2018 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
When someone offers to assist you in your time of need, respond politely.
Orlando Police say a 16-year-old boy, whose home is near the 528, approached to the driver to see if he needed help.
The boy’s mother told police that the driver pulled out a gun and asked her son if he had a credit card and a car.
She says that her son said no and ran back home, where she could call 911.
QOTD 0
Rex Stout, in the voice of Archie Goodwin:
There is no point in being rude when you can end a conversation quicker by being polite.
Stout, Rex, Plot It Yourself, (New York: Bantam, 1977), p. 77.
Upcoming Strategies To Gut Out the Vote 0
Juanita Jean adds context (follow the link for more):
The Bend of History 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear looks back at World War I and then at the fool who declared that the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow signified “the end of history,” and observes that
Follow the link for the full post.
Lurkers in the Dark, Reprise 0
The Sunday New York Times Magazine explores how and why law enforcement misread the threat of right-wing domestic terrorism.
It’s a long, complex, and depressing tale and, unfortunately, required reading for our times.
The Sessions Is Adjourned 0
Despite any ancillary circumstances, Tony Norman can’t find it in him to regret the firing of Jeff Sessions. A snippet:
Even as Mr. Trump regularly berated him on Twitter as “weak,” Mr. Sessions used his knowledge of the arcane ways of Washington to effectively undermine every reasonable expectation of justice on every level. Like a beaten dog that never tires of licking the hand of its abusive master, Mr. Sessions was always eager to please the president with some nefarious act of cruelty after disappointing him in the one matter that meant the most to him.
The abbreviated version of the sins of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III as attorney general reads like a reverse polaroid of American values.
Follow the link for the bill of particulars.
Scooflaws 0
My local rag reports that Bird, the outfit that’s randomly dropping scooters all over the country, holds itself above the law (that’s my words, not theirs). Here’s a bit:
Bird now owes $362,800 to the University of Georgia and $32,000 to Santa Cruz, California. Virginia Beach has impounded 205 scooters and is owed $1,700, as of Oct. 31.
And that’s just the beginning. Bird scooters have been reported in the cities of Nashville, Cleveland, Denver, Salt Lake City, Ann Arbor and Greensboro, North Carolina, just to name a few, according to news reports. . . .
“I think it’s very difficult to look at one locality and see the big picture,” he (Graham Henshaw, executive director of the Alan B. Miller Entrepreneurship Center at the College of William & Mary–ed.) said. “What they’re trying to do is blanket the entire country in scooters.”
The story goes on to report that Bird does not respond to inquiries from government agencies and doesn’t seem interested in getting its scooters out of impound.
I’m not quite sure how the characterize this, but the phrase, “arrogant, greedy SOBs” comes to mind.
Russian Impulses 0
Shaun Mullen admits that he is an optimist.
Disinformation Society 0
David argues that high voter turnout is good, even if many of the voters are uninformed. He makes some interesting points.
Hactivist 0
Jay Bookman suggests that, as regards his selecting Mark Whitaker as “acting Attorney-General,” Donald Trump knew exactly what he was doing. A nugget:
Follow the link for the rest.
Upgrade 0
I upgraded my Debian box from Stretch to Buster this evening.
Next stop, Sid, aka Debian unstable. AFIC, Debian unstable is more stable than most distros’ stable.
Later the Next Day:
When I went to update the software today (Debian Testing issues frequent updates because, well, it’s testing stuff), I ran into a little problem. Some directories were missing from root’s (that’s the “Administrator” in Linux) path and apt-get complained, then rolled over and played dead.
I was able to fix the problem thanks to this article. I sent the webmaster a thank you email, as I was unable to add a comment to the article.
As an aside, updating Linux is a lot easier than updating Windows. The process is generally transparent to the user and does not require a reboot unless a new kernel has been installed.