The Refuge of the Toads

#38821

deLurch wrote:
Steersman wrote:No doubt "Big Red" was largely the author of her own misfortunes - which she seems, belatedly, to recognize. However, it seems from another post HJ links to, more than a few rather obnoxious dickheads on "our" side went off the deep end, starting with the idiot who was guilty of a privacy breach, but including those who were more or less condoning murder and mayhem.
I don't know what you think "our" side is, or what side you think I am on, but you only speak for yourself. Associate yourself however you wish.

I put "our" in quote marks for a reason, to suggest that "side" is a rather nebulous concept to begin with, and that it is moot who is on which one. But it was generally an allusion to the anti-SJW, anti-pomo, anti-"feminist" side in contradistinction to the one Big Red is presumably an exemplar.

#38822

Brive1987 wrote:A special couple appear to be having sex behind me on the train.

Their day has started off better than mine.

Should have joined in. After all, I'm sure you don't mind if, in the course of events, you get a little semen on your face. No homo.

#38823

Brive1987 wrote:PZ skates the thin ice of sex positivity by celebrating nasssty objectifying porn.
And threatens to release a sex tape.

Would reading a book in bed really qualify as a sex tape? Different strokes I guess.

#38824

Billie from Ockham wrote:Again, that's not the Broken Window Theory I know. When done correctly, it's foot patrols in neighborhoods where the cop first tells the people living there what is out of compliance. In some places, there are funds or groups that help fix places up and the cop mentions these or gives the home-owner their card. Only when the property remains a shit-hole for a significant period does it move up to the next level, which is usually only an official warning.
B.

Can you give an example of where it has been done correctly?

Generally NYC considered one of the better known examples of BWT, but it was clearly not done in correctly.

#38825

So bad.

“Ghostbusters” is a horror from start to finish, and that’s not me saying it’s legitimately scary.

More like I was horrified by what was transpiring onscreen.

How could so many talented, well-meaning artists, who clearly loved and respected the original, produce such a raggedy-looking, thuddingly unfunny, utterly unnecessary reboot?

For months, controversy has swirled around the new “Ghostbusters” movie. The trailer was reportedly the most hated in YouTube history, for what that’s worth (or not worth), which led to some pundits saying some of that hate was rooted in sexism.

Others said the fact the Leslie Jones character wasn’t a scientist and seemed to have a role that called for her to play into stereotypes smacked of racism.

Of course, people were voicing these opinions without having seen the entire movie. Well, I have seen it — and while I believe the concerns about racial stereotypes were overblown, “Ghostbusters” is one of the worst movies of the year for multiple other reasons, including:

Bad acting.

Uninspired directing, editing, cinematography and music.

Cheesy special effects.

A forgettable villain.

A terrible script.

#38826

Houston did it pretty well. The data are better for Lowell, Massachusetts, but they weren't dealing with as much of a problem. Baltimore's program started out mixed (with more success on the east side [black] than Hamden [white]) and then fell on its face. NYC's program was too focused on people to really count for me either way. Jersey City was too focused on drugs.

#38827

The classic nyc example-- was Mayor Koch's decision to budget keeping the subways graffiti-free.

To fulfill the claims of Broken Window, this would have to result in a reduction of rape, mugging, murder, etc.
Good luck finding evidence of that.
If you do-- it will probably also prove that violent video games cause real crime, bikini billboards cause rape, and swearing causes war.

I think it's easier to claim other effects, such as tourists having a more favorable impression of the city.

#38828

I'll look at Houston. I'm familiar with Baltimore and Jersey City, but the former didn't work well, and the latter was too narrowly focused to be much use as an example.

#38829

Really? wrote:
Billie from Ockham wrote:Do you really think that Dr Richard Carrier PhD is going to need our help for him and his socks to swing this vote?
I think it would be hilarious for him to publicly accept an award at a convention while he's been banned from a ton of organizations for sexual harassment.

^^^This! So much this!!!^^^

I do think his profile could use the boost.

#38830

This is from my walk by the lake yesterday.

https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8702/2799 ... a94eb4.jpg
By the lake by Jim Habegger, on Flickr

#38831

I'm just doing what I see other people doing here: I'm saying what I think about some of the topics that I see people discussing. I'm actually glad about people posting their disagreements with me, because it's helping me clarify and refine my thoughts.

I'm seeing people discussing media stories of various incidents of people doing harm to other people, why it's happening, and what to do about it, so I'm saying what I think about what's happening, and what to do about it.

What I think is happening is that more and more people, at higher and higher economic levels, are facing more hardships, and worse hardships, resulting from deteriorating social conditions. I have my theories about why that's happening, but I'm trying to learn to talk less about why it's happening and more about what to do.

Currently one of my priorities is participating in the processes that I think will eventually stop and reverse the deterioration of social conditions. Another one of my priorities is learning to help reduce and counteract the damage that's being done to people's lives, and to society, which I think will continue and get worse for at least a few more generations to come.

Part of what I think will eventually stop and reverse deteriorating social conditions is a movement of more and more people learning to value all people, and all of nature, more and more, and to care more about what happens to all people, without drawing lines between people and devaluing people across those lines.

#38832

...but Koch's subway graffiti initiative began in 1984.

By 1985, Koch was already expanding Broken Windows to target nuisances which weren't illegal: such as Koch's attempt to ban all bicycles in mid-town Manhattan.

