Open Mic for the week of 6/10/2024
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to the front page.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
It’s the birthday of both American biologist E.O. Wilson and Judy Garland.
(Featured image is “Create a highly detailed image of an ant that has been infected by the Cordyceps fungus. The ant should be positioned on a leaf in a tropical rainforest environment, with the fungus visibly growing out of its head and body”, generated by Canva.)
Sad news out of Cambridge, especially in these times.
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/noam-chomsky-health-update-tributes-b2559831.html
I had wondered if something bad had happened, after Finkelstein said in an interview late last year that he would usually talk to him about ethics, but he couldn’t talk to him anymore.Report
One thing that I’ve realized recently is that very few advocates for a certain policy seem to believe that it is important to go out and convince the citizenry of the correctness or righteousness of that policy. Everybody just assumes that their policy preferences are so morally correct that everybody must adopt them out of sheer righteousness. On the rare occasions that people do try to go out and convince, um, non-believers of their policy they can’t help but use jargon that only makes sense to people who already agree with them. I’ve seen this across the political spectrum. This is why you have Rightists who keep going on and on about the woke and Leftists who keep using terms like American imperialism or settler-colonialism in ways that make no sense to nearly everybody else.Report
Remember the whole “mistake vs. conflict” thing we had going on there for a while?
If I had to guess, the loudest good-natured “mistake” people got disabused of their notions leaving only the self-diagnosed Asperger’s people.
Conflict, conflict, conflict. Which means that you don’t need to make sense to anyone else. You just need to preach to your choir and wait for people to start sitting in the back pew where you can yell at them for not showing up sooner.Report
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/10/us/us-violent-crime-rates-statistics/index.htmlReport
I guess the Boudin recall had a positive effect after all!Report
From Newsweek: Joe Biden Favored to Beat Donald Trump in 538 Election Forecast.
You can check out 538’s article here.Report
Hmm what’s the deadline to move to Pennsylvania and be able to register to vote there?Report
Oct. 21, 2024 is the last day to register before the Nov. 5, 2024 election.
Check out Ardmore. Looks like a nice place to live.Report
Oh but there’s a 30-day residency requirement, so you have to close by October 6th.
It would be about a 50-fold increase in my voting power, according to 538 – might be worth it…Report
I think 538’s polling model is missing an important point. Or perhaps the pollsters’ models are missing it. From 1988, the Democratic share of the presidential vote in CA, CO, AZ, and NV has increased by between one and two percentage points per four-year cycle. R-squared values from 0.6 to 0.9. I expect Arizona and Nevada will go for Biden where 538’s model favors Trump narrowly in those two.Report
Hunter was found guilty.
Which seems to indicate that the laptop was found to be real.Report
Seems so, but its salience to Hunters father remains firmly established at zero so the decision not to indulge the attempt to rat-fish the 2020 election regarding said laptop also looks correct.Report
I don’t recall anything on that laptop having anything to do with the crimes for which he has been convicted.Report
Statement from Joe Biden:
“As I said last week, I am the President, but I am also a Dad,” the president said in a statement after the verdict was delivered. “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today.”
“So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery.”
“As I also said last week, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal,” he added. “Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.”
Compare and contrast.Report
As a father I feel his deep pain.Report
Being a father isn’t something you get to give up when your children reach a specific age. Nor, based on my own experience, is being someone’s child something you get to give up. When I had to put my wife in memory care a bit over a year ago, my children’s reactions, both in their own way, were “Shut up, Dad, and let us help.”Report
Stuff on the laptop was used as evidence for Hunter’s drug addiction.
Hunter’s drug addiction is key to the whole paperwork issue at the heart of the case.
Hunter Biden was found guilty on all three counts.Report
Remember….EVERYONE signed a piece of paper saying it smacked of a Russian disinfo campaign.Report
Given the manner in which the laptop surfaced, the persons claiming the loudest what was on it, the selective leaking of its alleged contents to right wing news outlets, and the FBI’s steadfast refusal (even now) to attest t its veracity, calling it potential disinformation seemed reasonable at the time.Report
Oh, you may have missed some of the House testimony from last year, then.
Here’s a transcript.
You probably want to narrow your claim to what FBI directors have attested to.Report
Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
Oh, come on!Report
“The House Subcommittee is Partisan!” is less interesting of a criticism than you probably think, when the point of the link is the under-oath testimony.Report
A reminder that HUAC heard sworn testimony, too.Report
If the argument is that the people giving testimony are lying under oath, that’s cool. I’ve heard that argument before.
If the argument is that it doesn’t matter what the people who are giving testimony are saying because the people asking the questions are partisan…
I’m not exactly sure that that’s a standard we want to establish.Report
One did not need the laptop to know that Hunter Biden has a drug problem – as both he and the President have spoken about it openly for years. Thus one did not need it to prosecute him for lying about his addiction on the federal gun form – which is the underlying crime for which he has been convicted by a jury of his peers.Report
That seems to be a different claim. I’ll shrug at that claim, I guess. Sure.
It wasn’t necessary.
Even so, it was introduced into evidence and it was testified about and evidence found on the laptop was introduced despite it not being necessary to reach a conviction.Report
“I don’t recall anything on that laptop having anything to do with the crimes for which he has been convicted.”
wow that was quick
by the way, what’s the diplomatic situation between Oceania and Eurasia?Report
Last I checked both Oceania and Eurasia blamed the other one for starting a war that doesn’t actually exist, but the existence of which is used as propaganda to control a population.Report
Every few years the press used to have a group reflection, a “why did we miss / fail at a particular story?” kind of thing. There hasn’t been one of those in a while. The last one I remember was some shared pondering about why they permitted Trump to get so much coverage in 2016. I think they blamed the head of CNN, then updated their mastheads to reflect how important they are.
They haven’t thoughtfully reconsidered their covid coverage, the Hunter Biden laptop, any of the Trump impeachments, their Afghanistan expertise, or their own commitment to a free press.Report
Uri Berliner had one of these about NPR a couple of months ago, you may remember. They suspended him.Report
Sharyl Attkisson, Catherine Herridge, Bari Weiss, a handful of others. A small handful. If your hand gives you trouble, chop it off. It is better to enter progressive utopia without a right hand, or anything that looks right-leaning.Report
I mean yes, if you go to a competitor and talk about how your co-workers are bad at their jobs, things aren’t going to go well for you.
If Uri disliked his co-workers that much and thought there was no chance of “fixing” things in his view, he should’ve done what he ended up doing – quit.
He wanted to continued to get paid and work with people he already admitted he thought weren’t qualified for the job. Turns out, when you admit that publicly, your other co-workers aren’t going to put up with that.Report
Aw come on, Jesse, no fair bringing common sense into this.Report
I’m sure Uri thought management would realize their error, fire all the “idiots” and keep him.Report
There’s a special place in hell for whistleblowers, that’s for sure.Report
Uri Berliner isn’t revealing Boeing is basically making their planes with Elmer’s Glue – he’s an old guy upset over personel & programming shifts made by his employer. Maybe you agree with him or not, but it’s not whistleblowing.
Uri said in his article he actually went through the process of talking to the higher ups. They disagreed with his criticism. When your bosses disagree with you on something that isn’t illegal you have two choices – keep working and stay quiet about it or quit and talk openly about it.
You don’t get to keep cashing checks from people you’re attacking. Even, I as, a dirty leftist SJW don’t believe that. At least not without a better union contract.Report
Whistleblowing includes reporting “mismanagement”.
If NPR actively decided to become a leftist only outlet, then that would be exactly what you said.
Instead NPR’s management seems to have bought into the idea that diversity isn’t about ideas. That instantly takes them to group think.
