Today's Tweet

Changing seasons

I love autumn; when the air starts to cool & the leaves start to change & my summertime sadness starts to transform into pumpkin spice ennui

— Frankie (@phranqueigh) September 10, 2017

Fake Lord Save Us

And then hurricane Irma was turned away and it spun harmlessly into the Gulf of Mexico.

Just kidding, because - well, you know:

• Nothing fails like prayer, or...
• ...these knuckleheads were doing it wrong, or...
• ...your god is just as much a dick as a fast-growing majority of us have suspected for quite a while

Today's Tweet

Guts.  And BTW, it can't have escaped our notice that the (slim) majority of the Veterans serving in elected office lately are Democrats.

Things change.

Just broke my leg rowing — I blame my hardcore pace. Luckily, it no longer hurts to break a leg! pic.twitter.com/slTWGx6sMD

— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) September 7, 2017

Another Tweet

Seems to be a bit breezy today

He jumps out of the car and measures Hurricane Irma's wind. His conclusion: It's windy. #Irma #Irma2017 pic.twitter.com/XdmCUvhf4u

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) September 10, 2017

How Great I Art

Yay Mikey!

And guys (as of this writing), I had a great spike in visitor traffic for a coupla days*. I'm just amazed by your generosity, and of course, altogether impressed with your excellent taste where blog-reading is concerned. Thanks.

*update: it's not nearly so heavy now. But hey - nice while it lasted.

Two Weird Ones

Some very odd shit goin' on

Eastern Bahamas:

Impressive slow moving landslide due to permafrost melting spotted in Tibet on September 7, 2017 https://t.co/PsU9BDl667 pic.twitter.com/OUWH39PFC9

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 9, 2017

Learn Something

Michael Shermer, The Skeptic

Go here ☞ The oatmeal:

☟and read this ☟

Just Do It

Bill Maher - one thing leads to the next, and that can take you to a very good place.

Today's Tweet

Gosh, ya mean the flag and the anthem and all that stuff might mean different things to different people?

Holy crap - whooda thunk it?

Rodgers: Kaepernick isn't on an NFL team because of his protests and it would be "ignorant" to think otherwise. https://t.co/EvOgSwj8g6

— Twitter Moments (@TwitterMoments) August 30, 2017

Business Insider:

You won't find Aaron Rodgers kneeling during the national anthem this season, but in a recent interview with ESPN's Mina Kimes, the Green Bay Packers' offensive captain said he had no issue with players who choose to protest.

That includes Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who is still waiting for a job offer less than two weeks before the start of the 2017 regular season. Kaepernick drew national attention even from outside sports circles last season when he popularized the practice of not standing during the national anthem in protest of racial injustice in America.

Rodgers said it would be "ignorant" to believe that Kaepernick's trouble finding a team had nothing to do with his activism.

Watch That Social Media

This could get fun

Vox, Ella Nilson:

It is unclear how successful the so-called Russian “troll farm” on Facebook was. Many of the accounts were crudely designed and used stilted, awkward language, and many of their posts were not widely shared throughout social media. Also, the majority of them ran in 2015, the year before the election, when Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were still competing with other candidates in the primaries.

The Russia-linked accounts worked to spread misinformation in two ways, according to a recent New York Times report. In one strategy, they bought political ads that focused on social issues including immigration, race, gay rights, and gun control, rather than touting one candidate over another.

Their second strategy was to create hundreds of fake accounts that linked back to their own websites, filled with hacked material on Hillary Clinton and prominent Democrats like businessman and investor George Soros. The Times investigation found a concerted effort to spread misinformation and direct traffic to these sites using these fake accounts.

Fake accounts are nothing new in social media; Twitter is rife with fake “bots” that can spread dubious stories or popularize hashtags. As the Times pointed out in their report, enough fake Twitter bots can push certain hashtags into Twitter’s “trending” category, where tweets with those hashtags can then be seen by more people.

Twitter has mechanisms in place to try to prevent bots from spreading fake trends around the internet, but new research by a cybersecurity firm called FireEye found that one bot-propelled hashtag still broke through, and Twitter’s relative lenience on fake accounts compared to Facebook doesn’t help.

Facebook, on the other hand, is taking new steps to crack down on fake accounts. It recently announced it wouldn’t allow pages to advertise on its site if they repeatedly posted fake content, and that it has been increasingly monitoring and shutting down fake accounts.

A former FBI agent named Clinton Watts recently told the New York Times that Facebook and Twitter are both experiencing a “bot cancer eroding trust on their platforms.” To Facebook’s credit, Watts said the site is currently doing much more to combat the issue, “cutting out the tumors by deleting false accounts and fighting fake news.”

It’s worth noting that even the most successful fake Facebook accounts have nothing on Fox News when it comes to influencing voter’s decisions, according to a new study.

I'm wondering if there might be some legal action against Zuckerberg and/or his minions for violations of various Campaign Laws.

Keith

Almost unavoidably soon-to-be future ex-president of The United States.

Today's Debunkment

Snopes:

A friend posted it on Facebook, but now I can't find the original graphic.

Here're a couple I dug up:

Today's Quote

For the next time you get stuck in a Nazi-vs-antifa debate, and you you're forced to deal with the False Equivalence bullshit.

"I decline utterly to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire."

--Winston Churchill

New Music

NPR Tiny Desk

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit

Tunes:
Chaos and Clothes
Molotov
Last Of My Kind

Players:
Jason Isbell (vocals, guitar)
Sadler Vaden (guitar)
Amanda Shires (fiddle, backing vocals)
Jimbo Hart (bass)
Derry deBorja (keyboards)
Chad Gamble (drums)
Ashwin Wadekar (guitar on "Last of My Kind")

Randy Rainbow

For your dining and dancing pleasure - DACA Shame: