Month: July 2020

Clearly, We Must Open up Schools Immediately

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For all those people demanding to open the schools, this is another indication that they are delusional as to the impact of this action:

In the heated debate over reopening schools, one burning question has been whether and how efficiently children can spread the virus to others.

A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.

The findings suggest that as schools reopen, communities will see clusters of infection take root that include children of all ages, several experts cautioned.

………

Several studies from Europe and Asia have suggested that young children are less likely to get infected and to spread the virus. But most of those studies were small and flawed, said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

The new study “is very carefully done, it’s systematic and looks at a very large population,” Dr. Jha said. “It’s one of the best studies we’ve had to date on this issue.”

In the places pushing hardest to open schools, areas where infections are exploding, opening schools will be a complete disaster.

Support Your Local Police

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Clearly, the problem is insufficient respect of police

After a police officer was placed on administrative leave for a profanity laden tirade against, his fellow officers issued a commemorative coin to celebrate his behavior:

Two months after a state trooper was captured on camera in a profanity-laced tirade during a traffic stop, a commemorative coin that honors him is circulating among his fellow troopers.

Trooper Matthew Spina, a 19-year veteran of the state police, was seen in video captured by the driver screaming profanities and commands as he orders the man out of the vehicle on the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge in New Haven in May.

“We’ve been made aware of a profane challenge coin that has the image of Connecticut State Police badge,” Brian Foley, an aide to Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner James Rovella, said. “We have no indication Trooper Spina created the coin.”

A law enforcement source said the coin has been circulating among state troopers and other police officers.

………

Spina was initially taken off the road shortly after the video of the traffic stop was posted, but records of a grievance filed with the state police show that he was later suspended.

The coin, which includes a state police insignia on the front with words that include “every [law enforcement officer]‘s hero,” also includes an apparent engraving of a trooper along with lines from the tirade viewed widely on YouTube.

The unholy glee that police show at the unprofessional and abusive behavior of their fellow officers is an indication of some profound and deep failures of cop culture.

What Happens When a Nakajima B5N “Kate” Drops an 800 KG Armor Piercing Bomb

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This looks like a picture of Pear Harbor on December 7, 1941


The deck and superstructure have been severely damaged


It appears that the heat from the fire may have damaged the hull

My bad, that’s not the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, it is a fire on the Bonhomme Richard, and the ship appears to have been damaged beyond economic repair, notwithstanding claims to the US Navy that it is too soon to make that determination:

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said Friday he is unsure if the Bonhomme Richard should be repaired after it was engulfed in flames and smoke in San Diego over five days this week.

Gilday, speaking during a press conference on Naval Base San Diego across from the damaged and listing ship, said they’re still assessing damage so it’s unclear if the ship will be repaired.

“The damage is extensive,” he said, adding but he is “100 percent confident” the defense industry can put the amphibious assault ship back out to sea.

“The question is should we make that investment into a 22-year-old ship,” he said.

Yeah, I think that the ship could be repaired, if it had to face the Kaigun to protect Midway Island in 4 weeks, but under any situation short of war, it would make no economic sense to repair the ship.

Yeah, Fascism

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Roving bands of masked federal agents are jumping out of unmarked cars and dragging people away.

The mayor of Portland, the governor of Oregon, the Portland PD, and the Oregon State police have received no notice about this:

In the early hours of July 15, after a night spent protesting at the Multnomah County Justice Center and Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse, Mark Pettibone and his friend Conner O’Shea decided to head home.

………

A block west of Chapman Square, Pettibone and O’Shea bumped into a group of people who warned them that people in camouflage were driving around the area in unmarked minivans grabbing people off the street.

………

They had barely made it half a block when an unmarked minivan pulled up in front of them.

“I see guys in camo,” O’Shea said. “Four or five of them pop out, open the door and it was just like, ‘Oh sh%$. I don’t know who you are or what you want with us.’”

Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least July 14. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation of why they are being arrested, and driving off.

The tactic appears to be another escalation in federal force deployed on Portland city streets, as federal officials and President Donald Trump have said they plan to “quell” nightly protests outside the federal courthouse and Multnomah County Justice Center that have lasted for more than six weeks.