Giuliani also included bicycles in his "Quality Of Life Violation" campaign, trying to ban bicyclists exercising in Central Park-- so they wouldn't impede car commuters' use of the park roads as a shortcut to the outer boroughs. Giuliani built his support on suburban nyc's fears and hate against urban nyc. One person's Broken Window is another persons Human On A Bicycle.

#38833

Dave wrote:I'll look at Houston. I'm familiar with Baltimore and Jersey City, but the former didn't work well, and the latter was too narrowly focused to be much use as an example.

No stats to offer, but I work in a gentrifying neighborhood in downtown Houston sandwiched between the 3rd & 5th wards. Fancy new apartment buildings share the neighborhood with old warehouses & other industrial type buildings. Tons of bicyclers, joggers, & dog walkers.

I've talked to several longtime employees at the plant & they all go on about how bad it used to be. All have colorful stories & basically say that the cops just started cracking down in the area. All the bums, hookers, & crackheads seem to have been pushed 2 blocks west where the 3rd ward begins & the gentrification ends.

#38834

Really? wrote:Zvanatee in her comments on the "No Debate" post:

What is a person doing there? What are you doing there? This isn’t just some place on the internet where people randomly find themselves trapped. “Gosh. How did I get here? How do I get out? Guess I’d better make the best of it.” You can follow those links in my comment above to find out what this place where you’re hanging out is there to do. You can read all the comments there about destroying FtB, The Orbit, Skepchick, Atheism+.

The Slymepit didn’t just happen into existence. It has a purpose. That purpose isn’t subtle. The means aren’t subtle or ethical. You can’t just hang out there and not know any of that. You can’t be comfortable there without being comfortable with that. So, yes, your participation in the Slymepit is incriminating. It’s hardly as though you have nowhere else on the internet to go.
That's some powerful argumentation and reason from one of the greatest minds of our time.

Mrs Svaun, went from a penny ante rage-blogging network that has sank like a man in a slurry pit to a place that circles the arsehole of obscurity it's that irrelevant. Pretty sure you don't matter all that much anymore Svaun, you think whatever you like but the quality of your character is well known now and hence your sallow star has well fallen.

Oh and there was a BLM protest in Dublin this evening, although for some it seemed to actually be a BLLM* protest as their lovely placard only includes women's names. I guess those other folk's lives don't really matter, anyhoo I reckon that right on display is worth two SJ merit badges for the specimens holding it up, three for the blue haired one.

* - Black Ladies Lives Matter

#38835

Easy J wrote:
Really? wrote:
Billie from Ockham wrote:Do you really think that Dr Richard Carrier PhD is going to need our help for him and his socks to swing this vote?
I think it would be hilarious for him to publicly accept an award at a convention while he's been banned from a ton of organizations for sexual harassment.
^^^This! So much this!!!^^^

I do think his profile could use the boost.

Given the character he has displayed thus far I expect he would gratefully accept such an award without even the slightest hint of self-awareness. He would see it as a genuine string in his bow to crow about and not a backhanded compliment.

#38836

deLurch wrote:... but if a landlord can fix up their property and rent at a higher profit to richer clients, why should he or she not do that? This also increases the tax base of the city allowing them to provide more services at a lower tax rate.

However that may be, a lot of what I've seen happening has been dishonest and treacherous, with the complicity of government agencies.

I'll give you two examples that I witnessed myself.

I lived in one of the impoverished neighborhoods in a major city. Once I attended a town meeting that was allegedly for the residents to participate in decisions about neighborhood development. All of the ideas and concerns of the residents were ignored or brushed aside, and it turned out that our only input was going to be to role-play helping to choose which blocks would be chosen for upgrades that would raise property taxes. Someone raised the issue that some older people who had always lived there would be forced out of their homes because they wouldn't be able to pay the higher taxes, and the response was. "You have to make some sacrifices to improve the neighborhood."

Another example was when I read that a low income housing neighborhood was going to be razed and replaced with housing at twice the rental rate or more. I called HUD and they denied it. They said that all that was being done was to improve the electricity, plumbing, etc., with a grant from the federal government.

Later, I found out that the neighborhood actually was razed and replaced with housing at twice the rental rate. I called HUD again, and the person I talked to admitted that the developers had lied in their application for the grant, but said that there wasn't anything they could do about it. Then he asked me if I was against improving our neighborhoods.

#38837

jimhabegger wrote:This is from my walk by the lake yesterday.

https://c3.staticflickr.com/9/8702/2799 ... a94eb4.jpg
By the lake by Jim Habegger, on Flickr

I don't understand the significance of this, was the old guy not there when you took the photo or was he pestering your peaceful stroll trying to share the good news?

#38838

jimhabegger wrote: Part of what I think will eventually stop and reverse deteriorating social conditions is a movement of more and more people learning to value all people, and all of nature, more and more, and to care more about what happens to all people, without drawing lines between people and devaluing people across those lines.

I hope so but I am more cynical about human nature than you are. I suspect we'll get increasingly hostile and tribal as global warming really starts to kick in. Them we can all have a big war.

#38839

Darth Cynic wrote: Given the character he has displayed thus far I expect he would gratefully accept such an award without even the slightest hint of self-awareness. He would see it as a genuine string in his bow to crow about and not a backhanded compliment.