They’re one short step away from deciding that those who disagree with the Left are wrong/evil and the purpose of “news” is to support the Left.Report
Add to this, why WaPo sat on the Alito flag story for three and a half years is a question without a good answer.Report
Fun with Chat GPT…
I was curious myself on how much if any info came from the laptop. So I asked ChatGPT 4 simple questions (no prompt engineering, just normie questions).
1. In the Hunter Biden gun possession case, was any evidence presented that had been garnered from the laptop he had abandoned?
2. were there any pictures of hunter biden holding a gun on the laptop?
3. were there pictures of a gun while hunter biden was also doing drugs?
4. in what year were those pictures taken?
Answers:
1. No, with a disclaimer: “these photographs were part of the broader public discourse and media coverage surrounding Hunter Biden, they were not directly cited or used as evidence in the gun possession charges brought against him.”
2. Yes, with the [same] disclaimer
3. Yes, with the [same] disclaimer
4. “The photographs of Hunter Biden holding a firearm that were reportedly found on the laptop were taken in October 2018. This timing is significant because it coincides with the period when Hunter Biden is alleged to have purchased a firearm and completed a federal background check form denying drug use, which is central to the charges in the gun possession case.”
Granted, I haven’t fact checked the AI to see if it’s hallucinating; but I think we could say that Philip is correct *and* that JB is correct in this way:
Hunter Biden was charged with a ‘checkbox’ crime — that is he self-reported that he was eligible to purchase the pistol… which, absent the very public pictures of his various episodes likely would not have been prosecuted. But the very public nature of his drug use and firearm possession gave prosecutors an easy path to check the purchase contract and line it up with public utterances about treatment etc. — which would be a much more likely path for prosecution.
I mean, it’s a very good thing for Hunter that his laptop didn’t also contain photos of someone other than himself packing his bags before travelling on an airplane.Report
p.s. I’m purposely bracketing the kinda weird disclaimer that kept popping in to all the answers until it completely disappeared with answer #4 (which is quoted in entirety).Report
The laptop was brought out and shown to the jury during the trial:
I’ve heard that Law Enforcement has zero compunction against lying on the stand, though.Report
Dang, if you can’t trust ChatGPT to give you the straight skinny, who can you trust?Report
Well, it’s not inconsistent with what either you or Phil has said.
(Apart from the claim about the FBI being unwilling to testify to its veracity, that is.)Report
I suppose I didn’t specifically ask if the laptop itself had been presented to the jury… so it technically wasn’t lying.
Makes me go to one of my original thoughts about AI: ‘What if we haven’t invented artificial intelligence, but Djin.’Report
I’m pretty sure that they could have gotten the convictions *WITHOUT* the laptop, fwiw.
I’m just not sure that they’d have been spurred to go for one without it.
PAY YOUR COMPUTER TECHS, PEOPLE!!!! TIP THEM, EVEN!!!!Report
That, or simply don’t document your whoring and crack smoking escapades. Assuming one must engage in such escapades.Report
Hey, I’m a blogger. So I get it.
I’m just saying pay off the guy who fixes your computer.Report
Now you’ve got me wondering what’s left on the cutting room floor for the weekend plans posts.Report
This is a family blog, after all.Report
This one’s a bit of a legend on Reddit. A pastor sleeps with the computer repairman’s girlfriend….
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProRevenge/comments/fpvaip/pastor_lies_cheats_and_steals_he_gets_exactly/Report
Heh, adult hugging. I’m going to have to add that one to my vocabulary.Report
Every site has rules.Report
My youtube real defense lawyer’s review of this case was the evidence against him was so overwhelming that there was no point in having a trial. He should have cut whatever deal he could because he couldn’t win.
He had the gun for 5 days before his wife found it and threw it away. He admitted to her during a chat that he was smoking crack right that minute and with his dealer on day 5.Report
He had a wife?Report
It was his deceased brother’s wife who he was dating at the time.Report
Technically Biblical.Report
It was legal, if confusing. He’s living with a woman who has his last name and there’s a kid who also has their last name and their text messages sound like husband/wife things.
Although I guess them not being married explains how the gov was able to introduce their conversations and all.
On a side note, it’s legal to be your own grandfather. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkX7IW7jpMwReport
Even if it weren’t technically legal, there are higher laws that say that this is okay.Report
Law of the vikings. The code of Claudius.Report
Jon Chait on why the Hunter Biden conviction destroys Republican talking points:
Hunter Biden’s conviction in Delaware over a minor charge is significant mainly because it blows to smithereens the arguments Republicans have made on behalf of Donald Trump.
…To hold this theory together — which, again, is the belief held by a supermajority of Republicans, not just the Glenn Beck audience — you have to believe Biden is directing the activities of local prosecutors while exerting no control at all over the Justice Department of the branch of government he presides over.
Hunter Biden was convicted of lying on a form he submitted to purchase a firearm, which his wife quickly found and threw away without its ever being used. Elie Honig has argued that these charges, while legally valid, are the sort of case prosecutors would normally ignore.
Where are the legions of conservatives hysterically warning about rogue prosecutions? I believe balance dictates that we are due for several thousand incantations of Lavrentiy Beria’s infamous quote “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime.”
Sadly, conservative media, which had previously treated Hunter Biden’s addiction-fueled problems as America’s most pressing issue, have found his case less compelling even as its legal phase reached its climax.
Mebbe conservative media needs a whistleblower of their own.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/hunter-biden-conviction-blows-up-gop-conspiracy-theories.htmlReport
Chait is of course right. Being a high profile person connected to power, money, and influence comes with the trade off of being under a microscope. There’s no reason prosecuting such cases is illegitimate and among all of the nonsense Trump spouts the claim that he’s being singled out for unfair treatment is the most risible.Report
Jewish Humor: A Thesis
I belong to a Jewish humor group on Facebook. Many, if not all of the jokes, were already dated before I was born. They deal with social conditions that are basically completely irrelevant and inapplicable to the early 21st century or even really the late 20th century from the 80s onward.* My theory and it is mine is that these jokes still have appeal because many Jews wished they could live in a more close knit Jewish community that was more outside the mainstream.
*Many of the jokes come from a time where even very acculturated Jews were excluded from mainstream American society and you had more working class Jews entering into the middle and upper middle classes. The more religious flavored jokes deal with times before religious freedom as an accepted norm. A popular one is a joke about a disputation, basically a rigged theological debate about a Christian and Jew were the Jew agrees to the debate as long as if nobody speaks. It ends with the Christian declaring victory and then conversations. The Christian describes his lost as “I took out three fingers to represent the trinity, the Jew takes out one finger to prove that there is only one God for the entire earth. Then I point to heaven to show that God is every where and the Jew points down to remind us that God isn’t hell. Then I take out wine and bread to represent the body and the blood of Christ. The Jew takes out an apple to remind us of the original sin.” Meanwhile, the Jew is explaining the debate to his fellow Jews. “He takes out three fingers to say we have three days to lieave. I take out one finger to say we aren’t going anywhere even if given one day. The Christian then give me the finger and I pointed down to say we are staying right here. Then he took out his lunch, so I took out mine.”Report
From the “You can’t make this up” Dept.:
Book about book bans banned by Florida school board
Indian River county school board members disagreed with how Gratz’s book referred to other works that had been taken out of school, and accused it of “teaching rebellion of school-board authority”, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
Pippin is also the chair of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, a far-right organization that has been behind many of the book bans that have swept across the US in recent years. According to a 2023 PEN America report, 81% of school districts that banned books between July 2022 and June 2023 were within or adjoined a county with a local chapter of a group such as Moms for Liberty.
