A Sense of Doubt blog post #2111 - - "And now Here's Something You Will Really Like" - Weekly Hodge Podge for 2011.28
Rocky and Bullwinkle turning 61 does not seem like a momentous occasion, not a mile stone. But then when I saw the news item in BOING BOING, I knew I had found this week’s theme. I was reminded of the tag line of one of their frequent sketches – “and now for something you will really like” – and knew it would be perfect for the theme.
Because we all need that.
It’s time for some things we’ll really like.
Even though like in the original Rocky and Bullwinkle show, the line was always sarcastic. Things never turned out the way Bullwinkle wanted them to turn out.
I am hoping that 2020 does not end that way, like when you go to pull a rabbit out of your hat and it’s a lion trying to eat you.
We’ve been getting the lion all year. And some bears. A cheetah. There’s a bunch of dangerous animals in that hat. FING FANG FOOM. Frantic Ones for Marvel will get that reference.
And just when we think we have seen all the animals, there’s another one, like the teen in Texas brutalized in front of his home by police officers because he refused to stop until he got home because he was afraid. They tase him multiple times and kick hm savagely. Why? Because they can. Because they are often brutal and vicious. And because of our Internet and technology we get to see the brutality. Though this time it was released by the Texas police department, who have suspended the officers as they are investigated for use of unnecessary and excessive force.
And the pandemic is out of control. World Meter, which is always ahead of the Johns Hopkins dashboard, reported today the U.S. death toll at over 270K people with about 2000 people dying each day right now and that number could hit 3000 or more in the very near future. Hospitals are over flowing, and promised vaccines will not get here soon enough. While the soon-to-be president starts working on plans to keep Americans safe and beat the virus, the “president” still in office “shouts” on Twitter about election fraud and plays golf. He continues his baseless claims that he actually won the election, and there’s been a massive crime perpetrated against him even though he has no proof for these assertions.
But there’s a glimmer of hope, that point at which hope and history rhyme, Trump claimed that he will leave the White House when the Electoral College officially votes for Joe Biden. And yet, I am holding my breath until Congress counts those votes at the beginning of January. I am worried that there’s some massive crime about to be perpetrated against us all because Trump is all about projection. What he does he blames other people of doing. I am fairly certain my fears are not justified. If there were a real chance of a coup of that kind, the legitimate news media would be up in arms already and crying foul before it even happens. It’s unlikely something like that could be kept secret. If that kind of massive fraud were committed, if the electors did not vote as they were instructed because Trump has bought them, if the Supreme Court were to abide his accusations of fraud and declare him winner, I think the whole nation would rise up in a wave of violence and resistance unlike anything ever seen in our history or in any country, ever. It would be full blown civil war as the Trumpists, who typically have more guns, would defend their perception of the country with their misguided perception of patriotism and would defend their perception of the rightful president. And there would be slaughter.
Talk about the tongue in cheek “now for something you’ll really like.”
And yet, there are other fun things here in this edition. Great space news, good Biden news, songs about coffee, Governor Cuomo to win International Emmy, new Moon Wiring Club, and we end with “Alice’s Restaurant,” which is apparently is a Thanksgiving holiday favorite for many families.
These good things off set assholes opposing pandemic lock downs thinking about dressing up like slaves in protest!!
It’s another edition of the WEEKLY HODGE PODGE featuring all kinds of things I felt worthy enough from the last week to share with y’all.
I receive more views each week for the WEEKLY HODGE PODGE than any other posts. If you have tuned in, thank you. I appreciate your attention, however brief.
Happy Thanksgiving, again.
AND NOW HERE'S SOMETHING WE HOPE YOU'LL REALLY LIKE...
WKRP turkey giveaway
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Something just came out of the back of the helicopter…
Start your day with 18 minutes of music about coffee, courtesy of They Might Be Giants
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My favorite song about coffee is this 30-second hardcore punk banger by Descendents. But in case you want another way to amp up your morning caffeine intake that isn't a pure blitzkrieg of sensory overload, this mix of They Might Be Giants tunes about coffee are a great alternative. — Read the rest
tMUCitV / JoT
WotanAlthorpe - 717 subscribers - 33/11/2020 www.moonwiringclub.com
THE PANDEMIC
Dr. Fauci says close the bars so we can open the schools. Isn't that a lovely dream, Americans sacrificing for the next generation? — Yahoo
Or just do like the White House, and fuck it. White House Planning Holiday Parties Indoors Despite Pandemic Warnings. (ABC)
The vaccine is gonna suck, FYI :( — CNBC
How Minot becamse the COVID capital of North Dakota. Featuring my son's doctor, who he says saved his life! But he is not my son's doctor because my son lives here now, with me, as all children should. (InForum)
America's best-prepared hospital is nearly overwhelmed. (Free post, The Atlantic)
Governor Andrew Cuomo to be honored with International Emmy
New York governor Andrew Cuomo will receive an International Emmy award, not for his dramatic telenovela role in "La Usurpadora", which Cuomo never starred in, but for his near daily briefings to help reassure the public with information and leadership in the face of the pandemic. — Read the rest
Two Theories Explain COVID-19 Racial Disparities. Which Is Right?