Yeah, for someone like Carrier it would be proof of a legion of adoring fans, even if he couldn't pick up the award himself. Still, if he wins, I'm calling it a Gropie.

#38840

Cnutella wrote:I hope so but I am more cynical about human nature than you are. I suspect we'll get increasingly hostile and tribal as global warming really starts to kick in. Them we can all have a big war.

And peak oil.

I'm not sure what you could mean by a big war, that isn't already happening, but whatever you mean, I'm not sure it won't happen.

#38841

Darth Cynic wrote:
Given the character he has displayed thus far I expect he would gratefully accept such an award without even the slightest hint of self-awareness. He would see it as a genuine string in his bow to crow about and not a backhanded compliment.

Carrier would write a post about it that looks like this:

4300 words about how he has been vindicated because the independent report showed that his girlfriend's husband was at fault for letting him speak at further SSA events...

..."Even my mortal enemies, the Slimepit crew, unrepentant bigots all, supported my unwitting candidacy for this prestigious award..."

...2500 more words about how his accuser is a lying bitch who gives all other victims a bad name and how his dozens of girlfriends across the country support him implicitly.

#38842

Really? wrote:Fellow shitlords, it's time for you to cast your ballot for the Gateway to Reason 2016 awards.

...

5. The Best Atheist Educator

Matt Dillahunty

Aron Ra

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Lawrence Krauss

Cara Santa Maria

What a pompous fucking award. "Best Atheist Educator."

Pah!

(And of those people, only NdT and Krauss are actually educators, if I'm not mistaken. And of those two, Krauss is the only professed atheist. So Krauss is perhaps the only one of the five who is both an atheist and an educator.)

#38843

Really? wrote:Carrier would write a post about it that looks like this:

4300 words about how he has been vindicated because the independent report showed that his girlfriend's husband was at fault for letting him speak at further SSA events...

..."Even my mortal enemies, the Slimepit crew, unrepentant bigots all, supported my unwitting candidacy for this prestigious award..."

...2500 more words about how his accuser is a lying bitch who gives all other victims a bad name and how his dozens of girlfriends across the country support him implicitly.

Don't forget his fans that stretch from Poland to Outer Mongolia or wherever it is he thinks the two of em are.

As for the award, I'd wager that he would see an element of vindication in the award itself, that such things only come to good people of great renown.

#38844

Darth Cynic wrote:I don't understand the significance of this, was the old guy not there when you took the photo or was he pestering your peaceful stroll trying to share the good news?

If you're talking about the old guy in the photo, that's me.

"... trying to share the good news ..." :lol: It took me a while to realize that you might be insinuating that I was pestering people, telling them about my religion. No. I don't do that. My walks by the lake are for my health.

#38845

seen on r/mensrights...

https://i.sli.mg/LGMUB7.png

#38846

jim you are about as fast of as a bucket of molasses being poured over the ass of an Eskimo at Christmas time.

#38847

Cnutella wrote:
jimhabegger wrote: Part of what I think will eventually stop and reverse deteriorating social conditions is a movement of more and more people learning to value all people, and all of nature, more and more, and to care more about what happens to all people, without drawing lines between people and devaluing people across those lines.

I hope so but I am more cynical about human nature than you are. I suspect we'll get increasingly hostile and tribal as global warming really starts to kick in. Them we can all have a big war.

Looking at this again, it struck me that you said "I hope so." Was that just rhetorical, or do you really have some hope, however small it might be, that it might happen?

#38848

comhcinc wrote:jim you are about as fast of as a bucket of molasses being poured over the ass of an Eskimo at Christmas time.

:P to you, too.

#38849

http://www.eastidahonews.com/2016/07/ma ... sing-room/

AMMON — An Idaho Falls man who identifies as transgender was arrested Tuesday afternoon after deputies say he took photos of a woman in a fitting room in Target.

43-year-old Sean Smith, who also goes by Shauna Smith, was booked into the Bonneville County Jail on one felony county of voyeurism.

Bonneville County Sgt. Bryan Lovell says deputies were called to a disturbance at Target on 25th East just after 5 p.m. Monday.

A woman told them a man, dressed in women’s clothing, had entered a fitting room in the women’s clothing section of the store. The suspect was seen taking photos of a lady in a stall next to him while she was changing.

“The woman was begging for help as she chased the man out the door,” a witness inside the store, who asked not to be named, tells EastIdahoNews.com. “She kept saying she wanted those pictures deleted.”

The suspect, later identified as Smith, left the store and Lovell says detectives located him Tuesday afternoon.

Lovell says detectives are investigating to see if there are other victims.

A booking photo for Smith was not immediately available. He is expected in court later this week.

#38850

Not trusting the website because I had never heard it I dug a little more. Here is the local news story.

http://www.localnews8.com/news/transgen ... m/40479250

So well that's happened now....

#38851

"Credible" plot to kill Baton Rouge police officers foiled
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/alton-sterl ... ce-foiled/

Louisiana State Police tell CBS News those in custody are 13, 17 and 20. The 17-year-old was arrested at the shop after an "alert" Baton Rouge police officer responded, police said. The suspect was carrying a handgun and a BB pistol, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie, Jr. said Tuesday.

That suspect told police the group of four was "looking for bullets" for the handguns in order to harm police officers in the Baton Rouge area, Dabadie said.

