Open Mic for the week of 12/9/2024
On this day in 1979, Smallpox was officially declared eradicated.
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.
Daniel Penny acquitted. Someone on twitter pointed out that there’s not a year in the last fifty that he would have been found guilty.Report
IIRC the bulk of the witnesses said they felt he acted to protect them from a maniac. Tough to get a conviction over that kind of support.Report
People are wondering why there was a trial at all, and the point is that without a trial to establish that Violence Is The Provenance Of The State, you get “Death Wish”.
Although given that people here are still cheering on that nutball who shot a guy in the street, apparently that’s what they want these days.Report
This guy had a history of randomly attacking women on the subway. If the state wants to keep its monopoly on violence then they have to keep people like that locked up.Report
Murdoch fails spectacularly in his bid to rewrite his irrevocable trust and keep Fox even more right wing: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/business/media/rupert-lachlan-murdoch-family-trust.htmlReport
Krugman’s last column for the times comparing when he started to now: What strikes me, looking back, is how optimistic many people, both here and in much of the Western world, were back then and the extent to which that optimism has been replaced by anger and resentment. And I’m not just talking about members of the working class who feel betrayed by elites; some of the angriest, most resentful people in America right now — people who seem very likely to have a lot of influence with the incoming Trump administration — are billionaires who don’t feel sufficiently admired.
It’s hard to convey just how good most Americans were feeling in 1999 and early 2000. Polls showed a level of satisfaction with the direction of the country that looks surreal by today’s standards. My sense of what happened in the 2000 election was that many Americans took peace and prosperity for granted, so they voted for the guy who seemed as if he’d be more fun to hang out with.
In Europe, too, things seemed to be going well. In particular, the introduction of the euro in 1999 was widely hailed as a step toward closer political as well as economic integration — toward a United States of Europe, if you like. Some of us ugly Americans had misgivings, but initially they weren’t widely shared.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/opinion/elites-euro-social-media.htmlReport
The 1990s were an optimistic time despite some geopolitical problems because the Cold War was over, Aparheid ended, and the I/P and Northern Ireland conflicts seemed resolved. North Korea and South Korea were talking to each other and the global economy was booming. Society seemed to be going globally in the proper direction. There were some sore parts like the Yugoslav Wars. Rwanda, and the Talinban ruling over Afghanistan but nothing that seemed unsolvable. The big liberal spectrum won and they won big. Then 9/11 happened and everything seemed to go to hell fast and hard.Report
It is amazing to see the steady decline of US satisfaction after 9/11, reacting the lowest level in 2009. then a slow climb back up. Things were finally rising to within sight of 50% satisfaction under Trump, then Covid. Now the slog back up begins again. At least President Trump is in office and has a shot to replicate what he did before Covid.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1669/general-mood-country.aspxReport
It is worth pointing out how that poll is _completely deranged_.
And also not measuring ‘satisfaction’. It’s measuring ‘In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?’.
And even there, it’s just nonsense.
It has skyrocketing satisfaction during the 2008-2009 subprime mortgage collapse. I know Obama was a popular president, but I seriously doubt he was _that_ popular. It’s almost 25% movement! Wait, is this maybe the ACA? I don’t recall that being super-popular either?
It also isn’t at its highest for 9/11, that was a dip…it’s at it’s highest for _the months after_.
I have no idea what that poll is measuring, but it not anything sane.Report
Attacking the poll is a good choice.
But is does not surprise me that satisfaction is high a month after 9/11. That is when we declared war on the Taliban and I think people were happy to have a target and the rallying to Pro-America.
Maybe a poll of US on the right path better?