Federal officers have charged at least 13 people with crimes related to the protests so far, while others have been arrested and released, including Pettibone. They also left one demonstrator hospitalized with skull fractures after shooting him in the face with so-called “less lethal” munitions July 11.

………

But interviews conducted by OPB show officers are also detaining people on Portland streets who aren’t near federal property, nor is it clear that all of the people being arrested have engaged in criminal activity. Demonstrators like O’Shea and Pettibone said they think they were targeted by federal officers for simply wearing black clothing in the area of the demonstration.

………
“Feds are driving around, grabbing people off the streets,” O’Shea said on the video. “I didn’t do anything f%$#ing wrong. I’m recording this. I had to let somebody know that this is what happens.”

………

“I am basically tossed into the van,” Pettibone said. “And I had my beanie pulled over my face so I couldn’t see and they held my hands over my head.”

………

Pettibone said he was put into a cell. Soon after, two officers came in to read him his Miranda rights. They didn’t tell him why he was being arrested. He said they asked him if he wanted to waive his rights and answer some questions, but Pettibone declined and said he wanted a lawyer. The interview was terminated, and about 90 minutes later he was released. He said he did not receive any paperwork, citation or record of his arrest.

(%$# mine)

I’m trying to figure out whether or not this is Brownshirt sh%$, or if it’s Blackshirt sh%$.

In either case, there area a lot of “Good Germans” out there who need to be dealt with when Trump goes.

This is Horrifying

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After pumping about a dozen bullets into Breonna Taylor, the cops did nothing for 20 minutes as she slowly suffocated on her own blood.

When we are talking about reforming the police, creating a legal requirement to provide aid would be something that should be included:

Just after midnight March 13, three Louisville police officers fired more than 20 bullets into Breonna Taylor’s apartment, striking her five times.

But she was still alive — at least briefly.

For at least five minutes, she was coughing as she struggled to breathe, according to her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who told investigators she was alive as he called her mom and yelled for help.

“(Police are) yelling like, ‘Come out, come out,’ and I’m on the phone with her (mom). I’m still yelling help because she’s over here coughing and, like, I’m just freaking out,” Walker said in a recorded police interview three hours after the shooting.

The Jefferson County coroner disputes that account, telling The Courier Journal that Taylor likely died within a minute of being shot and couldn’t have been saved.

But records show that no effort was made to save her.

For more than 20 minutes after Taylor was fatally shot at approximately 12:43 a.m. by Louisville officers, the 26-year-old emergency room technician lay where she fell in her hallway, receiving no medical attention, according to dispatch logs.

This is the rule, not the exception when police is involved.

From the Department of “Well, Duh!”

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A leaked document has revealed that the FBI is worried that some private equity firms are involved in money laundering.

Well, color me f%$%#ing stunned.

Private equity, which generates profits from the obscene fees that it charges for the services it allegedly provides, is nothing at all like money laundering, which generates profits from the obscene fees that it charges for the services it allegedly provides:

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation believes firms in the nearly $10-trillion private investment funds industry are being used as vehicles for laundering money at scale, according to a leaked intelligence bulletin prepared by the agency in May.

“Threat actors” — including criminals in it for the money and foreign adversaries — “use the private placement of funds, including investments offered by hedge funds and private equity firms” to reintegrate dirty money into the legitimate global financial system, according to the bulletin.

It also said the industry lacks adequate anti-money laundering programs and called for greater scrutiny by regulators, which have yet to issue rules for the industry.

Corruption and money-laundering is a feature of private equity, not a bug.

Wage Theft is the Goal

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Shipt, the delivery service owned by Target, is facing a strike over its shift to an algorithm based pay structure, which workers are claiming will cheat them out of pay.

This is no surprise.  Opaque pay structures like this are intended to cheat workers out of their pay:

Workers for the Target-owned grocery delivery service Shipt are striking Wednesday in protest of the company rolling out a less transparent payment structure nationwide.

The walk-off will coincide with the day that the new pay model will take effect in 12 metro areas, including Chicago, Tampa, Richmond, Va., and Portland, Ore.

Shipt shoppers are raising alarm over the change, which they say would likely reduce shopper pay by at least 30 percent based on a similar pay shift that occurred at the end of 2019.

