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Created
Fri, 10/02/2023 - 01:00
Time for a cultural reset The problems with U.S. policing date back to slave patrols. Others more versed in policing have pointed to the “warrior cop” ethic taught in some police training, to “warrior cop” culture, and the “officer survival” movement as a source of police violence. Police overreaction and the emphasis on dominating any interactions with civilians keep leading to deaths and more distrust of law enforcement. Are Americans seeking technical and training solutions to what is more a product of police culture? Jill Lepore wrote in The New Yorker in 2020: Modern American policing began in 1909, when August Vollmer became the chief of the police department in Berkeley, California. Vollmer refashioned American police into an American military. He’d served with the Eighth Army Corps in the Philippines in 1898. “For years, ever since Spanish-American War days, I’ve studied military tactics and used them to good effect in rounding up crooks,” he later explained. “After all we’re conducting a war, a war against the enemies of society.” Who were those enemies?
Created
Fri, 10/02/2023 - 00:01
Links of late…   “If we try to turn our lives into good stories, we may find ourselves making choices that are bad for us” — Amy Berg (Oberlin) on narratives, well-roundedness, and the good life Knowledge, but at what cost? — how should we figure out whether large scale basic science experiments are worth it? “A full development of our humanity requires developing our capacities to care for the world of nature and for the animals in it” — Martha Nussbaum (Chicago) is interviewed by Jeremy Bendik-Keymer (Case Western) at Boston Review Mind-wandering is a thing, but what about extended mind-wandering? And is habitual smartphone use an example of it? — Jelle Bruineberg & Regina Fabry (Macquarie) make the case for it, and other philosophers discuss it A philosopher proposes an “Institute for Ascertaining Scientific Consensus” to determine what we know and to fight misinformation — Can it be done? Should it? UPDATE: There’s an (LLM-based) app for that now: Consensus. It’s not very good… yet. “Can College Level the Playing Field?… No way.
Created
Fri, 10/02/2023 - 00:00

It has come to my attention that several men have complained about my inappropriate behavior over the past twenty years. I want everyone to know that I’m listening, I’m learning, and, most importantly, I’m trying to figure out how never to be publicly criticized again, because it’s deeply uncomfortable.

But in my defense, I ask you to consider that it is perhaps unfair to judge my past actions by today’s standards. I know it’s hard for young people to imagine, but back then, it was considered perfectly acceptable for a woman to go up to a guy completely unprovoked and kick him in the balls.

We all did it all the time, and no one blinked an eye. Apparently, things have changed.

Recently, I have come to understand that what we used to consider “no big deal” or “hilarious”—specifically, I’m talking about whacking a guy in the nads until his knees knock together and his eyes cross—was actually harmful and not funny at all.

Created
Thu, 09/02/2023 - 20:19

Brendan Behan died at just 41 years of age after he collapsed in a Dublin public house in March 1964. To Joan Littlewood, the pioneering figure of working-class theatre in post-war Britain, it was nothing short of a tragic waste of talent: ‘I was so angry with Brendan for dying that I felt like kicking […]

Created
Thu, 09/02/2023 - 20:00
Nicola Garbarino, Benjamin Guin and Jonathan Lee 5.2 million properties in England are at risk of flooding. To ensure the availability and affordability of flood insurance to households in flood-prone areas, the UK Government introduced an innovative reinsurance scheme, Flood Re, in April 2016. It provides insurers with an option to pass the flood-risk element … Continue reading The effects of subsidised flood insurance on real estate markets
Created
Thu, 09/02/2023 - 17:18

It is a clear indicator of the disappearance of freedom from our so-called western democracies, that Sy Hersh, arguably the greatest living journalist, cannot get this monumental revelation on the front of the Washington Post or New York Times, but has to self-publish on the net. Hersh tells the story of the US destruction of […]

The post Sy Hersh and The Way We Live Now appeared first on Craig Murray.

Created
Thu, 09/02/2023 - 14:04
There are regular interventions from commentators over time who repeat the same thing over and over – usually some prophesy that a currency (for example, the Yen or the USD) will collapse soon, and life goes on until they come out with the same predictions, which never turn out. The mainstream media loves to give these characters a platform because the headlines are sensational and I guess that sells ‘units’ for the companies. The latest I saw was from Mr. Roubini in the Financial Times, who has been predicting the collapse of the USD regularly. Time to give him a miss I think. A related topic of hysteria that ordinary folks seem to get agitated about but clearly don’t understand even the first principles involved is the old canard – central bank losses.