Black communities have been far harder hit by COVID-19 than white communities. Why? One theory is that it’s due to disparities in health care. The state of Michigan tested this out:
Garlin Gilchrist II, a Detroit native as well as the state’s lieutenant governor, formed one of the nation’s first state racial disparities task forces on covid-19 back in April…The group focused not only on boosting testing and contact tracing, but also tailoring messages on mask-wearing and other public health precautions to African American communities. It also addressed broader systemic issues, such as access to primary care, and helping those in rural areas access telemedicine.
When state epidemiologists ran the numbers again in September, they found a huge change: Black residents who in April accounted for 29.4 percent of cases and 40.7 percent of deaths now made up only 8 percent of cases and 10 percent of deaths — very similar to their percentage in the population.
But there’s another theory: namely that Black people on average suffer from more comorbidities than white people. Epidemiologist Peter J. Fos was one of the first to notice that COVID-19 was not like the flu, which tends to hit everyone equally:
Coronavirus cases, however, he noticed, seemed to be clustered in mostly poor Black neighborhoods. He called up friends in Mississippi for that state’s data and found similar patterns. The same thing was true in Michigan.
….In the spring, scholars puzzling over such disparities overlaid maps of covid-19 deaths with maps of communities where heart disease, diabetes, obesity and other conditions were highest in the United States. They found that the hot zones matched up. Numerous studies have since borne out the relationship between these health conditions and high covid-19 death rates. When looking at the role of race, smaller studies — based on data from single hospital systems or regions — found that differences in mortality narrowed when controlling for ailments such as high blood pressure, diabetes, lung conditions and obesity.
If this holds up in other studies done in other states, it means that both theories are probably true. The disparity has roots both in chronic medical conditions¹ and in poor levels of health care in Black communities. If this is true, it’s basically good news: Michigan, after all, didn’t have to literally uproot centuries of past and present racism. They just had to focus modestly more attention and money on Black neighborhoods. And knowing about the comorbidities helps too. Once doctors know about these, they can adjust the level of care that makes sense for different patients.
If we had a White House that cared about this, Michigan’s experience could be replicated on a national level. Would it work? There’s no certain way to know, but doesn’t it seem well worth trying?
¹Which, of course, may themselves be rooted in systemic racism.
11.23.20
Who should be the first to get a coronavirus vaccine? There’s a moral case that the people most vulnerable deserve it first. But physicists who study network theory have a different idea: Start with the social butterflies. If you get everyone to name one person they know and vaccinate those people, you’ll probably inoculate many of the most socially active members of a community. Given the outsized role that superspreaders play in transmitting coronavirus, writer Christopher Cox explains in our latest issue, addressing the people at the center of the network first could be the quickest way to slow the virus’s spread. With the recent news that Pfizer’s vaccine appears to work well, as does Moderna's, and the former has applied for approval from the FDA, this question will soon be relevant. Distributing a vaccine and curbing the spread of Covid-19 will likely be the first items on Joe Biden’s agenda when he’s sworn in on January 20, and it won’t be easy. Winter and the holidays are rapidly approaching, and cases are on the rise nationwide. At WIRED, we’re focused on bringing you the information you need to make safe decisions. We’ve also highlighted the work of scientists devising solutions to improve everything from buildings to the air we breathe. As always, we’re grateful to you for trusting us to tell you what you need to know about politics, PlayStations, epidemiology, and everything in between. Thanks for your support, and stay safe. Nicholas Thompson |
| THE VIRUS | |
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(Mike Blake/Reuters)
As thousands of athletes get coronavirus tests, nurses wonder: What about us?
Sports were a distraction for California nurse Jane Sandoval. Now they’re a reminder of the country’s virus-testing divide.
THE WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT
If you prefer your data in a visual format, here's the current map from COVID Exit Strategy, using data from the CDC and the COVID Tracking Project.
I want to add this link to the weekly report. It's important to remember:
A Sense of Doubt blog post #1983 - Is Coronavirus more contagious and more deadly than the flu? YES.
ALSO... I am seeing a big discrepancy between the Johns Hopkins data in death totals and WORLDOMETER data, which aggregates data from many more sources. Could this be the slow down due to the change in how the CDC obtains the data, having it filter first through Health and Human Services department.
