Wednesday, December 28, 2016

FORTRAN for the Web

By Al Williams




There’s an old saying: “I don’t know what programming language scientists and engineers will use in the 22nd century, but I know it will be called FORTRAN.” FORTRAN was among the first real programming languages and, along with LISP, one of the oldest still in common use. If you are one of those that still loves FORTRAN, you no longer have to be left out of the Web development craze thanks to Fortran.io.

Naturally, the Fortran.io site is served by — what else — FORTRAN. The system allows for Jade templates, SQLite databases, and other features aimed at serving up web pages. The code is hosted on GitHub, and you can find several examples there, as well.

If you’ve ever wanted to do formatted I/O to a web page, here’s your chance. Come to think of it, why not? We’ve seen servers in BASIC and even in Linux shell script. Of course, today’s FORTRAN isn’t the one we learned back in the 1970’s (we assume if you didn’t learn about FORTRAN in the 1970’s, you quit reading this post a while back… prove us wrong and show us your FORTRAN projects).

Don't you dare tell me to 'get over it' or 'be tolerant'!

I listened as you called my President a Muslim.
I listened as you called him and his family a pack of monkeys.
I listened as you said he wasn't born here.
I watched as you blocked every single path to progress that you could.
I saw the pictures you made of him as Hitler.
I watched you shut down the government and hurt the entire nation, twice.
I watched you turn your backs on every opportunity to open a worthwhile dialog.
I watched you say that you would not even listen to any choice for Supreme Court no matter who the nominee was.
I listened as you openly said that you will oppose him at every turn.
I watched as you did just that.
I listened.
I watched.
I paid attention.

Now, I'm being called on to be tolerant.
To move forward.
To denounce protesters.
To "Get over it."
To accept this...
I will not.

I will do my part to make sure, this great American mistake, becomes the embarrassing footnote of our history that it deserves to be.
I will do this as quickly as possible, every chance I get.
I will do my part to limit the damage that this man can do to my country.
I will watch his every move and point out every single mistake and misdeed in a loud and proud voice.
I will let you know in a loud voice every time this man backs away from a promise he made to you.
The people who voted for him. Yes you, the ones who sold their souls and prayed for him to win.

I will do this so that you never forget.
And you will hear me.
You will see it in my eyes when I look at you.
You will hear it in my voice when I talk to you.
You will know that I know who you are.
You will know that I know what you are.
Do not call for my tolerance. I've tolerated all I can.
Now it's your turn to tolerate the ridicule.
Be aware, make no mistake about it, every single thing that goes wrong in our country from this day forward is now Trump's fault just as much as you thought it was Obama's.
I find it unreasonable for you to expect from me, what you were entirely unwilling to give.

-Author unknown

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

White Nationalists Are 'Prepared to Revolt' If Trump Runs From Their Support

Newly emboldened, these bigots will accept nothing less than full control of the Republican Party.

Someone answers the question: "Do I want Trump to fail?"

By Steve Marmel

Kellyanne Conway to Trump critics: Be careful what you say - I say fuck Kellyanne Conway and Donald Trump

By UCmeNdc

That didn't take long. Not even a week has passed, and the president elect's team is already warning Trump critics to be "careful" about the way they criticize Trump. (Freedom does not include criticizing President Trump.)

Donald Trump's minions seem to be confused about this, so let's fill them in on something they're going to need to know going forward: The President of the United States has the least legal protection against criticism or libel of anyone in the country. As the ultimate public figure, courts are obliged to grant public citizens wide leeway. This is why, for example, elected public officials, private citizens, and the Fox News channel have been repeatedly able to peddle 100% false information about Barack Obama for a decade with absolutely no repercussions.