Impressionable youth following the violent rhetoric of chicken as thugs. The people calling for violence action need to be held accountable.

#38852

Oh look, someone harassed online and they call the cops.

Who the fuck would have every thought of that?

#38853

jimhabegger wrote:
Cnutella wrote:
jimhabegger wrote: Part of what I think will eventually stop and reverse deteriorating social conditions is a movement of more and more people learning to value all people, and all of nature, more and more, and to care more about what happens to all people, without drawing lines between people and devaluing people across those lines.

I hope so but I am more cynical about human nature than you are. I suspect we'll get increasingly hostile and tribal as global warming really starts to kick in. Them we can all have a big war.
Looking at this again, it struck me that you said "I hope so." Was that just rhetorical, or do you really have some hope, however small it might be, that it might happen?

Not sure if "hope" is the right word. It's more of an acknowledgement that predicting the future is a mug's game. I have some ideas on what I think is likely to happen based on what I've read and what appear to be shaping some long-range forecasts for military planning and policy, not mention the saber rattling that's already going on, not to mention the creeping erosion of the jobs by more automation, the dwindling middle class, and other things that create dicontented populaces understandably looking for someone to blame.

On th flip side, the milirary also needs pretexts on which to build their exercises and justify their budgets. Also they're technically supposed to plan for the worst, so who knows? A lot of people thought we'd be hitting peak oil in 2010, and yet we are. We may be bellicose monkeys, but we can also be surprisingly creative, so never say never.

#38854

The Grouch wrote:Not trusting the website because I had never heard it I dug a little more. Here is the local news story.

http://www.localnews8.com/news/transgen ... m/40479250

So well that's happened now....

I'm not surprised. Are you?

#38855

Cnutella wrote:
jimhabegger wrote: Part of what I think will eventually stop and reverse deteriorating social conditions is a movement of more and more people learning to value all people, and all of nature, more and more, and to care more about what happens to all people, without drawing lines between people and devaluing people across those lines.
I hope so but I am more cynical about human nature than you are. I suspect we'll get increasingly hostile and tribal as global warming really starts to kick in. Them we can all have a big war.

Cnutella wrote:
jimhabegger wrote:Looking at this again, it struck me that you said "I hope so." Was that just rhetorical, or do you really have some hope, however small it might be, that it might happen?
Not sure if "hope" is the right word. It's more of an acknowledgement that predicting the future is a mug's game.

I've noticed that too.

I have some ideas on what I think is likely to happen based on what I've read and what appear to be shaping some long-range forecasts for military planning and policy, not mention the saber rattling that's already going on, not to mention the creeping erosion of the jobs by more automation, the dwindling middle class, and other things that create dicontented populaces understandably looking for someone to blame.

On th flip side, the milirary also needs pretexts on which to build their exercises and justify their budgets. Also they're technically supposed to plan for the worst, so who knows? A lot of people thought we'd be hitting peak oil in 2010, and yet we are. We may be bellicose monkeys, but we can also be surprisingly creative, so never say never.

That all makes sense to me.

#38856

deLurch wrote:"Credible" plot to kill Baton Rouge police officers foiled
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/alton-sterl ... ce-foiled/
Louisiana State Police tell CBS News those in custody are 13, 17 and 20. The 17-year-old was arrested at the shop after an "alert" Baton Rouge police officer responded, police said. The suspect was carrying a handgun and a BB pistol, Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie, Jr. said Tuesday.

That suspect told police the group of four was "looking for bullets" for the handguns in order to harm police officers in the Baton Rouge area, Dabadie said.
Impressionable youth following the violent rhetoric of chicken as thugs. The people calling for violence action need to be held accountable.

Back in the aughts the term "chickenhawk" made a resurgence in referring to primarily conservative politicians who had never served in the military but were very gung-ho about sending them off to fight and die.

FTB and groups like them are chickenhawks. They've never put themselves in any sort of danger, but they're inciting idiots to fight and kill and die for their cause.

#38857

In other news, about those wild and crazy Muslims having themselves a grand old time:

Though it seems some Muslims are getting the picture even if many are still unreconstructed:

From the linked article:

Rashid, of the Bolingbrook Pakistani association, said he and members of his organization knew that some people wouldn't like the billboards, and would view the message as Muslims admitting they have a role in radical acts of extremists involved in terrorist attacks across the U.S. and overseas. .... "Sometimes you have to bite your tongue and explain, hey, this is what it is," Rashid said. "Like every average citizen, we are peace-loving citizens. If you look at us deeply, that's what the message is."

Ha! Maybe "Rashid" thinks that deeply revering a book that "endorses misogyny, murder, and homophobia" doesn't qualify as a "role in radical acts of extremists":

"The foregoing has been a paid political announcement. We now return you to your regular scheduled programming. ...."

#38858

comhcinc wrote:Not trusting the website because I had never heard it I dug a little more. Here is the local news story.

http://www.localnews8.com/news/transgen ... m/40479250

So well that's happened now....

But... but they said this would never happen! It would only be cisgendered men who took advantage of such opportunities!

It's definitely very circumstantial, but this may be a point in favor of those who argue that, for a proportion of TG women, transitioning is more about fetish than it is about dysphoria.

