2022 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness at the junction of on ramp and through lane:
Facebook Frolics 0
There is a larger moral here, larger than that Facebook is a ginormous kludge.
- Don’t log into third party sites using your Google, Facebook, or other password.
- Create a unique password for every site.
If you are worried about keeping track of all those passwords, use KeepassXC. It’s local, meaning the data remains on your computer, not in the cloud on somebody else’s computer; the databases are portable, meaning that, if you update the database on one machine, you just have to copy the updated database to your other machines; and, if you are an Android user, it’s compatible with KeepassDroid.
I’ve used it through several iterations (it started as KeepassX, which is no longer maintained) for nearly a decade now; it’s the bee’s knees and the cat’s meow.
Fly the Fiendly Skies 0
The fiendliness is mushrooming.
Twits on Twitter 0
Michelle Goldberg admits that she can’t quit Twitter, if for no other reason that it’s a source of breaking news. She also recognizes that, too often, “social” media isn’t.
So she clutches at a straw:
Follow the link for the rest of the broom.
The Galt and the Lamers 0
David talks with Professor Andrew Koppelman about Libertarian delusions about the role of government. Koppelman points out that
the formula of the Republican Party for a long time has been to talk populist while doing big favors for rich supporters.
Trickle-On Economics and the New Gilded Age 0
Robert Reich calls out the con. A snippet:
In reality, there’s no justification for today’s extraordinary concentration of wealth at the very top. It’s distorting our politics, rigging our markets, and granting unprecedented power to a handful of people.
Follow the link for his reasoning.
Freedom of Screech 0
Jonathan Friedman of PEN America argues forcefully that the current crusade against books, particularly books available to students, is ideologically driven and unprecedented in the level of coordination amongst the anti-idea brigades and that it is part of a larger crusade against public education in general. Here’s a bit from his article:
In Walton, Florida, when the superintendent decided to yank two dozen books off school library shelves, for example, he told the press, “I haven’t read one paragraph of the books at this time.” His decision to pull those titles was done unilaterally, based on a list emailed to him by one of these advocacy groups. Those groups somehow held more sway than the views of teachers, librarians and parents who disagreed with the bans in the district.
The entire article is worth the three or four minutes it will take you to read it.
The Disinformation Superhighway, Fatted Pig Dept. 0
Cezary Podkul offers guidelines to avoid falling prey to an on-line “Pig Butchering” con. Here’s the opening of his article; follow the link for a detailed analysis of how the scam is worked:
“Pig butchering,” as the technique is known — the phrase alludes to the practice of fattening a hog before slaughter — originated in China, then went global during the pandemic.
Via the Progressive Populist.
(Broken link fixed.)
QOTD 0
Ted Danson, in the voice of Dr. John Becker:
Frankly, I’d pay extra for a device that would make it harder for the world to find me.
Little did he know how prescient he was.
Stray Thought 0
I did not know that Cardinal Richelieu invented the table knife.
The Fife and Dumb Corps 0
When I was a young ‘un, back in the olden days, I had a summer job for three years with the local health department. It was a fun job working with a mobile clinic for migrant agricultural workers. We would move the clinic, which was in a modified house trailer, to various locations convenient to the local labor camps (that was the term) over the course of the week. Local doctors and nurses volunteered to offer medical care (they may have gotten some small remuneration, but I can guarantee it wasn’t much).
That’s when I learned how to back a trailer (an experience that came in handy years later when I bought a trailer boat). The downside was that whatever darned fool designed the clinic put the dentist’s office in the back, when it should have been over the wheels (dentist equipment is heavy), making it difficult to tow because the balance was out of whack, but that’s another story.
Anyhoo, it took me a while to figure out why the health department building had four restrooms and two drinking fountains.
Then I got it. It was built in the days of “white” and “colored.” (Not that those days have gone away, but at least the signs have.)
As a Southern boy who grew up under Jim Crow, I understand why some humans are so eager to deny the humanity of other humans.
It gives them a reason to feel special.
Especially when they know they are not.
When the Stream Becomes a Flood 0
Thanks to the internet, we now have a vaster wasteland.
“To . . . Promote the General Welfare” 0
Forty years of Republicanomics have taken their toll.
