From Pine View Farm

August, 2019 archive

It’s All about the Algorithm, “Googling Is Believing” Dept. 0

David and his guest discuss how the internet feeds confirmation bias.

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The Offsprung 0

Title:  The Chicken and the Egg.  Image:  Frightened looking chicking labeled

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QOTD 0

Tommy Douglas:

Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.

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Geeking Out 0

Listening to Richard Diamond, Private Detective, starring Dick Powell, from the Old Time Radio Network Library on Real Player in a VirtualBox virtual machine of Windows 8 on Ubuntu MATE using the Fluxbox window manager on my Zareason media box.

Screenshot

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Just Because You Read It Somewhere Don’t Make It True 0

In the Portland Press-Herald, Greg Kesich dissects several Republican disinformation campaigns and offers some hints for separating spotting the cons. A snippet:

I know it sounds cynical, but as I get older I’ve observed that people don’t always say what they mean.

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Plastic Here, Plastic There, Plastic Plastic Everywhere 0

There’s plastic every where. Here’s an excerpt for the story in The Denver Post:

There are no limits in place, or standards, for this type of pollution, and federal scientists suggested the “microplastics” come from clothing through laundry drier vents, household materials such as tarps, and packaging that degrades, releasing bits that blow in the wind and wash into water — and presumably are evaporated into the atmosphere.

USGS scientists found more plastic particles in water samples drawn from the urban sites — which followed a line from the National Jewish Hospital in east Denver through downtown to Arvada, the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge, the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus and Boulder Canyon.

But Wetherbee and his team also found frequent plastics contamination in water samples drawn at a mountain site near Nederland and at a relatively isolated Loch Vale site at an elevation of 10,364 feet above sea level beneath towering peaks in Rocky Mountain National Park — a watershed that scientists have monitored for more than 20 years for chemical contamination from wind and rain.

(Why do I see a move to Kansas City in these researchers’ future?)

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How Far Will Wells Fargo? 0

One more time, pretty damn far.

Aside:

There is no truth to the rumor that Wells-Fargo is led by a “Godfather of the Board.”

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The Tower 0

Title:  Trump Tower.  Image:  Donald Trump at podium as voice balloonw containing his lies form a tower behing him:

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Facebook Frolics 0

Not ready for prime time frolics.

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Closing the Door 0

Statue of Liberty bearing plaque reading,

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QOTD 0

Indro Montanelli:

Men do not know how to appreciate or measure luck except that of others. Their own never.

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A Tune for the Times 0

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Misdirection Play, Dance of the Devious Dept. 0

The Portland Press-Herald’s Bill Nemitz searches for straight answers about agitators for armed assaults of assembled Americans, but encounters a veritable vacuum of veracity.

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Dishing the Dirt 0

Of course this happened in Florida.

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The March of Regress 0

Title:  The Evolutionary Dead End  Image:  Fish crawling on to land to evolve.  Lead fish, wearing a KKK hood. points for the others to go back where they came from.   One asks,

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Mails of the Trumpling 0

Elie Mystal reads his email.

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The Perverted Yield Curve 0

Title:  The Real Inverted Yield Curve.  Image:  To the right, a pot of money labeled

Via Job’s Anger.

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Republican Family Values 0

The Des Moines Register’s Rekha Basu comments on Congressman Steve King’s (R-Cloud Cuckoo Land) defense of rape and incest. A snippet:

Accused rapists have long defended themselves by claiming it didn’t happen, or the victim “asked for it,” maybe by dressing too provocatively. But never, to my knowledge, has a defense rested on a claim that rape itself isn’t such a bad thing.

Follow the link and read the rest.

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QOTD 0

Kinky Friedman:

Politics is the only field in which the more experience you have, the worse you get.

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All That Was Old Is New Again 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Rosemary K. M. Sword and Philip Zimbardo point out that we’ve been here before. A nugget:

We’ve been here before, too: people of color speaking up for civil rights and being mocked, belittled, and worse.

Follow the link for the rest of the article.

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