United States
Coronavirus Cases:
Deaths:
Recovered:
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THE ELECTION
Trump "frantic" as lawsuits fail and hopes for legislative coup dim
Trump's legacy
Donald Trump Vows to Leave White House if Electoral College Votes for Biden
NOV 27, 20209:04 AM
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| President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after participating in a Thanksgiving teleconference with members of the United States Military, at the White House in Washington, DC, on November 26, 2020. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/Getty Images |
President Donald Trump said he would leave the White House when the electoral college votes for President-elect Joe Biden. “Certainly I will, and you know that,” he said when asked directly about what he will do. It wasn’t quite a concession of defeat but it was the closest to that for a president who had not explicitly said he was going to leave on Jan. 20. Making it clear that his statement didn’t represent a massive change in tone though, Trump immediately continued to say he would keep doubting the results of the election with baseless claims of voter fraud. “I think that there will be a lot of things happening between now and the 20th of January, a lot of things. Massive fraud has been found,” he insisted without providing evidence.
Trump said he would leave the White House after he repeatedly danced around the question of whether he would concede to Biden once the electoral college votes. “It’s going to be a very hard thing to concede because we know there was massive fraud,” Trump said without evidence. Pressed on the issue, Trump said that if the electoral college votes for Biden “they made a mistake, because this election was a fraud” and repeatedly said that the United States was “like a third world country.” The electoral college is scheduled to meet on Dec. 14 and Congress officially counts the votes on Jan. 6.
Trump spoke to reporters for the first time since Election Day on Thursday after he spoke to troops around the world in a Thanksgiving tradition. The question-and-answer session turned combative at points with the president slamming a reporter as a “lightweight” when he was interrupted. “Don’t talk to me that way. I’m the President of the United States. Don’t ever talk to the president that way.” It also showed a president out of step with his party as he said that it wasn’t “right” for Biden to start picking Cabinet members at a time when members of his administration are already working with Biden’s team on the transition.
At a time when coronavirus infections and deaths are on the rise across the country, Trump only dedicated brief comments to the issue and his focus seemed to be on taking credit for the development of vaccines. “Don’t let Joe Biden take credit for the vaccines,” Trump said. “The vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before.”
https://ask.slashdot.org/story/20/11/23/0249233/ask-slashdot-why-havent-we-implemented-public-key-infrastructure-voting
Ask Slashdot: Why Haven't We Implemented Public Key Infrastructure Voting?
It just seems like paper at this point has outlived its secureness. A closed sourced voting system doesn't really seem like the kind of thing Slashdot would really get behind.
SSL's article points out that the technology seems to exist already. Nearly half the population of Estonia already votes online, and four U.S. states (Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and North Dakota) already have web portals that allow for absentee voting. (And West Virginia has a mobile voting app that uses blockchain technology.)[L]uckily, the groundwork for securing the practice of remote, online voting is already there. We have been conducting many delicate transactions online for some time — the secure transfer of information has been a cornerstone for many industries that have successfully shifted online such as personal banking and investing, and those methods of securing and authenticating information can be employed in voting as well. For years, people have suggested that the use of blockchain technology could be used to secure elections and increase voter turnout.
This is a good headline. "Rudy The Dripper: The Vicious Cycle of Dead-Ender Propagandists Feeding Bullshit to Tribalist Republicans" — Emptywheel
Rep. Gerry Connolly talking some SHIT about GSA Emily! (Twitter)
Michigan AG Dana Nessel is ready to investigate if any elected officials try to overturn the election. (Washington Post)
Good morning. The Trump administration has started the transition to Joe Biden’s presidency. |
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He wasn’t the decider |
Many Americans have spent weeks, if not months, asking some version of this question: What if President Trump refuses to leave office? |
The main answer to the question has always been the same: It’s not up to him. |
As long as other parts of the government — like Congress, the courts and the military — insisted that he honor the election’s outcome, he would have to do so. He could do so quickly and cleanly, as all of his predecessors have done. Or he could make it messy, discrediting American democracy along the way. But he would eventually need to leave the White House. |
Last night, he took a big step toward doing so. |
Emily Murphy, a Trump appointee who runs the agency in charge of presidential transitions, formally designated Joe Biden as the election’s apparent winner. Murphy’s move provides Biden with federal funds for his transition and authorizes Biden’s aides to begin working with Trump administration officials. |
On Twitter, Trump signaled that he accepted the decision, but he did not concede. He also indicated that he would continue his legal efforts to overturn the election result, but they have shown no sign of success. (Election officials in Michigan and multiple Pennsylvania counties yesterday certified their election results.) In every substantive way, the Trump presidency is now coming to an end. |
All of which is a reminder of how much influence our system of government gives to people other than the president. |
At times, a president can seem all-powerful, and Trump’s presidency had an especially consuming quality to it, for both his supporters and detractors. Even members of Congress, especially Republicans, liked to claim during the past four years that they were powerless to change Trump’s behavior. |
But that’s not how the U.S. government really works. As Matt Glassman, a Georgetown University political scientist, has told me: “Presidents compete with numerous actors — Congress, the courts, interest groups, political appointees in the departments and agencies, and career civil servants — for influence over public policy. The president must rely on his informal ability to convince other political actors it is in their interest to go along with him, or at least not stand in his way.” |
When a president fails to do so, he often ends up being powerless to act. And that’s what happened to Trump. Hundreds of local election officials refused to bend to him. Over the past few days, several congressional Republicans publicly told him that he needed to acknowledge reality. (Many other congressional Republicans were only mildly supportive of him, giving credence to his lies but doing nothing concrete to support his efforts to change the result.) Business groups — traditional Republican allies — also told him to begin the transition. |
In the end, Trump did as they told him to do. |
For more: The Times’s Matt Flegenheimer and Maggie Haberman write about what Trump liked about being president. One thing he seemed to genuinely enjoy: pardoning turkeys. |
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2020/11/if-pelosi-pushes-these-quick-bills-they.html
Saturday, November 21, 2020
If Pelosi pushes these quick bills, they might achieve wonders… even if blocked!
