Have you looked at the age of the average politician? It’ll change when they all die of old age and someone sensible from the younger generation takes over.
Doesn’t matter how religious voters are when the options are both hardcore Christian.
Like, Biden not being actively anti-abortion was enough to get American bishops to start talking if they should try and get every Catholic church in America to refuse to give him communion.
He’s still not really pro-abortion, and we’ll never really know if that’s because his incredibly organized church is against it, or if he just doesn’t care enough to push for codifying abortion rights.
He’s the most high profile because he’s president, but lots of House Reps and Senators are in the same boat.
Organising nones is like herding cats. The evangelicals do not get their power from their number. They vote uniformly and reliably, turning out for every primary, local, and federal election.
I’ve been a none for a bit now, and often find myself disagreeing with the opinions of others. I also tend to be more centrist in my political leanings, whereas a lot (obviously not all) of nones or atheists tend to lean left, or in some cases are extreme leftists. In my opinion, extreme leftists are as harmful to society as the extreme right, but that’s a pretty unpopular opinion online.
The problem is that as moderate critical thinkers leave religious organizations the organizations are becoming more polarized by the foolhardy remnants which leads to large organizational efforts to do stupid nonsensical things.
This is a question of attrition. Religiosity is dying out and so, in a sense, is neo-conservativism, and that’s why there is such a huge push to the right in many parts of the world. It’s the last desperate gasp of people who know that their time is up. They are doing everything they can to stop it from happening but it’s inevitable.
Defense lawyer here, though not in New York so take this all with a grain of salt, I just felt I should put my 2 cents in based on the vibes in this comment thread.
It is weird for a judge to go against a joint recommendation, which seems to have happened here. It takes something extraordinary. The article indicates that the judge felt she didn’t truly feel remorse for her actions, which could do it, but doesn’t always do it. But, to me, just the fact that the judge went against a joint recommendation will always raise an eyebrow. Usually, if the sentence isn’t harsh enough, the prosecutor won’t agree to it, and if it’s too harsh, the defense won’t agree to it. So joint recommendations are almost always followed.
Yes, it’s “only” 6 more months, but that’s really not insignificant.
Now, to all the people screaming about how it’s not enough (and especially to the one person saying she should have her citizenship revoked (???)), I wonder, how many of you are also against the prison industrial complex we have here in America? I challenge you to think beyond your initial emotions. Is this death tragic? Yes, absolutely it is. It was senseless violence for no good reason. So I agree, it deserves a harsh punishment.
But everyone keeps calling it murder. Not every killing is a murder. I also want to challenge people to watch their language. Murder carries with it an intent to kill. A shove does not intend death, regardless of who is being shoved. No, it shouldn’t have happened, yes, it’s tragic, but it was not a murder.
Now, all of you calling for 20+ years, really think about what you’re saying. Do you think this person has no chance of rehabilitation? Those are the people we put away for life. I don’t think that’s the case here. She fucked up. Obviously. She deserves to be punished harshly, and make no mistake, she is. 8.5 years is a LONG time. Think back to where you were 8.5 years ago. Were you the same person? I doubt it. Now, do you think she might better herself in those 8.5 years? I think it’s very likely, though again, the prison industrial complex makes that less guaranteed.
Sentences have many goals. Some of the primary goals are punishment, protection of the public, and rehabilitation of the defendant. Does this sentence punish her? Yes, a lot. Does this sentence give her a chance for rehabilitation? I’m not sure on that one, but that’s because it may, if anything, be too long, and cause her to get too used to life in prison, and increase her likelihood of recidivism. But that’s not her fault, that’s the fault of the prison industry. Does this sentence protect the public? I say yes. She lost her temper once and it’s now going to cost her 9 years of her life (if you include the duration of the case). That’s a hell of an incentive not to repeat.
Alright, I think that’s all I really want to say. But please, everyone, in the future, try to think about how our prison system really works, and how much you support it, when you’re discussing individual crimes, not just when you’re talking about the system as a whole. I think most people on this site lean left, and therefore should support reducing the prison populations, but this comment section has me worried with everyone here frothing at the mouth to give MORE prison time, when the sentenced amount should be enough to satisfy our sentencing goals.
It was first degree manslaughter- the article says she was facing “up to 25 years.” She threw a tantrum about being asked to leave a park that was closing, threw her dinner on her fiance, “stormed down the street” then saw a little (100lbs vs her 175) old lady across the street, crossed the street while calling her a bitch, then shoved her onto her head. I don’t think 9 years is too long for society to be protected from her.