To demonstrate how this works, I could, for example, say something like "President Donald Trump is a small-penised sex-obsessed pervert who stands accused of raping a 13 year old girl and who, given his temperament, has in all likelihood sexually abused at least one of his own children. He is mentally unstable and among the dumbest individuals ever to hold any public office anywhere, is quite probably colluding with Russia to undermine American interests, and spends his evenings aggressively masturbating to National Geographic footage of burrowing meerkats. His sole aim in acquiring the presidency is to convert the Lincoln Bedroom into a Rape Room, and he will sell an American nuclear weapon to ISIS for fifteen dollars and change if he thinks he'd make two dollars worth of profit on it."

Welcome to the big leagues, President Summer Squash. You're going to have quite the adventure from here on in.

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/13/1598359/-Kellyanne-Conway-to-Trump-critics-Be-careful-what-you-say

Monday, December 26, 2016

America’s Second Civil War

By RKP5637

I often wonder if there will be civil unrest. How horrible what millions will be facing as America likely changes. This is an older article, but now the past is about to be the present on Jan. 20, 2017.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-susan-k-smith/the-coming-of-americas-civil-war_b_9501120.html

Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith
Writer, author, musician, pastor, preacher and social justice advocate.

I am really trying to figure out what is going on in America, and what will happen to America should Donald Trump win the presidency.

I never for a moment believed that Trump could not win the nomination, contrary to the pundits’ takes on television. I was furious that they could not see, or would not see, that this man had a platform and an audience.

Even now, some pundits and news people insist upon saying that Trump cannot win the presidency, but I believe they are wrong. Trump has a swath of supporters that is not backing down or backing away that we know about, but I believe his base of support includes a lot of people who will never admit publicly that they are rooting for him, but who are, nonetheless.

From the beginning, I was disappointed that so many people resonated with him. He was, and is, crude and rude. He is disrespectful to women; I was horrified when he characterized all Mexicans (the ones coming to the United States) as rapists and criminals. His disrespect of Sen. John McCain stunned me; like McCain or not, he is a war hero, but not to Trump. His parodying a man who was developmentally disabled made me sick. The fact that he says nothing of substance in his rallies is appalling. His arrogance at saying he will build a wall between the United States and Mexico and will make Mexico pay for it was hateful, and his plan to deport millions of illegal immigrants out of this country made me shake my head.

This is America, right?

His dog whistle language as concerns his feelings about black people is hardly subtle; his ordering his people to “get them out of here” when they have showed up at his rallies, and his reminding his followers that there was a day when they would have been able to take care of those protesters in a way that they would be taken out on a stretcher...was...well, really white.

But it wasn’t the fact that Donald Trump was and is so narcissistic and arrogant that bothers me so much. What bothers me is the blind following he seems to have, of both white and black people, who seem to think he can do no wrong. They do not care that he does not have any viable foreign policy; he seems to feel he will be able to act unilaterally and just ...get rid of people or nations he doesn’t like. His rambling about how he will just sort of magically fix the economy has made no sense to me at all. He has made all his followers believe that he and he alone can bring jobs back to this country. They believe him. He is right about one thing: he could go out onto Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and his supporters would still support him.

The question is “why?” So, the white working class is angry. So...what? What makes their anger so different, so virulent, and so strong and so much more worthy of mention? Why is their anger more important than that of all the other people in this nation who have been marginalized? Why isn’t more of the country upset that what seems to be the unifying thread holding his base together is white supremacy, racism, in its most ugly form?

Why is their anger more important than the anger of everyone else?

Could it be that these people have found out that white supremacy loves no person who is not only not white, but prefers people who are white with money? Could it be that they are realizing that the phrase in the Constitution, “all men are created equal” really does pertain now, as it did then, primarily to these wealthy, white landowners? Could it be that, as they have looked around, that they see how they are no better off economically than are black people, in spite of their being white?’

Don’t accuse me of playing the race card. It is the pundits and the news operations who have made it clear that it is angry white men who are behind Trump in the biggest numbers. It is angry white men who no longer have the manufacturing or construction or mining jobs they used to have so they could make a decent living. The pundits are pointing out the fact that the demographic that is most responsible for the Rise of Trump ...is angry white men.