All eyes turn to Georgia, whose January 6 runoff election will decide if Mitch McConnell's tightly-disciplined* Senate majority will keep blocking any possibility of legislation - even negotiation - in the U.S. Billions are flowing into the Peach State, where Stacey Abrams might achieve wonders, yet again. But the person who might tip the balance is...Nancy Pelosi.
It's all complicated and interesting; will you let me explain? For those too impatient to read, here's a capsule summary:
1- Those MAGAs yammering that only keeping the two Georgia seats Republican can prevent communism are fools, for many reasons. Above all, there's Joe Manchin, Democrat from deep red West Virginia, who's vowed to block Supreme Court expansion and to keep the filibuster**. So, even if VP Kamala can break 50:50 ties, there will be a 'check on radicalism.'
Meanwhile though the Manchin thing shatters your semi-sane uncle's 'check on communism' argument. So use him that way.
2- Okay so Joe Biden asks Pelosi to rush through a new attempt at a a stimulus bill, just today. Alas, we know it's for show because Mitch will block it.
So I am about to propose other quickie bills that would have a different effect, altogether! Bills that are so simple and obvious that Perdue and Loeffler would be put in an awkward position of opposing them in the Senate, just before the January 6 run-off!
Okay, capsule is done. If you want the actual ideas, you're gonna have to read.
== Proposed actions BEFORE Inauguration! ==
With the election of Joe Biden and the imminent expulsion of the Liar/Saboteur-in Chief, about one quarter of the tactics and methods proposed in Polemical Judo are rendered obsolete. That is, until Trump’s “Rant n’ Roll” rave rallies and his maniacal Trump TV Network become more than a nuisance. The rest of the book contains many unconventional tactics that could have turned our recent, nailbiter election into the hoped-for rout.
And so we come to suggestion time. As I did in 2008.
Phase one: Now until January 20 Inauguration Day
Phase two: The first few weeks and months
Phase Three: More legislation to achieve near and mid-term benefits
Today it's all phase one.
Priority #1 for all new legislators and appointees to the new administration is... avoid blackmail traps! Yeah, I know it sounds weird, but I promise you, Putin's agents are all over DC, setting up hotel rooms with one way mirrors, just like in the Borat movie! Blackmail has been standard Russian spy technique, going back to the Czarist Okrahna. And even if you shrug this off... but grow more wary of entrapment, I'll have done some good! And warn all your relatives, especially the male ones, about the story of Anthony Kennedy.
(Seriously, no other explanation than blackmail can explain the behavior of many in DC. Read the explanation.)
Note also, even if you have already been snared, now is the time to contact the FBI! They will likely say you were part of a sting, if you help catch the bastards.
Priority #2 - confront the GOP, especially Loeffler and Perdue with lose-lose choices! The goppers are expert at this tactic, so why can't we use it? Trap them into publicly opposing things that would be wildly popular with voters!
Want examples that could be passed super quickly, even in the next two weeks? Defy Perdue and Loeffler to take a stand and demand immediate votes on these! If they refuse, it could tip a few thousand votes.***
- Imagine a bill putting new limits on Presidential powers -- including Biden's! And with Joe's active support! Seriously, it must be done anyway. Incredible failure modes were revealed by a madman predecessor. Like reasonable limits on war powers, or establishing procedures to rule on emoluments. This needn't be the only such bill, so it needn't be perfect! Just cover the quick-obvious ones that also serve as zingers. Nothing would better slash at the Foxite rants that Dems are power-hungry cheats... like Republicans are.
- A COVID relief bill? Sure, try that. Though I doubt Mitch would face defections there. And others on this list will be more effective because they can be utterly simple! A few sentences.
