CRANKY OLD FART’S
NEWS & LINKS
#355  [archive] • Police raid Kansas newspaper and owners’ homes, seizing computers, records and phones
    Four Marion police officers and three sheriff’s deputies descended Friday morning on the Record office, the home of its co-owners Eric and Joan Meyer, and the home of vice mayor Ruth Herbel, seizing personal cell phones and computers, including the newspaper’s file server, along with other equipment unrelated to the scope of their search.
    Officers refused to say when the items, necessary for publishing next week’s issue of the Record, might be returned. The newspaper is obtaining replacement equipment to ensure publication...
 

• Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville faces civil rights investigation over release of transgender health records
    Wow and a half — everywhere I’ve worked in the health biz, even before HIPAA, patient confidentiality was the prime directive. Not at Vanderbilt.
    The article doesn’t even mention a search warrant, only a request for records from Tennessee’s horrific Attorney General. If there was a legal demand for the records, it should’ve been fought, but instead the records were turned over pronto, with no redactions of personal information, and the patients weren’t notified until months later.
    In a sane world, that would cost Vanderbilt a lot of millions of dollars, but I’ve looked at a map of the galaxy and you can’t get to a sane world from here.• Music labels sue Internet Archive over digitized record collection

• Republicans invoke Noah’s Ark in court to defend Texas Governor’s circular saws & razor-wire anti-immigrant border buoys • Conservative zealots targeted Kellogg’s in the latest anti-diversity crusade
    Republicans want black people to be maids and shoe shine boys, and nothing more.• DeSantis’s Florida approves climate-denial videos for public schools
    We’re
doomed on climate and the coming catastrophe, no matter what we do or
don’t do, but that’s not bad enough for Republicans; they want the
catastrophe underway even quicker.

• Clarence Thomas’ 38 vacations: the other billionaires who have treated the Supreme Court Justice to  luxury travel
    It doesn’t matter how many improprieties and public hairs are listed and documented, does it? There are no consequences.• DeSantis appoints wingnut anti-LGBTQ lawyer to appeals bench
    Of course he does. Who else would he appoint? Who else would any Republican appoint?• Pastor alarmed after Trump-loving congregants deride Jesus’ teachings as ‘weak’
    “Multiple
pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon
on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — ‘turn the other
cheek’ — [and] to have someone come up after to say, ‘Where did you get
those liberal talking points?’” Moore revealed. “And what was alarming
to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say,
‘I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ,’ the response would not be, ‘I
apologize.’ The response would be, ‘Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore.
That’s weak.’”

• House Republicans issue new report on Joe Biden corruption… that again offers no evidence • Man in Trump hat who threatened President Biden shot dead by FBI • Building block of life found in outer space • Reddit’s menswear hub is the latest casualty of its battle with moderators
    “Reddit may have won, but not without lasting damage to its communities…”
    “At
the end of the day, all of these communities are held together by the
quality of the enthusiasts — people who do this stuff for the love of it
— and you can’t replicate nerds who spend hours every day moderating
debates about pants.”• All cops continue being bastards 

🖯  MY BROWSER HISTORY  🖯• We’ve been greenwashed out of our senses. It’s time to stand our ground.
by Greta Thunberg• There aren’t enough trees in the world to offset society’s carbon emissions – and there never will be • The problem is civil obedience
by Howard Zinn

• Flashback: When the NYPD made porno movies
    “Somewhere hidden in a police vault in New York lie three short pornographic films. Few people have seen them. Even fewer ever will. They are a missing, strange fragment from an almost forgotten moment in time.”
    This is part one of a two-part report, available either as text or a podcast. Here’s part 2. • Seeing Robbie Robertson through the lens of his film scores • How the car came to Los Angeles • In Major League Baseball, plays that were once errors are now hits, as players wonder why • Given a full season of plate appearances, could you get a hit in MLB? 

♫♬  AUDIO  ♫• Black Horse — Pérez Prado y Su Orquesta • Firefly — Sonny Rhodes • Peace Train — Cat Stevens • Tryouts for the Human Race — Sparks • Water in the Sky — Phish 

📸  IMAGES  📸• Terraplaning on boards hooked to motorbikes • The questions menu at Monorail Espresso, downtown Seattle 

❔  MYSTERY LINKS  ❔• Click • Click • Click • Click • Click 

👁  VIDEO  👁• Ralph Nader is a person in your neighborhood • I used to think that adulthood was just one crisis after another…  • How to use the dial telephone 

🕸 WEB WISDOM 🕸• I don’t care if there are undocumented immigrants in this country. • Mark Twain and his close companion • I don’t really like the city parks. 

⚰️  OBITUARIES  ⚰️ • Johnny Hardwick • Diana Marcum • Jim Price • Jamie Reid • Robert Swan

8/12/2023   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, Depsidase, Kottke,org, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, MetaFilter, Miss Miriam’s Mirror, RanPrieur.com, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I’ve stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce,
Joey Jo Jo, 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.