2020 archive
Rand Gestures 0
Rand Paul said it out loud: Republicans don’t want citizens to vote.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness is so easy that even a child can do it.
Facebook Frolics, Rule of Lawless Dept. 0
Afterthought:
It is both amazing and appalling that this person and those like her are willing to sacrifice America’s democracy on the altar of Donald Trump.
Recommended Reading 0
Josephine Tey’s Inspector Grant novels.
I first read these [mumble] years ago in high school. My high school library had two anthologies entitled Three by Tey and Four, Five, and Six by Tey (how they ended up in my high school library I will never know). In looking for something to distract me from current events and being a mystery buff, I remembered them and purchased the six Inspector Grant mysteries.
They are as good as I remembered them to be.
Facebook Frolics 0
Cathy O’Neil skewers the Zuckerborg’s argument that it is to big and complex to break up. A snippet (emphasis added). As an aside, I suspect that U. S. Steel, American Sugar, and other trusts busted by Teddy Roosevelt made similar arguments.
Really? No doubt, the breakup would be difficult for Facebook’s managers, who rely on data sharing among WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook to create the most complete possible profiles of users and then sell their attention to the highest bidder. If the companies were separated, all the investment they’d been making into surveillance and targeting wouldn’t immediately work out as well as they had hoped. For them, the product is the advertising, not the service to users.
An Authority on Authoritarianism 0
Thom and his guest discuss the workings of authorianism.
Squatter-in-Chief 0
Apparently, because Mar-a-Lago is legally a “club,” it cannot also be a permanent residence.
The story goes on to report that there is history of friction between Mar-a-Lago and its neighbors. Follow the link for details.
“The Tribe That Lost Its Head” 0
Writing for The Roanoke Times, Llewellyn King marvels at the malice. A snippet; follow the link for the rest.
We are on a war footing against COVID-19. It has invaded our homeland, and it is slaughtering us. Nearly 300,000 are dead and the vast hospital network in the United States is overwhelmed.
(snip)
The first line of defense against this common enemy, this indiscriminate killer, is a simple piece of layered cloth or paper held over the nose and mouth by cloth or elastic strings. It is a face mask, the simplest of defensive weapons.
But there is in the United States a tribe that has lost its head, reminiscent of Nicholas Monserrat’s great novel of 1956.
Know Them by the Company They Keep That Keeps Them
0
Farron wonders why that, even if Kelly Loeffler does not know neo-Nazi Chester Doles (and Farron concedes that she likely does not), Chester Doles is a Loeffler fan-boy.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Friends should be polite to each other.