They are tired of being “politically correct,” meaning, they can’t say the “n” word when they want. They cannot openly discriminate against black and brown people like they used to. The Black Lives Matter movement has been steadily dismantling their false confidence that the police take care of “the bad people,” who happen to be ...”the black people.” The shootings of innocent and/or unarmed black people by white police officers, caught on tape, has shattered the lie behind which law enforcement has hidden for decades. Their officers, some of them, are being called to accountability. In this country where, historically, a police officer never had to prove he or she did anything wrong and who never had to worry about going to jail for participating in state-sanctioned murder, things are changing ...and it is making some white people more and more angry. They want “their country back.” They want to “make America great again.” That greatness included free-flowing racial violence by whites against blacks and rampant discrimination; it included white people being able to have jobs when many black people were denied those same jobs. That America included having trials (and still does) where a black person could and would be tried by an all-white jury for a crime he or she might not have committed, and nobody could do anything about it.

That is changing.

And now, to add insult to injury, there are too many brown people here, brown people who have done the work for white people that neither white not black people would have done themselves because the pay is so low. Brown people in the form of Hispanics, and now, brown and black people in the form of Muslims...are all over the place ...and some white people are not only angry, but they are afraid that they are losing the power they always had
.
These people believe that Trump - who sounds eerily like the Hitler I have read about - will make everything all right. He will build that wall. He will “get the coloreds out.” He will reset the American equilibrium and return things to the way they used to be. And that’s why they do not care what he says or does. They do not care who he berates or puts down. They do not care if he says one thing on one talk show and something entirely different on another show minutes later.

They want America back. Their America.

They began to mumble when Barack Obama was elected president.; their lawmakers vowed, even as Obama was being inaugurated, that they would make him a one-term president. While there were many people who believed his election meant that America was a post-racial country, there were those who vowed that this country would be post-racial over their dead bodies. That’s why we heard the cry, “We want to take our country back!” They were intentional about what they meant. And they are intentional now.

I shudder to think about where America is headed. If Trump wins the nomination and then the White House, it will be bad for a whole lot of people. If Trump is bumped from contending for the presidency by a brokered convention, it will still be bad for a whole lot of people, because, as Trump as alluded, his angry white people will rise up. He said, “I think you’d have riots.” I think he’s right. Trump’s supporters would rise up...

But someone would rise up against them.

It will be America’s Second Civil War.

God, help our nation.

Trump Pretends He's Already The President

http://crooksandliars.com/2016/12/trump-pretends-hes-already-president

Sunday, December 25, 2016

5 Reasons Senate Democrats Should Block All Trump Supreme Court Nominees, Forever

After the GOP's disgraceful treatment of Obama, the president-elect deserves nothing less.

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Merry Christmas From President Obama and First Lady Michelle

We have been blessed more than we know for the last eight years of your great leadership. Thank you, President and Mrs. Obama.

We look forward to a great future for you and your family.



Thursday, December 22, 2016

Bill O’Reilly sparks Twitter outrage over 'white privilege' comments



By

Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly infuriated thousands of Americans when he went on national television Tuesday night and said that liberals want to abolish the Electoral College because they want “power taken away from the white establishment.”

The conservative “O’Reilly Factor” host claimed that mounting pressure to do away with the antiquated voting system is “all about race,” and only intends to favor diverse urban areas over primarily white rural ones.

“The left sees white privilege in America as an oppressive force that must be done away with,” O’Reilly said during his namesake primetime show, just one day after the Electoral College officially elected Donald Trump as the next President. “Therefore, white working class voters must be marginalized and what better way to do that than center the voting power in the cities.”

O’Reilly went on to claim that Hillary Clinton’s massive popular vote win is but a reminder of the College’s necessity.