Besides Pippin, two of the school board members who voted in favor of banning the book, Jacqueline Rosario and Gene Posca, had support from Moms for Liberty during their campaigns.
In Trumpian Newspeak, “Liberty” means “suppressing any rebellion of authority”.Report
The USCG is one of the smaller uniformed services in the US (the NOAA Corps is the smallest) but it seems they have not learned the lessons of their larger counterparts.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/11/politics/coast-guard-leader-testifies-congress-invs/index.htmlReport
IIRC there was a sex scandal at the Coast Guard Academy?
ETA – I should have clicked on the article. Well, at least I remembered the story.Report
Still a super-red district but OH-6 had a special election yesterday with a 20 point shift to the Democrats: https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-special-election-congress-results-1911576Report
2022: 189,883 R to 90,500 D
2024: 32,627 R to 27,062 D (unofficial)Report
2022 – 32.3% Democratic voters
2024 – 43.2%Report
That’s a pretty terrible turnout, for both sides. But, wow, that R slide is something to see.Report
What the conventional wisdom was when I was a kid:
If you have record turnout, it tends to be good for Republicans locally.
If you have average turnout, it tends to be good for Democrats locally.
If you have weak turnout, it tends to be good for Republicans locally because voting is a habit for Republicans a lot more than it tends to be for Democrats.
If nobody shows up except for maybe one hundred weirdos, it tends to be good for the local weirdo candidates.
Maybe everything has changed since I was a kid.Report
That’s probably true. The Dems have been so focused on the presidency during my lifetime, while the Rs have been way more locally focused. Not to say they don’t want the Oval, but holding the legislature is a great way to stymie the president.Report
This is the truest thing ever written. And it explains some, though not all , of the pickles Democrats find themselves in.Report
The Democrats are viable in only 25-30% of all jurisdictions.Report
Geographic or populace?Report
Hey, I’m not making a judgment. Jurisdictions are jurisdictions. Your side has half the population but in concentrated areas.Report
Not really a decline in turnout for a non-general election.Report
This is the guy who lost. He’s for/against gay rights, trump, gun rights, and so on.
He sounds like a redistricting fatality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Moreno#Political_positionsReport
An interesting story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/12/dining/restaurant-bans-youth.html
A Caribbean restaurant in MO has banned male customers under 35 and female customers under 30. This is probably illegal under MO law or even possibly anti-discrimination laws because it treats men and women differently. They can have an age restriction but it has to be the same for men and women.
Apparently the read between the lines thing not told in the Times is that the owners are black (it states they are from the Caribbean) and these kind of age restrictions are common in black neighborhoods and no one goes to the courts about them like they do in non-black neighborhoods. Apparently the restaurant made the mistake of doing the age restriction thing in a more homogeneous neighborhood/area?Report
You can’t reform this sort of heinous behavior out of the police by ending QI:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/police-officers-child-sexual-abuse-in-america/Report
Prosecutors have given generous plea deals
Obviously, defunding is the way to go.Report
Got any other concrete proposals we can discuss? Or should we go down the rabbit hole of who defected first and how did that deflect the iterations?Report
First off, I’d like to begin with an acknowledgment that the problem will require multiple different things to happen.
So it’s not like I can say “we need to X” because we don’t.
We need to T, and U, and V, and W, and X, and Y, and Z. Probably Aleph too.
(I will still expect to hear the counter-argument that “V is not a silver bullet!”, of course.)
But a good starting point would be Oscar Gordon’s “Altering the Police Paradigm“.
I think that, on top of that, we need to figure out how to deal with stuff like toxic prosecutors. “You mean elect someone like Chesa Boudin who will prosecute police officers instead of offering them sweet deals?”
“Well, I was more thinking of one that would be willing to prosecute criminals in general.”
Perhaps the only choice we have is between prosecutors who will prosecute the police for sexual abuse but not prosecute criminals (except in the most egregious of cases) *OR* prosecutors who will give sweetheart deals to police (except in the most egregious of cases) but, at least, will be willing to throw the book at whomever is the first person the police arrest for any given crime.Report
I think that a basic acknowledgement that these massively-public cop fuckups should result in the cop being fired would cover a lot of the issues that people have!Report
This tracks with the reports about the churches, Hollywood, and Scouts organizations.
The lesson is that what shields these organizations from accountability isn’t just their money, but their massive political power.
The police are given outsize and unearned goodwill by the public having been fed a diet of “Thin Blue Line” propaganda and tv cop shows painting them as selfless heroes.
It will take a lot more efforts like this to adjust the public image of cops as merely ordinary people with ordinary faults and need to be held to a strict code of behavior.Report
“Maybe even tackle Police Unions.”
“DO NOT FREAKING TOUCH THE POLICE UNIONS!”Report
“Maybe transfer some of their funding to mental health intervention agencies.”
“DO NOT FREAKING DEFUND THE POLICE!!”
It works either way.Report
Do you think that mental health intervention agencies would have the ability to address the sexual abuse of children by police officers?
Because, for what it’s worth, I can put together a case for why police unions help keep toxic police officers on a police force.Report
A world in which we accept that policing involves many unarmed and social welfare agencies, is a world in which police lack the political power to cover up their abuse.
So it’s not like I can say “we need to X” because we don’t.
We need to T, and U, and V, and W, and X, and Y, and Z. Probably Aleph too.
(I will still expect to hear the counter-argument that “V is not a silver bullet!”, of course.)Report
So what problem are we trying to solve, here?
A toxic police force?
Toxic prosecutors not charging toxic police?
Or poor people getting arrested disproportionately for crimes that middle class people don’t get arrested for?
Because if your response to “Police and sheriff’s departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time.” is to say “well, we just need to change how funding is allocated”, I gotta say that you’re being unserious in such a way that will actively prevent reform.
Again. And in similar ways to your fierce protection of police unions.Report
If you recall I’ve stated, several times, I’m happy to eliminate police unions.
And i have never said we “just” need to change how funding is allocated. Argue with me, not the Chip you imagine.
You and I are saying similar things in different ways.
Regardless whether it is the bipartisan support for police unions, or the bipartisan view of police budgets as sacrosanct, they all stem from the political power that police enjoy as latter day Cincinnati, benevolent dictators saving us from bad guys.Report
How will reallocating funds to mental health professionals address this:
Police and sheriff’s departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time.
Could you explain?
Because the closest analogy that I can come up with is me saying “we just need to reschedule pot” as a response to the problem.
“That’s not a response! That’s just your pet bugbear!” would be a fair criticism to me saying that… especially if I couldn’t answer the question about how legalizing pot would meaningfully address the problem.Report
I haven’t the foggiest, because I’m not the one saying such things.Report
Oh, so your position is not that we can partially address the horrible situation that Phil brought up through reallocation of funding to mental health professionals?Report
My position is, and I will cut and paste:
So it’s not like I can say “we need to X” because we don’t.
We need to T, and U, and V, and W, and X, and Y, and Z. Probably Aleph too.
(I will still expect to hear the counter-argument that “V is not a silver bullet!”, of course.)Report
While I would say that my suggestions T, and U, and V, and W, and X, and Y, and Z and Aleph, I would also like to point out that one of those variables *IS* reforming (if not destroying) Police Unions.
Which, it seems, puts it in an entirely different category than reallocation of funds to mental health professionals.Report
As you’ve said, these things all work together.
In order to break the police unions, you need to break the political power of the police, so the advocates of union-breaking aren’t vulnerable to shrieking attacks about the Thin Blue Line.
In order to have courts and prosecutors willing to hold police officers accountable for abuse you ALSO need to break the political power of the police.
And in order to have a more efficient allocation of city funds, you need to, yep, break the political power of the police.
