From Pine View Farm

November, 2021 archive

The Scales of Justice . . . 0

. . . and the systemic thumb upon those scales.

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The Rittenhouse Rules, Reprise 0

Via C&L, which notes, in part, that

(a) C-SPAN caller from Louisiana celebrated Thanksgiving by revealing that he is grateful that he can follow Kyle Rittenhouse’s example of legally shooting people.

Follow the link for the rest of their report.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Demonstrate politeness when showing off for “social” media.

A five-year-old child is dead following an accidental shooting by a 13 year old Thursday night, Nov. 25, police say.

(snip)

Police determined that a 13-year-old male was handling a gun and, along with several other juveniles, trying to make a video for social media. An initial investigation led police to believe the weapon was fired accidentally.

We are a broken society.

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QOTD 0

Mandell Creighton:

No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.

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There’s a Bot for That 0

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Vaccine Nation, Have Cake, Eat It Too Dept. 0

Jonathan Weisman highlights the hypocrisy of Republicans’ blocking the road to a cure, than complaining that the cure can’t get through. A nugget:

As cases surge once again in some parts of the country, Republicans have hit on a new line of attack: The president has failed on a central campaign promise — to tame the pandemic that his predecessor systematically downplayed. Democrats are incredulous, dismissing the strategy as another strand of spaghetti thrown at the wall.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates hit back hard: “If COVID-19 and inflation had lobbyists to help them kill more American jobs, Kevin McCarthy would be their favorite member of Congress,” he said. “He is actively undermining the fight against COVID, which is driving inflation.”

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The Rittenhouse Rules 0

Title:  Tips for Future Protests.  Frame One, captioned

Click for the original image.

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Vaccine Nation 0

As one who remembers images of infants in iron lungs because of polio and how vaccines made polio go away, all I can say is this:

The stupid. It burns.

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Shills 0

It would seem I’m not the only one bugged by all those sports (and other) betting ads that are now flooding my telly vision.

Bob Molinaro, sportswriter extraordinaire, has a wonder:

What’s with the Mannings’ appearance in a TV commercial for a gambling operation? Even dad Archie plays a role in the holiday-themed promotion that includes Peyton, Eli and Cooper. A terrible optic. Some of us will never understand why former athletes of wealth and fame do ads for these outfits. Do the Mannings use the betting service? My guess is no and never.

Aside:

Personally, I spell gamble “l-o-s-e” (except for that one time I hit an exacta at Delaware Park; my then-father-in-law like the play the ponies–and he was pretty good at it, too–so we’d go to the track when he visited during racing season).

I will confess that he tutored me on how to read the racing form, but I picked those two horses myself.

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Oxymoron of the Day 0

Surprise! It’s the same as yesterday’s:

“Republican Family Values.”

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Practice random acts of politeness.

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QOTD 0

Bayard Rustin:

We in America reject planning except for the private sector of the economy, so what we have is democratic socialization for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor.

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Geeking Out 0

Updating a Virtual Box virtual machine of Mint Cinnamon on Mageia v. 8 with the Fluxbox window manager.

Screenshot

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It’s All about the Algorithm 0

I recently listened to a podcast in which one of my favorite podcasters spent five minutes discussing a comment that podcaster made on Twitter. The complaint was that the person to whom the comment was directed (and which the podcaster admitted had been a mistake) had responded with a screenshot of the comment, rather than with a “quote tweet.” The podcaster’s point was that said podcaster could have responded to a “quote tweet” by admitting the response was wrong and apologizing for it, but could not respond to the screenshot. (My reaction was relief and self-congratulation that I never became a twit on Twitter.)

That such an inconsequential incident, such a tempest in a twitpot, could assume such significance, if only for a short time, is, frankly, distressing, which leads me to recommend Dr. Charles Johnson’s post at Psychology Today Blogs, in which he takes a look at how our metastasized “social” media has monopolized our attention and distorted our discourse, and at what we can do about it. Here’s a bit of what he has to day:

Machine learning algorithms don’t need ill intent or even a simple desire to maximize profit for them to have destructive effects. Instruct an algorithm to attract the maximum number of eyeballs (which is what people most often want them to do) and content that is ever more addictive and divisive becomes the natural result. Addiction is the best way to assure attention and divisive content is particularly habit-forming. Over the long term, content that actually benefits us stands little chance in this context.

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Oxymoron of the Day 0

“Republican Family Values.”

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society,” Portrait of Politeness Dept. 0

Picture of crying Kyle Rittenhoue labled

Via Juanita Jean.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society,” Militarized Manchildren Dept. 0

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Vaccine Nation 0

Death on a surf board, surfing atop a wave of anti-vax demonstrators.

Click for the original image.

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Faking a Passing a Fake 0

Wall Street’s got nothing on the Green Bay Packers.

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Blacklist “Black Friday” 0

The New Jersey Star-Ledger’s Paul Mulshine had enough of “Black Friday” (the phrase, that is) and wants it to just go away.

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