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Billionaire Backed Plan To Use Shipping Containers To House The Homeless

By

Displaced homeless people watch as a bulldozer removes their encampment known as The Jungle on Dec. 4, 2014, in San Jose, Calif. © Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images Displaced homeless people watch as a bulldozer removes their encampment known as The Jungle on Dec. 4, 2014, in San Jose, Calif. 

 Tiny houses have emerged in the past decade as a promising way to house more homeless people for less money. Now the idea has gained a powerful proponent in the billionaire California real estate developer John Sobrato, who unveiled a proposal this month to build 200 micro-apartments for homeless and low-income renters in Santa Clara.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/a-billionaire-backed-plan-to-use-shipping-containers-to-house-the-homeless/ar-BBxn8N9?li=BBnb4R7

Monday, December 19, 2016

We are completely & utterly screwed. But Happy Holidays


http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/12/19/1611924/-Cartoon-Post-truth-world

This Horrible Belief About the Election and What to Do With It

Posted By Rude One

If a Republican were president right now and an incoming Democrat had won in an election where there was even a whiff of Russian interference, the nation would be shut down right now. Lawyers would be filing every lawsuit imaginable in every court everywhere. Marches would be ready to blockade the path of the electors from even getting to their meeting place. Impeachment documents would have been drawn up and, if they were in the minority in Congress, Republicans would be nonstop shaming Democrats, asking if they're loyal to the United States or Russia, until they agreed not to certify the election.

It would be a 50-alarm fire and no one would be able to stop the momentum until the president-elect agreed to postpone inauguration until either a definite determination was made about the Russian influence or until a new election could be held. And that's what they'd do if the Democratic president-elect was an entirely competent, qualified person. If it was an egomaniacal hedonist who craps all over the traditions and decorum of the government? We'd be at Def-Con Monica.

And who could blame them, really? If Democratic elected officials truly believe that Russia hacked the Republican and Democratic National Committees' email servers in an effort to push the needle even slightly towards Donald Trump, then that's exactly how they should be acting.

In a twist right out of Shakespeare, President Obama's fatal flaw is the very thing that launched him into the presidency in the first place: his belief in the basic decency of people. It has failed him time and again, yet so often when dealing with his political opposition, he has treated them with respect and dignity that they did not deserve and that they refused him. It failed him when he tried to get Mitch McConnell to release a joint statement on the hack before the election. McConnell said he wouldn't do it and, if the Democrats did, he would just call it political games and discredit it. So, being decent, Obama backed down. Everyone in that situation should be ashamed.

Now, in the last weekend before the Electoral College votes on Monday, in the last month before Donald Trump takes over and attempts to completely destroy his legacy, it is time for President Obama to at long last forgo his instinct to trust that right will somehow always win and to actually reach out to bend the arc of history towards progress. In simpler terms, he needs to fuck some shit up.

This is where we are right now: Obama has such confidence that Russia did hack the servers that he is promising that the United States will retaliate. Now, yes, real evidence needs to be presented to the nation (which will automatically be dismissed as false in many quarters, notably the ones that inform Trump's opinions). But, at this point, I'm gonna trust Obama over Russia or the guy who told an audience in Chicago a blatant lie last night: that the murder rate is "the largest it’s been in 45 years."

In the course of two tweets, Trump pretended no one had ever talked about the hacking until now and then admitted that people had talked about the hacking before the election. It's no wonder that White House Spokesman Josh Earnest could directly say, "Mr. Trump obviously knew that Russia was engaged in malicious cyber activity that was helping him and hurting Secretary Clinton's campaign."

As Trump continues to deny and deflect on Russia's involvement, it would be good to remember the rule that whatever Trump says about others generally applies to himself. During the election, for instance, Trump kept insisting that Hillary Clinton's email server something or other "disqualified" her from even running for president. The truth is that Trump's financial entanglements that will likely put him in violation of the Constitution from the moment he's sworn in actually should have disqualified him from running. And he knew that (and, as many others have said, I'm still not convinced that this election is not a publicity stunt that got out of hand).

