[Huffpoo] The "Ferguson Effect" is overblown, Trevor Noah argued Monday night on "The Daily Show."
The term refers to the theory that negative coverage of police in the wake of Michael Brown's shooting death has led to less policing and, consequently, higher crime rates. FBI Director James Comey even blamed cell phone footage of policing.
Several recent studies have debunked this theory, though. And as Noah points out, an American Psychological Association study released last month found that crime rates have actually decreased in the past two decades. "But these are just facts," he joked. "They don't count."
"It doesn't matter what the facts are," he added. "It only matters what the police feel."
The Ferguson effect, according to Noah, boils down to "officers feeling like they're being blamed for what others are doing." But the fear of being videotaped shouldn't make cops question whether they want to do their job, he said.
"The police are unable to do their jobs because they're afraid of being caught doing their jobs badly," Noah joked.
#1
an American Psychological Association study released last month found that crime rates have actually decreased in the past two decades
Quite true, and a well known fact. Thank you, Broken Windows policing and Stop & Frisk! Plus, we threw a whole bunch of people in jail.
The issue here is that rates are suddenly and dramatically rising after a long continuous decline. Why? Could it possibly be because a mob forms every time an officer gets out of his car?
"But these are just facts," he joked. "They don't count."
Hands up, don't shoot.
Black Lives Matter.
Global Warming. Oops! Climate Change.
#4
Mr Noah is thrashing about with strawmen trying to get the Daily Show audience to come back.
Funny to use stats about crime from decades before Ferguson to debunk the Ferguson effect without talking about how things may have changed after the Ferguson riots. He's an idiot or a scoundrel (probably both).
#5
#1 & #2 - true - Fox Butterfield effect: "We have more people arrested and imprisoned, yet the crime rate keeps falling? Could there be a linkage? Naaahhhh"
Noah is flailing. I bet they have daily ratings meetings
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/03/2015 20:08 Comments ||
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[The Guardian] Alarming trend among less-educated 45- to 54-year-olds largely thought to be a result of more suicides and the misuse of drugs and alcohol.
A sharp rise in death rates among white middle-aged Americans has claimed nearly as many lives in the past 15 years as the spread of Aids in the US, researchers have said.
The alarming trend, overlooked until now, has hit less-educated 45- to 54-year-olds the hardest, with no other groups in the US as affected and no similar declines seen in other rich countries.
Though not fully understood, the increased deaths are largely thought to be a result of more suicides and the misuse of drugs and alcohol, driven by easier access to powerful prescription painkillers, cheaper high quality heroin and greater financial stresses.
The turnaround reverses decades of falling mortality rates achieved through better medical care and lifestyle choices that continue to improve public health in other groups in the US and in other nations around the world.
#5
Well, when the you realize that your employer's plan is to throw you away when it's convenient, and the government's plan is to bleed you dry in the process, you ask yourself "How can I best screw up their plans?"
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/03/2015 8:12 Comments ||
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#6
To the powers that be, this is a feature, not a bug.
#7
I think I know exactly who these people are. They're the ones who worked in manufacturing from their teens until their forties and then turned around and found their _industry_ went away and they're too Old to start over in one of the trendy Technogarches industries.
#8
"the increased deaths are largely thought to be a result of more suicides"
Wouldn't that be easy to sort out using the right data? Seems kind of lazy reporting.
[Bus Finance News] Washington-based woman has filed a law suit against Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) on claims that she has been affected by an E.coli infection after eating in one of the outlets of Mexican grill.
On Tuesday, Charmaine Mode from Kelso, Washington has filed the case in US district court in western Washington through Minneapolis law firm Pritzker Olsen. As per the claims made by the customer, she got infected after eating burrito bowl at Chipotle restaurant in Vancouver.
E. coli is a type of bacteria, some of which may cause severe anemia, bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever, vomiting, and sometimes kidney failure, leading to death.
According to the documents, the woman got the treatment on October 27, after falling sick on October 25 with severe diarrhea nausea and other symptoms.
A Chinese J-11, which was largely based off of the Russian Su-27.
Between its development of fifth-generation fighters and upgraded models of ballistic missiles, China's military is quickly becoming one of the most powerful and technologically advanced armed forces on the planet.
But it isn't happening because of Chinese technological ingenuity -- at least not in the usual sense. One of the principal reasons for the country's new wave of hardware, USNI notes, is Beijing's willingness to copy and steal other nations' military technology.
China has already created prototypes that are remarkably similar to some of the US's most advanced weapons systems, such as the F-35, USNI reports. The similarities in appearance, design, and the timing of Chinese aircraft makes it likely that China has acquired at least some of the specifications of US weapons programs, likely through cyber espionage.
