2016 archive
Meta: QOTD 0
For those who breathlessly wait for QOTD to arrive every day, I have created a QOTD category and moved all the QOTDs (there are almost 2500 and counting) into it, with the help of a nice little WordPress plugin called “Batch-Move Posts.”
The plugin works very nicely, though it could do with clearer instructions.
Aside:
I would have preferred doing it with an SQL query, but I couldn’t find where in the tables WordPress hides the link between the categories and the posts, as it’s changed since I first started using WP.
Trumpling, the Surrogate 0
At the Inky, psychiatrist Lawrence Blum offers a quasi-Freudian analysis of the election results. Here’s a bit; follow the link to read the whole thing.
There is a broader lesson to be learned from this election. Issues may be important. Reality may be important. But reality seldom trumps fantasy.
I’m not sure I buy it, but it’s far more persuasive than I would wish. One aspect seems correct: Once they wake up, voters will find that they have been well and truly–oh, never mind.
The Medicine Show 0
Have you had enough of commercials showing some old guy with a woman young enough to be his daughter white-water rafting the Colorado River in a bathtub on his way to zip-line across Bryce Canyon while hiking the Appalachian Trail in a kayak on water skis because he’s taking some dodgy prescription drug with a name created by shuffling Scrabble tiles and with more side effects than can be fitted in an intelligible disclaimer that takes up 45% of the ad?
Driving while Black . . . (Updated) 0
. . . is a dangerous thing to do. Here’s a bit from a report at The Root:
Pursuits are among the most dangerous police activities. They have killed more than 6,200 people since 1999. Black people make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but are 28 percent of those killed in pursuits whose race was known.
Among the findings (which strongly confirm a disparity and a likely bias in policing):
- Blacks have been killed at a disproportionate rate in pursuits every year since 1999. On average, 90 black people were killed each year in police chases, nearly double what would be expected based on their percentage of the population.
- Deadly pursuits of black drivers were twice as likely to start over minor offenses or non-violent crimes. In 2013 and 2014, nearly every deadly pursuit triggered by an illegally tinted window, a seat-belt violation or the smell of marijuana involved a black driver.
- Black people were more likely than whites to be chased in more crowded urban areas, during peak traffic hours and with passengers in their cars, all factors that can increase the danger to innocent bystanders. Chases of black motorists were about 70 percent more likely to wind up killing a bystander.
Oh me, oh my, I wonder why.
Much more at the link.
Addendum, Just a Little Later:
If these folks had been Not White, do you think police would have peppered them with spray or with bullets?
Be honest, now.
“We Live in Trumpled Times” 0
Der Spiegel interviews the editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick, regarding his concerns about a Donald Trump presidency. Read it.
Here’s snippet (emphasis added in the body of the text):
Remnick: No it has not and I want to be clear about what I wrote. The whole sentence, the complete thought is this: I don’t think there will be fascism in America, but we have to do everything we can to fight against it. As the Germans know better than we do, disaster can take a nation by surprise, slowly, and then all at once. My deep sense of alarm has to do with his seeming lack of fealty to constitutionalism. He seems to think it is within his rights to trample the First Amendment, to disdain the press, to punish protesters or flag-burners, to ban ethnic categories of immigrants, and so on. He has myriad conflicts of interest. He appoints people of low quality, to say the least. He lies with astonishing frequency and in stunning volume. His temperament and character is precisely what you would hate to see in your children, much less your president. We can wish all these things will magically change once he is in office, but will they?
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Once more, it must have been the little white tail.
The victim, according to VDGIF, was standing in an “agricultural field” and was shot from about 150 to 200 yards away.
The hunters were both wearing blaze orange gear, had taken hunter education, and had the appropriate hunting licenses, according to VDGIF.
It’s Not Just the “Appeal,” It’s Also the “Appealee” 0
As I was waking up, the germ of a blog post started to grow in the back of my mind, one about the fundamental flaw in the reasoning that blames Democrats for not adequately appealing to persons who voted for Donald Trump. I was musing about how to frame an argument that such “analyses” overlook the tactics that Republicans used to attract those votes: venal appeals to selfishness, hatred, and bigotry. I question that persons welcoming such appeals would be receptive to anything the Democrats might offer.
When I got to my RSS feed reader, I found that Badtux had written the post for me. Here’s how he starts:
Not to mention that it would have been futile in the first place. Even if the Democrats had reached out to bigots, the Republican Party appears to have a lock on the bigot vote at present . . . .
Thanks to Badtux for making my day a little easier.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Practice preventive politeness.
(snip)
The Sheriff’s Office says the 21-year-old man admitted he shot the victim because he thought the victim was about to threaten him. He admitted he never saw a gun, that the victim never threatened him and that he did not know the victim.
Thus passes another day in the NRA’s Garden of Eden.
Trumpling the Elites 0
Via Juanita Jean.