- How about a bill immediately giving medicare coverage to all CHILDREN, a move so guaranteed of parental enthusiasm that anyone opposing it would face toasting. It's a win-win, if we demand those Georgia senators decide now, risking ire from either those parents or Moscow Mitch.
And with Biden consenting to them, won't this wind up making dems look like non-partisan reformers? And would that also not put those two GA senators (and others like Murkowsk) on the spot, at just the moment we want them to squirm?
- Here's one that could be passed in less than an hour, requiring just one sentence! A bill that simply ends the ban on refinancing student debt. It is insane that folks are forbidden to do what anyone with a mortgage can do, taking advantage of low interest rates. Sure, this is not the student debt forgiveness that so many of us want. But it would be a start and matter to millions. So would a second sentence letting student loans be discharged in bankruptcy. (Not available to high earners.)
Crucially, it can be done quickly in as little as one sentence! Pelosi/Schiff could do it right now! Making GOP senators choose in what amounts to a lose-lose for Mitch's cabal.
Oh, there are many more of these reforms that don't have to wait for inauguration! Because they'll either get Senate defections to pass with Trump's grudging assent... or else make Republicans look very, very bad and Democrats very good.
BLACK LIVES MATTER, RACISM, AND POLICE REFORM NOW
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https://www.theroot.com/former-student-sues-illinois-high-school-for-blatant-w-1845756070
Former Student Sues Illinois High School for Blatant, Widespread Racism
A former student has sued an Illinois high school, citing multiple racist incidents he experienced and observed during his time at the school.
According to CBS Chicago, 19-year-old Stanley Fabian observed and personally experienced multiple instances of racism during his time at Minooka Community High School. Fabian recounted an incident he experienced last year as a senior at the school, when a white student brought an oversized cookie into the classroom.
“When I jokingly reached for it – he was at the front of the class – he turned around and said, ‘If you touch that cookie cake, I’m going to lynch you,’” Fabian told the news outlet. “I didn’t even know how to respond. It was like a deer-in-the-headlights kind of moment.”
Bruh, I don’t care if the kid was a teenager, threatening to lynch someone over a cookie cake is an offense worthy of being stomped. No one should be threatening to lynch anyone, period. Doing so over a cookie cake, makes you simultaneously racist and a punk-bitch.
A Trump, if you will.
While the incident was shocking for Fabian, it wasn’t exactly unexpected. “For four years, I’ve heard multiple slurs being thrown around towards African-American students, Mexican students,” Fabian said.
Fabian’s mother, TeSaxton Washington, told CBS Chicago that while the student who made the threat was eventually suspended, the response from the school is what spurred the family to take legal action. “It was apparent from day one that this was not something that they were really going to treat seriously,” Washington told CBS Chicago.
Washington said she felt more confident in filing the suit after speaking to the parents of other students who have experienced similar incidents. “This was not just his story,” Washington told the news outlet. “In fact, this is something that has been going on for at least five decades.”
For those curious about what she means by five decades, well, it’s a doozy.
See, in 1987 the school thought it was a good idea to hold a “Slave Days” event. It was a fun-for-the-whole-family affair that included simulated lynchings and slave auction reenactments.
I guess that was one way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Roots. I certainly wouldn’t have expected less from the coked out white folks of the Regan-era.
A representative for Minooka “Slave Days” Community High School told CBS Chicago they weren’t aware of the lawsuit, adding that the school doesn’t comment on pending litigation.
Fabian hopes that the lawsuit will effect meaningful change for the Black and brown students at the school. “The students should feel protected,” Fabian told CBS Chicago. “As of right now I don’t think the majority of minority students feel protected.”
https://www.theroot.com/officials-release-video-footage-of-texas-officers-viole-1845765957
Officials Release Video Footage of Texas Officers' Violent Arrest of Black Teen Who Drove to Parents' House Instead of Pulling Over
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For people who damn near use, “I was in fear for my life” as a catchphrase whenever they need to justify deadly use of force, cops don’t seem to understand that citizens—especially Black people—can be afraid and act out of fear, too.
Earlier this month, 18-year-old Zekee Rayford was arrested in Schertz, Texas, after police said he ran a red light and failed to pull over. Rayford reportedly drove to his parents’ house instead of stopping immediately. In video footage taken from the doorbell security camera of Rayford’s parents’ home, the teen can be seen knocking at the door and shouting for his father just before officers tased him, tackled him to the ground and kicked him repeatedly. On Wednesday, after previously denying open records requests to release body camera and dashcam footage from the Nov. 2 arrest, the city released 20 videos related to the incident. Schertz officials said they were waiting on authorization from the Guadalupe County District Attorney’s Office to release the footage.