And “breaking the political power of the police” is itself a multifaceted problem having components a thru n.Report
Chip, the goal isn’t “more efficient allocation of city funds”.
What in the hell do you think that the goal is?Report
I never said that was the goal.
“A more efficient allocation of funds” means using resources more efficiently to handle crimes that don’t need a badge and gun, the low level de minimis crimes that are better handled by other means.
This is component T in your list of components needed to address crime and prevent police abuse because much of the abuse we see is tied to police being asked to handle things they are not equipped to handle.Report
Chip, the topic is “Police and sheriff’s departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time.”
This isn’t a “police being asked to handle things they are not equipped to handle” problem.Report
This also isn’t about “police being protected by an overpowerful union” but somehow the topic was introduced.Report
I can explain how “weakening police unions” fits into the multi-faceted solution required to deal with “Police and sheriff’s departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time.”, if you don’t understand how it’s tied into the topic.
Here’s one story I found in fewer than five seconds of googling.
Would you like me to find more?Report
I can also explain how changing the political landscape that views cops as untouchable heroes fits into the multifaceted solution required to deal with the problem of prosecutors and judges being willing to cut lenient deals with abusers.
Any political landscape where a police union can be broken will be one where we don’t have to respond to every mentally ill person with a badge and gun.Report
So now we’ve shifted from “efficiently allocating the funds” to “changing the political landscape”?
Will the next suggestion be a radical reconceptualization of Justice on the part of every single citizen?Report
Shifted??
It was my very first comment!Report
Your first comment was about the unearned cultural clout that Police have.Report
At this point I have no idea what you are even arguing for, or against.
I’ve agreed with you on the need to control police unions and I agree on the need for multifaceted approaches which have multiple variables, and I agree that none of these variables are sufficient but all are necessary and yet somehow you act as if we are disagreeing about something.
From what I can see, we are on the same side here.Report
I am arguing for stuff like what is mentioned in Oscar’s essay and a handful of other things on top of that.
I am arguing against silly stuff like “Defund!”
And then you argued that “reallocation of funding to mental health professionals” was somehow equally relevant to addressing the problem of government colluding with itself to shield bad actors from scrutiny and punishment.Report
I’m arguing for that stuff too.
And I’m not seeing why allocating funds to unarmed mental health teams is somehow “silly”. It is something that existing police departments and cities have already done, and the police departments themselves have argued that they don’t want to be asylum-keepers.Report
And I’m not seeing why allocating funds to unarmed mental health teams is somehow “silly”. It is something that existing police departments and cities have already done, and the police departments themselves have argued that they don’t want to be asylum-keepers.
Because the problem, as described, was “Police and sheriff’s departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time.”Report
I think we can leave this here, since you’ve now just circled back to a previous comment which was already answered.Report
it is really funny to watch this conversation because Jaybird says “banning police unions would solve this problem” and Chip says “but it won’t solve ALL the problems” and Jaybird says “okay, how WOULD we solve all the problems” and Chip says “well I’M not the one saying there are PROBLEMS”Report
And Chip keeps agreeing with Jaybird that there are multiple things needing to be done, including dissolving the police unions.
Your point?Report
It’s that he’s also talking about the importance of “efficiently allocating funds” which was the disingenuous reframing of explaining how “Defund the Police doesn’t mean Defund the Police”.Report
Chip, you should know better than to take it seriously when Jaybird, of all people, tries to police keeping a discussion on some topic. Changing topics is one of his signature moves.Report
I’m the one who keeps bringing it back to addressing the problem of “Police and sheriff’s departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time.”
And asking Chip to explain why his suggestions of stuff like funding reallocation will deal with this at all.
I’ve already said what I think the solution will have to entail.
Would you like to argue against the solution that I’ve posted or would you like to argue against my arguing against funding reallocation and accusing me of changing the subject?Report
Whatever I might want to argue with you about, you will probably change the subject. You do that a lot.Report
Well, would you like to give your opinion, as a lawyer, on the original problem?
I can copy and paste it again:
“Police and sheriff’s departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time.”
Would you prefer to talk about how I’m changing the subject, instead?Report
If I thought I had something useful to say that would lend itself to a relatively short comment, I’d say it. Waiting until I have something useful to say about something may cut down on my commenting volume, but I’m not sure that’s a problem.Report
I’ll let you get back to complaining about others not talking about the topic, then.Report
Let me? I’ve said all I plan to say about this today.
There will be other opportunities to address this.Report
I can’t wait to see how you avoid addressing it once those opportunities arise in the future despite being able to make time to complain about how others are discussing it anyway.Report
You might want to diagram that sentence.Report
I talked to the AI and we threw something together. Here you go:
If you want to put it into a notepad file, be sure to turn wordwrap off:
I | can’t wait | to see | how you avoid addressing it | once those opportunities arise | in the future | despite | being able to make time | to complain | about how others are discussing it | anyway
—|————–|———-|——————————-|———————————|—————-|———–|————————–|————–|———————————-|——–
Subject | Verb Phrase | Infinitive | Noun Clause acting as Direct Object | Adverbial Clause of Time | Prepositional Phrase | Conjunction | Participial Phrase | Infinitive | Noun Clause acting as Direct Object | AdverbReport
“You might want to diagram that sentence.”
your entire job is reading words, sir, that’s literally what you do for a livingReport
Indeed. And even after diagraming, the sentence remains hopelessly obscure. At my day job I see that a lot.Report
In CJ’s defense, it *IS* a complex sentence.Report
I think you can make a compelling argument that those working “within the system” are protected more than the commoners, if only because they have friends and collogues also within the system that can assist them avoiding what the proles would have to experience. That needs to change.
Frankly, I’d support a rule/law that those found to have helped someone avoid the legal consequences of their actions should share a similar punishment as the offender.Report
We sure as hell could try.Report
They’re almost as bad as teachers!
https://www.foxnews.com/us/nearly-350-k-12-educators-arrested-child-sex-crimes-2022Report
If you want to be a simpleton and just look at raw numbers, yea, maybe?
350 public educators (which includes more than just teachers) out of a population over 3.2M; that’s just full-time teachers, mind you. There are approximately 90K principals and I can’t find figures on aides or subs, who were among those arrested.
The linked study found 1800 officers charged over a 17 year period. So lets say that is 100 per year. There are approximately 700K law enforcement officers in the US, defined by the FBI as “law enforcement officers as those who regularly carry a firearm and badge, have full arrest powers, and are paid from governmental funds specifically for sworn law enforcement.” The WaPo study only looked at local and state officers while this includes people at the Federal level and even National Park police. So… the count of “educators” is likely an undercount and the count of “police officers” is likely an overcount. But… these are the numbers we have.
So, using them… we see that one in every 9142 teachers last year was arrested for a sexual violence crime against a child.
And we see that one in every 7000 police officers last year was arrested for a sexual violence crime against a child.
So… no… police are much worse than teachers in terms of the rate of sexual abuse of children in their ranks.
Both numbers are way too high and as a teacher, I’m appalled that anyone in this profession would abuse the trust and power they are given to care for children to instead harm children. I hope that all those people who are indeed guilty of those crimes go to jail for a long, long time.
But, let’s at least use numbers properly, mkay?Report
Trump just filmed a meetup he had with Logan Paul.