I could be totally wrong about this one, but I think there's going to be a loooong wait until we hear about a TG male doing something similar (although that may also be because they are also a statistical rarity in comparison with TG women).

#38859

comhcinc wrote:Not trusting the website because I had never heard it I dug a little more. Here is the local news story.
http://www.localnews8.com/news/transgen ... m/40479250
So well that's happened now....

So an ABC local affiliate that links to a fox news competitor. Tell me, how far back can you find news stories in their archives? And don't ABC local affiliates typically show video clips of their news castors announcing the news?

Diagnosis: It is a fake troll news website.

#38860

Heh, this is from that HJmHornbeck piece:

A message must be sent to these tormentors that they will be held accountable for the damage and suffering they continue to inflict upon Chanty. We need to raise $4,000 to help Chanty obtain legal counsel to fight against her tormentors. Please help end her abuse and help us show this abusive scum that they are accountable for their words and actions.

4K? How cheap are lawyers in Canada?

That should get her at least a few scary legal letters, assuming she knows where to send them, or that anyone living outside of Canada is going to give much of a shit.

Either she's got some plan in mind that's not exactly obvious, or she needs cash badly and is pulling a Watson. After all so long as there's no court case, then there's no verifiable proof unless you choose to share it.

#38861

deLurch wrote:
comhcinc wrote:Not trusting the website because I had never heard it I dug a little more. Here is the local news story.
http://www.localnews8.com/news/transgen ... m/40479250
So well that's happened now....
So an ABC local affiliate that links to a fox news competitor. Tell me, how far back can you find news stories in their archives? And don't ABC local affiliates typically show video clips of their news castors announcing the news?

Diagnosis: It is a fake troll news website.

Oh, you!

#38862

deLurch wrote:
comhcinc wrote:Not trusting the website because I had never heard it I dug a little more. Here is the local news story.
http://www.localnews8.com/news/transgen ... m/40479250
So well that's happened now....
So an ABC local affiliate that links to a fox news competitor. Tell me, how far back can you find news stories in their archives? And don't ABC local affiliates typically show video clips of their news castors announcing the news?

Diagnosis: It is a fake troll news website.

Sorry House. Here is the live feed. They just did the tranny story.

http://www.localnews8.com/ln8now

#38863

It doesn't matter because to the usual suspect, any person claiming to be trans who commits a sex crime was really cis all along.

#38864

comhcinc wrote:
Oh look, someone harassed online and they call the cops.

Who the fuck would have every thought of that?

Blaire is so dumb. Instead of telling us to donate to her Patreon, she asks for proof of the illegal behavior that has harmed her so she can have the police prosecute. It's like she doesn't even want to profit off of made-up fake harassment. Worst of all, she acknowledges that she was born with testicles and that the use of "balls" in a colloquial fashion isn't necessarily sexist or transphobic.

She needs to take more women's studies classes to deal with her internalized transphobia.

#38865

comhcinc wrote:Sorry House. Here is the live feed. They just did the tranny story.
http://www.localnews8.com/ln8now

Hmm... still suspicious for several reasons. Shitty quality. Lack of links to stories under reporter names.

Not to mention there is an extremely notorious fake news website that goes by variations of local 8 news, who has slowly been improving his fake news site as he is more easily spotted as fake.

But maybe I am wrong in this case.

#38866

deLurch wrote:
comhcinc wrote:Sorry House. Here is the live feed. They just did the tranny story.
http://www.localnews8.com/ln8now
Hmm... still suspicious for several reasons. Shitty quality. Lack of links to stories under reporter names.

Not to mention there is an extremely notorious fake news website that goes by variations of local 8 news, who has slowly been improving his fake news site as he is more easily spotted as fake.

But maybe I am wrong in this case.

I watched the news footage of the story. It was followed by other local and national news.

If this is a troll it's epic and involves a long time tv network in Idaho and several news reporters and camera men and sound people plus editors and someone who built a news room set.

#38867

So here's an interesting piece, although it is from the Manhattan Institute, a right wing thinktank, and definitely does have a clear bias. Still, the author appears to have done her legwork.

Comey merely confirmed the obvious in his remarks... Murders at that point were up 76% in Milwaukee, 60% in St. Louis, 56% in Baltimore, 47% in Minneapolis, and 36 percent in Houston, to name just a few locations.
The New York Times reported in September that homicides in 35 big American cities were up 19 percent and that 62 percent of cities reported an increase in non-fatal shootings. The blog FiveThirtyEight looked at homicide data from most of the nation’s 60 largest cities in September and found a 16 percent rise. Comey’s statement that “most of America’s 50 largest cities have seen an increase in homicides and shootings this year, and many of them have seen a huge increase” is therefore hardly news.

It should also not be news that officers are backing off discretionary policing. The available data show a decline in police activity. In New York City, summons for low-level, quality-of-life offenses such as public urination and drinking — a prime gauge of pro-active enforcement — were down 26 percent in the first half of 2015; arrests in every crime category were down 15 percent as of last week. In Los Angeles, arrests are down 10 percent — even as violent crime is up 20 percent. Arrests dropped 56 percent in Baltimore in May following the anti-cop riots and the indictment of six officers for the death of drug dealer Freddie Gray. Arrests in St. Louis City and County dropped a third after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and resulting riots.

