From Pine View Farm

August, 2019 archive

Facebook Frolics 0

Livestreamed frolics.

Christalmighty, “social” media is the incubator of stupid.

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The Pusher Men 0

Transcript here.

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QOTD 0

Ricky Gervais:

There’s no difference between fame and infamy now. There’s a new school of professional famous people that don’t do anything. They don’t create anything.

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Hoodoo Economics 0

Paul Krugman marvels at the zombie-like staying power of the Laughable Curve.

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The Watchers 0

The IoT is spreading its voyeuristic web. Now it’s doorbell cameras being made available to law enforcement.

From the story (emphasis added):

The partnerships allow police to request footage from Ring devices in area up to half a square mile wide within a certain amount of time, the company told the Post. Law enforcement agencies can’t access live video or receive ongoing access.

Ring users can decline video access requests by police officers.

I am certain that there’s no way this guarantee can be circumvented. After all, we never hear news stories about outfits getting hacked, do we?

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Still Rising Again after All These Years 0

Facing South takes a deep dive into North Carolina’s gerrymandering and, in particular, how it has affected judicial elections. It seems that North Carolina Republicans have decided that, if you can’t win ’em, gerrymander ’em.

An excerpt:

North Carolina legislators’ desire to change the courts and judicial elections coincided with their repeated losses in voting rights cases, including lawsuits over gerrymandering at all levels of government. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld rulings that North Carolina’s election districts for both Congress and the state legislature were racially gerrymandered.

The effort to redraw judicial election districts began in the spring of 2017, when (Former state Rep. Justin–ed.) Burr introduced a plan to quickly redraw districts for judges and prosecutors around the state. An early map would have placed more than half of the state’s black district court judges in a district with another incumbent, according to NC Policy Watch.

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Hidden Motives 0

Title:  Suspicious Minds.  Frame One, captioned

Click for the original image.

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Golly Gosh G-7 0

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Base Desires 0

Martin Longman is an optimist.

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Twits on Twitter 0

Peak caucasity.

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QOTD 0

Fyodor Dostoyevsky:

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

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It’s Deja Vu All Over Again 0

Writing at The Kansas City Star, Tom Coleman argues that Donald Trump is turning the United States into the new Finland. A snippet:

The Soviet Union used deceit and espionage to implement Finlandization. Sixty years later, many of the same tactics utilized against the Finns have been deployed by Russia against the U.S., including its successful efforts to elect Trump president. Attempts to neutralize the U.S. continue with Putin, a former KGB agent, imposing his will by developing and cultivating a seemingly friendly personal relationship with Trump.

If Putin is successful, America will no longer be in control of her destiny.

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The Truth Is in the Labelling 0

Image:  Donald and Ivanka Trump branded products bearing

Via Job’s Anger.

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The Fire This Time 0

Will Bunch muses on the legacy of David Koch.

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

A false alarm Trumpling.

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Picking the Public Purse 0

Thom explains the “Medicare disAdvantage” scam.

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Just Another Day in NRA Paradise 0

Man and woman stand outside of

Click for the original image.

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Happy Birthday to Me 3

This blog is 14 years old today.

See the first post.

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QOTD 0

Paul Claudel:

It is fortunate that diplomats have long noses since they usually cannot see beyond them.

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Sunset Strip 0

South Carolina man hits a bad streak.

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