From Pine View Farm

March, 2018 archive

“The Right To Be Stupid” 0

Watch the Republican spin wildly as he attempts to blame the victim.

Via Raw Story, which provides detail and a summary.

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Facebook Frolics, Phoning Home Dept. 0

Pap and Farron discuss how Facebook has “scraped” phone calls and contacts using its Android app.

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All the News that Fits 0

Title:  The Three Branches of Government.  Image:  Picture of Capitol (labelled

Ralph Peters, ex-Fox News commentator, has more. Here’s a bit:

You could measure the decline of Fox News by the drop in the quality of guests waiting in the green room. A year and a half ago, you might have heard George Will discussing policy with a senator while a former Cabinet member listened in. Today, you would meet a Republican commissar with a steakhouse waistline and an eager young woman wearing too little fabric and too much makeup, immersed in memorizing her talking points.

This wasn’t a case of the rats leaving a sinking ship. The best sailors were driven overboard by the rodents.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/syndicated-columnists/article207476394.html#storylink=cpy

Image via Job’s Anger.

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“Get Me Rewrite!” 0

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Everything You Know Is Wrong 0

In the Raleigh News and Observer, Frank Hyman wonders why U. S. southern history is taught so incompetently. A snippet:

While historians at all levels have fixated on glorious battles and battling generals, they ignore the Articles of Secession; most Confederate states explicitly say they seceded to defend slavery. Are these concise, primary documents not making it into classrooms?

Why aren’t students learning that North Carolina voters (white males over 21 in those days) opposed secession? The slave-owners in the General Assembly overruled them and launched us into a war not wholly supported by most Tarheels.

The answer to his question is quite simple.

The South may have lost the war, but it won the peace. From the end of Reconstruction on, southern racists conducted their own reconstruction, reconstructing history to justify racism, oppression, and theft of labor.

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Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0

This is your country on Trump.

Security camera footage from a hospital emergency room in Dearborn, Michigan shows a man attacking and beating a 19-year-old Muslim woman as she checks in.

Detroit’s WDIV 4 reported Friday that attacker John Deliz, a recently-discharged patient, came up to the 19-year-old woman wearing hijab while she was checking in to see if she had broken her jaw when falling on ice earlier in the day on February 20.

The American Dream ix now the American nightmare.

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All the News that Fits 0

Sinclair Broadcasting is making its stations push wingnut propaganda. Here’s a bit of a report from SeattlePI:

Sinclair distributes the “must-runs” to affiliates every day with orders to broadcast them within 48 hours, according to a 2017 article by The New York Times.

Many KOMO employees view the segments as propaganda that doesn’t meet the station’s editorial standards, according to the Times article. In the past, they have tried to limit their exposure by scheduling them during times of low viewership.

But Wednesday’s segment shows Sinclair, which currently owns or operates 193 television stations in the U.S., has succeeded in getting the must-runs on during prime time.

I gave up on broadcast news long ago, not for being slanted (though some of it is, much more often to the right than to the left), but for being superficial.

About the only time we turn on TV news is when there’s a snowstorm . . . .

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QOTD 0

Robert van Gulik in the voice of Judge Dee (if you are not familiar with the Judge Dee mysteries, well, you should be):

If we measure our knowledge not by what we know but by what we don’t, we are just ignorant fools, Hoong, all of us.

van Gulik, Robert, “the Two Beggars” in Judge Dee at Work (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 114

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And Now for Something Completely Different 0

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Bloodsuckers 0

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Realistic Solutions 0

Danae says,

Click for the original image.

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Return of the Words 0

The Las Vegas Sun reports that someone listened to Donald Trump. Trump probably wishes he hadn’t.

A snippet (emphasis added):

In October, lawyers for the Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the Brooklyn suit, claiming that the plaintiffs in the case — a coalition of immigration lawyers and a group of Democratic state attorneys general — had failed to make a persuasive case that DACA was rolled back in September because of racial animus toward Latinos.

But in his order rejecting the motion to dismiss, Garaufis pointed directly at Trump, noting that his numerous “racial slurs” and “epithets” — both as a candidate and from the White House — had created a “plausible inference” that the decision to end DACA violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

“One might reasonably infer,” Garaufis wrote, “that a candidate who makes overtly bigoted statements on the campaign trail might be more likely to engage in similarly bigoted action in office.”

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The Court Is in Sessions 0

Jeff Sessions holding paper titled,

Click for the original image.

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A Troll under the Internet 0

In the Hartford Courant, Matthew Kauffman tells a fascinating tale of how he toyed with an internet fraudster for two weeks. From the opening of his article:

I’ve written about Internet scams before, and online swindlers are nothing if not creative, forever coming up with variations on a singular theme: Creating a credible-sounding transaction that will trick the unsuspecting into parting with thousands of dollars through untraceable means.

Give it a read.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

The hunt for politeness continues apace.

Wilson recalls seeing Hutto line up the shot with his barrel facing directly at the turkey —and in turn, at him. He thought his friend was just getting his target ready so he could get the bird when it took a few steps away from Wilson.

He was wrong. Hutto shot twice.

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The Start of the Deal 0

Reg Henry wants in on the deal. A nugget:

The reason given (for the payment of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels–ed.) is that it was to keep her from speaking about a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, which he denies ever happened. . . .

Well, I wish some lawyer would give me $130,000 to keep quiet about something that never happened. Hey, mum’s the word, as far as I am concerned. I’d take a secret like that to the grave for $130,000. In fact, I am open to negotiation — $130,000, $100,000 or $56.43. Lawyers of America, let’s make a deal.

Follow the link for the rest.

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QOTD 0

Frank Lloyd Wright:

Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.

Aside:

Bennett Cerf told the story that Wright once had to testify in court. When the attorney asked, “What is your occupation,” Wright responded, “I am the world’s greatest living architect.”

Later, a friend asked Wright how he could bring himself to say that. Wright replied, “I had to. I was under oath.”

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It Must Be True . . . . 0

Kyle D. Killian, writing as Psychology Today Blogs, analyzes the attraction of conspiracy theories. A snippet (emphasis in the original):

On occasion, conspiracy theories can be based on a rational analysis of data. But most of the time, this is not the case. Human beings have an amazing capacity to detect “meaningful patterns in the world around us and to make causal inferences” (Christopher French, Scientific American (link is external)). Humans also can see patterns and causality when they are not really there. (Statisticians refer to spurious correlations—statistical associations that appear significant between two variables, but are artifacts, not really real. Our shoe size does not determine our mathematical ability, but they are significantly correlated because shoe size is associated with age). Conspiracy theories are irresistible to some folks due to two tendencies of our species: confirmation bias and projection. In confirmation bias, we give more value to evidence that supports our beliefs and ignore evidence that conflicts with those beliefs. In projection, persons who subscribe to conspiracy theories tend to spread rumors or be suspicious of others’ motives—in other words, engage in conspiratorial behavior (French (link is external)). Since you yourself engage in such behaviors, it seems more than likely that other people are doing these very things, too.

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Little Ricky Reviews the Rules 0

Rick Santorum pointing to poster,

Via The Bob Cesca Show Blog.

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Lies and Lying Liars 2

Yes, she can make this stuff up.

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