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/trackers/direction-of-the-united-states
Goes only to 2009, and at that point every year the majority of people think the US is on the wrong direction. The closest it came was about a -7% in Sep 2012 until Biden took office, but that sure did not last long.
https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/trackers/direction-of-the-united-statesReport
the 1990s were a great time if you were a straight white suburban American. other than that, not so much!Report
As opposed to when?Report
The Cultural Affairs Commission of UCLA seems to be in trouble because they had a policy of not hiring Jews, I mean Zionists, and had the stupidity and courage to put this in writing.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-831990Report
I found coverage for this story in four places: The Jerusalem Post, The New York Post, Commentary, and The Daily Bruin. I trust the Daily Bruin most of all but it seems to largely monitor the coverage in the Jerusalem Post. I don’t trust anything that comes from the NY Post because it is part of Murdoch’s right-wing lets smear liberals with nutpicking empire and every time I see a story only covered there and in Jewish newspapers, I decry that it can be dismissed on those facts.
Student government is good but perhaps given them a lot of training first.Report
The facts fit with the general pattern in academia and activism in recent years towards the Jews. Other media might not be covering it because it is not a major story to them and they see it as unimportant. Your attitude that this story can be dismissed because it is only found in enemy media.Report
It is time for another episode of What’s Wrong with this Headline: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/us/politics/trump-perfumes-sneakers-licensing.html
“Trump Tests Ethical Boundaries With Branded Merch. (And All Sales Are Final.)
Everything around President-elect Donald J. Trump has become something to monetize, including a moment of comity with Jill Biden at Notre-Dame over the weekend.”Report
Adam Schiff has come out and said that he doesn’t think that he should get a pardon.
Two schools of thought:
1) This only goes to show how principled Adam Schiff is! And, by extension, how principled *ALL* Democrats are! The Republicans would *NEVER*!
2) This is pretty good cover for getting a pardon and then being able to say “I didn’t want this!”Report
The problem with this “school of thought” is that a pardon must be accepted to be effective. Neither Schiff nor anyone else can work both sides of the street:
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3-4-1/ALDE_00013319/#essay-9Report
IIRC, accepting the pardon is admitting guilt, no?Report
That is not as clear as it ought to be: https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/010110580824.pdf
And it’s hard to see how that would work for a pre-emptive pardon.Report
“We do not suggest that the President could not have chosen to condition Lorance’s pardon on a confession of guilt, only that he chose not to do so here, instead granting a pardon that did not purport to address Lorance’s innocence or guilt. We reject the district court’s suggestion that every presidential pardon constitutes a legal confession of guilt unless expressly grounded on a presidential finding of innocence. Although acceptance of a pardon may imply a public perception of guilt, it does not have the legal effect of doing so where the pardon is not expressly conditioned on such a confession. ”
Seems clear enough to me: my initial recollection was incorrect and the acceptance of a pardon does not confess guilt. At least not in the Tenth Circuit.Report
Saying “I don’t want this, it’s unnecessary and unwise!” and saying “I will refuse to accept this and thus cannot be compelled to testify” are two very different things.
I’ve only seen him say the former…Report
Actions speak louder than words. If he accepts a pardon, he can’t say “I didn’t want this.” If he doesn’t, he can say what he damn pleases. If he isn’t offered one, there’s nothing for him to say and we can make up whatever we like, based on our priors about about Schiff, and nobody can prove us wrong.
Place your bets.Report
Well, until recently, it was a conspiracy theory to think that the laptop was real and that Biden would pardon Hunter despite multiple promises that he wouldn’t.
We’re in totally uncharted territory!Report
Your point being? Or should I know better than to ask?Report
Merely that a few short days ago, the idea that the possibility existed that there were even discussions about Schiff maybe getting a pardon were conspiracy theories.Report
I heard the same speculation from sources not generally hospitable to conspiracy theories, not about Schiff specifically, but about the entire class of potential Trump targets to which he belongs.Report
Oh, man! I wish you were around when it was only Politico and nuts on the twitters that were talking about this.Report
I’m perfectly happy to wait for more-or-less credible sources before expending mental energy on things.Report
Eh, the problem with “credible” is that a lot of places that used to be credible aren’t anymore.
Like they did stuff like call stuff “conspiracy theories” that they eventually admitted actually happened.
