History, sort of
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Inept, faithless, and arrogant
Steve Schmidt put it eloquently: “Donald Trump’s national security team has been exposed — and permanently unmasked — as moral degenerates. They are incompetent clowns, who beggar description because they stand peerless in the entire history of America as singularly inept, faithless and arrogant. Michael Waltz, JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Stephen… Continue reading
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Is it over?
Now people are being disappeared here in the US by squads of thugs who think they’re empowered by authority. Mahmoud Khalil is now an overtly political prisoner here. We have political prisoners now. We disappear people now. Here are two sources of Khalil’s letter from the concentration camp:Document CloudGuardian US(Posting more than one link to… Continue reading
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Look on my works and despair
I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them… Continue reading
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Not the first
Elon Musk is not the first tech billionaire asshat to bend governments to his self interest. About twenty years ago, Bill Gates was the world’s leading asshat. He’s worked for years to launder his image, but my take is that he’s still nothing more than the greedy, narcissistic, lying, egotistical bully he’s been his whole… Continue reading
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The early days
The early days of personal computing were not that long ago. Part of those days was a tidal wave of innovation and creativity. There were whole categories of applications that I’m not sure even exist any more. For one thing, there were viable alternatives to the Excel spreadsheet de-facto monopoly, and at least several incorporated… Continue reading
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Railroad yard engines and history
The port of Baltimore has just begun using an electric rail car mover. Again. Here’s a photo of the new one: And here’s a photo of one of the ones they used back in 1912: Continue reading
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Your necklace is rusty. Get it at the carnival?
“Tawdry” means cheap and showy — like plastic jewelry, for example. But the word has an interesting history. In the 600s (or possibly the 800s; sources disagree), there was a queen in part of England (in those days kingdoms — and ‘queendoms’ — were often about the size of a modern town) named Aethelthrȳth. She… Continue reading
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Same old same old
The thing about dictionaries in English is this: they’re descriptive, not prescriptive. Words don’t enter English because you find them in the dictionary; it works in exactly the opposite way. Words enter English, then eventually they (probably) show up in a dictionary. So how, exactly, do words enter English? Social media! The original social medium… Continue reading
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About that history you were taught…
This is a photo of a model reconstruction of Bologna, Italy, somewhere around 1300 or so. What the heck are all those towers?!? We know they were there because the foundations are still there today in Bologna. They were built by wealthy families to protect themselves and all their stuff when the 99% got angry… Continue reading
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You can’t say we weren’t warned
Thirty-one years ago, in 1994, the Internet existed but not everybody knew that yet. Even those of us who did know about it didn’t always have an convenient connection; computers had only barely begun to be portable, and you certainly weren’t going to access much on that telephone in your home that had a handset… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Recent Posts
- Lexical ketchup burst
- The NYT appears to be wrong again
- We don’t have kings because we can’t afford them
- Re-righting history
- Nonsense can get lucky
Visitation
Research Results
i.webthings.hub
Full Moon Fiber Art
Scripting News
Balloon Juice
Empty Wheel
Kansas Reflector
Bedlam Farm Journal
Krugman Wonks Out
Daring Fireball
[citation needed]
Pluralistic
Cornerstone of Democracy
Whatever