There have been several recent cases of alleged Chinese operatives attempting to steal information on US or allied systems. In July 2014, a Chinese entrepreneur was arrested in Canada at the request of the FBI after he allegedly stole 220 megabytes of data related to the F-22 fighter jet and an additional 65 gigabytes of data on the C-17, a transport aircraft. China is currently developing a new fifth-generation fighter that is believed to have been designed using stolen F-35 plans.
Such theft has the dual benefit of increasing the efficiency and lowering the cost of China's own military development -- while also whittling away at the US's technological edge.
In November 2014, for instance, a senior US fighter pilot warned that China's future fifth-generation planes could equal the F-35 as a result of Chinese espionage.
The US is not the only victim of China's efforts to imitate other countries' military capabilities. USNI notes that China's Shenyang J-11B fighter appears to have been based extensively on Russia's Su-27 fighter. China bought 24 SU-27s before cancelling the sale in 2004.
It's unclear how capable China's knockoff weapons imitations actually are. Unlike Russian and American arms, Chinese weapons systems usually aren't used in the field. "I think the big issue with all Chinese weapons -- including copies of Western equipment -- is that they remain untested in combat," naval analyst Eric Wetheim told USNI.
"We just don't know how they will perform, so while they may be far less expensive than their western counterparts, many countries are understandably reluctant to take the risk of acquiring products that haven't passed the ultimate test of combat," Wertheim added. He suspects that some of the systems "may significantly underperform" compared to US or allied weaponry if they're ever used in combat.
#1
The Chinese have reportedly been trying to also set a copy of the National Training Center, as in Fort Ord. This is where you find out if equipment meets capabilities.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/03/2015 8:07 Comments ||
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#2
Proxy wars are a great way to test your equipment also to see if it works against the enemy as planned. Look to see who is buying what. Russian and western arms are in high demand. Czech knock offs and Chinese rifles are being sold to those that can't afford the other stuff.
But when you look at the high tech side, ie fighter jets, anti tank missiles, SAMs, etc. there simply isn't a global demand for Chinese versions.
Why?
The few times they have been used in combat by proxy forces the performance was worse than the old Yugoslav knock offs of the Soviet versions. Which is to say barely functional. While the Chinese versions are cheap, they just don't work worth a damn and so there isn't a demand around the globe for high tech Chinese weapons.
The quality is improving in China as it really is trying to upgrade its military and get stuff to them that actually does what the copied version does, but that is still a long road for them and with the systematic corruption in their government it will be a long time, if ever for their shit to actually be worth a damn.
Sun Mu spreads paper painted with the names Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il over the concrete floor of an art gallery. He lays the broad sheet at the gallery's entrance so that to view his work, visitors must step on the names of North Korea's late leaders, spreading dirt from their shoes into names the artist spent much of his career glorifying.
It is a brief scene in "I Am Sun Mu," a recent documentary about the North Korean defector artist, and in it, Sun Mu shows no sign of trepidation. Yet he says he still has mixed feelings about disparaging the leaders he was raised to think of as gods.
"Every time I step on those names, I feel like I shouldn't," Sun Mu said in an interview. "I was taught not to disrespect them, and that's still embedded in me."
Sun Mu trained as an artist in North Korea, where he painted propaganda posters that glorified the country's ruling dynasty. He fled in 1998 to escape famine and since then has used the same artistic style he learned in his homeland to lampoon those leaders.
"I Am Sun Mu," by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Adam Sjoberg, is the story of his life and work, told around the lead-up to his first exhibition in China in summer 2014. In it, the middle-aged artist and his partners spend months preparing for a large solo exhibition in Beijing, but as word gets out about the provocative images on display, things go wrong as Chinese police pressure the organizers to call off the show.
The film had its world premiere Sept. 17 at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in South Korea. The annual festival screens films that explore the theme of the Korean peninsula's division. This year, it took place at Camp Greaves, a former U.S. military base on the south side of the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, the heavily fortified border separating North and South Korea.
Throughout the documentary, Sun Mu is filmed from behind or with his face obscured. His name is a pseudonym and means "no borders." He doesn't appear in public, out of concern for family members still in North Korea. South Korean media often refer to him as "the artist without a face." He and Sjoberg spent time together to build a rapport before filming.
The film features quiet sequences of Sun Mu at work in his studio or at home with his wife and two daughters. "There was a symbiosis in just being a fly on the wall, of experiencing a day in his life," said Sjoberg, whose previous documentary, "Shake the Dust," explored break dancing in developing countries around the world.
Sun Mu, after fleeing North Korea, studied at Hongik University in Seoul, one of South Korea's top art schools. There he learned more contemporary methods and theory that he has fused with his North Korean style.
