From Pine View Farm

Author's archive

The American Devolution 0

Title:  If today's Republicans wwer around in 1776.  Image:  Mike Johnson and man labled

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Over and Over Again 0

Via the Las Vegas Sun, Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Eric Foster argues that he sees a pattern in Donald Trump’s history.

I think he’s onto something. Go see for yourself.

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This New Gilded Age 0

Theft of labor. It’s a thing.

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Republican Thought Police 0

Apparently, Kansas Republicans believe that, if schools don’t teach abour America’s history of slavery, segregation, racial discrimination, and bigotry, then, well, it must have never happened.

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How Stuff Works: The Crypto Con 0

Non Sequitur pictures the process.

Afterthought:

If Carlo Ponzi were alive today, he’d be selling crypto and NFTs.

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Devolution 0

The Rude One is not sanguine.

(Warning: Rudeness.)

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QOTD 0

St. Jerome:

Opulence is always the result of theft, if not committed by the actual possessor, then by his predecessor.

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A Tune for the Times 0

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Secure? Security maven Bruce Schneier notes that

Unlike traditional computing systems that strictly separate executable code from user data, LLMs process all input—whether it is a system command, a user’s email, or a retrieved document—as a single, undifferentiated sequence of tokens. There is no architectural boundary to enforce a distinction between trusted instructions and untrusted data. Consequently, a malicious instruction embedded in a seemingly harmless document is processed with the same authority as a system command.

Click to read the whole article.

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American Stasi 0

Via Boston.com, one man, whose only offense was overstaying his visa and marrying an American woman, tells his story. Here’s a tiny bit:

Culleton told an Irish radio station about his detention at the ERO East Montana ICE Detention Camp in El Paso, Texas, describing poor sanitation and hygiene at the facility along with rampant sickness.

“It’s like a modern day concentration camp. We’ve got no human rights down here,” Culleton said. “People are starving, people are sick, people are tired … It’s just hell down here. Hell on earth. I wouldn’t wish it on any human being at all.”

Follow the link for the full account, including, natch, the Trump maladministration’s claims that, au contraire my sweet, staying in their camps is akin to vacationing at a Hilton or a Marriott.

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Precedented 0

In a letter to the editor of my local rag, David Campbell compiles an impressive list of almost a dozen presidential precedents for the actions of the head of the Trump maladministration.

Here’s one presidential precedent; follow the link for the rest.

Like Trump, many presidents were overtly racist. Twelve were slaveholders. President Woodrow Wilson screened “The Birth of a Nation,” glorifying the KKK.

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Republican Thought Police 0

Michael in Norfolk points out that now they’re coming for your “social” media posts.

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Typhoid Mary Measles Bobby 0

Picture of cigaret burning in ashtray labeled

Click for the original image.

And, in more news of Meales Bobby . . . .

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

It appears that politeness is not longer just going to for the dogs.

Now it’s also going to for the cats.

We are a broken society.

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The “Candy-Coated Carapace” 0

Driftglass looks under the hood(s) of today’s Republican Party. A snippet:

However you measure modern political history, the media’s unwritten rule of politics during this era has been to allow the Republican party to get away with this bit of legerdemain. Everyone understood that, starting with the Powell Memo and Nixon’s Southern Strategy, the base of the party was going to be comprised largely of bigots and imbeciles — Archie Bunker chumps who listened to Limbaugh and watched Fox News.

Ah, but the thin, outer shell of the party would be a candy-coated carapace of respectable front men and women who would not embarrass themselves on “Meet the Press”, would know which wine paired with what at Beltway cocktail parties, and wouldn’t run screaming into the night for fear choosing the wrong Italian meat for their sammich.

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QOTD 0

Calgacus:

They plunder, they slaughter, and they steal: this they falsely name Empire, and where they make a wasteland, they call it peace.

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A Tune for the Times 0

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The Rule of Lawless 0

Reuters runs the numbers:

Hundreds of judges around the country have ruled more than 4,400 times since October that President Donald Trump’s administration is detaining immigrants unlawfully, a Reuters review of court records found.

The decisions amount to a sweeping legal rebuke of Trump’s immigration crackdown. Yet the administration has continued jailing people indefinitely even after courts ruled the policy was illegal.

More numbers at the link.

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Hoist on His Own Petard 0

Man says,

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Trumpled Olympians 0

Mary Trump discusses how American Olympic athletes have pushed back against Donald Trump’s attach on one of their own for having the unmitigated gall to exercise his freedom of speech and express an unfavorable opinion of the Trumpling.

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