The court ruled “not a murder” because it was just a shove, but anyone could have seen than a shove like that would likely kill a small 87 year old woman and it certainly wasn’t an accident. The woman wasn’t just in her way while she was angry walking down the street. She went out of her way to attack the woman.
Then there’s the part where she evaded police for weeks, hiding her phone at a separate location, changing locations multiple times. I don’t think the longer end of her sentencing options would have been unreasonable at all.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you. I don’t think there’s really a number of years to put on it to make it appropriate. But I’m sure the lawyers discussed all the points you raised in negotiating this sentence. These numbers aren’t pulled out of our asses, there are guidelines (almost certainly, again, not barred in NY) which help ensure similarly situated defendants are sentenced similarly.
What I’d like to hear more about, is whether the judge also ordered some kind of anger management counseling. I think that’s what she needs more than a longer sentence.
If we truly want to balance the goals of protecting the public, adequately punishing the defendant, and also rehabilitating her, I don’t think a few more years either way is what makes the biggest difference. I think it more depends on what she does with that time. I’m not sure what the situation is like within New York prisons as far as counseling goes, but if they have good programs, it’s hard for me to imagine, if she takes it seriously, that 8.5 years of good counseling wouldn’t be helpful to her, and to society at large.
I also think she could make all those gains in counseling, again, if she truly takes it seriously, within a couple of years. But then, I could probably be convinced that 2-3 years isn’t long enough for causing someone’s death. I’ve seen people get that for having the wrong amount of weed on them.
But then we get into the larger discussion about the entire prison industrial complex. We need some kind of change with how our prisons operate. Exactly how that looks isn’t the point here. I’m just trying to point out that there’s a bigger picture in play, and hope that people will consider that in the future.
In the end, nothing we say here has any impact on her life or the issued sentence. But it might have a difference in how people perceive and talk about the system as a whole in the future, so I think it’s important to not lose sight of that.
I don’t give a fuck about rehabilitation. There’s 8 billion people on this planet, we can afford to dispose of the shitty ones. Spend those resources that would go towards rehabilitating her on someone who needs help and hasn’t killed any innocent old women.
We’re reaching a French revolution type point in American history. There are people who are the product of absurd privilege, and there is everyone else.
This is tipping the scales a little bit back out of the favor of privilege. In the grand scheme, it’s effectively misguided and miniscule. But it’s a sign of progress nonetheless.
Our legal system sucks ass. There’s no reason why so much of our population should be imprisoned for relatively minor reason… but we’re also used to money being more important than culpability. Affluenza, rapists getting off because it would be detrimental to their future to be held accountable, or generally rich people being able to pay for their crimes financially instead of punitively.
So when someone from a perceived place of privilege is actually held to the same standards as one of us serfs, it’s usually celebrated. It sucks, but it’s true.
This thread more of an indictment of our shitty legal system than of the defendant.
Right? I remember watching some time ago a AI-generated video of an actress - I think it was Kirsten Stewart - doing a monologue. It was eerily undistinguishable from reality. This is happening, and actors have all the rights to be upset by it until proper compensation rules are in place.
Even as a professional editor for over a decade who is actively looking for them, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell what is AI generated and what is real. I’m right most of the time, but most of the time is only like 75% of the time. And again, this is when I am actively looking for them. And the tech is only getting better.
I think this goes deeper than just actors compensation. This will take things to a new level when this hits courtrooms. Imagine sitting there watching a video of you doing something you never actually did entered into evidence.
Society is going to have to adjust to actually demand some proof of authenticity when it comes to content like this.
The good news is that techniques like public-private key cryptography do actually provide a way to do this, so at least on the technical side, this is a solvable problem. The harder part is getting people to question content that they want to be true, like political propaganda that affirms their own beliefs and biases.
Just imagine the mess we'll be in when you can just generate an unlimited amount of videos of some disliked minority committing fake crimes and send them directly to people that you know will be receptive to radicalization, since you've already identified them through data brokers and targeted advertising.
Maybe this is just me getting older - hell, it probably is - but I'm getting more and more detached from tech in general and trying to find more meaning and enjoyment in real-life interaction, community, friendships, and connection, as well as more physical hobbies. I'm not convinced that humans are really equipped to mentally handle the world we're creating, and I'm finding myself not wanting much to do with it.