At first glance, his works look like twisted takes of the propaganda images he produced in North Korea. Sun Mu says that in North Korea only a few official artists are permitted to draw the country's leaders, and that irreverent depictions would lead to severe punishment.
He has drawn many caricatures of the North's ruling dynasty. Instead of looking stately, they appear smug and overweight, often juxtaposed with symbols of Western decadence. In one painting, Kim Jong Il grins while posing in a Creamsicle-colored Adidas jumpsuit.
Like other examples of state propaganda, Sun Mu's works often feature images of children; one depicts a pudgy-cheeked young girl scowling as she sips Coca-Cola through a straw.
It's the irony of using the same techniques to lambaste the dictators that gives Sun Mu's work its power.
"By using the same visual language but ... inverting its message, he fundamentally unhinges the propaganda message. Because he knows so well how the propaganda works, he can deploy the same tools to show how sinister its message is," Koen De Ceuster, an expert on North Korean art at Leiden University in the Netherlands, wrote in an email.
"There is an unusual, unsettling emotional depth in the best of his works which make them more than just comments on North Korea but lift them to existential statements," De Ceuster said.
Sun Mu's studio on the outskirts of Seoul is in a converted house. He earns a living from his art and has exhibited in several countries, including the U.S., Norway and Germany, unusual feats for a North Korean defector artist. Because of the small pool of interest in the themes they tend to explore, few North Korean artists have broken into South Korea's art market. Collectors who take interest in their work tend to already have some professional or personal interest in North Korea.
"North Korean refugees have a limited market into which they can sell their ideologically centered art, and propaganda doesn't go down well with collectors or audiences from South Korea," said Keith Howard, a professor of Korean studies at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.
Despite having achieved success as an artist and reached a level of material comfort he could never have achieved in North Korea, Sun Mu still struggles with the pain of separation from his parents and other relatives he left behind.
In a powerful scene in the documentary, the artist discusses sadness about his daughter's desire to meet her grandmother in person or through a letter. Sun Mu was driven to paint "The Letter That Cannot Be Sent," depicting the young girl with a letter to her grandmother that she has no way of mailing.
"I expressed the reality of North and South [Korea] through this," Sun Mu says in the film.
Sun Mu says that every Lunar New Year, a major holiday and time for family gatherings, he composes a letter to relatives in the North. In letters that are never sent, he says, he asks about their health and well-being and explains how the reality of the South differs from the vilifying depictions North Koreans see in the state's propaganda. He also asks whether, because of his artwork, his family is being monitored by the government.
Over the years, those letters have remained in Sun Mu's notebooks, but he is hopeful that they won't be there forever.
"Once North Korea opens up," he said, "I'm definitely going to send them."
[Daily Caller] Nearly 30,000 Pennsylvania residents could lose their food stamp benefits early next year with the state gearing up to reinstate work requirements that were waived in response to the recession.
The federal government has required work or job training to qualify for benefits since 1996. After the recession, many states were granted waivers that allowed them to ignore the requirements. The state's Department of Human Services Spokeswoman Kait Gillis notes the state agency is working hard to minimize the negative impact the change might have.
"The federal government has several waivers and exemptions from this requirement for certain types of individuals and areas that have high unemployment and other employment-related issues," Gillis told Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The work requirements apply to able-bodied adults without children. As of June, 44 states have either a waiver or a partial waiver. The job must be at least 20 hours a week and the training must be federally approved. Some states like Louisiana have already let their waivers expire. Other states have also considered doing the same.
The food stamp program is officially known as The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Run by The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), it is the nation's largest food-assistance program.
#1
Strip joints that accept "Access" (EBT) cards hit hardest
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/03/2015 15:01 Comments ||
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#2
If you're gonna reinstate work requirements you better get rid of the minimum wage while you're at it. How are people supposed to find jobs if employers can't afford them?
[AnNahar] The corpse count in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... from drinking bootleg liquor has risen to 23 after 11 more people died in hospital over the past two days, local media said Sunday.
The victims had all consumed raki, a strong aniseed-flavored liquor which is Turkey's national drink, which health authorities believe had been infused with lethal quantities of methyl alcohol.
Another 15 are at death's door in hospital in Istanbul after drinking the tainted alcohol, the private NTV television said.
Police locked away You have the right to remain silent... at least 14 people on Saturday and seized thousands of bottles in several operations across the country, media reports said.
The suspects have been charged with involuntary homicide.
One of the suspects, identified as Hikmet B., told prosecutors he had been "duped" by a distributor who sold him methyl alcohol instead of ethyl alcohol, the Dogan news agency reported.
"I'm not that stupid. I've made raki in the past. It's the (distributors) who are responsible for the deaths."
A total of 89 people have been admitted to hospitals for alcohol poisoning since Wednesday.
