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Want to Report in New York City's Police Headquarters? The NYPD Says You Need a Chaperone (hellgatenyc.com)

That new rule is outlined in a document that NYPD beat reporters must sign if they want to use the new office. “Authorized journalists must adhere to the following,” the document reads, before rattling off a list of restrictions on journalists: Reporters will no longer be able to use their credentials past the security...

More Police Are Using Your Cameras for Video Evidence (www.themarshallproject.org)

Private security footage is nothing new to criminal investigations, but two factors are rapidly changing the landscape: huge growth in the number of devices with cameras, and the fact that footage usually lands in a cloud server, rather than on a tape....

Iowa Republican caucus sets new record for state political ad buys: $120 million (www.cnbc.com)

The battle to win the Republican Iowa caucus is the most expensive on record, with over $120 million spent on ads by the campaigns and their affiliated political action committees in the Hawkeye State, according to data provided to CNBC by AdImpact....

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

“That translates to $1,124 per person who showed up to vote.”

Ugh, imagine if we spent $1,124 on every child living below the poverty line instead

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country. Burn coffee for fuel in the ships. Burn corn to keep warm, it makes a hot fire. Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out. Slaughter the pigs and bury them, and let the putrescence drip down into the earth.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate- died of malnutrition- because the food must rot, must be forced to rot. The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quick-lime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

ESPN returns 37 Emmys, disciplines employees after a decades-long scheme is unearthed (www.yahoo.com)

I’m not into sportsball, or the Emmys for that matter, so this has me very confused. Isn’t this a scandal for the Emmys as much as it is for ESPN? If you’re giving awards to people that don’t even exist, you clearly aren’t doing any due diligence to see if they deserve the award. And did the people getting these...

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Looks like they’re just returning trophies not awards, so I’m guessing anytime a show wins an award everyone who happens to be on the show’s crew at that time gets a trophy for it, and since there’s a bit of turnover on those crews they probably just get a list of names from the studio and send out as many trophies as they get told they need, so it would probably be pretty easy to slip in a fake name or three and get some unique birthday gifts for people

Texas "physically barred" Border Patrol agents from trying to rescue migrants who drowned, federal officials say (www.cbsnews.com)

A woman and two children drowned in the Rio Grande on Friday while trying to enter the U.S. near a section of the southern border where Texas National Guard soldiers have prevented federal Border Patrol agents from processing and rescuing migrants.

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

So, these agents hear about an emergency situation at the park, but when they get there Texas state cops don’t want to let them enter, so the agents… Just give up and go home? Gosh, no wonder people in Congress are talking about more funding for securing the border, we apparently don’t even give our Border Patrol firearms if this is how easy it is to stop them.

gAlienLifeform , (edited )
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Eh, I think this is just intellectual property right infringement with a side of being an insensitive dumbass and not really that new. Like, how is this any different than someone dressing up in a George Carlin costume and doing their George Carlin impression for an hour? Shouldn’t be using George Carlin’s name to sell your stuff, but it’s not like anyone got enslaved or he dug up Carlin’s corpse or anything.

e; I’m not sure if this detail changes anything, but did the AI write these jokes or just do the voiceover work? I was under the impression that it just did the voice and another human wrote the material

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

No, you can steal a person’s likeness, but you can’t enslave it. A likeness is not a living thing and only living things can be enslaved.

If we make a really sophisticated AI someday that says “actually, I don’t want to do [whatever]” and we force it to do [whatever], that’s slavery, but this is just intellectual property trespass.

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

If we were able to digitize the mind of George Carlin, and then we forced that digital mind to write and perform new standup material or be tortured, that would be enslavement of a dead person, and yeah, that sounds like something financiers would love

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

The labor happened back in the 70s 80s and 90s when he wrote and performed the material, it’s just intellectual property now

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, property created by labor, not labor

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Who is the person being owned as property here?

gAlienLifeform , (edited )
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Property is not labor. “I put a fence post in this ground 80 years ago so now any crops you grow here are mine” is bullshit dangerous reasoning that only usually serves to enrich the capitalist class at the expense of people doing labor.

e; now with less tilt

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

I’m sorry if I come across like a pedantic ass (e; and I’m sorry I got a little tilted with my last comment), but I think this is a really important distinction and each of these things needs separate rules to build the kind of society we want to live in.

It was labor when it was written and performed, and that labor should be respected and fairly compensated, but once we cross the threshold from writing and performance to recordings of those performances and copies of writings we’re talking about intellectual property. I don’t think you should be able to make commercial use of other people’s intellectual property without their permission, but I think that’s a civil lawsuit type of problem not a crime (whereas stealing someone’s labor, whether through wage theft or through actual chattel slavery, should be considered a crime, imo). If we don’t keep those distinctions clear, corps like Disney and EA are going to use protections we have (or should have) for people’s labor to attack anyone they can claim are messing with their brands.

I’ve got a lot of respect for Carlin and think this project was a bad idea in bad taste and the wishes of his family members ought to be respected, but I don’t want to see an emotional outrage tip us into making dumb laws.

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

now you’re arguing opinion, not fact

Oh, of course, I forgot that the difference between “property” and “labor” were quantifiable objective things and not just agreed upon social consttucts that have evolved over time, how silly of me to lapse into discussing my opinions! /s

Oh well, let this be my reminder to never give a rhetorical inch when arguing on the internet

Hardliners pressure Johnson to back off spending deal with Schumer as shutdown looms (www.cnn.com)

Hardline conservatives are ramping up pressure on Speaker Mike Johnson to walk away from a topline spending deal struck with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a move that threatens to derail bipartisan negotiations with Congress just days from a partial government shutdown....

