From Pine View Farm

Armed and Ingenous 0

Washington State is currently considering a bill to regulate bump stocks, such as the one used in the Law Vegas shooting. The Seattle Times’s Danny Westneat is not sanguine about its chances of passage.

The issue of guns causes America to lose its faculties. Nowhere was that on more vigorous display than during a gun-control debate this past week in our state Legislature.

It was a 20-minute tour of the absurd rhetorical lengths to which the gun-rights crowd will go to try shooting down even the most modest attempts at slowing the country’s mass-shooting carnage.

Follow the link for his reasoning.

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Science Schmience 0

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Did You Grok the Memo? 0

Jim Wright did.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Politeness is child’s play.

“The 13-year-old learned the combination of the gun safe, and took out a Marlin .22 rifle from the safe,” said Sheriff Nathan Dreckman.

The rifle was loaded and unloaded multiple times, but at one point the gun fired when the boys thought it was unloaded.

“Unfortunately, there was still one round in the chamber and the rifle discharged,” Dreckman said.

The 8-year-old boy was hit in the face below the left nostril.

. . . and another gun that fired itself.

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A Matter of Perspective 0

Title:  Location, Location, Location.  Image:  Inland city thinking to itself,

Click for the original image.

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The Milk of Human Slimeness 0

http://juanitajean.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/23fabdc6-b553-4f85-be55-5b1ee1b1d662.jpg

Via Juanita Jean.

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QOTD 0

No matter our background, we all have crazy families.

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Not Neutrality 0

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The Stink 0

Television shows pictures labeled


Click for a larger image.

I have wondered before in these electrons which is most corrupt, the IOC, FIFA, or the NCAA.

My question has been answered.

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The Genius Has Left the Stable 0

In the Bangor Daily News, Robert Klose makes the case that Donald Trump is a genius, in one particular way. Here’s a bit of the piece (emphasis added):

The thing is, President Trump is correct. He is a genius. I have never doubted this. As I watched the last presidential campaign unfold, and while others recoiled at his utterings and his antics, I quietly mouthed, “He will be the next president of the United States.”

Refer again to my comment about a genius being someone who possesses exceptional abilities or insights in a specific field. In Trump’s case, it is his genius for reading people. An inveterate New Yorker, he knew better than to lay his toxic bait in the cities, where urbanites had long ago pegged him as a charlatan. Rather, he went on safari and found appetites for his vulgar hogwash in the rural American underbelly.

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An Appropriate Standard 0

Sean Wilentz suggests that the best way to evaluate the performance if Donald Trump is not to compare it with that of the nation’s best presidents, but with that of the worst.

Aside:

He makes Warren G. Harding look good.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Discovering politeness in unexpected places.

A 4-year-old boy is in critical condition after police say he accidentally shot himself.

Authorities say the child was shot in the face around 4:30 p.m. in Warren.

According to police the child found the gun in a car.

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Jim Crow 2.0 0

At Above the Law, Elie Mystal argues convincingly and disturbingly that the Republican Party is working to re-establish American apartheid. The most disturbing part of his argument is the “convincingly” bit.\

Here’s an excerpt:

What the Justice Department is trying to do is transparently racist. They’re trying to intimidate non-citizens into not filling out the forms, out of fear that ICE will come for them. They’ve done all the work into making ICE a paramilitary gestapo, and this is step two. We know that during Hurricane Harvey, immigrants were running away from help in order to avoid being entrapped by ICE agents. Ignoring the Census form is a comparatively easy call.

(snip)

We have a word for what Republicans are trying to do: apartheid. That’s what we call it when a racially homogeneous population tries to rule a larger population through rules and laws that prevent the larger population from exercising political power. With this Census trick, Republicans are trying to make it so that many brown people are not even counted.

Do please read the rest.

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A Bonanza of Bogosity 0

Thom and Congressman Pocan discuss the Nunes memo and conclude that there’s no there there, as well as the Republican schism over a budget.

Jay Bookman has more.

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QOTD 0

James Lovelook:

. . . it’s much easier to create a desert than a forest.

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No Place To Hide 0

Rat:  What are you doing?  Pig:  Doing a crossword puzzle.  The clue is


Click for a larger image.

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Dis Coarse Discourse 0

Frank Harris, III, bemoans the descent into debasement. A snippet:

The president says it — Americans repeat it, illustrating once again Trump’s ability to lead the nation down the wrong path.

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Then and Now 0

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Stormy Whether or Not 0

Dick Polman remarks on evangelical “Christians” ability to look the other way. A nugget:

The word hypocrisy doesn’t begin to describe people who have forfeited moral authority and proved to be as fraudulent as the president they deify. There’s no other way to explain someone like the Rev. Franklin Graham, who said last weekend that he loves Trump because this president has “a concern about Christian values.”

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Do the Math 0

Teacher reading to class from

Via Job’s Anger.

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From Pine View Farm
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