From Pine View Farm

Masters of the Universe category archive

This New Gilded Age 0

Red-hatted man leaning on a Tesla Cyber Truck says to a crowd of people holding a

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Microaggressors 0

The Wizard is walking past a snowman.  He says,

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“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0

Michael in Norfolk hears a most distressing rhyme.

___________________

*Mark Twain.

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This New Gilded Age 0

Title:  The Broligarchy Salute.  Image:  Billionaires giving a Nazi salute to Trump.  Elon Musk says,

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The Crypto Con in This New Gilded Age 0

Here’s the lede, via Truthout. Follow the link for the details

A Bitcoin advocacy group pushing President-elect Donald Trump to stockpile massive amounts of cryptocurrency and state-level efforts to do the same is run by fossil fuel operatives fighting to eliminate environmental regulations, including the author of the Project 2025 proposal to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency.

Not that those pushing crypto might have any ulterior motives . . . .

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No Place To Hide 0

There’s a reason internet companies make their terms of service virtually unreadable.

It enables stuff like this.

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This New Gilded Age 0

SFgate’s Drew Magary minces few words about our new robber barons.

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The Entitlement Society 0

Boy, if this isn’t a manifestation of the entitlement society, I don’t know what is.

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Fly the Fiendly Skies 0

You just might fall to the ground go Bo(e)ing! Bo(e)ing!

At The Seattle Times, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks look at what went wrong at Boeing. A snippet:

Boeing is a great American company, but it is rotting. The rot comes directly from its leadership, leadership that got rich not because they are committed to building great airplanes, but by cutting costs and pushing out the skilled engineers who are the lifeblood of the company. Boeing claims to be turning a corner, but its actions betray any real commitment to safety.

Follow the link for their reasoning.

And, in more news of the fiendly skies . . . .

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The Fee Hand of the Market 0

Woman to pharmacist:  What's the most common side effect of this drug.  Pharmacist:  Bankruptcy.

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This New Gilded Age 0

Sam and his crew discuss Fran Drescher’s comments on the Hollywood strikes.

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Fiduciary Schmiduciary 0

Meet a Wells-Fargo wannabe.

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Digital Security Theatre 0

Bruce Schneir thinks that the efforts to ban TikTok, which seems to be the new “in” thing in the West, miss the point. A snippet:

If we want to address the real problem, we need to enact serious privacy laws, not security theater, to stop our data from being collected, analyzed, and sold—by anyone. Such laws would protect us in the long term, and not just from the app of the week. They would also prevent data breaches and ransomware attacks from spilling our data out into the digital underworld, including hacker message boards and chat servers, hostile state actors, and outside hacker groups. And, most importantly, they would be compatible with our bedrock values of free speech and commerce, which Congress’s current strategies are not.

The entire article is worth a read.

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And Now for a Musical Interlude 0

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Twits Who Would Own Twitter 0

SFGate’s Drew Magary phones it in.

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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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How Far Will Wells-Fargo? 0

Pretty damned far.

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Twits on Twitter 0

A rules-don’t-apply-to-me twit.

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The Never-Ending Misdirection Play 0

Home:  Plutocrat looking at a woman and a MAGA-hatted man arguing.  Caption:  They got you fighting a culture war to stop you from fighting a class war.

Via Job’s Anger.

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Exports 0

At The Roanoke Times, Nancy Liebrecht reminds us that American manufacturing jobs didn’t go overseas on their own.

American companies moved them there.

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