Elections have consequences, so please vote

Back in 2016, US voters had the chance of voting against Trump, and unfortunately failed. The failure came in many forms, but can pretty much be summed up as not voting for the viable candidate running against him – by which I mean, that not enough people voted for Hillary Clinton.

A lot of us warned about the dangers of electing Trump, but many people didn’t take it seriously, so they either didn’t vote, voted 3rd party and in effect throwing their vote away in the presidential election, or even worse, voted for Trump as some kind of protest vote. Of course, many also voted for Trump because they supported him and his monstrous ideas.

Well, two years of Trump has clearly shown that all of worst fears have come to pass – he is a bumbling bigot, navigating the world of politics like a drunken sailor, offending allies, aiding enemies, and pretty much focusing on enriching himself, his family, and his allies.

Now, it is the mid-way elections in the US. This won’t give Americans the chance of removing Trump – for that we’ll have to wait for the 2020 elections – but it will give Americans a chance to reign in Trump, by giving him a political opposition.

So, this election, please vote, and please vote for the Democrats – at least on the federal level. On the state level, I’d also suggest voting for the Democrats, as the GOP generally has done a horrible job at governing states, but there might be the rare exception here and there.

This is the true Republican party

I guess most of my readers have followed the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. I am not going to comment on it here, as there are plenty of other people out there explaining why the hearings clearly shows that Kavanaugh is unsuitable for any judicial job.

Instead I am going to point out that it is worth observing the behavior of the Republican party. Even the so-called moderates among the Republicans are supporting Kavanaugh, even though he is clearly extremely partisan and unsuited for the role. In other words, they are putting politics over the greater good of society.

Democrats are willing to compromise when they are in power, Republicans are not.

Remember this. Remember this, and vote against the Republicans. Not just at the presidential elections, but at all elections.

We need the Democrats to gain enough seats to stop the Republicans from keep harming the country and to undo the harm they have already done. An impeachment of Brett Kavanaugh would be a good place to start (no matter the result of the hearings).

Lazy linking

A few links to articles and blogposts that I think worth sharing

Laurie Penny has written a long-read article about not debating people: No, I Will Not Debate You

Civility will never defeat fascism, no matter what The Economist thinks.

Professor Julie Libarkin of Michigan State University has compiled a list of know harassers in academia

Rates of sexual abuse and harassment in academic science are second only to the military. It’s estimated that at least half of women faculty and staff face harassment and abuse and that 20 to 50 percent of women students in science, engineering, and medicine are abused by faculty. Those numbers are generally based on surveys, which are an important way of getting a handle on the problem and how it changes women’s career trajectories.

But when it comes to holding institutions accountable and making meaningful changes, naming perpetrators may be even more powerful.

Julie Libarkin has taken on the challenge of creating a database of harassers. She’s a professor at Michigan State University and she heads the Geocognition Research Laboratory. She’s compiled a list of some 700 cases of sexual misconduct in academia.

The human league: what separates us from other animals? by Adam Rutherford

You are an animal, but a very special one. Mostly bald, you’re an ape, descended from apes; your features and actions are carved or winnowed by natural selection. But what a special simian you are. Shakespeare crystallised this thought a good 250 years before Charles Darwin positioned us as a creature at the end of the slightest of twigs on a single, bewildering family tree that encompasses 4bn years, a lot of twists and turns, and 1 billion species.

Republicans hoped voters would forget they tried to kill Obamacare. They bet wrong. by Andy Slavitt

Andy Slavitt described his article thus on twitter:

Do you notice this phenomenon where your MOC behaves differently in odd numbered years and even numbered years? My @USATODAY column this week explains.

There’s overwhelming evidence that the criminal-justice system is racist. Here’s the proof. by Radley Balko

This is very relevant to my earlier post about the need for a reform in the US judicial system.

Attempting murder by cop

In the last few weeks, we have heard numerous stories about white people calling the cops on POC for no good reason at all. Sometimes it has been dressed up as an accusation of e.g. shoplifting (with no evidence), but in most cases, it seems like it was simply because the POC were not white enough. Some examples:

There are of course many more, and they represent the tip of the iceberg of the use of 911 against POC, as The New Republic describes in their article Starbucks, Yale, and the Abuse of 911 Against Black Americans

A few years ago, a white person calling 911 might be able to argue that they were doing their civil duty, while ignoring the fact that the incident they called 911 about, didn’t warrant such a call in the slightest. They could say that if they had overreacted, the police would sort it all out – no harm, no foul, and all that.

