The Availability of Guns and Books in America:

Exaggerating China’s military spending, St. Louis Fed breaks all statistical rules with misleading graph - Geopolitical Economy Report:

In an attempt to grossly exaggerate China’s defense spending, and simultaneously downplay the US military budget, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published a jaw-droppingly deceptive graph.

If a student presented this in a statistics 101 class, the teacher would likely give them an F. But because it involves Washington’s public enemy number one, Beijing, the US regional reserve bank was awarded a Golden Star for exemplary service in the New Cold War.

Florida teachers told to remove books from classroom libraries or risk felony prosecution:

Teachers in Manatee County, Florida, are being told to make their classroom libraries — and any other "unvetted" book — inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution. The new policy is part of an effort to comply with new laws and regulations championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R).

Evil.

Daring Fireball: The Onion’s Supreme Court Amicus Brief Defending Parody:

Speaking of entertaining legal documents that address serious issues, I’ve been meaning to link to the amicus brief filed by The Onion on behalf of Anthony Novak, who is suing the police department of Parma, Ohio in a case now before the Supreme Court. Long story short, Novak created a parody Facebook account for the police department; the police arrested him and he spent four days in jail, simply for having mocked them; and when Novak subsquently attempted to sue the police department for civil damages, the Sixth Circuit court of appeals held that the police could not be held responsible under the bullshit doctrine of “qualified immunity”.

jwz: Trump Betrayed by His Diet Coke Valet:

When FBI agents first interviewed Nauta, he denied any role in moving boxes or sensitive documents, the people familiar with the situation said in interviews before Nauta's name became public. But as investigators gathered more evidence, they questioned him a second time and he told a starkly different story -- that Trump instructed him to move the boxes, these people said.

Chef kiss

Trans Eighth Grader Was ‘Shaking and Distressed’ As Texas Agency Pulled Him Out of Class for Investigation:

If you think the 2nd amendment was intended as a political tool, Greg Abbott is the kind of tyrant it would have been intended for.

Earlier this year, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate instances of “child abuse” in families who’ve provided gender-affirming care for their trans children, people were rightly, extremely alarmed. Not only is gender-affirming care not child abuse, the lack of it is actually associated with risks of depression and suicide in trans children and teens. LGBTQ advocacy groups, public health experts, and health associations feared this bigoted and authoritarian directive would harm trans youth. They were right.

via Boing Boing

youtube.com/watch

This is gold…

Alex Jones may finally be the downfall of his boy band of traitors.

jwz: There Is No Constitutional Right to Eat Dinner:

Antonin Scalia relied upon this time period in his majority opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller, as did Justice Samuel Alito in his majority opinion in Dobbs. There is surely no better way to decide the scope of rights enjoyed by Americans living in 2022 than by surveying the works of legal thinkers from a different country, most of whom died well before the first shot was fired at Lexington and Concord.

In medieval England, Parliament occasionally passed what are known as “sumptuary laws” to regulate private consumption of goods and services. […] “But, as to excess in diet, there still remains one ancient statute unrepealed, which ordains that no man shall be served at dinner or supper, with more than two courses; except upon some great holy days there specified, in which he may be served with three,” he wrote. Kavanaugh himself conceded that the supposed right to dinner did not extend to every course by allegedly skipping out on dessert.

Not linking to the original New Republic article - It’s read-count paywalled.

“I Love Ginni,” the classic sitcom about the wacky Thomas family | Boing Boing:

Sigh. The worst part of the current judges that I have to tag jokes abouty them as politics. If you don’t understand why that’s a problem, you’re part of the problem.

Supreme Court rules that Constitution does not apply to 60% of U.S. population, OKs warrantless assault and home invasion by armed agents | Boing Boing:

It makes you wonder. Why are conservative justices protective of their fantasy interpretation of the 2nd amendment which says that well-regulated militia's right to bear arms shall not be abridged, but happy to ignore the 4th amendment, which says the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated?