I’m too old for this shit.Report
Tacky, controversial influencer with WWE experience meets with…Report
Somehow Logan Paul managed to get his energy drink on the table.Report
Game knows game.Report
In today’s “we are merely anti-Zionist and not anti-Semitic”, Pro-Palestinian protestors in New York vandalize the homes of every important or semi-important Jew they can find with graffiti accusing them of being “white supremacists.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/12/nyregion/anti-zionist-graffiti-jewish-museum-officials.html
I’d note that being a Jew who is going to belong to groups prone to being sympathetic in one way or another to the Palestinians does not save you from the wraith of the Pro-Palestinian protestors. The director of the Brooklyn Museum was not going to be all in on the Settlements. The Intersectional Left has basically decided that Jews belong in their enemy column and are acting on it. There is a code of silence about it.Report
The American Palestinian supporters seem to be following in the footsteps of Yasser Arafat and the PLO, in never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Had they kept to a simple message of asking for a two state solution they likely could have made a measurable impact in American politics.
But this, this is where a lot of people just can’t get on board their bus.Report
What I’ve noticed is that many Pro-Palestinian activists in the West don’t like telling the Palestinians to be sensible. First, many of them really do believe that Zionism was an illegitimate settler-colonialist movement. During the 1960s and 1970s, this was an article of faith among the Further Left and some even participated in terrorist attacks against Israel like the hijacking that led to the Raid on Entebbe or the Japanese Red Army faction in the May 1972 attack in David Ben-Gurion International Airport.
The spectacular acts of terrorism against Israelis might be a thing of the past but they have basically decided that Israel is an illegitimate state and must be destroyed. Some of the dopier ones even believe all the Jews need to go back to Europe even if their ancestors never lived in Europe. You can explain how bad they look to them very slowly and carefully and they won’t get it.Report
The code of silence about this is what really gets to me. A lot of people know it is happening but stay silent because “oh youthful protestors and their hearts are in the right place.” Even in the movement, the more disciplined protestors don’t seem to want to call the wild ones out for the sake of the movement.Report
Unanimous decision in the abortion pill case, Plaintiffs lacked standing to sue: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/13/us/abortion-pill-supreme-courtReport
Now if they can just render a unanimous decision on Presidential immunity.Report
I’m backing the low-probability outcome on this one — they schedule a rehearing for next term, and put the decision off until after the November election results are known.Report
The unanimity surprised me, so I wonder if the conservative bloc is just looking for a better angle of attack.Report
That’s a reasonable thought. Also, given the reaction to Dobbs, five months before the presidential election is not a good time to do a nationwide ban on the most common method of abortion if you want to see more Republicans elected.Report
The thing about standing is that for decades, conservatives have voted for a narrow version of it. Liberals generally have broader definition of standings so this seems like a perfect win-win. It doesn’t change the current laws of standing, it just states that under current law, the plaintiffs did not have standing. Plus it avoids a fire storm.Report
I’m sure I’m being naive about the (un)willingness of the conservatives to completely kamikaze the institution but I have to think at least some of them, having done the deed to Roe, would be hesitant about putting themselves on a collision course with the policy making branches (to say nothing of the voters) to whom they punted the question. Currently court packing and other ideas are unpopular with the public but this is the issue that could eventually change that.Report
Which is exactly why a unanimous decision under standing is a win-win.Report
Saul is correct here. What clearly happened is that Kavanaugh and Roberts let it be known to their peers that they were no votes on taking on this policy at this time in this way. So a loss for the pro-lifers was a given. The trade was they issued a narrow ruling on standing (so the pro-lifers didn’t have any precedents baked into the cake on this policy loss) and exchange the pro-lifers provided unanimity.
Basically you give us a unanimous ruling on this, and in exchange your people can take another run at the policy once they come up with something that’s somewhat less insane or, at least, is not timed right before the election.Report
Tell me without concern trolling why I should take polling seriously and not think something is deeply flawed. Some recent info from cross-tabs of a Marist poll, one of the few to provide cross-tabs:
“Gen Z/Millennials: 40 to 34 for Trump
Gen X: 49 to 43 for Trump
Baby Boomers: 53 to 38 for Biden
Silent/Greatest: 52 to 43 for Trump
Marist also shows:
Whites: 47 to 39 for Trump
Non-Whites: tied 41 to 41
If you compare with 2022 Exit Polls, the Marist Poll shows a huge shift among Gen Z/Millennials- going from around Dem + 20 to trump +6
The Marist poll shows huge shift among Boomers – going from GOP+ 12 to Biden +15
The Marist poll shows a large shift among whites, going from GOP+18 to Trump + 8
The Marist poll shows what would be an absolutely MASSIVE shift among non-whites, going from Dem + 39 to Even…”
This is theoretically possible but a paradigm shift like this over two years is highly unlikely and needs some serious evidence, not just doomposting from post-Trump Traumatic Stress Disorder or right-wing concern trolling/trolling to substantiate. It is highly unlikely that younger voters suddenly became plus 6 Trump and Boomers became plus 15 Biden. It makes zero sense.Report
From what I understand, polling is a way to figure out where you are. It’s not perfect and there are going to be error bars but, get this, campaigns do *INTERNAL* polling and they do stuff like ask “how do you feel about policy X?” and “do you think we’re on the right track?” and whatnot.
This allows campaigns to pivot and talk about stuff that might move the needle. Let’s say you ask about a policy and find out that people are divided 50/50 on it? What’s the upside to talking about that issue? Now let’s say that there’s a policy that people are divided 80/20 on? You know that you can start yelling about how you’re on the right side of that 80. “My opponent disagrees!”, you can yell.
If the answers to the whole “wrong track” question are bad, you can incorporate that into your speeches. “Hey, I know that it feels like we’re on the wrong track.” you can admit. Then talk about how your policies will turn things around! “The benefits of our policies will bear fruit! We just need to get through the growing pains of the natural cycle before they kick in. My opponent will throw away all of the hard work we’ve done to this point!”
Those are all things that politicians do when it comes to their own internal polling.
And, from there, it’s not difficult to see how if the politicians think that this information is important information… maybe it’s information that could be useful for Joe Citizen.Report
Now do the huge shift of Boomers from the GOP to Biden from 2022 to 2024.
These shifts may be accurate but that would be an extraordinary paradigm shift and all extraordinary things require extraordinary evidence.Report
Hey. You asked about polling, I told you about polling.
You want to know why the responses to the polls are nuts? Well, I can only speculate…
Um… Abortion is the most important issue to Baby Boomers.
There. They came up when Roe was THE MOST IMPORTANT SUPREME COURT CASE IN THE HISTORY OF WOMEN and Trump’s justices threw it out. This upset the apple cart and even the evangelicals who were all “it shouldn’t be used except in cases of rapeincestorthemotherslifeindanger” before turned into “WAIT NOT LIKE THAT!” after it left.
Silents/Greatests have different opinions on abortion, GenX has stronger opinions on their parents getting divorced three or four times than they have on Abortion, and my conversations with GenZ/Millennials tend to be with the ones that show up at work which means that they’re the nerdy types who command nerdy jobs with nerdy salaries so I’m not sure that they’re representative of a whole lot given that I don’t talk to the artist types down at the college.
I will say that the GenZ Mexicans who worked down at my favorite local college diner *HATED* the students at the little SLAC, but surely they were jealous. (And the diner moved when they built the hockey stadium and I’m pretty sure that I won’t find better food/company at the little hipster bespoke nachos restaurant.)Report
I was convinced that the Republicans would never actually move to overturn Roe, because it was such an important campaign issue for them. Now that it’s overturned, it’s no longer something they can use to campaign. If you supported Republicans over that one issue, why support them now that it’s accomplished?Report
If you supported Republicans over that one issue, why support them now that it’s accomplished?
“Welp, the court case went our way, we never have to do anything else ever again!” is a phrase that tends to precede destruction.Report
This is the mistake liberals often make, to imagine the right as having specific objectives which, once accomplished, will mollify them.
