2022 archive
Trump NDA DOA 0
Full Disclosure:
I once had a job that required me to sign an NDA.
In my case, though, I was working for a tech company with intellectual property and patents to protect, not for a con artist and charlatan with slimy things to hide.
Russian Impulses 0
The Portland Press-Herald’s Victoria Hugo-Vidal discusses Putin’s precedent for Florida’s (and other states”) codifying hate over sexual identity in law.
The Wanna-be Emperor Has No Suit 0
At Above the Law, Liz Dye reports on Hillary Clinton’s lawyers response to Donald Trump’s ludicrous RICO suit. A snippet:
When Stirring the Pot Means Slipping the Mickey 0
I have been to Florida many times for both business and pleasure. True, it’s been a couple of decades since my last visit, but, I swear, it seemed to be, as my old doctor used to say, “within normal limits” back then.
Toxic Noxious Masculinity
0
Rebecca Watson skewers (you will pardon the expression) Tucker Carlson’s great balls of fire.
We are a society of stupid.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Guns and stupid, guns and stupid.
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you brother,
You can’t have one without the other.
Florida Man Does the Math 0
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
The plantation mentality–it’s still a thing.
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
Der Spiegel interviews British historian Antony Beevor about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
It is a fascinating read. Beevor sees many echoes of Russia’s imperial past (and echoes of previous military miscalculations) in what is happening right now. Here’s one exchange:
Beevor: Putin’s distorted mindset, obsessed with the triumphant war against Nazism, has turned everything inside out. Isn’t it a great propaganda task to liberate the enemy of Nazism? Putin and his ideologues grotesquely depict the Ukrainians as born-again Nazis who need to be eliminated and re-educated, as the utterly manic article in RIA Novosti by Timofei Sergeitsev describes. The role of liberator from Nazism did indeed give the Red Army the idea that it could behave as it wanted both personally and politically. It was a notion of superiority. Rights of conquest meant not only imposing a Soviet regime on neighboring states. It also involved the comprehensive looting of the country as a form of reparation, and the idea that what Ilya Ehrenburg called “the blonde witch” – German women and girls – should pay for their menfolk’s crimes in the Russian motherland.
All the News that Fits 0
Thom explores why Republicans seem to be so susceptible to fake news.
Maskless Marauders 0
It’s been a while since I last read the Declaration of Independence, but, to the best of my recollection, nowhere in it did the Founders argue that persons have an inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the perpetuation of a pestilence.”
Driving to Distractions 0
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gene Collier is not enamored of all the tech in his new car. A snippet:
Well too late, my intrepid researcher.
(snip)
Frankly, I’d love to act as if the vehicle doesn’t have any of this stuff, but the vehicle continues to flaunt it. My ever-changing instrument cluster is consistently flashing unsolicited messages such as “Keep both hands on the wheel,” and “Lead car has departed,” comments that seem about a step removed from “Don’t pick your nose.”
Thank heavens, my new(er) car is free of most of the nagware. The most annoying thing is that, when the fuel gets low, it displays a message reading “[mumble] miles to empty,” as if I am incapable of seeing the fuel gauge right in front of me. I have to punch the okay button on the steering wheel to make it go away, but at least it goes away until the next time I start the car.
Other than that, though, it pretty much lets me drive it; it doesn’t try to drive me.