In Britain, it took just one school shooting to pass major gun control | MPR News:

But that's where the similarities end. In the aftermath of the shooting, parents in Dunblane were able to mobilize with the kind of effectiveness that has eluded American gun control activists. By the following year, Parliament had banned private ownership of most handguns, as well as semi-automatic weapons, and required mandatory registration for shotgun owners. There have been no school shootings in the U.K since then.

When Ted Cruz slunk away from UK reporters asking why It Only Happens Here, this is the reality he was trying to avoid talking about. If the US had enacted the same controls when Columbine happened, there would be millions, if not billions, of less guns in the wild… But starting today would still make a difference, and making a culture of gun being reviled instead of worshiped, of sucking the “cool” out of them, too.

This is what I talk to my kids about, how effective a near-total-ban was elsewhere in the world… Because their generation, the one that’s been doing lockdown and active shooter drills their entire lives, is going to be the one that has Zero Sh*ts to give about gun tradition or the 2nd amendment.

https://assets.tumblr.com/post.js

This is one of the things I see in Star Trek Online sometimes when I play… People being like “Why is this corpocratic society being framed as Evil?” … Have you ever seen a Roddenberry production? He was flat out contemptive about using paper to keep score of power.

Q-Nuts: “Don’t Say Gay” | Boing Boing:

Daring Fireball: The Washington Post: ‘Facebook Paid Republican Strategy Firm to Malign TikTok’:

Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok.

Free COVID tests and treatments no longer free for uninsured, as funding runs out | MPR News:

This is why we should have universal health care… Free, fast, easy testing is part of how we get to the after-times.

Daring Fireball: The New Yorker: ‘Legal Scholars Are Shocked by Ginni Thomas’s “Stop the Steal” Texts’:

Several of the country’s most respected legal scholars say that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas must immediately recuse himself from any cases relating to the 2020 election and its aftermath, now that it has been revealed that his wife, Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, colluded extensively with a top White House adviser about overturning Joe Biden’s victory over then President Donald Trump.

Linking to the DF summary rather than the original article because of the paywall… That excerpt is damning enough.

Texas' Attorney General has decided that Pride Week is ‘illegal’ and threatened a school | Boing Boing:

Our Fundamental Right To Shame And Shun The New York Times:

I’m going to offer a working definition for the purposes of this essay: “cancel culture” is when speech is met with a response that, in my opinion, is very disproportionate. Perhaps that sounds cynical, and I could certainly give you a Justice-Breyer-seven-factor balancing test, but that’s what this discussion boils down to: just as we constantly debate norms of what speech is socially acceptable, we debate norms about what responses to speech are socially acceptable.

Missing from most definitions of “cancel culture” is the relationship to the target… A traditionally minority or under-served group using social-media amplification to “Punch Up” against someone who’s “Punching Down” from a position of authority based on celebrity, status, wealth or other source of power, to try for some degree of accountability, should be encouraged. Privileged people using their legions of followers to beat down those with less power, often already disenfranchised, not so much.

Let’s discuss some examples, because when I criticize sloppy use of “cancel culture” I’m accused of denying that there are ever any unfair, disproportionate, or evil responses to speech. I don’t deny that. What happened to Justine Sacco was, in my opinion, very disproportionate. What happened to David Shor was disproportionate and maddeningly stupid. What’s happening in the community of Young Adult Fiction seems like a complete shitshow that makes me want to avoid everyone there. What happened to Professor Greg Patton was disproportionate and anti-Asian bigotry to boot. Shouting invited speakers down so they can’t speak and attendees can’t listen is fascist and contemptible. I could go on, but you get the point.

• Director of Communications discovers racist tweets don't fly while flying.
• Political Analyst talks about how POC should tone down their anger to benefit the party they often carry to victory
• Professor fails to prepare for lecture by reading aloud prepared materials.