After Ferguson, the campaigns of Black Lives Matter, and the well documented list of cases where the police has shot black people.

And don’t think that those people were all armed and being a threat to the police. Many were unarmed – in the case of black women, 60%.

All of this adds up to a dark conclusion – when white people call the police on POC, they might as well be attempting murder by cop.

They are trying to put the POC into their place, by any means necessary, and if that results in the cop shooting the POC, then so be it.

Lazy linking – Teen Vogue edition

Teen Vogue has a new executive editor, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, who some of you might know from her time at feministing.

I expect that Teen Vogue will continue with their great articles under Samhita Mukhopadhyay, and judging from their newest issue, this is certainly the case.

They have a great portrait of teens fighting for gun control. The portrait doesn’t just cover the Parkland teens, but also some of the many other teens fighting for it across the US.

Gun Violence Will Be Stopped By These 9 Young Activists

Teen Vogue invited gun violence survivors and gun control activists to talk about the power of the next generation: young people who are working to end mass shootings and ensure student safety once and for all. Clifton Kinnie of Ferguson, Missouri; Nick Joseph, Emma González, Jaclyn Corin, and Sarah Chadwick of Parkland, Florida; Jazmine Wildcat of Riverton, Wyoming; Kenidra Woods of St. Louis; Nza-Ari Khepra of Chicago, Illinois; and Natalie Barden of Newtown, Connecticut — youth from different backgrounds with different connections to the issue — to speak candidly about their experiences and what’s to come.

Teen Vogue also has an op-ed written by Parkland activist Emma González on Why This Generation Needs Gun Control, and an article on the NRA

There are also several other great articles, including Chris Evans Opened Up About Being an Ally for Women During the #MeToo Movement, so I expect that Teen Vogue will continue to be an important news source for a while yet.

Focus on the Family is not happy with John Oliver

John Oliver reminds us that even if we get rid of Donald Trump, there is still Mike Pence – and that is not a comfortable thought.

One of the things that John Oliver points out, is Mike Pence’s close connection to Focus on the Family. Something which of course has led Focus on the Family to respond

Social media is abuzz…concerning HBO’s John Oliver’s Sunday night attack on Vice President Mike Pence and Focus on the Family. The “satirical” late-night talk show host’s screed was not just vicious in tone, but also vulgar and vile in every sense of the word and way.

I heard some vile things in the clip, but none of them uttered by John Oliver. Rather they were said by Mike Pence and his allies.

Mr. Oliver’s rant was motivated by the release of a new book by Mrs. Karen Pence and daughter, Charlotte. Entitled Marlon Bundo’s Day in the Life of the Vice President, the second family’s project is centered on the Pence’s pet rabbit. Illustrated by Mrs. Pence and written by Charlotte, the lighthearted work is a colorful children’s book designed to teach children about the workings of government.

So what’s so controversial about a children’s book about a bunny?

Welcome to 2018, where anything and everything is potentially politicized!

This is not just a book about a bunny, but a book intended to “teach children about the workings of government”. Such a book is inherently political in nature, thus opens up to becoming politicized. Also, the reason why this book is published, is that it is written (officially at least) by Pence’s family, trading on his political position.

Also, when one of the book tour stops happens at an extremist political organization like Focus on the Family, it is not surprising that the book release becomes politicized.

Over the years, late-night television has devolved into a breeding ground for cynical, skeptical, bitter and so-called “humor” that cuts people, attempting to both marginalize and tear down individuals and institutions with whom both hosts and often guests disagree.

Satire. It is a thing. Look it up. There is nothing new about it – it has been around since at least the ancient greeks.

This past Sunday night, John Oliver was incensed over Focus on the Family’s 40 year history of supporting a traditional and biblical sexual ethic. In particular, the host took issue with our belief that those with unwanted same-sex attraction should be free to pursue counseling, if that is their desire. Of course, millions of Christians and even non-Christians hold to this standard, but Mr. Oliver disagrees and his seething reaction to our ministry’s position was palpable.

No, John Oliver takes issue with Focus on the Family pushing gay conversion therapy, a pseudo-therapy, that doesn’t work, and is proven to have a very negative effects on people who goes through it.

Even some of the original

Only homophobes of the worst kind are still pushing gay conversion therapy. Homophobes like Focus on the Family and Mike Pence.

