistent altruists; they sell all they have and give it to the rich.

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Literate Cat 0

Cat resting head on book

Fool cat’s holding the book (a Bennett Cerf collection) upside-down.

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The Climates They Are a-Changing 0

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Helm’s Derp, Republican Family Values Dept. 0

Images of various speakers:  Of 600 girls rescued from Boko Haram, at least 214 are pregnant, but, because of the Helms Act of 1973, aid groups lose funding if they perform abortions.  Let's try to understand the mindset of those who think this makes sense.  Old man says,

Via Job’s Anger.

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Stray Question (Updated) 0

It’s been a long time since I was a high school senior.

Just when did “senior pranks” become a thing?

Addendum, Later That Same Day:

According to The Guardian, high school seniors’ doing stupid stuff has graduated to a “tradition.”

Back in the olden days, when I was a young ‘un, we tried to hide our stupid, not broadcast it.

Furrfu.

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Misty Water-Colored Memories 0

Reg Henry wants some truth served with his Memorial Day.

. . . a danger lurks in looking at service and sacrifice through a gauzy sentimental veil that obscures a bitter truth: Many wars in which our forces take the field have little to do with preserving our freedoms or way of life, and no amount of pious speeches or editorials will make this so.

In fact, if you count the conflicts that really did represent life or death to the nation in recent generations, only World War II unambiguously qualifies (although the Korean War arguably has a claim).

As for the rest, they were undertaken for reasons ranging from the shabby to the reckless. American forces were too often committed in the service of some political notion later revealed to be crackpot or fanciful. This was not the fault of those who served so honorably.

Read it.

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Stray Thought 0

No right-wing Bible-thumper will think to suggest from Sunday’s pulpit that the flooding of Texas may be a sign from the Almighty that the climates they are a-changing.

Not a single one.

Read more »

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GPS: Global Positioning Singularity 0

Gidget the Gadget takes the con.

There’s a reason I prefer maps–the old-fashioned kind that you can fold up.

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