Saturday July 11th, 2020
Just putting this here so I can refer back to it later: Portland Place couple who confronted protesters have a long history of not backing down
The McCloskeys have filed at least two “quiet title” suits asserting squatter’s rights on land they’ve occupied openly and hostilely — their terms — and claimed as their own. In an ongoing suit against Portland Place trustees in 2017, the McCloskeys say they are entitled to a 1,143-square-foot triangle of lawn in front of property that is set aside as common ground in the neighborhood’s indenture.
Friday July 10th, 2020
Great rundown on masks, with cites: Ask Ethan: What Is The Science Behind Wearing A Mask?
Congratulations, US taxpayers are paying for sexual abuse cover-up settlements: U.S. Roman Catholic Church used special exemption from federal rules to gain at least $1.4 billion in taxpayer-backed coronavirus aid, AP analysis shows.
The church’s haul may have reached — or even exceeded — $3.5 billion, making a global religious institution with more than a billion followers among the biggest winners in the U.S. government’s pandemic relief efforts, an Associated Press analysis of federal data released this week found.
Thursday July 9th, 2020
There's hope for COVID-19 treatment, and some of y'all are gonna live forever. I'm just sayin'. SARS-CoV2 induced respiratory distress: Can cannabinoids be added to anti-viral therapies to reduce lung inflammation? doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.079
Via https://www.forbes.com/sites/e...mmation-researchers-explain-why/
Really good read: What the police really believe — Inside the distinctive, largely unknown ideology of American policing — and how it justifies racist violence.
Psychological research suggests that white officers are disproportionately likely to demonstrate a personality trait called “social dominance orientation.” Individuals with high levels of this trait tend to believe that existing social hierarchies are not only necessary, but morally justified — that inequalities reflect the way that things actually should be. The concept was originally formulated in the 1990s as a way of explaining why some people are more likely to accept what a group of researchers termed “ideologies that promote or maintain group inequality,” including “the ideology of anti-Black racism.”
A good little thread on tolerance and keeping your establishment from becoming a Nazi bar: RT iamragesparkle @IamRageSparkle, Replying to @birdpoems
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out."
Wednesday July 8th, 2020
Greta on the cat tree, relaxing...
Tuesday July 7th, 2020
Love the subtle colors in this bark.
From yesterday's lunch walk. Guy lounging in the shade in front of the house said I was the fourth person that day to stop and take a picture.
Fascinating: What happened in Bethel Ohio
In his sermon, Eblin said he’d seen one of Lonnie’s videos and heard people saying that there wasn’t anything wrong with Bethel — that everyone loves everyone. But then he recalled his own research as he talked to people before moving to the town. “It was confirmed by people, even in this church, that Bethel is known for its churches,” he said, “but also for being a racist town.”
“Is that an unfair statement about this town?” he asked his congregation. “Well, that’s its reputation. And if it’s unfounded, then what better way of trying to correct it than saying it’s not who we are? If someone’s trying to go through peacefully and say ‘Black lives matter’ [...] then say ‘yeah, Black lives matter.’ And I hope I matter to you. Because we all matter to the Lord.”
And then the bikers showed up to "protect" the town from the antifa...
I mean, kinda, yeah, whatever, rich guys gonna throw around a lot of cash to Russian models, but the Consent order (PDF) makes his attorney look like something of a bumbling idiot:
In May 2014, ATTORNEY-1 inquired into how often he could withdraw cash on behalf of Mr. Epstein withouttriggering an alert. The record is unclear as to whether anyone from the Bank ever responded to ATTORNEY-1’s inquiry. RELATIONSHIP COORDINATOR-1 sent an email to the branch manager stating that ATTORNEY-1 “asked how often they could come in to withdraw cash without creating some sort of alert,” and asking “Is it once a week? Twice a week? Once every other week?”The Bank has represented that it has no record of any response.RELATIONSHIP COORDINATOR-1 has since represented that she understood ATTORNEY-1’s inquiry related to ATTORNEY-1’s desire to withdraw more than the $7,500 limit for third-party withdrawals, and not to CTR filing requirements.
I'm not convinced that we should have the whole FinCen reporting requirements, but this "So, like, just how shady can I be without being super shady?" thing is an indicator...
Also in the news today: Google and Deutsche Bank agree to a 10 year alliance on cloud services, and back in 2011, Ghislaine Maxwell attended a Kleiner Perkins VC party.
Monday July 6th, 2020
"Cybernetics will destroy your humanity"
"BUDDY THAT'S MY FUCKING GOAL"
Sunday July 5th, 2020
Projectile Trajectory of Penguin’s Faeces and Rectal Pressure Revisited
We discuss a trajectory of penguins’ faeces after the powerful shooting due to their strong rectal pressure. Practically, it is important to see how far faeces reach when penguins expel them from higher places. Such information is useful for keepers to avoid the direct hitting of faeces. We estimate the upper bound for the maximum flight distance by solving the Newton’s equation of motion. Our results indicate that the safety zone should be 1.34 meters away from a penguin trying to poop in typical environments. In the presence of the viscous resistance, the grounding time and the flying distance of faeces can be expressed in terms of Lambert W function. Furthermore, we address the penguin’s rectal pressure within the hydrodynamical approximation combining Bernoulli’s theorem and Hagen-Poiseuille equation for viscosity corrections. We found that the calculated rectal pressure is larger than the estimation in the previous work.