So we have to consider both Trump's just weird refusal to take the intelligence agencies he's going to need at their word on Russia and that, in the latter part of the election cycle, he claimed that the whole thing was "rigged" against him. Again, it's just a damned odd thing to say. What we originally thought was simply a shot across the bow of the legitimacy of a Clinton victory is seeming more and more like a deflection from the election actually being, if not rigged, then manipulated. Ultimately, if there was coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, then do we call that "treason"? And if we do, then we have to follow through with all that that requires.

At the very least, President Obama should ask that Congress delay the Electoral College vote until, as Trump might say, we can figure out what the hell is going on. Barring that, he should ask Congress to delay the January 6 count of electoral votes. Barring that, Democrats should file objections to the vote that will force Congress to have to go on record in support of Trump.

And rank and file Democrats better be calling their members of Congress and the White House to voice their concern. And they better be ready to take to the streets to shut this down before the Trump cancer metastasizes so that its diseased tendrils grow deep into the American body. Act like our goddamned lives depend on it. Obama should be leading the charge on this, asking all concerned Americans to get involved. Just don't expect decency from a good many of them.

Barring all of that and Trump becoming president (as is most likely), well, then we need a new plan. And I've got an idea or two.

One last thing for President Obama: Fire the fuck out of James Comey. Shit, arrest that motherfucker.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

"Sit down, Donald...there is something we need to tell you..."

By kentuck

You did not win in a landslide. You won the electoral vote by one of the lowest margins in our history. Also, you lost the popular vote by the largest margin of anyone...ever. So you need to stop acting like you had some great victory. You didn't.

Thanks in large part part to your disgusting words and actions during the campaign, the country is more divided than it has been in a very long time.

You need to stop pounding your chest and acting as if everybody in America loves you. They don't. They find you disgusting and unfit to hold any public office, let alone the Presidency.

Your job is not to brag and further divide our country. You need to realize that you won nothing. You willl be appointed on a technicality.

 If you do not have it within you to even try to unite our country, then you are not ready or qualified to hold the office you so desire.

You're fired!

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Boycott Trump App

Created by the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, Boycott Trump is the first app of its kind, allowing users to hit Trump where it hurts him most - in his wallet.

Search through over 250 companies and people to see how they're directly connected to Trump.

Make Trump and his allies pay, literally, for their hateful rhetoric and regressive policies. Use consumer action to take a stand for what's right!

We all know how Trump Towers and Trump Steaks are connected to Trump, but did you know Nike, MillerCoors, Johnson & Johnson, Gucci, and many other major companies can all be directly linked to him as well?

Join the largest grassroots movement against Trump!



https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kwang.won.com.boycotttrump

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/boycotttrump/id1171663655?ls=1&mt=8

www.DemocraticCoalition.org

Donald Trump Is Gonna Get Us Killed

By Michael Moore

A week has gone by since Donald Trump admitted he's only been to "two or three" of his daily presidential national security briefings. There have been 36 of them since the day he secured enough electoral college votes to be appointed president next Monday when the Electoral College meets.

Most would agree the #1 job of the leader of any country is to keep its people safe. There is no more important meeting every day for the President than the one where he learns what the day's potential threats are to the country. That Trump would find it too cumbersome or too annoying to have to sit through 20 minutes of listening to his top intelligence people tell him who's trying to kill us today, simply boggles the mind.

Of course, our minds have been so boggled so many times in the past year by this foolish man no one seems that surprised or concerned. He can get up at 5 in the morning and send angry, childish tweets about how he's being portrayed on SNL ("Not funny! Unwatchable!"), or belittling the local elected union leader in Indiana, but he doesn't have time to hear about the threats to our national security.

So, my fellow Americans, when the next terrorist attack happens -- and it will happen, we all know that -- and after the tragedy is over, amidst the death and destruction that might have been prevented, you will see Donald Trump acting quickly to blame everyone but himself. He will suspend constitutional rights. He will round up anyone he deems a threat. He will declare war, and his Republican Congress will back him.

