December, 2017 archive
Flagging Interests 0
In The Roanoke Times, retired professor George McDowell discusses the dispute over the display of the Confederate Battle Ensign and monuments to the supporters of slavery and secession and does so with reasoned words. A snippet:
All the News that Fits 0
Mike discusses the Fox News propaganda machine and its campaign against Robert Mueller and the implications thereof (Warning: Language).
One Long-Standing Trivial Question Answered 0
My local rag has an interesting article about how restaurants, lodgings, and service stations are selected to appear on those “services at the next exit” signs along interstate highways.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Practice random acts of politeness.
A bullet from a high powered rifle entered the passenger cabin and hit the driver in the leg.
Just a bit of collateral damage in the NRA Garden of Eden . . . .
QOTD 0
Allen Sherman:
The difference between reality and unreality is that reality has so little to recommend it.
(Link fixed.)
Voting Is Not a Right. It Is a Duty. (Updated–Kicked to the Top) 0
Your vote matters, and don’t ever think it doesn’t.
It even matters when you don’t use it, for, in not using it, you empower others through your inaction.
You, who did not vote, are responsible for the Republican kleptocracy. Live with it.
H/T Raw Story for alerting me to this item, though I would have seen it in tomorrow’s local rag when it was delivered on my doorstep because I support my local newspaper and you should too because responsible journalism matters.
Addendum:
If you want it to count for you, you have to use it.
Light Bloggery 0
The weather.
I’m under it.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
The hunt for politeness continues.
“A subsequent investigation revealed Denton and Rolston were illegally hunting deer when Rolston accidentally shot Denton with a 20-gauge shotgun,” the release said.
I grew up with hunters in my family.
Not a one of them would have hunted anything out of season, and not a one of them was stupid enough to shoot a hunting companion.
But that was then, when the NRA was about hunting safety. not about gun sales.
The Snaring Economy 0
The EU rules that Uber is gypsy cabs with an app. Uber had tried to argue that it was an app with gypsy cabs.
(snip)
Uber had denied it was a transport company, arguing instead it was a computer services business with operations that should be subject to an EU directive governing e-commerce and prohibiting restrictions on the establishment of such organisations.
Tit for Tat 0
Jay Bookman offers a theory as to why the Republican Party went all in for the tax deform bill. A snippet:
In related news, Robert Reich runs the numbers.
“Stand and Deliver” 0
Josh Marshall tries to make sense of the Republican Party’s rush to rape the middle and lower classes with its tax bill. A snippet (emphasis added):
The Republican tax deform bill is to the poor and middle class what Harvey Weinstein was to women.
Facebook Frolics 0
Germany suggests the Facebook is being intrusive. I’m shocked, shocked, I say.
“We are mostly concerned about the collection of data outside Facebook’s social network and the merging of this data into a user’s Facebook account,” said Bundeskartellamt president Andreas Mundt.
He noted that this data gathering “even happens when, for example, a user does not press a ‘like button’ but has called up a site into which such a button is embedded.” Visiting a webpage with a Facebook ‘like’ button on it phones homes some info about the netizen to the Mark-Zuckerberg-run business, in other words.