Agreed. This argument is one of the more dystopian aspects of late stage capitalism. Not content with controlling basically every aspect of our lives, the mega-wealthy want to shape our education, our knowledge as well. Anything that they cannot profit from is considered worthless.
Yeah, and as someone with a degree they value I’m mad as fuck at it. Yeah of course us engineers need education funding, but we need to be taught the humanities too. I went to school with a woman double majoring in biomedical engineering and women’s studies and in addition to her being the sort of badass that wears blue lipstick to stem classes, she was also one of the most well rounded people in our college.
My English prof taught me to recognize propaganda. My lit classes mattered. My fundamentals of stand up comedy class taught me public speaking. My friend’s philosophy classes got me thinking deeper. Intro to archaeology was mind opening. I didn’t take gender studies but I did feel comfortable reading feminist theory and discussing it with my peers. Hell even my classics class made me a more well rounded person by reinforcing that rome wasn’t some glorious bastion of goodness, but a long standing society that’s overglorified but fascinating for what it actually was.
I am not an economic unit. I am a human being. Just as humanities students need math and science I need humanities.
You say that but then people flip the fuck out the second art and liberal degrees like this go away. Frankly it’s what this guy is doing buddy with a nice racist veneer.
Yeah. After all, when “the market” decides something, that usually means the public interest wasn’t profitable enough to the people making decisions in it
Honestly, this is just across the board in hospitality. I could totally see this happening at at any of the three hotels I worked at, and these were Mariott and Hilton properties.
Hospitality is such a toxic industry, the only people who can really survive and thrive in this environment are power-tripping psychos and workaholics.
I could see at a lower flagged hotel, but any full service property is going to have a manager on duty in addition to the rest of the staff. For example extremely unlikely to happen at a full Marriott, but maybe at a Residence Inn
The one full-service property I worked at was a Doubletree…and the only person there at night after 10-11 PM is the night auditor.
Then again, none of these properties were particularly large. That Doubletree I mentioned was just shy of 200 rooms, and the other two hovered around 100.
Perhaps the employee had simply stepped away for a few minutes in that case? Screaming and messing in things because you deactivated your card seems like an odd solution to come to…
That was probably permanent magnet cards (pre-made credit cards, membership cards, etc) vs re-writable magnetic cards that can be written to with a desktop machine.
Most hotels use reprogrammable RFID cards, not magnetic cards. Hanlon’s razor dictates negligence or incompetence be assumed first. I think it’s more likely that a hotel employee incorrectly programmed the cards, or just didn’t at all before handing them over.
I vastly prefer the RFID but several of the Homewood Suites and Hampton Inns I stay in each week are still magnetic stripe. I’ve definitely killed one. Used it to unlock my room, but then stuck it in a pocket with my magnetic headphone case when I went to workout
I have a magnetic clip wallet, keeps all my credit cards and stuff in place. doesn’t do anything to my cards, but to hotel room keys? those are much more susceptible o the magnetic field. wallet always erases those mfers. now I just keep my room key in an entirely different pocket/place
I once had a reservation to stay at a La Quinta and there was literal poop on the bathroom light switch, the sheets on the neatly made bed were dirty (wrinkled as if slept in, black hair, literal dirt), there was what appeared to be a used tissue on the floor just under the edge of the bed, and the toilet was dirty like it hadn’t been cleaned in months (least of the issues).
They refused to fix the problems, give us a new room, or refund us. It was shocking and I’ll never book with them again.
It’s strange how these people always and consistently fall short of the values they’re trying to force on others.
There’s one of those dropkicks in the Australian parliament. One of those staunch conservative, deeply catholic people. Was dead set against same sex marriage because ‘it devalues traditional marriage’. One day it came out that he’d been cheating on his wife and the mother of his four children with a woman half his age (he was nearing sixty at the time). Not only did he get his mistress pregnant, he also set her up with a cushy job in parliament.
His response when questioned about all this in relation to his claims about gay marriage: “I never said I was a saint.”
John 8:7 ESV / 34 helpful votes And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Fucking hypocritical politicians, same the world over.
Edit: I’m not religious overall, but I love throwing scripture in the face of these assholes.
