Stable Genius Liberal

Web Trolls: It’s like playing Whac-a-Mole with a sociopathic Hydra

“As long as the Internet keeps operating according to a click-based economy, trolls will maybe not win, but they will always be present,” said Whitney Phillips, a lecturer at Humboldt State University and the author of “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” a forthcoming book about her years of studying bad behavior online. “The faster that the whole media system goes, the more trolls have a foothold to stand on. They are perfectly calibrated to exploit the way media is disseminated these days.”

This is so true. It is a huge amount of effort to keep trolls away.

Ferguson Police Beat Up Wrong Suspect Then Charged Him For Getting Blood On Uniforms In 2009

The police served an outstanding warrant to one Henry Davis, 52, according to the Beast — but they were actually looking for a different Henry Davis who had a different middle name and Social Security number. But after the police apparently ran Davis’s license plate number and saw his name, he was pulled over and arrested

Wow.

The Guns of Ferguson: When Tyranny Really Comes into Town, the NRA Goes into Hiding

One would think, given his views on freedom of assembly and the importance of democratized violence, that LaPierre would be shouting through a megaphone for the besieged citizens of Ferguson to powder their muskets and cry liberty!

The NRA represents gun manufacturing and gun sales. They don’t really care that much about the rights of gun owners beyond the right to buy more product.

Senator Rand Paul on Ferguson: We Must Demilitarize the Police

Does Mr. Paul think armed drones are not an example of militarized police?

From Forbes

“I’ve never argued against any technology being used when you have an imminent threat, an active crime going on. If someone comes out of a liquor store with a weapon and fifty dollars in cash, I don’t care if a drone kills him or a policeman kills him.”

I think the use of an armed drone in the case of an robbery is an example of militarized policing.

From the article:

If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.

That’s called being white. When I was a teen, I had zero fear that I would be arrested, let alone shot. I did not realize how different my experience was until I was much older. As an middle age white dude, the police are polite to me. Even deferential at times.

Untitled

friendlyatheist: liberalsarecool: The police are willfully horrid. Wow…

Over a million Hispanics turned white between the 2000 and 2010 Census

about two million people switched from describing themselves as Hispanic members of “some other race” to being Hispanic members of the white race, while only about one million people switched in the other direction.

I expect the trend to continue in the 2020 census.

Lindsey Graham: Iraq And Syria ‘Coming Here’ To U.S. Mainland If Obama Doesn’t Go To War

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned on Sunday that militants in Iraq and Syria would attack the U.S. mainland if President Barack Obama did not immediately take military action to stop them.

I guess we can assume that all those Republicans that called on Obama to attack ISIS will now rally around the president? Probably not.

Explaining the GOP Reagan cult

the outsize Republican idolatry of Reagan is explained in part by the fact that there’s no one else in their history of whom they can really approve. The Bushes are a bad memory for most, Ford was a non-entity and Nixon was Nixon. Eisenhower looks pretty good on most historical rankings, but he’s anathema to movement conservatives: Eisenhower Republicans were what are now called RINOs.

Never thought of that but it totally makes sense. They must compare everyone to Reagan because there is no one else they can compare to.

Rand Paul: GOP Can’t ‘Completely Flip’ On Gay Marriage

He went on to say that when it comes to the GOP, “the party can’t become the opposite of what it is” on social matters.

Paul is basically admitting that once the homophobes and bigots in the GOP base start dying off, the GOP will have to change its stance in the culture wars. Liberals have been saying this since the start of the southern strategy.

Rich Kid, Poor Kid: For 30 Years, Baltimore Study Tracked Who Gets Ahead

a study published in June suggests that the things that really make the difference — between prison and college, success and failure, sometimes even life and death — are money and family.
…
They found that a child’s fate is in many ways fixed at birth — determined by family strength and the parents’ financial status. The kids who got a better start — because their parents were married and working — ended up better off. Most of the poor kids from single-parent families stayed poor.

At this point this a typical story about how poverty self perpetuates. Bad options, bad choices leading to bad results.

Then I got to this part:

The researchers found that more affluent white men in the study reported the highest frequency of drug abuse and binge drinking, yet they still had the most upward mobility.

Great options, bad choices, great results. How do you explain that?