The “YA Twitter” thing is harder, because YA lit very often is written for people of some vulnerable group, at an age where they really don’t have the emotional training to deal with intersectionality… But is also a part of the larger publishing social media wasteland where plenty of people are more interested in getting the “hot take” viewer numbers than any real conversation about the works themselves.

Man who lost eye to Mpls. police projectile wins $2.4M from city, describes ordeal | MPR News:

A Minneapolis police spokesperson has not yet provided comment for this story. A city spokesperson acknowledged the settlement, but did not answer questions about whether the officers faced any sort of discipline, or if they’re still on the force.

Bennett said it was difficult to determine who shot her client. She initially named John Doe officers in the lawsuit. Through the discovery process, she obtained body camera video that eventually yielded answers.

“Really it came down to way too much time spent watching the bodycam, trying to figure out first who was even really in that vicinity, who had their body cameras on,” Bennett said.

A judge has barred the attorney from releasing the body camera footage.

A culture of protecting bad apples is pervasive in Minneapolis city hall and MPD. The video(s) showing officers actively hunting people to play cowboy, the award coins the union was giving for injured protestors, the fact that the department won’t release names… It’s all bad.

The officers involved in this should be fired and named, loudly, and other cities can know who they are before hiring them. Behavior like this should make someone a pariah.

That broken tech/content culture cycle:

Double down on funding the worst voices on your platform. Call it “free speech”, and make sure that nobody internally points out that truly defending free speech would have entailed protecting those early marginalized creators who made your platform credible in the first place. Definitely misuse “free speech” as a rhetorical bludgeon against people who are pointing out that you are both amplifying and sponsoring content, not merely making it available. Resolutely refuse to be intellectually honest about the difference between merely providing a platform to all, vs. making editorial decisions to promote and subsidize content that you have control over.

It’s the RePutincan Party | Boing Boing:

The 10 tactics of fascism | Boing Boing:

Hey Kids, do you know how to spot fascism? Here's a handy reference. Be alert and look for these 10 signs that your beloved country may be on the brink of right-wing authoritarianism.

10 Tactics of Facism

When asked about war in Ukraine, Trump launches into a bizarre anti-windmill rant | Boing Boing:

Even when he appears on an ass-kissing podcast and gets asked about the war in Ukraine, he launches into another anti-windmill rant instead of answering the question.

Lord Dampnut is stuck on this - His boss in Moscow doesn’t want people calling his invasion a war, but he can’t call it a special operation with Putin’s reasoning of defeating “nazis” in Ukraine without alienating his most stable base of US nazis.

jwz: CDC recolors maps to declare victory:

So if you had been thinking, "I'm going to avoid crowds until my county isn't SCORCHING RED", congratulations! CDC has solved that problem for you, without any of the underlying numbers having substantially changed!

And of course CDC is uninterested in talking about Long COVID at all.

As far as I can tell, the motivation here is:

“Federal, State and Local government functionaries, along with people in rural diners and lunatic Qanons, have decided that masking is over, and so we must make our guidance reflect the ‘Personal Freedoms’ that these idiots are going to do anyway."

Putin is a killer and that’s okay with Trump, as seen in this roundup video | Boing Boing:

Star of the GOP, Марионетка

All Vladimir Putin has to do is butter Trump up with false praise — like calling him "brilliant" or a "genius" — and Trump is putty in the murderous dictator's hands.

When reminded by MSNBC hosts that Putin kills journalists and political opponents, Trump says, “At least he’s a leader.”

When told by Bill O’Reilly that “Putin’s a killer,” Trump says, “There’s a lot of killers…”

When asked if he was offended that Putin said nice things about Trump, he said, “No!”

Of course it must be more than just warm fuzzies that keep Trump tucked into Vladimir’s bed, but what that might be is still locked behind closed doors. In the meantime, here is a truncated roundup of the many times Trump has licked Putin’s boot in public. Who knows what goes on in private.