While Shipt previously had a simple model for calculating payouts — a 7.5 percent commission on all orders plus $5 — the model, dubbed V2, rolled out in some markets last year doles out pay based on a black box algorithm.

“We do not like the transparency because we’re not able to calculate or figure out exactly how it is that we’re being compensated,” Willy Solis, one of the strike’s organizers and a shopper in Texas, told The Hill on Monday.

………

Shipt gig workers’ experiences in areas where the V2 model has been tested do not line up with that claim.

Jeanine Meisner, a veteran shopper in the Kalamazoo, Mich., area told The Hill that she saw an immediate drop in the dollar amount of offers when V2 came to her area.

………

“For six months now we have tirelessly, endlessly provided screenshots, we’ve called, we’ve texted, we’ve emailed about these lowball offers that we’ve gotten and we’ve got nowhere, we get a cut and pasted response,” she said.

Shoppers across V2 markets felt similar impacts, according to Solis.

“Collectively we joined forces and started keeping tabs and calculating … and shoppers were losing significant money,” he said.

So not a surprise.

This is a feature, not a bug.

Algorithmic pay schemes always end up cheating workers, because they make doing so effortless.

This is No Surprise

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The European Court of Justice has ruled that servers in the US are insufficiently secure to comply with EU privacy regulations.

This is no surprise. The deal with the US has largely been a fig-leaf created as a result of brow-beating of European regulators by the US State Security Apparatus:

The European Union’s top court on Thursday threw a large portion of transatlantic digital commerce into disarray, ruling that data of E.U. residents is not sufficiently protected from government surveillance when it is transferred to the United States.

The ruling was likely to increase transatlantic tensions at a moment when President Trump has already been threatening tariffs and retaliation against the E.U. for what he says are unfair business practices. It was a victory for privacy advocates, who said that E.U. citizens are not as protected when their information is transferred to U.S. servers as when that information stays inside Europe.

The European Court of Justice ruled that a commonly used data protection agreement known as Privacy Shield did not adequately uphold E.U. privacy law.

………

The court said that it was unacceptable for E.U. citizens not to have “actionable rights” to question U.S. surveillance practices.

European data privacy advocates celebrated the decision.

It’s a good thing that the US State Security apparatus is finally getting some push-back internationally.

1.3 Million

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It’s now 17 weeks straight of initial unemployment claims above 1 million.

People keep saying that this is good news, but this is horrible news:

About 1.3 million workers filed for unemployment insurance for the first time last week — the 17th straight week new claims exceeded 1 million as the coronavirus pandemic continues to drag down the economy.

Nearly 17.4 million workers were continually claiming unemployment insurance for the week ended July 4, the Labor Department said. Another 14.3 million people were claiming Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program newly created for self-employed or gig workers who are out of work at the moment, bringing the total number of people on all programs to 32 million unemployed.

“What we’re seeing is continued, historic elevated rates of job loss in the United States,” said Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab. “We’ve seen sustained elevated rates of job loss, and that’s continued as we hurdle toward the expiration of several programs that have propped up the economy.”

The weekly filings decreased only slightly from the previous week, when 1.31 million workers filed for unemployment for the first time. They have steadily decreased from their high of 6.9 million filings for the week ended March 28, but the rate has slowed significantly in the past month.

………

In April, 5.5 percent of people who were unemployed reported permanent job losses. By June, that figure increased to 20 percent. In April, the top five jobs with the worst losses were those most directly affected by the virus and shutdowns: housekeepers and cleaners, waiters, retail workers, and cashiers, he found.

But by June, those jobs had shifted to other occupations, pointing to broader economic damage: carpenters, paralegals, managers, financial analysts and customer sales representatives.

Things are going in the wrong direction, and the extra $600/week in unemployment insurance is going away in 2 weeks.
Look out below.

Gee, You Think

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The first Governor in the United States has caught Corona Virus.

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt tested positive 2 weeks after he attended Donald Trump’s campaign rally, though he claims that this is completely unrelated.

Yeah, right.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) said on Wednesday that he has tested positive for the coronavirus but feels “fine” and will be isolating.

Stitt is the first governor to announce a coronavirus infection, though other governors have self-quarantined or gotten tested after potential exposure. Stitt, who has resisted recommendations from public health officials throughout the pandemic, said he does not know where he got infected but does not believe his positive result could have stemmed from his attendance at President Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa on June 20, where the governor was photographed without a mask.