And no one will remember that he wasn't paying attention to the growing threat. Wasn't attending the daily national security briefings. Was playing golf instead or meeting with celebrities or staying up til 3 am tweeting about how unfair CNN is. He said he didn't need to be briefed. "You know, I think I'm smart. I don't need to hear the same thing over and over each day for eight years." That's what he told Fox News on December 11th when asked why he wasn't attending the security briefings. Don't forget that date and his hubris as we bury the dead next year.

We had a president like him before. He, too, lost the popular vote, a majority of Americans saying they didn't want him in the Oval Office. But his governor/brother and his ex-CIA chief/dad's appointees to the Supreme Court put an end to that, and he was installed as Commander-in-Chief. On August 6, 2001, he was on a month-long vacation at his ranch in Texas. That morning, the White House Counsel handed him his daily national security briefing. He glanced at it, set it aside and then went fishing for the rest of the day. Below is the photo of that moment which I showed the world in "Fahrenheit 9/11". The headline on the security briefing reads: BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE INSIDE U.S. On the top page it tells how bin Laden will do this: with planes. George W. Bush didn't leave the ranch to go back to work for the next four weeks. In the fifth week, bin Laden attacked the US with planes on September 11th.

It's one thing to have a president who was asleep at the wheel. But, my friends, it's a whole other thing to now have a president-elect who REFUSES TO EVEN GET BEHIND THE WHEEL! This utter neglect of duty, a daily snub at the people who work to protect us, the first Commander-in-Chief to literally be AWOL and announcing proudly he isn't going to change -- this, I assure you, is going to get a lot of innocent people killed.

To you, Mr. Trump, I say this: When this next terrorist attack takes place, it is YOU who will be charged by the American people with a gross dereliction of duty. It was YOUR job to pay attention, to protect the country. But you were too busy tweeting and defending Putin and appointing cabinet members to dismantle the government. You didn't have time for the daily national security briefing.

Don't think we're going to let you use a modern-day burning of the Reichstag as your excuse to eliminate our civil liberties and our democracy.

We will remember that while the plot to kill Americans was being hatched, your time was consumed by whom you saw as the real threat to America: Alec Baldwin in a wig.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Donald Trump Is The Biggest Loser In History To Ever Become President

By Jason Easley


Donald Trump Is The Biggest Loser In History To Ever Become President
Donald Trump didn’t just lose the popular vote. His margin of defeat is five times bigger than any president in US history.

The Independent reported Trump’s landslide popular vote deficit of more 2.8 million votes:

That deficit is more than five times bigger than the 544,000 by which George W. Bush lost to Al Gore in 2000 – the second biggest popular vote deficit in history for a candidate who has still gone on to become President.

Only five US presidents in history have been elected despite losing the popular vote: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888, George W. Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump this November.

Donald Trump’s electoral vote total is only bigger than five winners since World War II. Two of the five smallest belong to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. There is no metric by which Trump’s victory can be characterized as a landslide.

No candidate has ever lost by so much, but still won the White House. This fact is why Trump and his team keep using the word landslide. They believe that if they keep calling the results a landslide, people may forget that Trump lost the popular vote. Donald Trump is running a propaganda effort to convince the majority of the country that they really didn’t vote against him.

Donald Trump has become exactly what he despises the most. Trump is the biggest loser president in the history of US presidential elections.
Recent posts on PoliticusUSA

Monday, December 12, 2016

Nancy Pelosi Defends Her Losing Record With Republican Talking Points

Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appeared on the Face the Nation and sounded a lot like the party she claims to oppose.

Jimmy Dore breaks it down.

Revealing Video Proves Why Democrats Are Full Of Shit

Single payer healthcare has been on the tongues of Democratic politicians for decades, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. They've never delivered.

Jimmy Dore breaks it down.

From the files of Conservative Jones