A cursory glance at history or their own rhetoric shows their rage is about modernity itself.Report
BINGOReport
What are you asking? It seems to be “here’s something I don’t want to believe, tell me why I should (but I won’t believe you)”.Report
The weather forecast says 75% chance of rain tomorrow, but I have a big outdoor party planned and I don’t want to cancel it. I just thought of a few other times when the forecast was wrong, and also i came up with some arbitrary reasons why I don’t personally think it should rain tomorrow, so I’ll just go ahead with the party with no backup plan.Report
Oh look, I found another forecast site that says it’s only a 40% chance — I’ll go with that one.Report
And if it rains tomorrow, blame it on Russian interference or rigged weather.Report
https://www.weather.gov/ffc/pop#:~:text=CHANCE%20OF%20RAIN%2040%20PERCENT,at%20least%200.01%22%20of%20rain.Report
Gov is sending “amber alerts” to everyone in my zip telling us to not drive because of flooding. I think we’re way past 100%.Report
The wording in the forecast discussion from my local NWS office is almost always a little amusing. Altitude of the area they cover ranges from 4,500 ft to 14,000 ft. In some events, if the storm track is wrong by 50 miles precipitation goes from 4″ of snow to 24″. A very small error in the altitude of the moisture-bearing layer is the difference between virga and that 0.01″ of rain.
When I worked on the U of Colorado campus in Boulder, one of the (probably) academic myth stories that got told was about an intro to meteorology class where students had to turn in their forecast for the next day each time the class met. Some wag supposedly turned in the NWS forecast, and finished next-to-last in the class.
I have read lately that some of the deep machine learning people are building billion-coefficient models for doing forecasts in difficult areas. I would not be surprised if those are more accurate for my local area than the physics-based models.Report
NOAA and USAF are funding that work through NCER as a Unified Forecast Model program. It has promise, but the really issue is compute power for operational forecasting. All our operational forecasts are on super computers in Thurmond, WV, which can’t be made bigger or faster. We are investigating moving to quantum computing to overcome this, but that won’t happen soon.Report
(Sarcasm on) Gen Z is so upset about Genocide Joe that they are going to vote for the candidate that will allow Netanyahu to go more nuts.” (Sarcasm off).Report
538 breaks a lot of this down periodically – and they have consistently binned Marist in the “Leans Republican” polling camp. Without knowing what their sample size is and the actual questions, its really hard to read cross tabs.Report
https://apnews.com/article/trump-capitol-republicans-jan-6-ef6a2dc69ee8cd3e11479d095f2bfd1d
“Donald Trump made a triumphant return to Capitol Hill on Thursday, his first with lawmakers since the Jan.6, 2021 attacks, embraced by energized House and Senate Republicans who find themselves reinvigorated by his bid to retake the White House.”
What’s wrong with this paragraph?Report
I think it should say “his first *meeting* with lawmakers…”, assuming it was his first meeting with lawmakers.
Or they could have dropped “with lawmakers”. Also, I’m fairly sure he didn’t go to Capitol Hill on January 6th, so while their statement isn’t incorrect, it’s misleading. And this is just stylistic, but calling them energized and reinvigorated is redundant.Report
Well if he was there on January 6th – which he wasn’t – then we’d have footage of him that could be used to prosecute him.Report
The Acolyte Episode 3 – I’m Done And So Is Star Wars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yofjGi6LOVc&ab_channel=TheCriticalDrinker
God that was a brutal review…..I was done on the second trilogy, but it only looks to be getting worse.Report
Controversial take- Star Wars has always sucked and there is no plausible way a couple guys with melee weapons could defeat masses of guys with guns. It only works if you’re under 10. It’s a little kids franchise created for little kids by a grown man that might as well be a little kid who paved the way for multiple generations of people stuck in a state of arrested psycho social development. There I said it. Boom!Report
Meh, not that controversial. Hell, I might even agree. That does not change the fact that the quality of the movies/shows have been going downhill for quite a long time, especially after the second trilogy. This is just the most recent example of the franchise falling deep into the “crap zone”.Report
Damn dude, here I am trying to troll and you revoke my card just like that.
But yea it looks about as dumb as anything else on Disney these days. I don’t know how all these Charlie Browns keep running full speed at the football, expecting something different, and yet there they go.Report
I enjoyed your trolling 🙂Report
I think you’re both right. It was a silly premise to start with. They fleshed out a lot in various media, but AFAIK never went too deep. There were no big ideas, which made it never rise above fluff, and made it susceptible to hijacking. Although if there had been big ideas, a hijacking would have just undermined them.
On a deeper note, every generation has its stories and its creeds. In a time when we’re between creeds, people can use their stories as placeholders.Report
My exposure to them is relatively limited but what I have seen has a distinctly cotton candy feel. Which isn’t inherently bad. Cotton candy is fun sometimes.
Maybe like 3 weeks ago one of the original trilogy was on cable and my older son and I were half watching it, particularly the cloud city part. I can see how it would have been magical for a kid going to see something like that in the theater. The special effects were groundbreaking. It seems like it would have been a really fun ‘picture’ as the old timey Hollywood types would say. But for the life of me I have no idea how someone could stay invested in it much less how it has become a kind of cultural battleground.Report
I’ve read in several different places that people who watched the second trilogy who were the same age their elders were when they watched the first trilogy have a very similar fondness and attachment to the second trilogy as their elders have for the first. Perhaps Lucas just had the code cracked for appealing to a very specific age set.
Assuredly, though, with the partial exception of the Mandalorian and the full exception of Andor a lot of Disney Star Wars has seemed especially lousy and drekky. But I’m also a harsh judge since I’m infinitely more of a trekkie.Report
My truly harsh take is something like ‘passed its peak media giant stuck in creative dead end desperately tries to cash in on dated IP with diminishing returns; wonders why audience cooperation in self evidently cynical endeavor is half hearted, at best.’
However that is interesting that people of a certain age have fond memories of the prequel trilogy. My recollection at the time is of people hating those too but I certainly wasn’t polling elementary school children on their takes. You may well be onto something about what Lucas does, versus what he doesn’t, and maybe never has.Report
The jaded and cynical take that I’ve seen that I in-no-way endorse is that Disney looked at their demographics and saw that they excel at getting female fans and keeping female fans for life.
Start them with the princess stuff at 4 or 5, let them enjoy stuff for 12 year olds, let them enjoy stuff for 16 year olds, let them enjoy stuff for 25 year olds and, wouldn’t you know it, Mama is bringing her own babies to Disneyworld in her 30s.
Boys? Boys age out of Disney around age 12.
So Disney purchased Star Wars (and Marvel, for that matter) in an effort to make products for Boys that would keep them from ages 12 and on up.
AND THEN THEY STARTED CHICKIFYING THE PRODUCTS!!! AND WONDERING WHY THE 12 YEAR OLD BOYS ARE STILL AGING OUT!!!
(Jay laughs and wipes a tear away)
Anyway, I don’t support that view and I don’t condone it.Report
Interesting theory, and I’m not saying it’s wrong, but let’s use Occam’s Razor. 1) Disney buys everything. 2) Disney corporatizes everything. 3) Disney bought Marvel and Star Wars at a time when corporations veered leftward.Report
Yes, such a view is obviously wrong and while maybe theoretically possible in a very strictly academic way should never be uttered by anyone ever.Report
You know what I wonder about….
The WWE has some good looking guys. I mean, Cody Rhodes compared to Dusty Rhodes? And they mix personal story lines in with the athleticism. They even have gotten away from the Divas and have strong, confident women who are beautiful in their own ways. Also, they like money. Are they ever going to chickify? Or are they already chickifying subtly? And what would happen if they were ever perceived as letting girls germs into the treehouse?Report
Are we comparing 2024 to 1998?
