- A New Reality? The Far Right’s Use of Cyberharassment against Academics | AAUP
A dryly written, fascinating first-hand account. - In 2016, a 10-year-old boy got decapitated while riding a Schlitterbahn water slide in Kansas City.
Some jaw-dropping quotes from the indictment. - How Trump favored Texas over Puerto Rico – POLITICO
“Nine days after the respective hurricanes, FEMA had approved $141.8 million in individual assistance to Harvey victims, versus just $6.2 million for Maria victims.” - The case for disarming America’s police force — Quartz
“…an estimated one-third of Iceland residents own guns, making the country 15th worldwide in gun ownership per capita. Nonetheless, police in Iceland routinely patrol unarmed.” - Norman Mailer Was Never Violent Towards Women, With Notably Rare Exceptions – Lawyers, Guns & Money
- Sex Workers Explain Why Congress’ Online Sex-Trafficking Bill Is Bulls**t
- As a sex historian, this is what I want you to know about the buying and selling of sex – iNews
“I can categorically tell you that no attempt to abolish either the selling or buying of sex in the whole of human history has been effective. Not one.” - Group That Opposes Sex Work Gave Money to Prosecutors’ Offices — and Got Stings Against Johns in Return
This is troubling, to say the least – prosecutors have no business accepting money from private organizations. The organization bought not only stings, but the ability to make editorial changes to the prosecutors’ public statements. - “…colleges and universities have four main revenue streams: state appropriations, research funding, gifts and endowments, and student tuition. The first three come with serious restrictions regarding their use. Generally speaking, state appropriations can only be used for educational expenses, research funding is largely spent on specific research projects, and endowments go toward the pet projects of wealthy donors. Only student tuition can be used for anything university administrators want…
- The five kinds of reactions to the ‘Roseanne’ reboot, across the political spectrum – The Washington Post
I watched the first two episodes, and enjoyed them – it really did feel a lot like the original show, but also acknowledged how much the characters have aged. Roseanne Barr as a celebrity is an awful awful person, but she and her collaborators are nonetheless good at making this sitcom. - The conspiracy theory behind a curious Roseanne Barr tweet, explained – The Washington Post
- Roseanne: ABC is about to announce Season 2 of reboot – Mar. 30, 2018
- Man freed after wrongful conviction, only to be taken into custody by immigration authorities – Chicago Tribune
To be clear, the only reason he had lost his legal residence status is that he was convicted of a felony. - Stephon Clark police shooting in Sacramento: autopsy released – Vox
Surprisingly, I haven’t seen many people even attempt to argue that Clark is to blame for his own death. I really think it’s time to think about not allowing most cops to carry guns on duty, instead leaving guns to an elite group that goes through significant extra training and is only called in when guns are clearly necessary. - The unwelcome revival of ‘race science’ | News | The Guardian
- A Spark Of Hope For Climate Change Reality : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
14 GOP House members – out of 238 – have joined a caucus to try to mitigate climate change. That’s 6%. Yay? - “I finally compiled all my sources in one place and wrote some pre-made replies so now transphobes have the ability to shut the fuck up even more readily available to them.”
Here’s the document; here’s their twitter. - After 6 Years And 720,000 Attempts, Photographer Finally Takes Perfect Shot Of Kingfisher | Bored Panda
#2 is like Vernon Valley Action Park. Only much, much worse.
#4 is inane. Seriously, it is as if the author has no concept of logic. He sees no difference between the rate of gun ownership, and the rate at which criminals use firearms in the commission of crimes.
He uses Iceland as an argument for disarming US police. Yes, many people in Iceland own firearms.
And you know what? A majority of Swiss males, at some point in their lives, are required by law to keep an assault rifle in their residence. The 2017 EU law on firearms includes a number of exceptions for Switzerland, which not only allow the military requirements, but add a period in which the person can retain the rifle (converted to semi-automatic) after his mandatory (or her voluntary) service in the militia is over. And Switzerland somehow has not descended into a blood orgy of mass shootings, and far from all of its police force is armed on a regular basis.
Hell, in the 80s, Communist Bulgaria had mandatory assault rifle marksmanship training (for everyone) and mandatory military service (for males) and a very high rate of long gun ownership (tied with Yugoslavia for Eastern Europe) After you had been a responsible shotgun owner for a few years, you could get a rifle. I never cared enough to learn whether it could be a semi-automatic one, but both my grandfathers had bolt-action, 5 round rifles. No private handguns whatsoever, though, and practically no gun crime. Automatic life sentences (and life sentences in Communist Bulgaria were short!) for possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime may have had something to do with it. And yes, the majority of our uniformed policemen were unarmed.
The issue is not how many people own guns. The issue is how the citizenry feels about using guns to commit violence. Only an idiot would suggest unarmed, uniformed officers police neighborhoods which see daily shootings, two way gun battles on the freeways, and home invasions which leave every resident (or invader) dead.
There may be a place for unarmed community liaisons. My hat is off to people who volunteer for the task. But I got my finger half severed by a thrown bottle as I was visiting a student of mine in the wrong neighborhood, and I would not dream of asking anyone to do what I would not.
Before it can enjoy the benefit of unarmed policing, which does work in many, many countries besides Iceland, the US has to significantly change its relationship with firearms.
The new sex trafficking law is serious trouble. It is already being used against gay meet up sites, and frankly I don’t even understand how straight sites like Tinder or Match.com or Christian mingle are going to evade it. The idea that 99 Senators voted for it just shows how little even Democrats are really worried about civil rights, it is very frustrating. It is the revenge of the anti-sex anti-porn feminists working with the Bible thumpers. Just ugh.
Which dovetails right into the hired prosecutors link. That link illustrates something that bugs me a lot–terminology creep. Sex trafficking and prostitution are two different things. The push to call all prostitution ‘sex trafficking’ is intended to invoke the image of women kidnapped and forced into prostitution–and then make policy with that image in mind. That is exactly how the internet trafficking laws above were marketed and it is infuriating to see that be turned against gay hook up sites and craigslist personals.