KENS 5 reports that officers said on the night of Rayford’s arrest, that the teen had run a red light and didn’t pull over until he got to a home about a mile away from where they began the traffic stop. Rayford’s parents said he simply wanted to get to a “safe place” before pulling over so he drove until he got to their driveway.
According to KENS, the newly released footage shows Rayford exiting his car with his hands up and running towards his parents’ house while officers chased after him.
From KENS:
KENS 5 went through the new footage released by the city that show the moments leading up to the arrest and the aftermath of the incident. In one of the videos from one officer’s point of view, officers are heard yelling commands to Rayford several times to cooperate with them.
“Stop resisting! You’re under arrest right now. Do you understand that? Turn the [expletive] around and put your hands behind your back,” said one of the officers.
After his father answered the door, one of the officers is hear telling him, “You better relax or you’re going to get it next, I promise you, you will.”
Another officer who responds to the incident spoke with Rayford’s father who asks why police tased his son when he got to the door.
“He’s running. He’s committing a felony by fleeing a police officer. And by fleeing on foot, he’s committing another crime. Evading on foot,” he says in response.
In another video, Rayford is handcuffed and sitting in the back of a patrol unit. He says that he doesn’t want to talk to officers and asks if an officer is going to shoot him. He’s heard in the video saying he felt uncomfortable.
“You should have stopped, right?” asks one officer. “But yeah, it was still unnecessary though,” replies Rayford.
Other videos show the tension between Rayford’s family members and officers after the arrest. The family members are outside of their home and they continue to argue with police. At one point, you can see Rayford’s father approaching another officer.
“He’s coming aggressive towards my officer,” says the officer in the video. “Get him in the house. We’re done. Get him in the house.”
So just a quick recap: Officers see a teen who is clearly afraid of them knocking at a door and repeatedly shouting, “dad” and still feel the need to use the force they used taking him down. An officer then threatens to do the same to his understandably upset father. Then a cop gets shook seeing the father—who, again, is understandably upset—”coming aggressive towards my officer.” All of that fear and nervousness on full display, but they don’t understand how a Black teenager might have been afraid enough to keep driving until he got to his parents’ house and then run to their door.
Anyway, according to KSAT Local News, Schertz Mayor Ralph Gutierrez released the following statement:
“I fully understand the concerns and public outcry brought about from this incident. The City of Schertz is an inclusive community and one that celebrates all of our residents. My hope is that in every interaction with the City, residents feel respected, valued, and understood. Throughout every situation, the City is deeply committed to doing what’s right and at this time, the right thing to do is be as transparent as we can, which is why we are releasing this footage.”
KENS reports that three officers involved in the incident have been taken off patrol and reassigned pending an internal affairs investigation into the arrest which officials said is underway. According to TMZ, Rayford was charged with felony evading in a motor vehicle, resisting arrest, and possession of marijuana.
DEMAND JUSTICE.
END POLICE BRUTALITY.
RANDOM AND SUNDRY
Assigning Homework Exacerbates Class Divides, Researchers Find
Assigning Homework Exacerbates Class Divides, Researchers Find (vice.com)
"Here, teachers knew that students were getting unequal support with homework," said Jessica Calarco, the first author of the paper and an associate professor of psychology at Indiana University. "And yet, because of these standard, taken-for-granted policies that treated homework as students' individual responsibilities, it erased those unequal contexts of support and led teachers to interpret and respond to homework in these status-reinforcing ways...."
The teachers interviewed for the paper acknowledged the unequal contexts affecting whether students could complete their math homework fully and correctly, Calarco said. However, that did not stop the same teachers from using homework as a way to measure students' abilities. "The most shocking and troubling part to me was hearing teachers write off students because they didn't get their homework done," Calarco said.... Part of the reason why homework can serve as a status-reinforcing process is that formal school policies and grading schemes treat it as a measure of a student's individual effort and responsibility, when many other factors affect completion, Calarco said....
"I'm not sure I want to completely come out and say that we need to ban homework entirely, but I think we need to really seriously reconsider when and how we assign it."
AND MORE SLASHDOT NEWS SUMMARIES
Tech Organizations Back 'Inclusive Naming Initiative'
Tesla Model 3 Crash Hurls Battery Cells Into Nearby Home
In the Last Week America Experienced 1 Million New Coronavirus Cases
In Historic Test, US Navy Shoots Down an Intercontinental Ballastic Missile
Masks are Effective, Despite One Flawed Study From Denmark
Why Amazon's Echo Shines an Ominous Red Light When Its Microphone is Muted
Rocket Lab Becomes Second Company After SpaceX To Launch and Land Orbital Rocket
Deep Frozen Arctic Microbes Are Waking Up
The US Could Soon Ban the Selling of Carrier-Locked Phones
Platypuses: they're venomous, they sweat milk, and turns out they glow in the dark too.