Officers across the country testify to their reluctance to engage. “I won’t get out of my car for a reasonable-suspicion stop; I will if there’s a violent felony committed in my presence,” an emergency-services cop in New York City told me in September, echoing numerous such testaments I have heard over the last nine months.

Officers are routinely surrounded by hostile, jeering crowds when they try to make an arrest in urban areas. Mayors have noted the results. “We have allowed our police department to get fetal,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said during an emergency crime meeting of police chiefs and mayors in Washington this October.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html ... oCz9_w_wcB

It talks more about the Ferguson Effect. Because of the biased nature of the source, I did a bit of fact checking (ok, read the wikipedia article)and I was also interest to see what other people had to say about this being a correlation/causation fallacy. A number of studies felt that the Ferguson Effect might impact some crimes and locales,cothers found that it did not exist. However, the most recent research published this June by the DoJ:

...found that there was an "unprecedented" 16.8% increase in homicides in 56 large cities over the course of 2015, and examined the Ferguson effect as one of three plausible explanations recommended for further research. Richard Rosenfeld, the author of the study, stated that "the only explanation that gets the timing right is a version of the Ferguson effect" and that it is his "leading hypothesis".

Interestingly, Rosenfield's previous research was used to debunk the Ferguson Effect's hypothesis.

If his new hypothesis is correct then the impact of BLM will actually mean black lives lost at a faster rate than ever.

#38868

deLurch wrote:
comhcinc wrote:Sorry House. Here is the live feed. They just did the tranny story.
http://www.localnews8.com/ln8now
Hmm... still suspicious for several reasons. Shitty quality. Lack of links to stories under reporter names.

Not to mention there is an extremely notorious fake news website that goes by variations of local 8 news, who has slowly been improving his fake news site as he is more easily spotted as fake.

But maybe I am wrong in this case.

Oh, you were serious? I thought you were trolling.

It would be a pretty elaborate troll, what with the CNN affiliate content, the live Twitter feed and the Wikipedia entry. ;)

#38869

last post beofre I quit monopolizing the Pit for a while.

Eve "Vagina Monologues" Ensler just wrote a cringepiece in the Guardian entitled "It's time for white people to reckon with racism". It made me laugh quite a lot. Some choice quotes..

It’s time now to put our white asses on the line for the freedom of our black sisters and brothers – time to be willing to forfeit our privilege and status; time to admit the failure of a racist ideology and framework. Time to stop criticizing the tactics or methods or emotions of revolutionary movements that rise with bravery, heart vision, passion, patience and heroic kindness in response to the most grotesque atrocities, murders, degradations, terror, isolation and exclusion.

Because nothing will change until we are all willing to shut up and listen and serve, willing to stop making it about us: our feelings, our hurts, our guilt. Until we are willing to say this structure that we created and mastered has failed, to stop saying that agonizing and aggressive phrase “all lives matter” when we know full well they don’t, even to many of us.

Until we are willing to be wrong, willing to be lost, willing to be quiet. Can we be quiet? Can we shut up? Can we just shut up for one moment, shut up and stop talking about us? How the pain and righteous rage of black people affects us? How blamed we feel, how no matter what we do it stays the same, how they will never forgive us blah blah blah. Can we step out of the center of the picture for enough time for a healing to happen?

Can we own our selfishness and fear and need for comfort and our desperation for power? Can we give ourselves in service without directing or determining? Can we walk behind black folks or beside them? Can we allow ourselves to get close, real close, and rub up against the burning pain of those we have abused and enslaved, raped, incarcerated, shot, lynched, ignored and degraded? Can we die that death and not make black people responsible for our guilt and neglect?

...The truth is we are as much sinew as we are symbol. Our whiteness is our skin color, but it’s also a torn sheet draping the dead, a flag of privilege that will not surrender, a town called separateness. Our whiteness is that poisonous sky right before it rains, the color of shame.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160712125 ... sm-america

Totally reminds me of this::

[youtube]46B4KFFQ85E[/youtube]

#38870

Will second someone's suggestion that Blaire White be the pits official mf transperson if someone will second making the Dallas Police Chief the official write-in candidate for the PotUS election. One condition, he promises to never have a speech writer, because that would be a huge stepdown. I get this guy. We all get this guy. But I'm in Canada, so trying to put him on the ballot might put me on a watch list. And I do need to fly on an airplane once every 10 to 20 years.

And I second Blaire White as the Pit's official mf transperson anyway. She's awesome. If she's still got her junk in the trunk maybe we can hook her up with MIlo. She might be a little too fabulous for him though.

#38871

deLurch wrote:
jimmyfromchicago wrote:Someone has started a GoFundMe campaign on behalf of Big Red for $4,000 to hire a lawyer to "stop the harassment." Seems an employee of a package liquor store in Ontario took her pic and put it on Facebook. If he'd simply walked up and started screaming at her, that would have been fine.
Tapacunt
Who on earth would she go after legally? Her video has been all over the internet. People dislike her for her, not anything anyone has said about her. This is one of the situations where laying low is the only solution.

As I recall ... she was on TV news ... forget which station ... anyway as I recall she said she was tired of hiding and it was not working anyway so now she was fighting back.

Welp, good luck with that. I dunno what kind of man would take up with her now that they have had a chance to see how obnoxious she can be. She has pretty much ruined her personal life if you ask me.

Ya. I know fish and bicycle. Whatever.