I would say that the target demographic of the WWE in 2024 is significantly different than the target demographic in 1998.
Like, they’re actively trying to get mom to agree to letting grampa take the kiddos to the show in the current year.Report
John Cena is/was cute as a button too.Report
He’s no Balls Mahoney, but who is?Report
Absolutely and it was mine too but the people voicing those opinions were people who were young when they saw the original trilogy and then are commenting unfavorably on the new one. The fans of the new trilogy were, at the time, too young to really talk much about it or be paid attention to. FWIW I don’t think the new-new trilogy has a similar set of fans. I cannot conceive of how anyone, anywhere could like the excrescence of Rise of Skywalker.Report
Then, unusually, you and I are about to very publicly disagree.
Having seen all the Star Wars movies, and all the streamed series except Acolyte (including Star Wars Rebels and Bad Batch) I think I can say that I don’t get all the fuss. Maybe I’m just not a critical enough cinema viewer, but taken as a whole the universe and its myriad story lines are a mostly uplifting and positive escape in a epic and never quite ending good versus evil space opera. Is everything post-Disney acquisition as Lucas originally wrote or envisioned it? Probably not, though he has been careful not to say. But i have yet to find anything offensive or truly disappointing in any of the trilogies or series.
And ditto Star Trek – though the recent Paramount+ versions do come across as relying too much on fancy CGI. Even the 1972 animated season of Star Trek was fun to watch as a kid.
These are movies people, not religious texts. Lets slap each other on the back and move on.Report
Oh sure one can argue about the lore/fan minuatae but Rise of Skywalker was shockingly terrible from jump in a more objective sense. The big bad just “poof” appears out of nowhere in the beginning intro. They say in their voiceover more or less “no one knows how, but somehow the Emperor has returned” then the film was simply a series of McGuffins, utterly idiotic contrived threats and somehow even more idiotic contrived solutions with Ray and her drama kind of spinning around in the middle of it.
The Last Jedi, in contrast, had at least some interesting themes and ideas while being, maybe, not that amazing a film product. Its hyperspace ramming scene, while perhaps an atrocity on a fan/lore level, was a genuinely impressive cinematic moment. Rise of Skywalker was, as far as I could perceive, utterly bereft of any mitigating factors.
Yes, we can handwave and say “it’s all just fluff” but there is a difference between good fluff and poor fluff and absolutely terrible fluff.Report
“it’s all just fluff” but there is a difference between good fluff and poor fluff and absolutely terrible fluff.
Bingo. A while back I was watching this…nodding my head in agreement. I can’t disagree with any of it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ92cggLMx8&ab_channel=TheCriticalDrinkerReport
My experience with the new trilogy was trying to watch the Force Awakens at a friend’s house after closing down the bar. I remember it as really, really long and kind of confusing. Essentially I have no point of reference or remotely intelligent perspective on them. I just know people were mad.Report
Here’s my summary:
The Force Awakens: A New Hope remixed. Seriously. Only Han Solo dies instead of Ben Kenobi. Also, you know everything that was accomplished in the previous six movies? Yeah, it all was for more of less nothing because reasons but mostly because tyrannies are effective and democracies are inept. Somehow they built a new Deathstar only it has infinite range and they built it without the resources of a galactic empire. Tyrannies apparently are very effective. Welcome back to A New Hope only, well, there not really a lot of hope. Also we have a new chosen one and she’s a girl. Yay! And the big bad’s name is Snoke. No really.
The Last Jedi: Yeah imagine a big galactic 9/11 happened only the whole country (galaxy) fell to Al Queda because of it. Don’t ask us how, it just did. Anyhow, here’s some pretty good discursions about the Jedi, some inane blather about democracies and tyrannies being the same, some lore destroying but cinematographically epic moment of hyperspace amazing, some fantastic use of Yoda (Frank Oz is a national treasure) and a genuine tear jerking moment between Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher (man can they act!). Then Luke Skywalker dies and it’s beautiful. Also Snoke got smoked faster than Duku became dukie.
The Rise of Skywalker: You remember how The Last Jedi had some kind of interesting if vague ideas about the Jedi/force users being less Skywalker centric, and various other kind of interesting things? Yeah, our directors hated those ideas so much we went full on the other way. Now the Skywalkers are all the Jedi… also all the Sith too. Remember how Snoke was stupid and then he dies, apparently he was just a catspaw for Palpatine. Also Palpatine is back and he’s Rei’s Grampa! He has a magic planet that can build enough space ships to take over the galaxy by itself. We need to find a mcguffin so we can get to the magic planet. Also, the galaxy taking over space ships have death star lasers on their noses that can blow up planets. And they get defeated because the power of friendship makes everyone in the galaxy drive their personal automobiles over to the magic planet (don’t ask about the Mcguffin) and use them to blow up the galaxy taking over space ships. Brought to you by a committee to build more Star Wars themed rides at Disney parks and the letter W!Report
I appreciate you taking the time to type out a synopsis of something that sounds so…. uninspired.Report
The Last Jedi had some… there there. I didn’t regret watching it. I’ve watched scenes from it over again. It was middling as a film and as a Star Wars film specifically but there were ideas and notions there and some real good scenes to make old timers feel nice-ish.
The other two? Not worth the celluloid they weren’t printed on.Report
The late 1970s is when nerd culture started to get organized in the United States and Japan. What basically seems to happen is that the Baby Boomers who grew up in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere kept on to their kid and teen media habits rather than graduating into more “adult” pulp novels with sex and violence and stuff. Star Wars fandom basically benefitted a lot from this.
When Star Wars came out is also when the mass market began their small rebellions against auteur cinema for more popular stuff. Star Wars suited them to a T. Nascent fan culture plus business people realizing they have a big profit center and there you have it.Report
As a former kid of the era… it was all about special effects.
And the simple King Arthur/Hero’s journey meta that made have an original story unnecessary.Report
My father, a cynical man by and large, spoke with a reverence that was somewhat close to religious about the initial scroll of the Star Destroyer at the beginning of episode 3/the first Star Wars.Report
Yep; the visuals are what got everyone hyped and hooked.Report
Abortion is going to decide the 2024 election: “A record-high 32% of U.S. voters say they would only vote for a candidate for major office who shares their views on abortion. The importance of a candidate’s abortion stance to one’s vote is markedly higher among pro-choice voters than it was during the 2020 presidential election cycle, while pro-life voters’ intensity about voting on the abortion issue has waned. Also, voters’ greater intensity on the issue today compared with 2020 is explained mainly by Democrats, while Republicans and independents have shown little change.
U.S. adults who are pro-choice are also significantly more likely now than two decades ago to say it is important that any future Supreme Court nominees share their views on abortion.
These results come two years after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked draft decision foretold the court’s plan to abolish constitutional protection for abortion.
At the same time, Gallup finds Americans’ support for abortion rights and identification as “pro-choice” holding at the historically high levels seen since the Dobbs decision was leaked.”
https://news.gallup.com/poll/645836/record-share-electorate-pro-choice-voting.aspxReport
It’s interesting to see a poll and realize that I would have answered it falsely. Not deliberately though. If asked that polling question, I’d say yes, but I’m strongly leaning toward Hogan for major office.Report
The polling is going to continue to be confounded by the realities of who is on the ballot. And Hogan – much like Jeb Bush – was successful in Maryland because he was willing to compromise. That plays well in that blue-ish purple state, but not so much on the national stage these days.Report
I’m a bit surprised that the Maryland GOP was strategic enough to nominate Hogan for the Senate seat. Currently GOPs across the country seem willing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory because they would rather let their freak flags fly than anything else.