Like “conspiracy theory” is used to shut down disagreement or something.Report
And a lot never were. But the urge to have a hot take drives far too many people to jump on rumor or speculation on Monday rather than wait until Thursday to get things right. Maybe they get some value out of it, but it’s hard to see.Report
That’s not exactly what it says. What that says is you can, in court, _disclaim_ a pardon that has been issued to you. And if you wish to use one, you have bring it up to the court, or the court can just ignore it, which I think we all assumed was true if we thought about it.
As far as I can see, nothing stops Biden from issuing Schiff or anyone a pardon, and them just…not saying anything. They don’t have to say they reject or accept it. (In fact, it probably doesn’t matter if they _publicly_ say anything, they’d have to do it in court.) And maybe it doesn’t ever come up.
It’s Schrödinger’s pardon, and the box doesn’t have to be opened until the person wants to open it.
Now, Republicans could try to force the issue by trying to make them testify on the grounds they were pardoned, but…that does raise an interesting question, because that’s not the courts, and that’s just sorta assuming they already accepted the pardon, which they didn’t.
In fact, playing this out, I almost feel they could be forced in front of Congress, assert they will not be accepting the pardon and thus do not have to testify, and then, if charged, could…say, in court, they are accepting the pardon. Things they say to Congress are not part of court, they are not bound by them. (They have to tell the truth, but saying ‘I plan to reject the pardon’ and then later accepting it is not automatically _lying_. Maybe they just changed their mind, an entirely reasonable thing when actually faced with criminal charges.)
At which point they could get hauled back in front of Congress, but we’re pretty far in now.Report
Another thought is that Adam Schiff is stating that he doesn’t think he committed any crimes and he doesn’t need one. He is challenging Trump and co to bring it like Adam Kirtzenger didReport
I still think chances Biden does this are low. But if it is really on the table the only honorable stance is the one Schiff appears to be taking. No one should be asking for pardons. Any request would be an admission of unfitness for office and should be accompanied by a resignation.Report
This is a lot simpler and more plausible than the eleventh-dimensional chess scenarios. They won’t ask for or accept pardons. In any sane world, they will not be prosecuted for anything because they haven’t done anything for which they can be prosecuted. If Trumpworld isn’t Saneworld and they get prosecuted, I expect they will fight on the merits. If they are asked to testify before Congress, they will do so because nothing they could truthfully say would incriminate them.Report
Just don’t forget that Trumpworld exists in Vibes, not facts.Report
Speak of the Devil and he will appear:
Bill Clinton Tells The View He’s Open To Discussing ‘Preemptive Pardon’ for Wife Hillary Before Trump Takes OfficeReport
Nikki Giovanni’s death and events in the news reminded me of this little gem, “Allowables”:
I killed a spider
Not a murderous brown recluse
Nor even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn’t
And she scared me
And I smashed her
I don’t think
I’m allowed
To kill something
Because I am
FrightenedReport
If we’re talking about Jordan Neely then “harmless but scary spider” isn’t the correct comparison.
Neely had a cycle of mental health crises, arrests, hospitalization, (presumably then release) and then repeat. His criminal record includes three unprovoked assaults on women in the subway.
Penny stepped in to prevent what would have been his fourth. The problem isn’t that the people are scared. The problem is they should be scared because that’s where Neely was in his cycle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jordan_Neely#Jordan_NeelyReport
That doesn’t mean that Penny didn’t use excessive force.Report
You’d think that the idea that violence should be proportionate and not excessive would be more popular.Report
Correct. However if we assume no one needed to use any force we have a different problem than the reality.
The guy with a history of attacking random people was at it again. The random people needed to figure out what to do about this. The amount of force used to stop him from being violent was also enough to kill him.
It is indeed a question whether the force used was excessive. Jury couldn’t make up it’s mind. It’s seriously unfair to put random people in that situation and expect no problems.
City knew Neely was a problem and living in the subway. He’d been arrested 42+ times and was thought to be one of the 50 craziest homeless people in the city.
If we want the subway to be used, then we can’t also be asking random people to deal with Neely and also tell them they’ll go to jail if they don’t deal with him correctly.Report
Premise: The Virtuous thing to do is to have done nothing. Just look down at your shoes.
Premise: If I were there, I would have done nothing. I would have just looked down at my shoes.
