CRANKY OLD FART'S
BROWSER HISTORY
#369 [archive]
• US woman sentenced to two years in prison for giving her daughter abortion pills
[Original link]
We're not living in the America that forced me to pledge allegiance,
and it's not even some shit-hole new America. This is the Republic of
Gilead.
My frustration and anger are at giraffe height. Serious question: What can be done to fight American fascism, that isn't already being done to no apparent avail?
• Pentagon working to restore benefits to LGBTQ+ veterans forced out under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
[Original link]
Didn't see this percolating until it hit — and it's the best news of
the week. It's not often your government does the inarguably right
thing.
I'm sure Republicans will be furious.
• Confessions of a viral AI writer
[Original link]
Not every link is a recommendation. This one's the opposite — I recommend you laugh and/or scream at it, as I did.
The author says she's a lifelong writer, and the most popular piece she's written was, effectively, co-written by artificial intelligence. "Despite my success with AI-generated stories," she says, "I'm not sure they are good for writers — or writing itself."
That's as brilliant as saying, "Despite my success playing with guns, I'm not sure Russian Roulette is good for your health."
AI is the end of human-created art. Once artificial intelligence becomes less expensive than paying artists and employees, nobody will ever experience non-AI news, films, books, musical recordings, paintings, sculptures, tattoos, or anything else that's even remotely ‘art’, without making a very specific effort to find a non-AI source.
• Target announces nine store closures, cites 'organized retail crime'
[Original link]
Some months ago, I saw video from one of these "organized retail crimes," and it was beautiful. Nobody got hurt, and nobody was victimized.
Target is an enormous conglomerate, exponentially larger and more
profitable than any business should be allowed to be become. A
corporation so huge as Target has no moral right to exist, and thus has no valid
claim to 'property', and cannot be 'stolen' from in any sane sense.
• Yes, there was global warming in prehistoric times. But nothing in millions of years compares with what we see today
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Yet another eloquent explanation of reality from the climatologist Michael Mann, clear thinking which will of course be ignored, misunderstood, or mocked by morons.
• Is this house haunted? A skeptical inquiry.
[Original link]
The author’s Spock-like debunking of woo is a mid-level joy.
The omnipresence of non-thinking —
superstition, spiritualism, religion, your lucky rabbit's foot, or a
house seriously suspected of being haunted — is what fuels world-wide stupidity.
• Biden urges striking auto workers to "stick with it" in picket line visit unparalleled in history
[Original link]
Standing on the UAW picket line is a symbolic gesture from the President, but symbolic gestures are nice, and this one's for the good guys, which is rare. It's appreciated by me, and it's seriously more than I expected after Biden blocked a railroad strike last year.
• The real bullies
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Excerpt: … I learned an important lesson that day. The real bullies weren't my peers, but the officials who lorded over us and felt they could abuse us with impunity. Ever since, I've been deeply mistrustful of the kind of bullying assholes who get on school boards or other elected positions, or who are hired by bigger bullies into positions of power, who just want to control others. ...
• The best science fiction films about time travel (by a joint director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Time at the University of Sydney)
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• There's no such thing as an ethical museum
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• I'd never much noticed, but the Spy Kids franchise is Hispanic, and that's awesome
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• Insurrectionists who think they are upholding the Constitution are still insurrectionists — and still subject to disqualification under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment
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• How the United States punishes people for being poor
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Excerpt: In an email to his constituents, he called Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley a "traitor" who should be put to death.
… "In a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung."
Gosar also accused Milley of being a "traitor" who coordinated with the Chinese military and actively worked against Trump. The attacks echo what Trump himself seemed to wish upon Milley, writing in a Truth Social post on Friday that "in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!"
• The world's oldest active torrent turns 20 years old
[Original link]
• Amazon has turned into an monopolistic shit-hole littered with pay-to-play ads, FTC lawsuit solemnly argues
[Original link]
Excerpt: A quick example. When I searched for "Apple lightning cord" on Amazon, my top three results were for cables made by a company called "Durcord," then an Amazon Basics cord, then a four-pack of cables made by a company called Susnwere, then, finally, a cable made by Apple itself. When I searched for "Anker lightning cable," the top ad slot was for three Anker charging blocks—NOT the lightning cable. Then I was given lightning cables for a company called Gyusity and one from a company called KIYODA, before the Anker cable showed up. When I searched for simply "lightning cord," none of the results on the first page were from Apple, many of them were sponsored, and the top result for a product called "Apple iPhone Charger Cable" was from a company called Uzento.
• Archaeologists find 500-year-old board game carved in ruins of Polish castle
[Original link]
• The Police Problem
This is my ongoing collection of police brutality, beatings, and general corruption.
• Amusing, Interesting, Outrageous, or Profound
And this is my Lemmy page, for anything that's amusing, interesting, outrageous, or profound (in my opinion).
♫♬ AUDIO ♫
• Bronson and the Punk Rock Creeps
• The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission has released an album
• Wavacity
📸 IMAGES 📸
• Intersection Fields: high-rise of homes
It's a concept of 'vertical village' that can't work as anything other than an apartment complex, can it? Not without sunshine and a public square...