Not to mention that particular passage was added to the bible hundreds of years after it was assembled by a random scribe scribbling in the margins, they don’t even understand the nature of their sacred text… (Check out Misquoting Jesus, excellent read…)
Oh, this guy wasn’t joking. He just thought that his own standards, which he wants to force on others, didn’t apply to him, and was completely unapologetic about that fact becoming public knowledge.
One of the people he owes millions of dollars to, Erica Lafferty, had to do a Kickstarter for a cancer treatment just so she has a better chance of not fucking dying. She still hasn’t seen a dime from Alex “I’m the Debil” Jones.
Yes, really. There are no ethically sound reasons for a person to have all this money when there is so much inequality. Moreover, there is no ethical ways to accumulate all this money. If you are billionaire either you or your daddy had to do a lot of explicitly unethical shit, and in order to retain it, you have to do unethical shit, actively, right now.
Capitalism, no matter how benign, and well intended, is literally exploiting labor from those who are lesss fortunate. And thanks to that malignant leprechaun Milton Friedman, every MBA since thinks that they’re legally bound to maximize dividends for investors instead of compensating the people who do the actual production. It’s obscene, sociopathic, and literally evil. But if Jeebus didn’t want them to rich, they wouldn’t be, right?
Whether this is a “hit piece” or not, I have never found Fallon funny in the slightest bit and absolutely hate the entire late night talk show format. It’s just sucking up to celebrities for 2 goddamn hours. Utterly fake conversations with fake people trying to plug their latest projects. Every thing about it annoys the fuck out of me.
Conan has his moments, but I much rather see him write/act in skits about current events than sucking up to celebrities. Peak Conan was when he was still fresh from being a writer for The Simpsons, and I seem to find him less and less funny as the years go on.
Wasn’t that years ago what he did when one of the networks fired him, but he couldn’t go on another network because of contractual reasons? I think might have seen some of it. Or maybe it was the build-up to it. I might give it a shot, but if there are celebrities on it, I’ll tune out. Celebrity worship makes me want to puke and no pre-written banter between a host and a celeb can hold my attention for long.
No, that was something earlier when he quit NBC when Jay Leno wanted a show again and Conan didn’t want them to change the time of the show from what Carson had. He did a live show. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was something like “banned from TV”. He was mostly looking for a way to keep taking care of his employees: as he always did, including out of his own pocket during the last, previous writer’s strike.
I’ve been really liking his podcast. He still has celebrities on, but the idea is that it’s more people he wants to talk to rather than people promoting stuff, or people he had on his show who he never got to have a proper conversation with and he’ll sit with them to a proper in-depth talk for like an hour or so. And sometimes they’ll do an episode where just a random member of the public calls in and he interviews them instead. Also one of his co-hosts is his assistant who does not respect his position as her boss at all, so that’s a good dynamic.
I feel like you could ask Conan to be funny after you read 2 lines from anything and he’d knock it out. Recipe. Taxes. Obituary. Jimmy Fallon’s set. Anything normally not funny at all
The Graham Norton show is actually pretty entertaining as late-night talk shows go. Graham seems like a good dude, the guests can actually talk to each other after pitching their bullshit, and they drink onstage so they don’t have to pound booze and drugs in the green room beforehand.
Remember when Chris Christie was mercilessly mocked by fox news for “hugging” Obama after he shook the President’s hand during Sandy relief efforts?
Meatball Ron’s campaign staff does. That guy may be an idiot, but someone on his staff had a flicker of sanity for a second to prevent the final bullet being shot into this campaign that should have died before it ever even started.
Two other instances come to mind as well, him looking lost in white rubber boots last year when Biden gave federal money for hurricane recovery, and just last week DeSantis was booed so loudly you couldn’t hear his voice. He may wish to stay out of black communities after making it illegal to teach crt, among other past tells.
To be clear “CRT” when used by alt-right reactionaries is not the Critical Race Theory college level courses most people would expect. It is used as a bully word for the Right to rally around and push actual historical knowledge out of grade-school education (and it’s worked very well for them).
There’s further context here. A right wing grifter on twitter openly recognized and mused about how this could be exploited as a topic and pushed for it to be adopted nationally as a rallying cry. He recognized there was no controversy but there could be. And so because of one asshole this nonissue took flight. Arguably the Virginia governor race was won by the right because of this exact nonissue, the current governor made it the foundation of his platform, even made a tip line to report crt being taught. Do you know how many instances of crt he’s uncovered? None. Do you know how I know? Because he would have jumped all over any instance and celebrated the victory. He has done no such thing in his entire time as governor.