Conclusion: I would have been virtuous in this situation.
Conclusion 2: Daniel Penny was *NOT* virtuous in this situation.Report
There’s a lot of temptation to claim the situation is something different we can look the other way.
However I question whether looking the other way is virtuous.Report
I think the only legitimate way to answer a question like that is an impartial jury, and the jury spoke.Report
I generally agree with this point. There is a big decorum problem on public transit in the areas where it is used. BART has similar issues if not to the extent of somebody like Jordan Neely. BART has been installing tall fare gates to dissuade fare gate jumping. Since the faregate jumpers tend to be the types that like acting obnoxiously on transit, it has the side benefit of creating a more well behaved ridership.Report
DC metro isn’t in nearly the disarray you hear reported from other cities but I had a not great experience last spring. Some guy smelling like weed and feces was sitting a few rows up yelling profanity and racial slurs at my 7 year old son. This was a Sunday afternoon on the way to an NHL game. Thankfully it was so garbled I don’t think my son understood what was being said or that it was directed at him and the dude stayed over in his corner.
I’ve ridden for many years and have seen some out there stuff but it felt different having it directed at my kid. I would not have seen anything wrong with him being removed from the train and sent to a psych ward or the drunk tank or wherever he needed to go.Report
A couple of weeks ago, there was a group of point six to seven teens on my BART ride home. They were sharing what can best described as a marijuana cigar and behaving badly. They confronted people who looked annoyed at their antics and pushed one guy off the BART station when he was getting off.
These types of incidents aren’t common and this was unusually bad but they are common enough that people are fed up.Report
A marijuana cigar is colloquially referred to as a “blunt”.
So I have heard.Report
But do they still use rhe otpimo? The phillies? The dutchmaster?
Man I feel old.Report
My information became outdated somewhere in the first Clinton administration.
But I saw “grape cigar wraps” at the 7-11 and idly wished that we had such luxuries back in the day.Report
This might the most old manish comment I’ve ever read on this site. 😉Report
I don’t know about you, but I don’t have AI glasses that tell me a person’s criminal history when I look at them.
What’s more, I’m not to keen on the idea of random people choosing when to intervene, and when not to intervene, when a person is having a mental health crisis in public, or when several people are clearly afraid of someone how has not yet to the random people’s knowledge harmed anyone.
Putting aside the question of whether Perry used excessive force; the precedent we’re setting here is a disturbing one.Report
Disclaimer- I don’t know the particulars of NY law.
In Maryland defense of a third party is arguably a lower standard than self defense. Without going into all of the details (among other things, the force has to be reasonable), the reason for that is that the analysis includes whether the accused reasonably believed that the person they were defending also had the right to use force to defend themselves, which turns to some degree on the unknowable in the moment mental state of the third party being defended. I don’t believe Maryland’s approach to this is unusual on the east coast, where the law has a strong basis in common law principles, even if they have technically been re-written as statutes.
If this went to a jury in Maryland you could debate the way the jury weighed the facts. However an acquittal would not be precedent setting in a strictly legal sense. Practically speaking having witnesses like Penny did come forward and say they were afraid they were going to be harmed had he not intervened would always make a prosecution like this pretty difficult.Report
*this should really read ‘what the accused reasonably believed‘ about the unknowable in the moment mental state of the person being defended.Report
The normal rule for prosecutors is to charge the highest-level offense that you have a decent chance of proving. That’s why there was a manslaughter charge. I don’t think anyone would have made a big bet that the charge would stick, but there was a legitimate case. After all, the jury hung on it. The lesser charge, criminally negligent homicide, was what I thought the evidence showed. The prosecution theory was that Penny was justified in intervening*, which moots all the complications about defense of others, but that at some point he continued to choke Neely to death when it was no longer reasonable for him to do it. The threat had subsided, other passengers warned Penny that the guy was choking to death and that he should stop — a by-the-numbers case for criminally negligent homicide. Given that one or more jurors had been willing to convict on manslaughter, it is hard to understand why those same jurors voted to acquit on criminally-negligent homicide. Unless they had been one or two holdouts on a manslaughter acquittal and were just worn down on criminally-negligent homicide.