Also, people who object to themselves being on video ... they may have valid concerns and be alarmed at the prospect of becoming as famous as Big Red/Chanty Binx (Not her real name. I know her real name and that is not it).

Anyway, I just looked and Raised by 84 people in 3 days the sum of $2,259 of $4,000 goal.

This pleases me for because I strongly suspect that much more salt is going to be forthcoming from either her and/or the idiots who contributed.

#38872

comhcinc wrote:
Billie from Ockham wrote:Again, that's not the Broken Window Theory I know.

I think what we have is the difference between theory and practice.

[youtube]V2f-MZ2HRHQ[/youtube]

#38873

Cnutella wrote:last post beofre I quit monopolizing the Pit for a while.

Eve "Vagina Monologues" Ensler just wrote a cringepiece in the Guardian entitled "It's time for white people to reckon with racism". It made me laugh quite a lot. Some choice quotes..

It’s time now to put our white asses on the line for the freedom of our black sisters and brothers – time to be willing to forfeit our privilege and status; time to admit the failure of a racist ideology and framework. Time to stop criticizing the tactics or methods or emotions of revolutionary movements that rise with bravery, heart vision, passion, patience and heroic kindness in response to the most grotesque atrocities, murders, degradations, terror, isolation and exclusion.

Because nothing will change until we are all willing to shut up and listen and serve, willing to stop making it about us: our feelings, our hurts, our guilt. Until we are willing to say this structure that we created and mastered has failed, to stop saying that agonizing and aggressive phrase “all lives matter” when we know full well they don’t, even to many of us.

Until we are willing to be wrong, willing to be lost, willing to be quiet. Can we be quiet? Can we shut up? Can we just shut up for one moment, shut up and stop talking about us? How the pain and righteous rage of black people affects us? How blamed we feel, how no matter what we do it stays the same, how they will never forgive us blah blah blah. Can we step out of the center of the picture for enough time for a healing to happen?

Can we own our selfishness and fear and need for comfort and our desperation for power? Can we give ourselves in service without directing or determining? Can we walk behind black folks or beside them? Can we allow ourselves to get close, real close, and rub up against the burning pain of those we have abused and enslaved, raped, incarcerated, shot, lynched, ignored and degraded? Can we die that death and not make black people responsible for our guilt and neglect?

...The truth is we are as much sinew as we are symbol. Our whiteness is our skin color, but it’s also a torn sheet draping the dead, a flag of privilege that will not surrender, a town called separateness. Our whiteness is that poisonous sky right before it rains, the color of shame.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160712125 ... sm-america

The interesting thing is this kind of rhetoric never appeared during the struggle against slavery, or during the Civil Rights period.

#38874

Kirbmarc wrote:
Cnutella wrote:last post beofre I quit monopolizing the Pit for a while.

Eve "Vagina Monologues" Ensler just wrote a cringepiece in the Guardian entitled "It's time for white people to reckon with racism". It made me laugh quite a lot. Some choice quotes..

It’s time now to put our white asses on the line for the freedom of our black sisters and brothers – time to be willing to forfeit our privilege and status; time to admit the failure of a racist ideology and framework. Time to stop criticizing the tactics or methods or emotions of revolutionary movements that rise with bravery, heart vision, passion, patience and heroic kindness in response to the most grotesque atrocities, murders, degradations, terror, isolation and exclusion.

Because nothing will change until we are all willing to shut up and listen and serve, willing to stop making it about us: our feelings, our hurts, our guilt. Until we are willing to say this structure that we created and mastered has failed, to stop saying that agonizing and aggressive phrase “all lives matter” when we know full well they don’t, even to many of us.

Until we are willing to be wrong, willing to be lost, willing to be quiet. Can we be quiet? Can we shut up? Can we just shut up for one moment, shut up and stop talking about us? How the pain and righteous rage of black people affects us? How blamed we feel, how no matter what we do it stays the same, how they will never forgive us blah blah blah. Can we step out of the center of the picture for enough time for a healing to happen?

Can we own our selfishness and fear and need for comfort and our desperation for power? Can we give ourselves in service without directing or determining? Can we walk behind black folks or beside them? Can we allow ourselves to get close, real close, and rub up against the burning pain of those we have abused and enslaved, raped, incarcerated, shot, lynched, ignored and degraded? Can we die that death and not make black people responsible for our guilt and neglect?

...The truth is we are as much sinew as we are symbol. Our whiteness is our skin color, but it’s also a torn sheet draping the dead, a flag of privilege that will not surrender, a town called separateness. Our whiteness is that poisonous sky right before it rains, the color of shame.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160712125 ... sm-america
The interesting thing is this kind of rhetoric never appeared during the struggle against slavery, or during the Civil Rights period.

She probably wrote this in a whitey white mcwhiteface coffee shop. She could have taken a left for two miles and done it in an inner city place that serves coffee. But didn't. For reasons. That are totally not racist. it's to everything to do with sustainable coffee bean practices.
The best thing about sustainable coffee bean practices? Juan ain't even withing 2000 miles of your white ass. Unlike the inner city coffee joint you will never visit because it's like a left turn and two miles.