Focus on the Family is a hate group, and any politician associated with them have absolutely no place in modern politics, and certainly should not be the vice president.

In things that never happened

After the tragic school shooting in Parkland, there was a lot of tweets on the subject on twitter.  Of the ones I saw, most were either talking about how to stop school shootings, or amplifying the voices of those who were direcetly affected by this school shooting. And then there were the Russian bots, pushing any gun control talking points.

And then there were the rare gems like the following

 

I call this a gem, because it is such a blatant lie, that it is amazing that he thought he could get away with it.

In many European countries, including my native Denmark, there is no such thing as an armed security guard. Either you are police or military, or you are unarmed. In other European countries, there are armed guards in high risk situations, e.g. transporting money, but rarely at any other time. Again, the general rule is, that if you are armed, you are police or military.

In no European country I know off, would anyone think of placing armed guards at a school, except in very extreme situations. For example, police guards Jewish schools when there is a very high Islamic terrorist threat level.

So, the idea that anyone would think it commonplace to place armed guards at a school, regardless of the size, clearly shows that the person has no understanding on the situation in Europe – it is, in other words, a fundamentally US question.

I am not the only who has made fun of this tweet, J.K Rowling has done so as well, and David Burke has taken it down (but not acknowledged that it was a lie).

Lazy linking

A few thing I have found of interest.

SF will wipe thousands of marijuana convictions off the books

San Francisco will retroactively apply California’s marijuana-legalization laws to past criminal cases, District Attorney George Gascón said Wednesday — expunging or reducing misdemeanor and felony convictions going back decades.

The unprecedented move will affect thousands of people whose marijuana convictions brand them with criminal histories that can hurt chances of finding jobs and obtaining some government benefits.

Proposition 64, which state voters passed in November 2016, legalized the recreational use of marijuana in California for those 21 and older and permitted the possession up to 1 ounce of cannabis. The legislation also allows those with past marijuana convictions that would have been lesser crimes — or no crime at all — under Prop. 64 to petition a court to recall or dismiss their cases.

This is an important move. A lot of people have been jailed in the past for crimes which is no longer on the books, and it is only fair that they get released.

Science behind bars: How a Turkish physicist wrote research papers in prison

Thousands of academics in Turkish universities stand accused of either having supported terrorism or the attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in July 2016. Theoretical physicist Ali Kaya is one of them. He was arrested three months after the failed coup and held for more than a year before his trial took place. On 20 December, a court declared him guilty of being a member of a terrorist organization and sentenced him to six years of imprisonment — but released him early owing to the time he had already served in prison while awaiting trial. Kaya says that he is innocent and is appealing against the verdict. In the meantime, he has been suspended from his academic post, and he has yet to learn whether his university, Boğaziçi University in Istanbul, plans to fire him or to await the outcome of the appeal.

This story shows how Turkey has become a totalitarian regime, and how scientists can persevere under horrible circumstances.

Your Grandma Was a Chain Migrant!

Jennifer Mendelsohn, a freelance writer based in Baltimore, has a low tolerance for bad faith. Last summer, after Stephen Miller, the White House senior policy adviser, went on television to support a bill that would penalize immigrants who didn’t speak English, Mendelsohn took to Twitter. “Miller favors immigrants who speak English,” she began. “But the 1910 census shows his own great-grandmother couldn’t.” Her tweet, which included a photograph of a census document indicating that Miller’s ancestor spoke only Yiddish, went viral. “It’s hilarious how easy it is to find hypocrisy,” Mendelsohn said. “And I’m a scary-good sleuth.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, the spiritual mother of generations of writers; John Scalzi pays tribute

World’s oceans rise to hottest temperatures ever recorded ‘by far’

‘Long upward trend that extends back many decades does prove global warming’

Not that we really need any more evidence.

Spiritual hyperplane

How spiritualists of the 19th century forged a lasting association between higher dimensions and the occult world

Interesting bit of history.

Asshole creates safe space from dissenting voices

Showing once again that self-awareness is not the strong suit of right-wingers, a CEO has created an employment test, which will create a safe space for him, ensuring that he won’t experience people who disagree with him – all in the name of trying to show that “snowflakes” can’t expect safe spaces.

Company introduces ‘snowflake test’ to weed out ‘whiny, entitled’ millenial candidates

Of course, the CEO is a nobody, and the company doesn’t hire a lot of people, so this is just a PR stunt, trying to appeal to anti-millenials and all sorts of bigots.