• Robin Williams reading a newspaper
• Sarcasm
♫♬ MUSIC ♫
• The Last Farewell — Roger Whittaker
❔ MYSTERY LINKS ❔
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• Click
• Click
• Click
• Click
👁 VIDEO 👁
• "Don't Be a Sucker" — 1947 anti-fascist film made by the U.S. War Department
• Women's self-defense, demonstration by May Whitley, 1930 (☆turn the sound on☆)
🕸 WEB WISDOM 🕸
• Burkey Belser
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• Terry Kirkman
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• David McCallum
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• Barry Olivier
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• Bobby Schiffman
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• Jessie "Boss Lee" Ward
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• Hollis Watkins
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• Roger Whittaker
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9/27/2023
Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
Tip 'o the hat to the AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Kottke,org, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, MetaFilter, Miss Miriam's Mirror, RanPrieur.com, @soberscientistlife, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo emeritus, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.
I would like to personally thank Judge Arthur Engoron for quoting Chico Marx in his finding that Trump and his crime family inflated the values of nearly all their properties over a ten year period. It's well and good to quote fine jurists like William O. Douglas in establishing precedent, but a man of Marx' standing makes the judicial finding a slam dunk.
ReplyDeletejtb
Priceless, or at least expensive:
Delete> "As Chico Marx, playing Chicolini, says to Margaret Dumont, playing Mrs. Gloria Teasdale, in 'Duck Soup," the footnote read, "'Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?'"
Missed that entirely, my punishment for being mostly bored by the eternal Trump headlines, so I hadn't read the news at all.
> What can be done to fight American fascism, that isn't already being done to no apparent avail?
ReplyDeleteOf course we all write even more letters to our representatives in Congress.
I have no answer really.
We're toast.
Can I be cinnamon toast?
DeleteI don't believe any more in letters to my Congressman. I don't think protests work unless you get half a million to march on Washington, and I don't see that happening. Its a question with no answer, or a very sad answer, nothing.
DeleteLetters to yer Congressman when he's the problem. Yeah. All an illusion.
DeleteUsually I hesitate to say it, sounds like an endorsement of vigilantism, and I’m still opposed, but…
DeleteYou have to wonder how long people will be willing to complain at city council meetings, or email the mayor’s office, or picket on the sidewalk, when it all always leads to diddly.
Absent answers, I'm not sure I understand the question. The United States has engaged, from time to time in fascism: Vietnam, Chile, mistreatment of immigrants, and a few scattered cases of inappropriate short term military intervention.
ReplyDeleteCompared with economic crimes, though, fascism is way down the list of national and global problems: the disappearing middle class and growth of an upper class for whom everybody works; the lack of a middle OR lower middle class to create livable neighborhoods through home ownership; the growing aggregate debt of the former lower middle class; the explosion of homelessness in the last two decades; the disparity in access to health care and medicines between the haves and have-nots in this country; access to advanced educational opportunities for just about everyone but the rich . . . the list goes on forever. Fascism isn't America's best trait, but, compared to growing economic disparity, fascism is the smaller problem.
John
No rankings from me; the top problems are all too intertwined to be separated — the repression and the economic crimes and the climate catastrophe, all from the same perps. The economic cruelty has been gradual enough the frogs barely felt the water hottening. The repression and climate hell are coming quicker, quick enough to be noticed and too quick to be dodged except with the get-out-of-hell-free cards you and I both possess — being old and dying soon.
DeleteHave you been inside a Target lately? Even in my fairly high-end white part of town, cameras are everywhere and you can't buy a pair of socks without pushing a button to have an employee unlock the socks from behind plexiglass.
ReplyDeleteCold medicine, toothpaste, deodorant, deternegt. Not the bigscreen TVs or laptops. All locked up.
Theyre worried about the most pidly merchandise. All the things ordinary or poor people need is their big worry.
These giant stores are fucking evil and yes you are right they have no right to exist.
Thank you.
I was in a Target about a year ago, and it was horrendous, dehumanizing, a purgatory in red. I don't even remember the merchandise being behind plexiglass, because where isn't it?
DeleteAfter about a year and a half of being behind, I've finally caught up with your posts! Thanks for keeping me entertained during my lunch breaks at work and right before I crash at night. To celebrate, I bought you a ham sandwich. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteNow what do I do....
It's graciously appreciated, thank you sir, and will be served on rye bread, with mustard, mayo, peanut butter, sweet pickle chips, possibly sprouts, and 40 ounces of malt liquor.
DeleteWell, let me say thanks again. You didn't buy me a ham sandwich, you bought me a *loaf* of ham sandwiches. Might even be better than Buddig ham.
DeleteTHANK YOU SIR. :)
My pleasure! Definitely splurge on the good ham. Take care, sir!
DeleteHam kickback?
DeleteOh, man, I had one of those. I had to use a walker for a couple days. I kept looking behind me, but you can't escape from your own exhaust.
Deletebest wishes,
jtb
I got no comeback as good than that.
Delete