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

You could say that about passing the Republicans’ funding cuts too, tho

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Fair enough, I’m just saying the question of whether to say “fuck it” or not is at least a bit nuanced

Texas blocks federal border agents from processing migrants in Eagle Pass public park (www.cbsnews.com)

Texas state officials this week abruptly blocked federal U.S. Border Patrol agents from entering and patrolling a public area in the border town of Eagle Pass where they typically first encounter migrants who cross the Rio Grande illegally, two U.S. officials told CBS News on Thursday....

gAlienLifeform , (edited )
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Oh neat, I didn’t realize you were allowed to just block government agents from entering places where you don’t want them, more people should do this

e;

Earlier Thursday, Texas state officials prevented Border Patrol boats from patrolling that area, one of the officials added, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press

Oh, not only is the Texas state government pushing the federal government around and they’re just taking it, the leadership on the federal government side is trying to sweep this under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen? What a complete fucking joke, I swear if the south tried to secede today DC would just ask them if they needed any help moving anything

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Ugh, you just made me remember this asshole exists and (if I’m awake enough to skim a Wikipedia article successfully) has done a grand total of 15 days in jail for all the shit he’s pulled

Meanwhile Tyre Nichols gets beaten to death for driving down the street

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Why is their chain of command trying to sweep this under the rug? There should have been an official statement from Border Patrol these agents could have referred this journalist to, the fact that there wasn’t one and the fact that these agents didn’t just “no comment” this reporter away but instead went the “keep my name out of this, but you should know” route makes it pretty likely that’s what’s going on here.

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Maybe, but I doubt it. They could easily put out a statement like

We are aware of allegations that officials with the Texas government interfered with the lawful duties of federal officers and are investigating them presently. Regardless of the particulars of this matter I can say that anyone interfering with federal agents, be they state government employees or anyone else, is a highly serious matter, and it will be handled accordingly. We will provide more information to the public about this as soon as we’re able, but at this time we have no further comments."

or some other empty boilerplate. Maybe they didn’t have a lawyer or bureaucrat handy who could wordsmith that out when the reporter came calling, but I think it’s a lot more likely they wanted to pretend this whole thing never happened so they didn’t have to stand up to the Texas state government.

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

“Life will have its up and downs… Unless you’re using our autopilot, then it’s just pretty much down.”

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, it would have been a completely horrifying and infuriating way to die, especially for the pilots who probably had a pretty good idea of what was happening but just never got told how to deal with it

Also, it just blows me away that the corporation as a whole got charged with felony fraud, fraud which caused the deaths of hundreds of people, and they still just get to be a company after saying sorry and paying a little fine. When Fuckup Beauregard III decides to rob his local gas station with an unloaded gun and the clerk dies of a heart attack (or when his accomplice Cletus gets shot and killed by a responding police officer), the felony murder rule will kick in for him and say “someone dying as a result of your felonious behavior is legally equivalent to you intentionally murdering them,” but that sort of thing just doesn’t ever happen to rich and powerful people.

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Following a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission inquiry, e-commerce company Groupon will donate $350,000 to a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education fund for Black kids, the two organizations said in a joint press release on December 27.

“Donate” is a weird way to spell “pay a financial penalty for breaking the law with racist behaviors”

gAlienLifeform OP ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Meanwhile (archived), “Albuquerque, New Mexico’s most populous city, also ranked highest in killings per capita among the country’s 50 largest cities. Albuquerque police killed six people in 2023, while many cities with substantially larger populations, including San Jose and Honolulu, each killed only one civilian last year.”

gAlienLifeform OP ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

There’s an article about this same prison from 2021 called “The Worst Prison in New York State” (archived) that includes the line,

“I will put it to you like this,” Gerard Bastien, currently incarcerated at Great Meadow, said. “You see how police are killing people outside and get away with it? It’s the same thing in here, but worse.”

which seems to sum things up pretty well

2023 saw record killings by US police. Who is most affected? (www.theguardian.com)

In 2023, Black people were killed at a rate 2.6 times higher than white people, Mapping Police Violence found. Last year, 290 people killed by police were Black, making up 23.5% of victims, while Black Americans make up roughly 14% of the total population. Native Americans were killed at a rate 2.2 times greater than white...

gAlienLifeform OP ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Ah, I didn’t even realize this headlines a bit clickbaity, I’ll excerpt this up top

gAlienLifeform OP ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

There was some reality show about game wardens I caught a bit of years ago, and it was jaw dropping how those cops could go out to the middle of nowhere and come across alleged poachers and trespassers and other criminals who’d still have their hunting rifles in their hands and just have a calm and professional chat with them about the kinds of citations they were going to be getting

gAlienLifeform OP ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

It would have been the Maine one probably, I remember it was in a heavily forested area (I wasn’t the one who put it on the TV and was just doing some holiday visiting when I got sucked into watching it for like five minutes)

Staff Warned About the Lack of Psychiatric Care at a VA Clinic. They Couldn’t Prevent Tragedy. (www.propublica.org)

From the outside, it looked like a haven for heroes: a state-of-the-art building with a gleaming atrium, a large American flag flying out front. But the clinic hadn’t had a full-time, on-site psychiatrist in five years. A single nurse was responsible for connecting hundreds of veterans, some with serious mental illness or...

Biden wants Mexican help to stop the migrant surge. Here's what Mexico wants in return. (www.nbcnews.com)

… in late December, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to ask for greater assistance. Those conversations were “preliminary,” the officials said, and did not result in hard promises from either...

gAlienLifeform ,
@gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world avatar

Mr Calhoun reassured staff that Boeing would work with the NTSB to investigate the cause of the accident.

Oh, how generous of him /s

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