In nature's coolest collage experiment, Platypuses are like the result of throwing together the leftovers from a bunch of other animals. They're the only mammal to lay eggs, they have venom in their feet, they don't have nipples so they sweat milk to feed their young, and now it turns out they glow in the dark as well. — Read the rest
To Explain Away Dark Matter, Gravity Would Have To Be Really Weird (sciencemag.org)
Pardo and Spergel derived a mathematical function that describes how gravity would have had to work to get from the distribution of ordinary matter revealed by the CMB to the current distribution of the galaxies. They found something striking: That function must swing between positive and negative values, meaning gravity would be attractive at some length scales and repulsive at others, Pardo and Spergel report this week in Physical Review Letters. "And that's superweird," Pardo says...
In a paper posted in June to the preprint server arXiv, theoretical cosmologists Constantinos Skordis and Tom Zlosnik of the Czech Academy of Sciences present a dark matter-less theory of modified gravity they say jibes with CMB data. To do that, researchers add to a theory like general relativity an additional, tunable field called a scalar field. It has energy, and through Einstein's equivalence of mass and energy, it can behave like a form of mass. Set things up just right and at large spatial scales, the scalar field interacts only with itself and acts like dark matter...
Skordis's and Zlosnik's paper is "very exciting," Pardo says. But he notes that in some sense it merely replaces one mysterious thing — dark matter — with another — a carefully tuned scalar field. Given the complications, Pardo says, "dark matter is kind of the easier explanation."
Mass-Produced, Librem 5 Linux Smartphone Begins Shipping to Customers (puri.sm)
The Librem 5 doesn't run Android nor iOS but instead runs the same PureOS operating system as Purism's laptops and mini PC.
The Librem 5 has unique hardware features including a user-removable cellular modem, WiFi card, and battery. Like with Librem laptops, the Librem 5 also features external hardware kill switches that cut power to the cellular modem, WiFi/Bluetooth, and front and back cameras and microphone so that the user can control when these devices are in use. All hardware switches can also be triggered together to enable "lockdown mode" which also disables the GPS, accelerometer and all other sensors...
Another unique feature of the Librem 5 is convergence: the ability to connect the Librem 5 to a monitor or laptop dock and use it as a desktop computer running the same full-sized desktop applications as on Librem laptops. When in a phone form-factor, applications behave much like "responsive websites" and change their appearance for the smaller screen. This allows you to use the Librem 5 as a phone, a desktop, or a laptop with the same applications and same files.
Their announcement notes their work on software making desktop applications "adaptive" to phone form factors, adding "This suite of software has now become the most popular software stack to use on other handheld Linux hardware." And they close with an appreciative comment from Purism's founder and CEO Todd Weaver:
"Shipping the Librem 5 has been an immense multi-year developmental effort. It is the culmination of people's desire to see an alternative to Android and iOS and fund it, coupled with dedication from a team of experts addressing hardware, kernel, operating system, and applications that has turned a lofty near-impossible goal into reality. We have built a strong foundation and with the continued support of customers, the community, and developers, we will continue to deliver revolutionary products like the Librem 5 running PureOS."
Scientists are using to AI to recreate the stench of 16th century Europe
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The Odeuropa project, based out of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, just received a $3.32 million dollar grant to discovery now stinky Europeans really were before modern indoor plumbing and other hygienic practices. — Read the rest
Rocky and Bullwinkle turn 61
Sixty-one years ago this past Thursday, Rocket "Rocky" J. Squirrel and Bullwinkle J. Moose were introduced to American TV audiences. The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends debuted on ABC and NBC at 5:30 pm on November 19, 1959.
Rocky and Bullwinkle was one of the first cartoons I saw as a child and I'm sure it twisted my tiny, impressionable nervous system in all sorts of subversive way. — Read the rest
Study Finds Users, Not Notifications, Initiate 89% of Smartphone Interactions (psychnewsdaily.com)
The most common activity users engaged in when using their phones was checking WhatsApp, which accounted for 22% of interactions. [...] The second most common interaction, at 17% of the total, was a "lock screen check," which means briefly unlocking the phone to check for new notifications. In third place was interacting with Instagram (16%). Facebook and Facebook messenger together accounted for 13% of the interactions, e-mail for 6%, web browsing 4%, music 3%, Snapchat 2%, and photos 2%. Phone calls -- these devices are phones, after all -- only comprised about 1% of the interactions.