It’s just another nothing burger. Another sad pathetic attempt to create a boogey man for the right to justify their victim fetish. What a bunch of pathetic limp dick losers. Every last one of them.
“Critical Race Theory”; it’s a college-level class about how racism affects the recording of history, but the term has been misappropriated for several years now to mean any acknowledgement of the USA’s past (and current) struggles with racism. The Civil War, Jim Crow Laws, and the Civil Rights Movement are all getting lumped together with the term (as well as other major events) and has been used as an umbrella term to restrict schools’ abilities to teach those subjects.
It’s a post- graduate legal theory about the intersection of laws and race in America. Exactly what it is isn’t really relevant- even among legal minds in the US, it wasn’t a widely accepted or debated concept.
However, three or four years ago, a racist shit bag named Christopher Rufo started lying about what it was to rile up the racists in the Republican party. He claimed CRT was designed to make white children feel guilty about America’s slave-owning past and that it teaches that Black children are owed status and money at the expense of white children. He also claimed this was being taught to children at all levels of American public education.
Again it must be pointed out that he completely fabricated everything he said about CRT. Unfortunately, Republicans are generally as unintelligent as they are fearful, and a wave of anti “CRT” panic is sweeping through America. The net result is Republican governments are banning nearly any discussion about racial disparity in current or former US events all because they don’t want to admit that 1) YES RACISM IS BAD and 2) freeing a class of people you’ve kept enslaved for hundreds of years doesn’t magically make things okay or make that people equal to you.
To be clear, white Americans shouldn’t feel guilty over America’s slave-owning past. I never owned any slaves, and neither has anyone I know. But we should be recognizing how a system of laws built on the literal backs of Black slaves would generationally prevent Black Americans from reaching parity with white Americans- you just can’t wave you hands and say “Poof! Slavery is gone!” and everything becomes sunshine and rainbows. It’s these kind of discussions that Rufo and the GOP are trying to prevent.
they don’t even know what it means. teachers who get asked if they teach CRT tell the parents they’re not familiar with the idea, and what topics would be taught. the parents are usually silent.
If you’re part of a political party and/or vote for a political party that thinks that if the governor of a state is republican they can never been seen with a democratic president in any way, what is wrong with you?
If you’re part of a political party and/or vote for a political party that thinks that if the governor of a state is republican they can never been seen with a democratic president in any way, what is wrong with you?
Do you mean, like, alphabetically, or from the worst things first?
Physician here. The best marker we have of covid prevalence is wastewater testing. With the availability of home kits (and no reporting) and people refusing to test when symptomatic, the old markers of positivity rates and number of positive tests aren't as valid. Even hospitalization numbers can fluctuate for multiple reasons. Municipal wastewater testing truly gives a sense of covid in a population.
That's what I've been thinking. I can't even recall the last time I heard of anyone I know taking a PCR covid test.
And that makes it challenging trying to manage behavior. I've definitely noticed a marked uptick in people I know that have gotten covid in the past couple weeks, but when I try to look at the data to validate my anecdotal experience, it's difficult to find compared to two years ago. Oregon, for example, has wastewater monitoring, but the page used to convey the data doesn't work on mobile and is confusing to use at best.
Let’s you know which disease you have so you can more accurately know how to protect others. If you’ve a cold, stay home…if you’ve the flu, stay in bed and isolated. If you have covidy stay isolated and get meals delivered to bedroom.with mask and use separate bathroom etc.
A test doesn’t fix covid but if we don’t test, you have to assume every respiratory infection is covid and that’s not ideal for those with kids that get sick on average 14 times a year.
Definitive diagnosis is kind of like, a thing in medicine. We like knowing what stuff is, so should things take a turn for the worse, the correct treatment can be applied. We try not to guess in medicine, or go “welp, no idea, good luck, kid!”
Did they need treatment? You test to determine treatment, otherwise don’t test and stay home if you can. Testing for the sake of knowing it’s harmful to society.
Wastewater-based emidemiology guy here. Thank you for your recognition of the field! I work at a competitor of Biobot, and what I find interesting is the article claiming Biobot data showing a plateau, as our data is showing a significant uptick over the month of August.
On a different note, the majority of funding for WBE and wastewater surveillance comes from state/federal coffers, so please ask your colleagues to write to your representatives and ask for more funding towards WBE.
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