From Pine View Farm

November, 2017 archive

Russian Impulses 0

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Remembrance 0

Badtux notes the intellectual acrobatics. The gist:

It’s interesting that the same people who keep telling blacks to get over that whole slavery thing, already, seem to be the same people who want to keep all those statues of slave-owners on every street corner in the South because they’re still not over the Civil War.

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Thoughts and Preyers 0

GOP Congress offers thoughts and prayers:  Dear Lord, in the wake of yet another horrific U. S. gun massacre, please give us the strength and wisdom to pass tax cuts for the rich.  Amen.

Image via The Bob Cesca Show Blog.

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An Audience of One 0

Juanita Jean does the math.

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QOTD 0

Erica Jong:

Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

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Geeking Out 0

Running Windows 7 in VirtualBox in seamless mode on Slackware –Current under the KDE desktop environment.

Screenshot


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Chasing the Bait and Switch 0

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Flagging Interests 0

Father:  This debate over what disrespects the flag seems to be ongoing.  Curtis:  The Federal Flag Code, established in 1923, states a flag should never touch the floor,  nor be used as apparel or bedding, should never be used in advertising, nor as a costume on handkerchiefs or paper plates.  Father looks nonplussed as Curtis says,

Click for the original image.

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Political Hacks 0

Shaun Mullen parses Julian Assange’s very strange embrace of Vladimir Putin.

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Constituents and Suckers 0

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Art Imitates Life Imitates Art Imitates Life . . . 0

Little girl starting off on bicycle ride.  Mother says,

If you want to understand how Roy Moore and others of his ilk are able to hold on to power and status, there may be no better place to start than chapter 19 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in which “the Duke and the Dauphin” are introduced to the narrative.

Image via Job’s Anger.

Aside:

If you have not read Mark Twain’s masterpiece, do so.

Many Southerners haven’t changed much since it was written.

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No Ifs, Ands, or Buts 0

Dana Goetsch explores the craven, lick-spittle world of the “No Apology Apology.”

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The Odds 0

Frame One:  House Ways and Means Committee asks,

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Get a drop on politeness.

When they arrived, they found a 42-year-old man with a single gunshot wound to his calf. His 36-year-old spouse was also at home.

The man told police his friend dropped a handgun that discharged and struck his leg then left when 911 was called.

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QOTD 0

Kim Bassinger:

It always takes the truth a little bit longer to cross the finish line.

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Class Facts 0

Badtux marvels at the obtuseness of the punditocracy in not realizing that the “working class” comes in all colors. A snippet:

Why are these (always white) talking heads never talking about the *black* or *Hispanic* or *Asian* working class, all of whom the Democratic Party and “liberal elites” reach quite well, thank you very much?

Hint: The white working class hasn’t been in play for Democrats since 1964. No Democrat has won with a majority of the white vote in any election since then. Not Jimmie Carter. Not Bill Clinton. Not Barack Obama. None.

Hint: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed in 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1965 was passed in 1965.

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All the News that Fits 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Sander van der Linden offers five tips for spotting fake news (also known as “lies”). Here they are. Follow the link for a discussion of each one.:

1) If it sounds too ridiculous to be true, it probably is!

2) Be aware of politically framed content.

3) Facts go viral less often than falsehoods.

4) Verify the source and context.

5) Don’t get most of your news from social media websites.

Frankly, I think the last is the most important. “Social” media has become the primary vector for facilitating fakery.*

Legitimate media sometime makes mistakes, but, regardless of its political leaning, does try to keep editorials on the editorial pages and out of the news stories. That’s something that the Boston Globe and the Richmond Times-Dispatch, just to pick two from opposite ends of the newspaper spectrum, have in common.

Those who post to “social” media make no such effort, and the “social” media platforms have no interest in and make no effort to ensure that their users are either accurate or truthful, while those users are often willfully and purposefully inaccurate and untruthful.

Oh, and by the way, that a factual news story may seem unfavorable to a cause or candidate you or I favor doesn’t mean its slanted. It means you or I just don’t like it.

This is not to imply that you should be uncritical. Critical is good. But base criticism on facts, not feelings.

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*It has long puzzled me that persons will believe stuff they read on a computer screen when they wouldn’t believe the same stuff if they read it in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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On Keeping One’s Hands to Oneself 0

The Baltimore Sun’s Tricia Bishop points out the sexual misconduct can be anywhere, as it knows no party, no industry, no social strata, no political or religious affiliation. She offers some advice for men befuddled as to what constitutes acceptable behavior. Here’s the gist:

Appropriate behavior seems a hard lesson for many men to learn, for reasons my female brain cannot fathom. As I’m in a helpful mood, let me break it down in very simple terms. Just as you shouldn’t say every little thing that pops into your head, you shouldn’t act on every little sexual urge that pops into your pants.

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Hoist on the Elmer Gantry 0

Man and woman walking past newspaper box displaying the headline,

Click to see the image at its original location.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

The hunt for politeness continues.

Corwin M. Johnson, of Aurora, Minn., was in the (deer)stand near the 5800 block of Stepetz Road 53 in White Township, about 5 miles southwest of his hometown, when someone from the teen’s hunting party found him dead late Saturday afternoon, according to the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office.

Does no one teach hunting safety any more?

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