So yesterday I attempted to get my new noise generator up and running … and coudn’t get a peep outof it. So I fired off an email to customer service. In the eantime, the travel size works just fine. As far as weather – we’ve been hotter – but our air quality is the pits. We are a large, smoke-filled room. I’m staying in, thanks.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
The Hill – Census shows US growth driven by minorities; white pop falls under 60 percent
Quote – A part of that decrease comes as a result of a new effort by the Census Bureau to measure the number of people who identify as multiracial, a population that skyrocketed over the last decade. But much of the drop in the white population, experts and demographers said, stems from an aging demographic that is producing fewer children later in life. “Whites, no matter how you count them, declined since 2010,” said William Frey, a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution.
Click through for exact numbers and ramifications. I consider this to be excellent news, but you know you can hear RWNJ heads exploding all over.
HuffPost – 3 Former Cops Charged In Wrongful Conviction That Sent A Man To Prison For 25 Years
Quote – It is exceedingly rare for law enforcement officials to face criminal prosecution in relation to their roles in wrongful convictions. But reviewing wrongful convictions has been a key agenda item for Krasner, one of the leaders of the progressive prosecutor movement. In 2018, his office created the Conviction Integrity Unit, which has helped secure exonerations for 22 people. At least 18 of the exonerated were Black men. The detectives charged on Friday worked on at least four of the cases that the Conviction Integrity Unit has helped overturn.
Click through for details, including (trigger warning) description of initial interrogation and also the Grand Jury findings document. This is why I actually sent money to Krasner’s campaign. Not much, but some. Oh, and there’s a little video too.
Reuters – U.S. Homeland Security warns fresh COVID-19 restrictions could spark violent attacks
Quote – In an interview with CNN, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said his department considered domestic violent extremists to constitute “the greatest terrorist-related threat to our homeland.” He said the Department was seeing expressions of extremism fueled by “false narratives” and “ideologies of hate.” U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, welcomed the DHS warning but said it was “troubling that the terrorism threat increasingly is based on grievance-based violence and conspiracy theories, especially related to the election and former President Trump.”
Click through. Dam right they “could” (read “will.” They won’t be happy unless they can kill all of us – but they’ll settle for any of us (and even some of themselves.) Here’s just one example.
Food for Thought –
3 Responses to “Open Thread for August 14, 2021”
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Nice scope today and I empathize–smoke-filled air is not only not fun, but Harvard research finds it increases Covid risks.https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/New-study-says-wildfire-smoke-leads-to-higher-16385828.php
Have read that the changes in data collection for Hispanics may also have affected the white counts along with their own, too.
Those officers deserved consequences. The only other consequences on a wrongful conviction I can recall was for a DA in TX’s choices at odds with what was required by law and some involved in the major Chicago scandal with tons akin to those reported in the article you share.
I see this one as a proof of DHS being right:https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Police-Man-stabbed-at-anti-vaccine-rally-at-LA-16387596.php
Our future looks bleak, doesn’t it? Either we’re forced to keep to ourselves because of COVID or because of climate-change effects. Or both.
Cartoon: Too long ago.
TH: Awsome. Can’t wait until the percentage is below 50.
HP: It’s good the cops that stiched Anthony Wright up were charged but there’s a whole system underneath that needs to be charged. Wright was lucky to escape execution and it took them more than two decades to get him exonerated, but not freed, on DNA evidence. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office decided to try him again, which took another few years of Wright’s life. Shouldn’t the DA be put on trial too? I hope Wright and others get every cent they ask for in a civil suit. Though that won’t give him back 25 of the most important years of his life.
Reuters: It remains an abstract threat until real people die. The source is known but no one knows where all the explosives are located and which one is going off first.
FFT: The systems put together in the diagram are just as nonsensical as the conspiracies anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers operate on.
thank you!