#38875

MacGruberKnows wrote:Will second someone's suggestion that Blaire White be the pits official mf transperson if someone will second making the Dallas Police Chief the official write-in candidate for the PotUS election. One condition, he promises to never have a speech writer, because that would be a huge stepdown. I get this guy. We all get this guy. But I'm in Canada, so trying to put him on the ballot might put me on a watch list. And I do need to fly on an airplane once every 10 to 20 years.

And I second Blaire White as the Pit's official mf transperson anyway. She's awesome. If she's still got her junk in the trunk maybe we can hook her up with MIlo. She might be a little too fabulous for him though.

Will you settle for Trumps VP?

#38876

Cnutella wrote:So here's an interesting piece, although it is from the Manhattan Institute, a right wing thinktank, and definitely does have a clear bias. Still, the author appears to have done her legwork.
<snip>

Interestingly, Rosenfield's previous research was used to debunk the Ferguson Effect's hypothesis.

If his new hypothesis is correct then the impact of BLM will actually mean black lives lost at a faster rate than ever.

Haven't read much of that MI article on the Ferguson Effect, but been chewing through another from the same place - and the same author (Heather MacDonald who sounds pretty sensible) - titled: Black and Unarmed: Behind the Numbers; I think CommanderTuvok linked to it a page or two back. But a salient portion:

The results: As of Jan. 15, the [Washington] Post had documented 987 victims of fatal police shootings in 2015, about twice the number historically recorded by federal agencies. Whites were 50 percent of those victims, and blacks were 26 percent. By comparison, whites are 62 percent of the U.S. population, and blacks, 13 percent. The ensuing debate has largely centered on whether the disproportionate number of black deaths was a result of police racism or the relatively high rate of crime in black neighborhoods, which brings black men into more frequent, and more fraught, encounters with the police.

Haven't quite finished reading it yet but thought to comment on your "right wing thinktank" characterization. From the About page:

WHY THE “MARSHALL” PROJECT?

Thurgood Marshall is an American hero. His work as a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, including the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision, laid the groundwork for the modern U.S. civil rights movement. As the first African-American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he was a persuasive advocate for a living and breathing Constitution that sees beyond the prejudices of revolutionary America.

If Marshall were alive, I have no doubt that he would place criminal justice reform high among the urgent priorities of today’s civil rights movement, and that his would be a powerful voice for change. It is for these reasons that I chose to name The Marshall Project in his honor. — Neil Barsky, founder of The Marshall Project

No doubt that blacks can be as right wing as much as anyone else, and there's no guarantee that the Project conforms much if at all to his political and moral philosophy. But I kind of doubt the former, and expect, given both the NAACP references and those to "criminal justice reform", that they are, commendably, motivated by that philosophy. Seems to be a pretty credible organization.

#38877

AndrewV69 wrote:I dunno what kind of man would take up with her now that they have had a chance to see how obnoxious she can be. She has pretty much ruined her personal life if you ask me.

If I am not mistaken she is a lesbian. Then again, I can understand lesbians not wanting to be associated with that bucket of charm either.

#38878

deLurch wrote:
jimmyfromchicago wrote:Someone has started a GoFundMe campaign on behalf of Big Red for $4,000 to hire a lawyer to "stop the harassment." Seems an employee of a package liquor store in Ontario took her pic and put it on Facebook. If he'd simply walked up and started screaming at her, that would have been fine.
Tapacunt
Who on earth would she go after legally? Her video has been all over the internet. People dislike her for her, not anything anyone has said about her. This is one of the situations where laying low is the only solution.

Also, if I'd had hair as red as hers, I'd dye it.

#38879

Lsuoma wrote:How cool is this? Apollo Guidance Computer source code has been published on GitHub;

https://github.com/chrislgarry/Apollo-11/
http://qz.com/726338/the-code-that-took ... e-capsule/

Apollo-11-master.zip

Very cool. When I was young, NASA and Apollo were my "squirrel!" even though I have forgotten most of what I knew about the Apollo program back then. And that code is way beyond the little bit of assembly I did when I took a Turbo C course a couple of decades ago. Still, tip of the hat to the MIT software engineers to create something like that, and to the guy who created the emulator.

:bow-yellow:

#38880

John D wrote:In general, the US percentage of people in poverty has declined since the 1980s and the percentage of people in the upper and upper-middle class has doubled. Things couldn't be working out much better.

I don't think so.

University of Michigan wrote: How many people were poor in 2010?

In 2010, 15.1 percent of all persons lived in poverty. The poverty rate in 2010 was the highest poverty rate since 1993. Between 1993 and 2000, the poverty rate fell each year, reaching 11.3 percent in 2000.

How has poverty changed over time?

In the late 1950s, the poverty rate for all Americans was 22.4 percent, or 39.5 million individuals. These numbers declined steadily throughout the 1960s, reaching a low of 11.1 percent, or 22.9 million individuals, in 1973. Over the next decade, the poverty rate fluctuated between 11.1 and 12.6 percent, but it began to rise steadily again in 1980. By 1983, the number of poor individuals had risen to 35.3 million individuals, or 15.2 percent.

For the next ten years, the poverty rate remained above 12.8 percent, increasing to 15.1 percent, or 39.3 million individuals, by 1993. The rate declined for the remainder of the decade, to 11.3 percent by 2000. From 2000 to 2004 it rose each year to 12.7 in 2004.

So it goes up and down a bit, but the 2010 15+ procent is a tragic top to reach.