………

Stitt drew fresh criticism as Trump’s rally in Tulsa — the president’s first since the pandemic set in — approached in June. Local health officials warned the indoor event at a 19,000-person arena could cause a dangerous spread of the virus in a county that was already seeing a spike in cases.

As the saying goes, “バカにつける薬はない”.*

*Pronounced in Japanese, “baka ni tsukeru kusuri wanai”, which means, “There is no medicine for stupidity.” Apologies for any inaccuracies in the text, I do not know Japanese.

Donald Trump Must Have Lost His Mind

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Clearly, Nigerian princes were involved

Twitter’s verified accounts were compromised, resulting in all of these accounts (Blue Checkmark) being suspended for about an hour.

This means that Donald Trump could not Tweet during this time.

I rather imagine that his was exploding over this.

Twitter suffered a major security breach on Wednesday that saw hackers take control of the accounts of major public figures and corporations, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Apple.

The company confirmed the breach Wednesday evening, more than six hours after the hack began, and attributed it to a “coordinated social engineering attack” on its own employees that enabled the hackers to access “internal systems and tools”. Twitter said it was “looking into what other malicious activity they may have conducted or information they may have accessed” in addition to using the compromised accounts to send tweets.
………

The company subsequently warned that some users would be unable to tweet or change their passwords as it worked to address the issue. Verified users, whose accounts feature a blue checkmark to denote that Twitter has confirmed their identities, were blocked from tweeting for about an hour.

Oh the humanity.

And Now, The Other Trolls are Leaving the Times

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When James Bennet was finally defenestrated for going a troll to far for publishing Tom Cotton’s call to unleash the military on protesters, I wondered when the pet trolls that he hired would be out the door.

After all, both have horrible records on accuracy, as well as abusive behavior towards their cow-orkers at the New York Times.

Well, now we have an answer for Bari Weiss (יִמַּח שְׁמו), as about 5 weeks.

This is not a surprise. The Times staff found her toxic for doing things like excoriating real journalists at the paper, who were then forbidden by policy from responding, and reporting an editor for declining to have coffee with her.

Hoping that Bret “Bedbug” Stephens, who is if anything even more abusive in his behavior than Weiss, is not long for the paper either.

It is quite possible to hire conservative columnists who, though they might frequently misstate the facts (Brooks and Douthat come to mind) do not contribute to a toxic work environment.

Not Good

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The amphibious assault ship (LHD) Bonhomme Richard is still burning in San Diego harbor.

Navy officials said Monday that the fire ravaging the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard for a second day has reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees, and it is still burning in various portions of the ship.

Smoke and fumes from the ship at San Diego Naval Base continued to pollute the skyline and air throughout San Diego. In an email Monday evening, a Naval Surface Forces spokeswoman said crews have made “significant progress” in the effort to save the ship.

Rear Adm. Philip Sobeck, the commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3, said Monday that the fire is in the superstructure of the ship and its upper decks and that the ship’s forward mast has collapsed.

“There’s obviously burn damage all the way through the skin of the ship, and we are assessing that as we kind of go through each compartment,” he said. “Right now the priority is to get the fire out so that we can take a complete assessment.”


Basically a Helicopter Carrier

It should be noted that the Bonhomme Richard was at the end of a refit to allow it to accommodate the Marine Corps STOVL F-35B, and as a result, this capability will be missing from the the fleet for the foreseeable future:

The amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard, which burned through the night while in port in San Diego, was at the tail end of two years of upgrades supporting the integration of the F-35B, according to Navy documents.

That means the Navy will now have fewer options to deploy the next-generation fighter in the Pacific.

The Navy awarded the $219 million modernization contract to General Dynamics, National Steel and Shipbuilding Co. in 2018, which had options for up to $250 million. Bonhomme Richard is one of four large-deck amphibs to have received the upgrades. The Boxer was announced earlier this year as the fifth big-deck to get the upgrades.

Experts said the loss of Bonhomme Richard, whether a total loss or just lost for extensive repairs, deals a significant blow to the Navy’s plans to have F-35Bs continually deployed in the Pacific. And with Monday’s announcement that the United States had formally rejected China’s claims about the South China Sea, any accompanying boost in naval presence could be slowed by the fire.