That said, it wasn’t entirely surprising that the jury acquitted. Juries have been remarkably sympathetic to defendants in this sort of case.
* I once tossed a disruptive loon off the subway, to the cheers of fellow passengers. I didn’t kill him and probably didn’t hurt anything other than his pride. And I was never the trained physical specimen that Penny is.Report
I certainly don’t harbor the outrage some have expressed about charges being brought at all. Maybe some outrage is justified about how and against whom these types of charges are brought but that is a matter for the voters of NY to decide. To me this was a close enough call that you shrug and say the jury did what it did, that’s the system.Report
It was disputed how many minutes Penny held him down. If it was 12-15, then that’s a problem. If it was “too the next station so 3-5” then less so.Report
What’s not disputed is that some of the frightened passengers were telling Penny to ease up and that Neely was subdued and choking. If Penny were merely “holding him down,” then there would have been no trial even if it were 12-15 minutes because Neely wouldn’t have died. But you can easily choke a man to death in 3-5 minutes; Penny had been trained how to do that.Report
I thought it was just one, not “some”. Under the circumstances it could be self serving.
Within the margin of error/reporting we could be looking at a 15 minute choke with people telling him he was going to die, followed by jury nullification.
We could also be looking at a 3 minute choke where Penny didn’t know he was over the line and the “warnings” not believed by the jury.
We’re getting into who the jury believed and who they didn’t and they spent a lot more hours at this than I’m going to. Both times I was a witness to a car accident I sharply disagreed with other people about non-trivial issues.
Sitting here in my chair I lean more towards the first story, i.e. too long a choke with the jury refusing to do anything. However the second story is also within the margin of error so “reasonable doubt” and all that.Report
The witnesses who testified that they were scared definitely didn’t help. There was the woman who testified that she barricaded herself and her child behind the kid’s stroller because she was scared. One witness said that she wanted to *THANK* Penny! She said this under oath!
Seriously, it’s like the Prosecution was deliberately throwing the case.Report
As I said to CJ above, maybe there’s an issue with the decision to have brought charges. If the voters feel that way they have a mechanism of changing it.
I’ll put my neck out and say I think in a democracy a jury is probably the only way to make a call on something like this and that call have a high degree of legitimacy.* The state made its case to a handful of randos that went through the archane meat grinder of the selection process, and the randos weren’t convinced that this guy should go to jail.
*Yea there are problems with it but there are problems with everything.Report
Several of my gym friends had a convo about this back in the day. One of the brown belts has specifically created a training regime that he calls “crackhead defense”. It does not use rear naked chokes because that can, even accidently, cause death. In his program you immobilize the person by keeping them pinned to the ground, but still able to breathe. It’s pretty good, but there is quite a bit of skill involved and associated time training, but it does work. He’s put me in it several time. Not something a civilian with zero martial arts training could do unless they got lucky.Report
Chris: I don’t have AI glasses that tell me a person’s criminal history…
We are after the fact quarter backing. But Neely’s history shows that Penny judged Neely correctly.
Ergo we have the problem that the people in the subway were (correctly) scared and (correctly) believed Neely was going to start attacking random people.
Chris: the precedent we’re setting here is a disturbing one.
The people here were locked in a room with this guy.
The root problem is they’re in this situation to begin with, i.e. that the city is allowing this guy to live in the subway and continually subject the passengers to this. This was his 43rd mental health crisis.Report
None of which was legally relevant to the negligent homicide charge, which was presented on the theory that Penny didn’t do anything wrong at the beginning of his intervention, but only when he continued choking Neely long after he was effectively subdued and was, in fact, dying.Report
True all that.
Case looked pretty strong, but ultimately we couldn’t fully convince a jury. Maybe some of them felt that would be punishing what should be rewarded.Report
John Kerry unveils his new portrait at the State Department. He looks really good in it!Report
Seems serviceable; but I’m not a fan of that style… way too much background noise and far too detailed (esp. background) — creates a distraction to the subject.
