From Pine View Farm

May, 2022 archive

A Tune for the Times 0

Mangy comments at the Youtube page:

Though Trumpers constantly like to talk about Biden’s supposed cognitive decline, with such a limited intellect to start with, Trump’s decline is much harder to notice, since his intellect never raised to any great height. (Just ask his former professors, who have been quoted saying such things as “He was the dumbest SOB I ever taught.” Not a resounding academic endorsement.)

Recently, at a rally, Trump couldn’t remember the name of the candidate that he’d endorsed in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. He has endorsed J.D. Vance, but he said “We’ve endorsed JP…. or JD. We’ve endorsed J.D. Mandel and he’s doing great.” Josh (Not JP) Mandel is running in the primary AGAINST Trump’s endorsee. Trump created a new Frankenstein candidate, using parts of J.D. Vance and parts from Josh Mandel. Perfect really, since each one is only good for spare parts.

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Sauce for the Goose . . . 0

. . . sauce for the gander.

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The Marjorie Taylor Greene New Deal 0

Aside:

Farron missed the undercurrent. Let’s decode the code.

When right-wingers attack “welfare,” they are invoking the spirit and racist imagery of Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen.” The word “welfare” has become yet another racist dog whistle.

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History Lesson 0

Frame One:  Man reads from book titled

Via Job’s Anger.

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Stray Question 0

Why are so many persons surprised that the party of the New Secesh today’s Republican Party is acting like today’s Republican Party?

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The Reveal 0

Florida Governor DeSantis, holding a math text book, points as a poster of an equal sign while saying,

Click for the original image.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Share your politeness with your loved ones.

Investigators say the accidental shooting happened around 12:20 p.m. Monday. They believe he got the gun from an uncle.

“An uncle was visiting the residence. He does not normally live there, and he had a gun. The 9-year-old male found the gun and accidentally discharged, striking the 4-year-old in the head,” said Major Susan Cotter of Harris County Sheriff’s Office.

And again we are reminded that the elusive “responsible gun owner” is a creature of myth.

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QOTD 0

Eerik-Niiles Kross:

The United States has the luxury of being very far from the front. Unfortunately, information war isn’t geographical — so, America, welcome to the war.

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The (Kevin) McCarthy Era 0

At the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kevin McDermott discusses the core value of today’s Republican Party. Here’s a teeny-weeny bit of his article:

There was a time when such a plainly indefensible, caught-in-a-lie moment would have had consequences, if only something resembling embarrassment. For Republicans, those days are gone. McCarthy didn’t apologize for or even acknowledge his exposed duplicity. Instead, he quietly sought (and received) the only thing he cares about: absolution from Trump, whom he reportedly phoned three times in the 24 hours after the tape became public. It should come as no surprise that the former president views a willingness to shamelessly lie to the country as a feature rather than a bug in his sycophants.

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Courting Disaster 0

PoliticalProf.

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Another Voter Fraud Fraudster 2

Again, I think this is a classic example of projection.

Republicans are willing to cheat, so they believe everyone else is also willing to do so.

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Stray Thought 0

T think it can be argued that Republicans are attacking public schools and public school teachers because educated voters are inimical to their intentions.

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Freedom of Screech 0

Title:  The Absolutist.  Image:  Man:  As you know, I consider myself a principled free speech absolutist.  Sparky:  Ah, then you must be appalled by all these Republican efforts to ban books.  Man:  No, haven't really given it much though.  Does anyone still read books?  Sparky:  What about the bill in Florida prohibiting schools and businesses from inflicting

Click for the original image.

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Oversharing 0

Florida Man.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Shop with politeness.

We are a failing state.

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QOTD 0

John G. Azzopardi:

Experience can be merely the repetition of same error often enough.

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Meta: A Message to a Comment Spammer 0

From the spam commenter:

Hmm it seems like your website ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I submitted and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I too am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to the whole thing. Do you have any tips for first-time blog writers? I’d definitely appreciate it.

Yes indeedy-do. And it will continue to eat your spam comments and spit them back out.

Hoick! Ptui!

Aside:

The spam was not in the faux comment itself; that seemed innocent enough, like the quotation above. It was in the commenter’s (purported) email address, which linked to a hinky website.

It was not the first comment linking to said hinky website. It was more like the eleventy-first. And it will certainly not be the last.

Fortunately, I have software that catches the creeps and quarantines them so I can evaluate (and delete) them at my leisure. You have no idea how many creeps it has caught since I first blundered into the blogosphere a decade and a half ago. Heck, neither do I! But it’s well into the hundreds, if not the thousands.

Said software has served me and my two or three regular readers well.

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The CliffsNotes History of Mankind 0

Thor and Clumsy Carp are looking at a bee hive.  Thor says,

Click for the original image.

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Phoning It In 0

At the Portland Press-Herald, Victoria Hugo-Vidal, whose job involves dealing with health insurance companies, describes dealing with “customer service” robots.

If you’ve ever spent 45 minutes or an hour trying to get through to a real live human being, only to be disconnected (thank you, land line telephone company), you will be able to empathize with her. Here’s a bit.

I’ve found the best way to deal with it is to make my own voice as robotic as possible. I take deep breaths and empty my mind. I pretend that I, too, am a robot. Robots don’t care about being on hold for 25 minutes. Robots don’t think about how terrible our health care system is. Robot secretary has one goal: Retrieve numerical code that will enable patient to obtain vital test.

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Craven Images 0

Leonard Pitts, Jr., muses on what happens when you create your God in your own image. Here’s a bit; follow the link for the rest.

The Bible says God created mankind “in his own image.” But many alleged conservatives invert that. They create the deity in their image, a God who thinks and acts like them, who bears their limitations and biases, their solipsism and illogicality, their mendacity and abiding fear.

And they hold to that false deity with ferocious vigor. Author Eddy Harris once described a conversation with a white woman in Mississippi whose mother belonged to a whites-only church in the 1960s. The older woman was asked whether Jesus would have allowed African Americans to worship in his church. “Of course he would have,” she said, “but Jesus would have been wrong.”

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