The GOP could be competitive in California as a socially moderate-liberal but fiscally moderate/cautious party. Basically if they could be Michael Bloomberg, they would do fine here. But they cannot and would rather be a rump party of rural California and the Gilead of Shasta County.
And the GOP base does not see or does not care how bad the abortion issue hurts them. See the Southern Baptists going all out against IVF.Report
Hogan was the first GOP governor in Maryland in a long time when he served. And he did it by getting more then a few moderate independents and centerist democrats to vote for him. That he ended up being the senate nominee in the state is no surprise. The GOP there has not yet gone full whack.Report
Nope, he replaced Martin O’Malley (D) who replaced Bob Ehrlich (R). Before that you have to go back to Agnew, though.Report
I don’t know how anyone could forget Ehrlich. Not with that haircut he had.Report
It goes back and forth. The MD GOP conceded the last gubernatorial election by nominating a complete MAGA whack job instead of the successor endorsed by Hogan. Versus Moore I probably would have crossed the aisle to vote for her, same as I did Hogan twice. For Senator I think it helped that Hogan’s main opponent was arguably the most well known gadfly in the entire DMV.Report
Recently, in a moment of clarity, I deactivated my Twitter account so as not to waste so much time scrolling the endless feed in a half-stupor while putting off more important and/or rewarding efforts. Since then, naturally my main response has been a dogged determination to find alternative sources of Content to waste time and scratch the same itch, and one of those has been to browse Substack instead.
All this is intro to my sharing a link I found there that’s relevant to a recent exchange between Jaybird and CJ — a summary of several well-known 2×2 games in Game Theory and the ways they’re relevant to real-world situations. It does assume the reader has some familiarity with the Prisoner’s Dilemma and so just summarizes it quickly; but the article was a nice reminder that there are many other ways to structure the payouts of PD to model other situations.Report
I’ve never tweeted. Welcome back to reality.Report
That was a fun essay.
We, as a society, need to figure out how to better incentivize cooperation.
Lemme tell ya: Yelling at the dog for not eating the dog food ain’t gonna result in more dog food getting eaten.Report
One great way to incentivize cooperation is for the political party that’s actively not cooperating to get trounced in elections. Like, say, a political party that throws out it’s own compromise on immigration reform because the party’s presidential nominee tells it to.Report
“One great way to incentivize cooperation is for the political party that’s actively not cooperating to get trounced in elections.”
An interesting observation. Has it worked out that way in recent decades?Report
We need to figure out how to get people to believe “A is made of fire!” again.Report
From what I can see, game theory can really just be summarized as “Trust and cooperation are difficult to achieve. The end. Tip your server on the way out.”Report
Also: Difficult to maintain.
Also: Easy to ruin.Report
That’s the high-level summary. But once you get into cooperative and iterated games, you can see the underlying logic of how a lot of social institutions formed.Report
In case you haven’t seen it, there’s a nifty interactive site “The Evolution of Trust” that walks you through iterated prisoner’s dilemma concepts (without ever using the term “prisoner’s dilemma’, as I recall). It’s been around for a while but not sure if anyone ever linked it here.Report
This is what it is like living in an authoritarian regime:
The movie “The Apprentice” telling the story of Trump and Roy Cohn may never be seen in the United States because of fear:
As Puck’s Matthew Belloni wrote after talking to potential buyers, “several that really liked the film are still out on ‘The Apprentice,’ in part because of the politics of the moment — which is to say fear of the politics of the moment.” Emanuel Nuñez, president of the production company Kinematics, one of the film’s investors, told me, “Trump attacked the film and, unfortunately, it appears that Hollywood right now doesn’t have the stomach to release this film and take him on.”
The fear seems to be twofold. Few want to end up in the MAGA movement’s cross hairs the way Bud Light and Disney did. And as one distribution executive told Variety, any company that wants to be sold, or to merge with or buy another company, would be hesitant to touch “The Apprentice” because of the possibility that, should Trump be re-elected, his “regulators will be punitive.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/opinion/the-apprentice-trump-movie.html
Whenever we talk about a potential American Dystopia I have to remind people that even in places like Communist China or Russia, life was/is remarkably normal for most people.
Like our current moment, it seems a bit overblown to say that because of fear of government retaliation film studios are suppressing a movie.
But that’s how life is in authoritarian societies. For the vast majority of people who keep their head down and don’t make trouble, life goes on as normal- families take their children to soccer practice, couples fall in love and get married, people go about their daily routine unmolested.
But freedom is carefully curtailed by the regime using tactics ranging from bribery to outright violence.Report
In more, “we are merely anti-Zionist rather than anti-Semitic”, Pro-Palestinian activists take over NYC subway car and ask everybody to raise their hands if they are Zionists. Looking for enemies to beat up isn’t just a great look for any protest movement.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/gaza-protest-vandalism-targets-palestinian-mission-new-york/story?id=111050043Report
On a pragmatic level I just don’t get these tactics. They only convince the people already convinced. They don’t get people who aren’t Pro-Israel but not exactly Pro-Palestinian either to come to great understanding and see Israel as the devil. You just look like somebody looking for trouble and your cause gets discredited.Report
It is amazing how bad authors can be at basic historical research. I am currently reading In A Dark Wood Wondering by Hella S. Haase. The novel was published in 1949 and Hella S. Haase is considered one of the most important Dutch authors of the second half of the 20th century. Wikipedia states she is referred to as the Grande Dame of Dutch literature.
In A Dark Woods Wandering takes place in the 15th century during the Hundred Years War. Currently, the date is around 1440. I get this line on pg. 294, “Those citizens who had gardens, plots of grounds at their disposal, could save themselves; they had roots, potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and herbs.”
The problem with this sentence should be really obvious. Potatoes are a New World group. Europeans weren’t even aware of their existence for another 80 years. They did not become that important to the European diet until the 18th century. These historical inaccuracies just really get to me. Getting the details right in historical fiction is important.Report
I think my reply is “okay so delete the word ‘potatoes’, how does it change the work”. I mean, I get it, They Wouldn’t Have Had Potatoes, but is the story depending on the existence of potatoes?Report
Do you speak Dutch? The sentence reads, in the original:
A more literal translation is “The townspeople who had a garden, or a plot of land, were still able to save themselves; they still had roots [wortels, can also be carrots], tubers [knollen] and herbs [kruiden].
“Wortels” can be carrots, so that translation makes sense, but “potatoes” and “parsnips” are examples of tubers with their own commonly used words (“aardappelen” and “pastinaak”, respectively), which suggests that the translator thought Americans wouldn’t like the relatively rarely used “tuber” in English, and exercised a bit of artistic license. Should the translator have used less anachronistic tuber? I guess, though I suspect the person doing the translation is an expert in 20th century Dutch literature, and not an expert in medieval European horticulture, so if the decision to avoid “tubers” in the English text makes sense, it’s probably asking a bit much of a pre-internet translator (and frankly, an internet one) to do that research.
It’s probably worth further noting that Haase is famous for the punctiliousness of her historical research, so it’s kinds funny to accuse her of being bad at basic historical research, especially without doing the basic linguistic research.Report
Looks like the Daily Beast is going under:
Report
Media continues digging, looking for the bottom.Report
From Houston Public Media: Candidate for Fort Bend County Commissioner Taral Patel arrested for online impersonation
Apparently, this guy allegedly created fake social media accounts to post racist comments to himself and then used those comments to allegedly allege that they came from his opponent’s supporters.
What makes this such an awful case is that now people can allege that racist comments are not organic but astroturfed. Allegedly.
Imagine how his opponents are taking a victory lap right now!Report
“What makes this such an awful case is that now people can allege that racist comments are not organic but astroturfed.”
I mean, people have always said this. The Vibe Shift is that these people are increasingly being taken seriously.Report