2017 archive
The Trumpled Year in Review 0
Donald Drezner is cautiously optimistic. A summary of his argument would seem to be, “It could be worse.” A nugget (emphasis added):
This is, to be clear, no thanks to Trump himself. One way the system could have worked was if the president learned the norms and rules of the presidency and adapted to them. That hasn’t happened — if anything, the opposite has occurred. Trump’s behavior has gotten worse. He clearly views himself as a monarch more than a president, taking credit for anything good and claiming he has powers that he does not. He has tried to cajole the FBI and Department of Justice to investigate his political opponents.
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“Call 911” 0
Alex Steed shares a story of privilege.
Firefox 57 First Look 0
Firefox 57 came in an upgrade to Slackware –Current today. I have not tested it extensively, but here are my first impressions.
I did not put a stopwatch on it, but it is indeed noticeably, even significantly faster.
It left my privacy settings intact (such as no third party cookies, delete history on exit). It also left my preferred search engine (Startpage) still set as default.
It did not touch my bookmarks or any of the appearance themes I’ve installed.
It did break my extensions, but there are already a number of compatible extensions available. I found substitutes for what I consider my most important plugins (classic NoScript and speed dial). I’m still looking for a proper user agent changer plugin. If classic NoScript becomes available for it, I’ll probably go back to that.
It came with an activated “Gnome Shell Integration” plugin, which I turned off.
It also synced, following my existing sync settings. (That’s I how ended up with two script blockers on Firefox 52 on the laptop–I disabled classic NoScript and went with the new one).
So far v. 57 looks like a nice piece of work.
“Come into My Parlor” 0
California man recreates Sherlock Holmes’s sitting room with period items.
You can hear him discuss the process with the Baker Street Babes.
The Best People . . . 0
Well, maybe not.
The New Pharisees 0
David Von Drehle does not mince words about Roy Moore. Here are a few of his words:
This self-righteous popinjay, running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate, has inspired mostly silence from the respectable pulpits of Alabama. It seems we Christians are well practiced at averting our eyes from the lurid sideshows beneath our big tent: the willfully ignorant Young Earth creationists, the cartoonish faith healers, the tearful televangelists caught with a hand in the till or a prostitute on the side.
Aside:
It’s been a long time since I saw “popinjay” in a sentence.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Be polite to your fellow congregants.
A man spoke up and said he carries his everywhere he goes. He pulled the gun out, emptied the magazine and chamber, and then started passing the gun around.
Once the gun came back around to its owner, police say the man put the magazine back in and recharged the chamber, but accidentally squeezed the trigger. The gun went off, hitting himself in the hand and his wife in the abdomen.
Had more persons at the meeting been packing, no doubt this would not have happened.
Family Matters 0
Thom discusses the analogy of government as father and how it can help our understanding of conservative and liberal worldviews.
Promises, Promises 0
Jay Bookman thinks that Republicans have got it backwards. A snippet:
I think it’s even more basic than that: Their current political problems are caused by the fact that their promises suck . . . .
Follow the link for his reasoning.
“Gimme That Roy Moore Religion” 0
Tony Norman tries to figure out Judge Roy Moore’s* religious creed.
Read it; I tried to pick a snippet, but it defied snippage.
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*It seems “Judge” is his adopted first name.