The participants generally considered e-mail notifications the most important. Likewise, they largely considered group chats a "source of distress," and found most group-chat messages unimportant. Smartphone interactions were longer when users were alone versus with others, and were also longer at home versus at work. Likewise, these interactions were shorter when participants received notifications, compared to when they "self-disrupt." This indicates that smartphone use is more purposeful when users receive notifications, and more "distraction-seeking" when they check their phones themselves. The researchers also found that the scrolling features on apps like Instagram and Facebook led to the longest interactions.
https://science.slashdot.org/story/20/11/26/147237/culled-mink-rise-from-the-dead-to-denmarks-horror
Culled Mink Rise From the Dead To Denmark's Horror (theguardian.com)
Cambridge University Says Darwin's Iconic Notebooks Were Stolen (nbcnews.com)
"I am heartbroken that the location of these Darwin notebooks, including Darwin's iconic 'Tree of Life' drawing, is currently unknown, but we're determined to do everything possible to discover what happened and will leave no stone unturned during this process," Jessica Gardner, the university librarian and director of library services, said in a statement. The lost manuscripts were initially thought to have been misplaced in the university's enormous archives, which house roughly 10 million books, maps and other objects. But an exhaustive search initiated at the start of 2020 -- the "largest search in the library's history," according to Gardner -- failed to turn up the notebooks and they are now being reported as stolen. Cambridge University officials said a police investigation is underway and the notebooks have been added to Interpol's database of stolen artworks.
In this new effort, Caballero reasoned that if the source was some other life form, it would likely be living on an exoplanet -- and if that were the case, it would stand to reason that such a life form might be living on a planet similar to Earth -- one circling its own sun-like star. Pursuing this logic, Caballero began searching the publicly available Gaia database for just such a star. The Gaia database has been assembled by a team working at the Gaia observatory run by the European Space Agency. Launched back in 2013, the project has worked steadily on assembling the best map of the night sky ever created. To date, the team has mapped approximately 1.3 billion stars. In studying his search results, Caballero found what appears to fit the bill -- a star (2MASS 19281982-2640123) that is very nearly a mirror image of the sun -- and is located in the part of the sky where the Wow! signal originated. He notes that there are other possible candidates in the area but suggests his candidate might provide the best launching point for a new research effort by astronomers who have the tools to look for exoplanets.Caballero shared his findings via arXiv.
Illegal Tampering By Diesel Pickup Owners Is Worsening Pollution, EPA Says
The E.P.A. focused just on devices installed in heavy pickup trucks, such as the Chevrolet Silverado and the Dodge Ram 2500, about 15 percent of which appear to have defeat devices installed. But such devices -- commercially available and marketed as a way to improve vehicle performance -- almost certainly have been installed in millions of other vehicles. The report found "significant amounts of excess air pollution caused by tampering" with diesel pickup truck emissions controls. The technology is essentially an at-home version of the factory-installed "defeat devices" embedded into hundreds of thousands of vehicles in the United States by Volkswagen, which was forced to pay $14.7 billion in the U.S. to settle claims stemming from the scandal. The report said "diesel tuners" will allow the trucks to release more than 570,000 tons of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant linked to heart and lung disease and premature death, over the lifetime of the vehicles. That is more than ten times the excess nitrogen oxide emissions attributed to the factory-altered Volkswagens sold domestically. The report also found that the altered pickup trucks will emit about 5,000 excess tons of industrial soot, also known as particulate matter, which is linked to respiratory diseases and higher death rates for Covid-19 patients.
https://www.theonion.com/satan-offering-black-friday-deal-to-trade-only-50-of-s-1845748500
Satan Offering Black Friday Deal To Trade Only 50% Of Soul For Lifetime Of Riches
NINTH CIRCLE, HELL—Claiming that untold wealth could be yours for the “low, low price of half your immortal essence,” Satan, the Great Tempter and Prince of Darkness, announced this morning a Black Friday deal in which human beings could trade a mere 50% of their soul for a lifetime of riches. “If you’ve ever dreamed of being rich beyond your wildest imagination but didn’t want to give up your entire soul to do it, then I have a deal for you,” said the Father of Lies, speaking in hideous guttural tones as he explained that fortune, power, and influence had never been more affordable than they were right now to mortals who scrawled the promo code “MEPHISTOPHELES” in blood upon the door of their home. “Finally, it’s possible to become one of the wealthiest people on the planet while still retaining a small part of what makes you human. Act now before you end up poor and destitute! And don’t forget, I’m willing to match whatever offer God makes you. That’s a promise.” At press time, Satan had reportedly offered to throw in a free year of Apple TV+ with each qualifying purchase.
Apparently, it's a tradition for some families to listen to "Alice's Restaurant" on Thanksgiving.
Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant (Live at Farm Aid 2005)
Fundraiser
1,301,795 views•Jul 13, 2011
Arlo Guthrie performs "Alice's Restaurant" live at Farm Aid 2005 at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, Illinois on September 18, 2005. Get this concert on DVD at: http://FarmAid.org/2005DVD
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2011.28 - 10:10
- Days ago = 1975 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
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