This is such a 2020 thing to have happened.

Support Your Local Police

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A Baltimore police sergeant had a dispute with a contractor, so he detained the man while in uniform, and with 3 of his cop friends in attendance, used the threat of arrest to get a refund.

I will make a note here: This cop is a crook, and he probably has been for a long time, and he has made it to sergeant.

If you don’t think that police need intense and major reform, you are either stupid or willfully blind:

A Baltimore Police Department homicide unit sergeant was ordered held without bail Friday after allegedly extorting, kidnapping and threatening to arrest a home contractor whose work he was unhappy with and whom he drove to a bank to withdraw money for a refund.

 Three other homicide unit detectives were present at one point during the confrontation, and the department said a preliminary review indicates all were on duty at the time.

 “You are going to give me my money back, and I’m going to give you freedom,” Sgt. James Lloyd told the contractor, according to charging documents.

 ………

 The department said [Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael] Harrison had taken “swift and decisive action to the maximum state law allows.” His chief of staff, Eric Melancon, said the state Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights limited the commissioner’s options.

We really need to repeal the, “Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights,” which is a license for corruption and misconduct by law enforcement.

Lloyd, a 21-year veteran of the city police department who was the lead detective on the investigation of the death of Detective Sean Suiter, was upset with a patio that a contractor had built, county police say.

 He demanded a refund and confronted the contractor with information about his driver’s license being suspended, saying he could arrest him, according to charging documents. Then, authorities said, he made the victim get into Lloyd’s car. The victim told police that he feared being arrested and complied with Lloyd’s demands of going to the bank and getting a certified check for the refund, officials said.

………

At a bail review hearing Friday, defense attorney Matthew Fraling told Baltimore County District Court Judge Kimberly Thomas that the matter should be a civil issue and not criminal, saying it all stems from “poor construction” by contractor on a new patio.

“I agree 100% this should have stayed a civil matter,” replied county prosecutor Thomas Kane. “The defendant made certain decisions which grossly changed the character of the interaction with the victim.”

Fraling asked that Lloyd be released on his own recognizance, while Kane asked the judge to set “some monetary bail.” Thomas, however, said Lloyd posed a threat to public safety and ordered him held.

I’m glad that the judge refused bail.

This guy abused his office, and he involved other cops in his extortion attempt.  He is a menace, and needs to stay behind bard until his trial is done.

Kanye Has Left the Building

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Rapper, and celebrity nut job, Kanye West has ended his presidential run:

On July 4, Kanye West tweeted that he was running for president. It was treated as one of his typical grandiloquent pronouncements. The tweet sparked a lot of opinion pieces, cable news segments, and even a question in an Oval Office interview with Donald Trump. But most people brushed it off. In a follow-up interview with Forbes, West pledged, if elected, to run the White House like the nation of Wakanda from Black Panther. That remark seemed to reinforce the notion that this was just a lark. After all, West had previously compared himself to figures varying from God to Willy Wonka without attempting to establish the Kingdom of Heaven or manufacture an Everlasting Gobstopper.

………

On the morning of July 9, TMZ reported that West’s family was concerned that the billionaire rapper was suffering a bipolar episode based on his presidential aspirations. The well-sourced tabloid website added “our sources say his family and those close to him are worried, but they believe things will stabilize as they have in the past.”

………

Later that day, I talked to Steve Kramer. He is a get-out-the-vote specialist who runs a firm that also helps candidates get on the ballot. Kramer, who has worked mostly for Democratic candidates but has also had some Republican clients, told me that he had been hired to help West get on the ballot in Florida and South Carolina. He added that his understanding was that West’s team was “working over weekend there, formalizing the FEC and other things that they’ve got to do when you have a lot of corporate lawyers involved.”

………

This all seemed real enough, and I reached out to West’s publicist for a response. The initial response was to loop in another spokesperson on the email. West’s team then went dark. As I waited for a response, I followed up with Kramer who told me, “He’s out.”

I asked what happened. “I’ll let you know what I know once I get all our stuff canceled. We had over 180 people out there today,” Kramer said.

Is Vermin Supreme running this year?