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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
— Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996) at p.32.
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[S]cience is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
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Tag Archives: law enforcement
Vox: The fatal beating of Tyre Nichols, explained
Nicole Narea, Sean Collins, and Ellen Ioanes reporting for Vox: As Lauren Bonds, the executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, told Vox in an interview Friday, “so many of the high-profile police killings that we’ve seen in recent years have started out as a traffic stop — started out as an expired tag, […]
Also tagged bullshit, government
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Nearly Half of All Sheriffs in Louisiana Are Violating Public Records Laws
Richard A. Webster reporting for Verite News and ProPublica: Nearly half of Louisiana sheriffs are in violation of a state law regulating the preservation and destruction of public records, according to documents provided by state officials. The disclosure follows an article this month by Verite, also published by ProPublica, on accusations that the Jefferson Parish […]
Also tagged government, law/legal, politics
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Brutal.
The City of Memphis, Tennessee has released four videos on Vimeo depicting the police stop and beating of Tyre Nichols: Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4 These videos are absolutely fucking brutal. Heartbreaking.
Also tagged bullshit, government
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U.S. Insurrection +2 years
On this day in 2020, the U.S. Capitol was attacked by Trump-supporting domestic terrorists*. Full stop. Peter Wehner writing at The Atlantic: Two years ago today, a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Seven people died as a result of that attempt. More than […]
Ring, Google and the Police: What to Know
Ry Crist at CNET: Ring, Google and the Police: What to Know About Emergency Requests for Video Footage — The law lets Ring and Google share user footage with police during emergencies without consent and without warrants. Here’s everything you should know. As always, the problem here is not the sharing of information with law […]
Police Are Telling ShotSpotter to Alter Evidence From Gunshot-Detecting AI
Todd Feathers, writing at Vice: Motherboard’s review of court documents from the Williams case and other trials in Chicago and New York State, including testimony from ShotSpotter’s favored expert witness, suggests that the company’s analysts frequently modify alerts at the request of police departments—some of which appear to be grasping for evidence that supports their […]
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An Attempted American Coup
Make no mistake about it: what we witnessed tonight was an attempted coup d’état. Call me old-fashioned but when armed insurgents storm the U.S. Capitol at the behest of the recently defeated, but as of yet still seated U.S. President, for the stated purpose of reversing the nation’s lawful election results, I call that what […]
Cato: A Shocking Dereliction of Duty
Jay Schweikert writing at The Cato Institute (cato.org): This morning, the Supreme Court denied all of the major cert petitions raising the question of whether qualified immunity should be reconsidered. This is, to put it bluntly, a shocking dereliction of duty. As Cato has argued for years, qualified immunity is an atextual, ahistorical judicial invention, […]
Also tagged bullshit, commentary, government, law/legal
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This is a Moment When Many People May Want Nothing More Than a Return to Normalcy
Tim Cook, in a memo to Apple employees in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Thursday, 25 May 2020, which understandably sparked demonstrations, some of which turned violent, across the nation: Team, Right now, there is a pain deeply etched in the soul of our nation […]
Also tagged abuse, commentary, equality, government, history, rational thought / critical thinking, reason, society
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Bubba Wallace: You won’t see Confederate flag ban protesters tear gassed and shot with rubber bullets
AL.com (a part of the Alabama Media Group): Bubba Wallace, a vocal advocate in getting the banners banned, was unfazed by the demonstrations outside the racetrack. “It’s their right to peaceful protest my man, so it’s part of it,” Wallace said on FOX Sports. “But you won’t see them inside the racetrack where we’re having […]
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