Yet more keen links one might want to share

[xoxoxoBruce]

This woman nailed it...

Like many Americans, I’m having politics fatigue. Or, to be more specific, arguing-about-politics fatigue.

I haven’t run out of salient points or evidence for my political perspective, but there is a particular stumbling block I keep running into when trying to reach across the proverbial aisle and have those “difficult conversations” so smugly suggested by think piece after think piece:

I don’t know how to explain to someone why they should care about other people.

can’t debate someone into caring about what happens to their fellow human beings. The fact that such detached cruelty is so normalized in a certain party’s political discourse is at once infuriating and terrifying.

The “I’ve got mine, so screw you,” attitude has been oozing from the American right wing for decades, but this gleeful exuberance in pushing legislation that will immediately hurt the most vulnerable among us is chilling.

Perhaps it was always like this. I’m (relatively) young, so maybe I’m just waking up to this unimaginable callousness. Maybe the emergence of social media has just made this heinous tendency more visible; seeing hundreds of accounts spring to the defense of policies that will almost certainly make their lives more difficult is incredible to behold.

I don’t know what’s changed ― or indeed, if anything has ― and I don’t have any easy answers. But I do know I’m done trying to convince these hordes of selfish, cruel people to look beyond themselves.

[Gravdigr]

She strikes me as one of those people who, when talking about the other side, sounds exactly like the other side.

[Gravdigr]

Photos That Accidentally Look Like Renaissance Paintings

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

She strikes me as one of those people who, when talking about the other side, sounds exactly like the other side.

I don't think so, she's saying she can't discuss the issues with the other side because there is no common ground to start from. She and the other side have opposing base values. Like if one side thinks the Mississippi river should be cleaned up and the other side doesn't, they can never agree on why/how/who.
I think thic could have been written by someone on either side by changing details.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

...could have been written by someone on either side...

[xoxoxoBruce]

Watch the worldwide flow of refugees from 2000 to 2015.
Each dot equals 17 people, and I'll bet you'll be as surprised as I was.

[Gravdigr]

Wow. My version of Firefox (51.0.1) didn't like that site at all.

May have just taken a long time to load, seemed to lock up FF cold, though.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Chrome takes about 12 seconds to load, IE10 doesn't like it.

[Gravdigr]

“Of all the campaigns in my life—20 major ones to be exact—the one I felt the most sure of was the one I was deprived of waging properly. I could have won the war in Korea in a maximum of 10 days, once the campaign was under way, and with considerably fewer casualties than were suffered during the so-called truce period. It would have altered the course of history."

MacArthur's Plan To Win The Korean War

[xoxoxoBruce]

An interesting take on why middle America flocked to Trump and stick by him. Also, how smaller politicians are choosing to emulate him, while the democrats are still clueless.

[xoxoxoBruce]

west-virginia-tries-to-improve-broadband-competition-incumbent-isps-immediately-sue.

So by now you've probably noticed that the broadband industry is somewhat, well, broken. Unaccountable giant telecom incumbents, with a stranglehold on both federal and state lawmakers, work tirelessly alongside well-compensated lawmakers and covertly paid policy vessels to protect the status quo (read: limited competition, high prices, poor customer service). Often that involves quite literally writing and buying state laws that make it impossible for anybody to do much of anything about this dance of dysfunction.

And when it comes to highlighting the end result of this corruption, there's no better state than West Virginia. Whereas bigger incumbents in more populated states can often hide their stranglehold over a broken market under layers upon layers of exquisitely crafted bullshit, many West Virginia lawmakers and regional incumbent Frontier Communications lack the savvy and competence to mask what they're truly up to.

As a result, the state has been awash in controversy over its telecom policies for years now. Local Charleston Gazette reporter Eric Eyre has done yeoman's work chronicling West Virginia's immense broadband dysfunction, from the State's use of broadband stimulus subsidies on unused, overpowered routers and overpaid, redundant consultants, to state leaders' attempts to bury reports highlighting how a cozy relationship with Frontier has led to what can only be explained as systemic, statewide fraud on the taxpayer dime.

[Gravdigr]

Thanks for that.

[Gravdigr]

Renaissance Paintings Recreated by Auto Mechanics

[glatt]

LOL. You are sitting in the lounge waiting for the oil change to be completed and you see either that guy with the sledge hammer or the one with the giant pipe wrench walking up to your car.

[Gravdigr]

Bravo-class submarine. Project 690

Flickr set of a Bravo class submarine. Maybe in Ukraine.

That is, literally, all the info I got.