In 2005, 22 people died in Turkey from drinking illicit raki.
Distributors at the time blamed successive tax hikes on alcohol, which critics of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... say are part of a bid by the former Istanbul mayor to impose conservative Islamic restrictions on society.
A nonstarter during the Obama Administration, it's dead on the Canadian side until oil prices rebound.
"In order to allow time for certainty regarding the Nebraska route, TransCanada requests that the State Department pause in its review of the Presidential Permit application for Keystone XL," the company said in the suspension request reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "This will allow a decision on the Permit to be made later based on certainty with respect to the route of the pipeline."
#1
Trans-Canada is asking for a delay since they know it will be killed by the current US State Department, and they still have hopes it might pass under the next Administration. Resurrecting a 'killed' proposal would be harder than simply continuing a delayed one.
I'm not sure what the new Trudeau administration will do with Keystone on the Canadian side - he won with no support from Alberta so he can kill it without penalty and at the same time score points with his supporters.
In the meantime Warren Buffett is laughing all the way to the bank.
Days before he died in combat, Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta wrote a letter to his younger brother saying, "Be proud of me, bro, I'm going to make history."
Ricardo Peralta remembered the letter aloud Saturday in Maine during the christening of the new Navy destroyer named for his fallen brother.
"I've been reading this letter for over a decade. It was right after I got off the USS Rafael Peralta that I felt, that's the history he was talking about," Ricardo Peralta said Monday, after returning home to San Diego.
"I thought I was witnessing that history ... that ship that holds the fighting spirit that he held in combat," he said.
It was a long and emotional road to Maine's Bath Iron Works for the Peralta family, who immigrated to San Diego from Mexico.
Rafael attended Morse High School and reportedly enlisted the day he received his Green Card in 2000. He was killed in November 2004 during a house-to-house clearing operation in Fallujah, Iraq.
Peralta is credited with scooping a live grenade under his body to save his brothers in arms. hero
The Marine Corps nominated the sergeant for the nation's top military award, the Medal of Honor. But then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates downgraded the medal after a special panel of experts opined that Peralta's head wounds rendered him incapable of conscious thought in his last moments. "Like a politician"? This panel of experts didn't consider his physical action? RTWT
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/03/2015 10:50 ||
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[Breitbart] Ever in search of benefits to hand leftist constituencies, Democrats have decided to give goodies to their most natural constituency of all: criminals. According to the Associated Press, President Obama will announce executive orders Monday attempting to prevent screening for prior criminality in government hiring.
The so-called "ban the box" program would prevent government agencies from asking about criminal history until later in the interview process. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Vermont Senator Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)16% (D-Loonbag), and former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley have all joined Obama in calling for banning "the box" -- meaning the check box for criminal conviction. Obama also wants to prevent public housing from hindering the ability for convicted criminals to gain access to subsidies.
So, in short, we all get to hire unhireable employees with criminal backgrounds, and subsidize those who wouldn't be able to find housing because they have committed crimes.
All of this merely represents the latest in a string of attempts by Democrats to reach out to those at odds with law enforcement. Last summer, Obama visited a federal prison, where he told prisoners that as a former user of both marijuana and cocaine, he could have ended up in prison, too. "These are young people who made mistakes that aren't that different from mistakes I made," Obama said. "The difference is they did not have the support structure, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive these mistakes."
#1
Last summer, Obama visited a federal prison, where he told prisoners that as a former user of both marijuana and cocaine, he could have ended up in prison, too.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
11/03/2015 10:40 Comments ||
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#7
If he just "stopped" abusing cocaine, or suffers no large-scale ill effects from having abused or still abuses cocaine, Zero will be the first fucking person I know of to have achieved this.
#8
Well a crook was elected POTUS, twice, so what can we expect.
Posted by: chris ||
11/03/2015 12:54 Comments ||
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#9
Sensational headline much? The program won't "force" a hire. But it's also unlikely to increase the chance an ex-con will gain employment in any measurable way. Just call it what it is - another phoney baloney measure that panders to an ignorant sub-section of the democratic constituency.
True. But it does give a rejected applicant grounds to sue. And while this applies to govt agencies, it won't be long before it spreads to the cities and states.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Bus Finance News] Washington-based woman has filed a law suit against Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. (NYSE:CMG) on claims that she has been affected by an E.coli infection after eating in one of the outlets of Mexican grill.
A Chinese J-11, which was largely based off of the Russian Su-27. 
Sun Mu spreads paper painted with the names Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il over the concrete floor of an art gallery. He lays the broad sheet at the gallery's entrance so that to view his work, visitors must step on the names of North Korea's late leaders, spreading dirt from their shoes into names the artist spent much of his career glorifying.
