Month: August 2016

 
From Capt. Fogg at Human Voices:

Everybody knows America used to be great — greater than it is now, that is, but I wonder when that was and whether everyone would pick the same time of maximum greatness if asked. Nobody seems to be asking. I suspect we’d get a bunch of different answers though and I suspect many would refuse to answer, again for a variety of reasons.

For me, of course it would be the years that were greatest for me and that means when I had few worries and everything was new and exciting and simple.

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From Jonathan Bernstein at BloombergView:

One of the most encouraging signs in this often depressing election year is that more Republicans are stepping up to try save their party. Not only is Donald Trump the wrong choice for conservative Republicans, some are saying, but the reason Trump happened to the party in the first place is that the party has some serious problems.

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From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

There are lots of ways to follow up on a story–you can just wholeheartedly print what your sources turn over to you, which can be a bit one-sided depending upon your sources. You can sift through all the data until you have a steaming mess of nearly unintelligible, but fair and balanced “both sides” journalism. Or you could actually follow up on a story, data point by data point, until a bigger picture emerges, thereby doing the journalism thing in a somewhat more pure form. In other words, it’s not enough to describe what something “looks like” or “could be construed to be”–the trick is to arrive at what actually “is”.

For which, it helps to understand what “is” means. Is a donation to a charity that does not pay a salary to Madame Clinton the same thing as donating either to her or her campaign? Nope. Do the aims of the Clinton Foundation and the goals of certain arms of the State Department have overlap? Insofar as making a positive difference in the lives of people–yes. It might help to understand what the Clinton Foundation does.

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From Max’s Dad:

Nothing both cracks me up yet infuriates me more than Iowa. Iowa’s obsession with agriculture and its pigs just floors me. Hey, I lived there a couple of years way back when and trust me, I know of what I speak cuz nothing has changed since I was there in 1979-81. Terry Branstad had a dark mustache and was lieutenant governor back then.Chuck Grassley was only 80 years old or so and about to get swept into the United States Senate back then. So in 2016 nothing has changed about Iowa. Branstad is still the Pope of Iowa and Grassley is running again at age 115 or whatever and he will be re elected because like I said, NOTHING ever changes in Iowa. See now I’m getting infuriated because I see the Wicked Witch of Pork Products, Joni Ernst, in her mom jeans sans witches hat. I know she will be re elected forever and I also see the wild eyed bigot, Steve King, sans his hood. And I know HE will re elected ad nauseum.

But the wannabe Bigot In Chief came to the annual Iowa Roast N Ride yesterday, again with that goofy hat, to dazzle 1800 white folks with his views on race and pigs and hand gestures. Hey man, you cannot get ANY whiter than this crowd of pork enthusiasts and bike riders who all show up on their Harleys without helmets and wearing shorts cuz of freedom!

Donald J Trump, loser, a man who earlier in the day had attempted to take advantage of a murder in Chicago of a young mother of 4 pushing a baby stroller down the street by tweeting out a VOTE TRUMP request to “African Americans”, flip flopped again on immigration because his white crowd of pig eating bikers wouldnt stand for any “pivoting” on easing up on them Mexicans they all want deported.

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From Julian Sanchez at Cato Institute:

The Equation Group was like something out of a Hollywood film: A hacking team of unparalleled sophistication and skill who cracked open computer systems around the world like pistachio shells, yet escaped detection for 14 years until being noticed by the security researchers at Kaspersky Lab last year. They were also widely believed to be affiliated with the National Security Agency—most likely working with or from the NSA’s elite Tailored Access Operations unit. Last weekend, the world learned that these hackers nonpareil had themselves apparently been hacked, when a group calling themselves the Shadow Brokers (likely a reference to the popular Mass Effect video game series) posted a cache of what they claimed were some of Equation Group’s “cyberweapons,” or computer exploitation tools, on the Web for all to see—along with an offer to sell even more valuable intrusion software they’d obtained to the highest bidder.

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• nojo at Stinque uses an old Broadway play more recently transmuted into cinema to explain the motives of Donald Trump. Not bad, but I think my own recent speculation is more likely to be true.
   
• At Crooks and Liars, Frances Langum hosts a John Oliver video offering to Donald Trump an alternative to losing to Hillary Clinton or going through the pain of being President.
   
• tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors notes that the Governor of Louisiana had serious reservations about Donald Trump’s recent photo op amid flood rescue efforts.
   
• Quoting directly from Donald Trump’s response to a tragic death: “Dwyane Wade’s cousin was just shot and killed walking her baby in Chicago. Just what I have been saying. African-Americans will VOTE TRUMP!”
   
• Jon Perr at Perrspectives suggests that any voter considering the latest Republican Hail Mary, speculation about Hillary Clinton’s health, might do well to watch 11 hours of Secretary Clinton outlasting and outclassing the entire Benghazi committee.
   
• What taints Associated Press for me was the time they exposed a British spy who had infiltrated al Qaeda and sent back information that prevented a planned bombing of airline passengers. Never let a decent regard for human life interfere with a good story.
   
  But Last Of The Millenniums finds AP distorting their own findings to produce the illusion of scandal. Never let the truth interfere with a good story.
   
• Dave Dubya looks through the Obama record with skepticism but discovers the President far, far better than what came before and what may come after.
   
• Vincent at A wayfarer’s Notes finds himself consulting ancient Chinese philosophy as well as his own experience in trying to meet an unreachable deadline, in defining the difference between idleness and not doing.
   
• In spite of finding themselves next to a clumsy drunken couple, or maybe a little because of it, Max’s Dad discovers a bit of transcendence attending, with Max, a Pearl Jam concert. Wonderful details included.
   

The Strange Mr. Assange

He is accused of leaking state secrets because he hates the legitimate exercise of national security. The accusation is not true.

In reality, Mr. Assange is much worse.

Transcript

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From Infidel753:

The recently-discovered planet “Proxima b”, orbiting the star Proxima Centauri, is being hailed on news websites as a possible “Earthlike planet” — a term which crops up with some regularity in such reports. Planets beyond our solar system, in and of themselves, are no longer newsworthy — we’ve discovered well over three thousand of them — but “Earthlike” suggests a place with plants, animals, “normal” days and nights, and of course the comfortable temperature and oxygen-rich atmosphere that almost all planets in science-fiction movies miraculously have. There might even be Wookies or Klingons or Greys living there.

Proxima b is actually interesting from one viewpoint — it’s the nearest extrasolar planet ever discovered. Its sun Proxima Centauri is part of the Alpha Centauri system, which is our own solar system’s nearest interstellar neighbor.

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From Yellow Dog at Blue in the Bluegrass:

This decision addresses only privately-run federal prisons, but the issue is of course far, far bigger. The problem with private prisons is not the prison part, it’s the private part.

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From Capt. Fogg at Human Voices:

I hate to sound like one of those people who see patterns where there aren’t any, but I’ve noticed that a battle of bullshit seems to be developing between Rush and Donald J. Donny is raving away at the Crooked Clinton Foundation this morning, but Rush is just dying to get some attention by telling us that

“The US Department of Agriculture is holding summits to promote the role of lesbian farmers as a part of its ‘Rural Pride’ campaign.”

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