Saturday July 4th, 2020
There will be no "this room isn't bright enough" for our living room this winter... Just need the 10v dimming module to arrive from China.
For the 4th of July: Frederick Douglass' Descendants Deliver His 'Fourth Of July' Speech https://www.npr.org/2020/07/03...s-read-his-fourth-of-july-speech
I'm swapping out the living room fan for some serious lights, figured I was safe turning off at the switch because I wired the house and knew my hot and neutral were consistent, forgetting that the fan controller had an always-hot. Anyway, the breaker works.
Friday July 3rd, 2020
We needed some nylons for filter material, but apparently asking the Target greeter "where's the hose at?" is the wrong way to find them. English is weird.
Springfield police detective Florissa Fuentes fired over pro-Black Lives Matter social media post
“I was initially confused, but then I realized they thought I was being anti-cop. I wasn’t,” Fuentes told the news outlet. “I was just supporting my niece’s activism. I had no malicious intent, and I wouldn’t put a target on my own back. I’m out there on the streets every day like everyone else.”
Well, ya know where the Springfield police come down on it.
Mississippi election commissioner's social media comment about Black voters causes uproar
"I'm concerned about voter registration in Mississippi," the commissioner wrote. "The blacks are having lots (of) events for voter registration. People in Mississippi have to get involved, too."
And now we sand. And sand. But there will be no more winter darkness blues in our living room.
Cheap diamond hole saw meets rose quartz (yes, I caulked a tray around it to hold water so it was a wet cut). Hopefull. that's enough to get a 3/8" thread epoxied in to hold it to a door stop.
The Impact of Pretrial Juvenile Detention on 12-Month Recidivism: A Matched Comparison Study
Pretrial detention, the use of detention to ensure youth attend court hearings, makes up 75% of all juvenile detention admissions. Research investigating the impact of detainment on youth outcomes is limited and, when available, does not distinguish between different uses of detention. Consequently, little is known about the effects of detaining youth for this purpose. The current study examines the impact of pretrial detention on more than 46,000 juvenile cases across 32 jurisdictions. Using propensity score matching, analyses found that pretrial detention was associated with a 33% increase in felony recidivism and 11% increase in misdemeanor recidivism within one year, and a small effect for length of stay (1% increased risk per day). The analyses also revealed an interaction effect with prior criminal history indicating that this relationship shifts once a youth has a number of previous criminal filings.
Thursday July 2nd, 2020
Owners say police presence following CHOP sweep is hurting business
“People are scared; they’re worried. They fear for their safety; they fear for the safety of people out here, more so with the police presence than with members of CHOP with protesters,” said Kandie Martinez.
A group of Oregon State Police troopers appeared to defy Gov. Kate Brown’s statewide mask order while in uniform Wednesday, entering a Corvallis coffee shop without wearing required face coverings, video obtained by @Oregonian shows. (1/10)
Findings In this cohort study, the number of deaths due to any cause increased by approximately 122 000 from March 1 to May 30, 2020, which is 28% higher than the reported number of COVID-19 deaths.
A little article about an 8 day school to learn how to call auctions: Texas Monthly: Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Master Auctioneer?
Saved for when I need it: Twitter thread of pictures of Donald Trump with Ghislaine Maxwell
Women’s Roller Derby Has a Plan for Covid, and It Kicks Ass:
The return-to-derby ladder has seven tiers, and the activities allowed at each level and the conditions needed to get there are spelled out in great detail. For instance, in order for a league to begin tier 1—in which limited group practices are held, but with no physical contact between players—the following criteria (among others) must be met in the relevant communities: There are no stay-at-home orders or proximity restrictions in place; public congregations of at least 50 people are allowed; and public transportation services are fully functional. Specific epidemiological metrics are also required for each stage of reopening. Tier 1, for example, requires that there be no more than five positive cases per 10,000 people in the local population over a span of 14 days. “We are really trying to look at the science and figure out what the infection rates look like,” Vanstone says. The group has a map with the relevant data on its website, marking out which rungs of the ladder are appropriate for each location.
I hve been kind of peripherally aware of the whole Instagram thing, but I didn't "get" it. Apparently there was some recent sale of Kylie Jenner's company, and that made obvious some of the economics of it, and the various think pieces that are happening now are helping me understand it a bit. Kylie Jenner Killed Influencer Culture – But She Didn’t Do It Alone
Putting it in perspective: RT Mekka *My Mask Protects You* Okereke @mekkaokereke
🤔 When you say that "US citizens can't leave their own country," do you mean because:
- The state department effectively stopped issuing passports?
Or
- Borders to 🇲🇽MX and 🇨🇦CA are closed?
Or
- No countries will take US flights, because we are failing at the pandemic?
To all the people who doubt that TikTok is Chinese government spyware.. I've got a first-hand story to tell you.
1/n
He talks about working for Basho, which made Riak, a database used by Rovio for Angry Birds. And discovering during a drinking session that Rovio was being paid €10m/year by the NSA to not encrypt inter-datacenter traffic.
Well, it took a year and a half, and I hope the prosecutor can make it stick, but the killers of Rhogena Nicholas and Dennis Tuttle have finally been charged: 6 former Houston Police Department officers charged with 15 felonies linked to deadly botched raid
"Goines and others could never have preyed on our community the way they did without the participation of their supervisors; every check and balance in place to stop this type of behavior was circumvented," Ogg said. "This was graft and greed at every step in the process, and prosecutors are making their way through the evidence one incident at a time."