Wife and I went to the National Portrait Gallery last year and looked at all the presidential portraits… my now settled opinion is that the Rembrandt school re-interpreted through Singer Sargent is the best(TM) style for portraits.
The distinction is painting the eyes… that’s what we look at and that’s how we make initial judgements about people… the further from the eye, the less detailed the stylings. The background is notional or just a solid color. But, it’s hard to really capture the eyes and the person — that’s where genius resides.Report
Ken Klippenstein claims to have a copy of Luigi’s Manifesto.
Freakin’ kids.Report
A young middle-class white cishet man running into a serious medical problem and actually discovering that existing ‘free market’ systems can, in fact, be unfair and knowingly cause a bunch of harm to people by design while making massive profits…and getting so outraged he shoots the people in charge…is just funny.
Like, just one form of being marginalized, just one system that is actively harming him, and the guy just _snaps_.Report
I bet if you asked him, he’d say “I’m working class!”
Freakin’ kids.Report
I don’t think “snaps”. I think we’re looking at idealism. It’s like how a lot of terrorists are engineers.Report
Someone pointed out that the average age for schizophrenia kicking in for males is between the late teens and early 30s and 26 is right smack dab in the middle of that.
I mean… maybe he believes things?
But a lot of people believe things.Report
Safeway to close struggling S.F. location over concerns about customer safety, theft.
In the short term, people negatively affected might be able to get some of the stuff they need at the 16th Street BART Plaza.Report
I’m looking forward to hearing an explanation of how it was only declining sales and had nothing to do with theft and Safeway’s a bunch of racist liars, and said explanation failing to consider the fact that the reason sales were declining was that all the stuff they were trying to sell kept getting stolen.Report
What will have to happen for another investor to open a store there?
What pre-reqs will be required?
It strikes me that it will require something close to vigorous deterrence of shoplifting to the point where a police presence will be no longer needed on-site but maybe there will be enough incentives offered by government that they’ll find a sucker or a philanthropist for whom feeding people is more important than breaking even.Report
What will have to happen for another investor to open a store there?
Who owns the land and the building? We have a former Albertsons here locally that closed a decade ago. The company is not interested in leasing the building or selling the land. They’re interested in the asset is appreciating at something over 10% per year. It looks like something will finally happen, but only because the city started waving around attractive nuisance (homeless people lighting fires) and eminent domain.Report
When Meijer left Flint, they tore down the building behind them.
I’m wondering if Safeway will.Report
Saudi Arabia awarded 2034 World Cup by FIFA. I am generally not as outraged at this as other liberals might be. International cooperation and diplomacy requires dealing with some unsavory countries on the democracy index a lot. Having them participate in the general global economy and society is much better than having a lot of Taliban Afghanistans.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/dec/11/saudi-arabia-confirmed-as-2034-world-cup-host-despite-human-rights-concernsReport
What you say is true but my goodness you don’t suppose that some boosters of the Saudi bid might have used corruption or bribery on the FIFA officials who c
Sorry, I couldn’t finish that paragraph because I was laughing too hard.Report
Of course they did.Report
Christopher Wray has just resigned as the head of the FBI.Report
Well that sucks, though it does save him having to fight it out for his job against a man he probably doesn’t want to work for. Kash Patel here we come.Report
No good will come of this, mark my words.Report
New information released about Luigi Mangione.
He’s 5’7″.Report
Your point being?Report
He’s just an assassin now.Report
I dare you to make any less sense.Report
Can we build stuff anymore? There is talk of building a subway line around Geary Boulevard, an important east-west thoroughfare in San Francisco. There has been talks and plans of building a subway line down Geary Boulevard since 1949 from what I’ve read. The current conversation predicts that work on the Geary Subway will START, not be completed, but START in 15 years. Who knows how long after that it will take to finish the project.
Not only do people have to do study upon study but there are always several lawsuits to stop the project because some group wants to save the nesting environments of the sewer rats. I get how the old bulldoze through things paradigm was not great but we swung too far in the opposite direction. People can’t wait a generation for a subway line.Report