politics
- Every 2 minutes, another person is sexually assaulted.
- 97% of rapists will never spend a day behind bars.
- 15% of all victims of rape and sexual assault are children under the age of 12.
- Rapists don’t just strike once. They are often serial criminals, and DNA is the single-most effective rape prevention tool we have.
- Victims of sexual assault are, according to the World Health Organization, three times more likely to suffer from depression; 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse drugs, and 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.
- The Department of Justice estimates there are about 100,000 rape kits at public crime labs awaiting testing.
- Media reports suggest there may be as many as 300,000 additional kits sitting in law enforcement storage, awaiting to reach labs for testing (the so-called “hidden backlog”).
- On average, it currently costs $1,000 to test a single rape kit.
- Apprehending serial offenders early in their careers can prevent crimes, thereby saving approximately $12.9 billion a year in avoided medical costs, lost wages, and other tangible harms to victims and society.
- Perpetrator's mother
- Nancy Lanza, 52 (shot at home)[32]
- School personnel
- Rachel D'Avino, 29, behavior therapist[33]
- Dawn Hochsprung, 47, principal
- Anne Marie Murphy, 52, special education teacher[34]
- Lauren Rousseau, 30, teacher
- Mary Sherlach, 56, school psychologist
- Victoria Leigh Soto, 27, teacher
-
Students
- Charlotte Bacon, 6[35]
- Daniel Barden, 7
- Olivia Engel, 6
- Josephine Gay, 7
- Dylan Hockley, 6
- Madeleine Hsu, 6
- Catherine Hubbard, 6
- Chase Kowalski, 7
- Jesse Lewis, 6
- Ana Márquez-Greene, 6
- James Mattioli, 6
- Grace McDonnell, 7
- Emilie Parker, 6
- Jack Pinto, 6
- Noah Pozner, 6
- Caroline Previdi, 6[36]
- Jessica Rekos, 6
- Avielle Richman, 6
- Benjamin Wheeler, 6
- Allison Wyatt, 6
- Perpetrator
- Adam Lanza, 20 (suicide)
- Natalie Hammond, 40, lead teacher
- Deborah Pisani[37]
- Call your CongressPeeps - Get on the phone. Tell them how you feel. Finding the number is easy. Just use this fancy new Internet thingy...
- You can send them letters, too! - Did you know that, despite being hobbled by Trump appointee Louis DeJoy, the USPS still delivers letters? Try writing one... on paper.
- March - If you hear about a protest in your area, head over. Talk to people who seem to know what's going on and ask if it's not obvious. Help out. Work phones as needed. Get your friends and family involved. BE A PART OF SOCIETY. Shockingly, most of that isn't done on the internet, but in person. Also, don't be a Chad or Karen and WEAR A FUCKING MASK.
- Volunteer - Lend a hand to some group or organization that needs a hand. There are loads of homeless shelters and soup kitchens, or if you like tech there are lots of places like Free Geek.
- VOTE - Don't let anyone stop you, any rule silence your voice, any crass attempt to remove your status as an American with the Right to Vote bestowed upon each citizen of this land by our Constitution be quietly stripped from you in the dead of night. Yeah! It says it right in there, too! Words. Aren't they just neato?
Orange County California Supervisor allegedly funneled millions to daughter's non-profit
We spend a lot of time focusing on the National elections. There’s nothing wrong with this, but this singular gaze has, for years now, been shifting our attention from local issues to the National stage, and we do so to our civic peril. Over and over again we see so-called politicians leveraging public office for personal gain, regardless of party affiliation. Stay awake. Keep your head on a swivel. #uspol #localpolitics #california #corruption
“Orange County Supervisors Katrina Foley and Vicente Sarmiento are calling for Supervisor Andrew Do to resign Wednesday as authorities investigate allegations of fraudulent spending of COVID-19 relief funds by a nonprofit that employed Do’s daughter.”
“Earlier this month, the county sued the Viet America Society and its President Peter Pham, alleging misappropriation of millions of dollars of pandemic relief earmarked for delivery of meals to needy residents. The Hand to Hand Relief organization, which subcontracted with Viet America Society, was also sued.”
Russia's insane revisionist pulp fiction industry
If you question why the general population of #Russia supports the #war in #Ukraine there’s likely one fact you are unaware of. I certainly knew nothing about this, because it is one of the single most insane methods of #propaganda sponsored by any sovereign state I have ever seen. This is bat shit crazy on steroids, crossed with Cthulhu, and cloned into oblivion. If you know of something more ludicrous and insidious, do let me know. #youtube #video #culture #putin #insane youtu.be/iCI6es9G0…
The Preamble of The U.S. Constitution | Shallow Thoughts
How do we define the United States of America? We call it a country, but that just means a plot of land with established borders. Land certainly tells stories, but those tales are woven over millennia, and definitions within that context just don’t scale down for the convenience of our human time-frame.
The first quote I think of in regards to the makeup of our government is that it is formed…
…of the people, by the people, and for the people…
Sounds familiar, right? Well, it’s not from the US Constitution. The quote comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and the idea had been discussed by others for centuries. That might disappoint you, if you didn’t know that until now, but we do have an actual Constitution. If you need a refresher, here’s the subject of today’s Shallow Thoughts, the Preamble:
See if you can find the correction in the Preamble. Surprisingly, there are lots of corrections in the Constitution, which raises a question. If this was accepted as the final draft for the establishment of an entire country, how many punctuation errors are there, say, in the 2nd Amendment?We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
You see, Lincoln’s sentiment is squishy and unclear. It’s nice, but it is not a ratified legal document. Just because the president says it, doesn’t make it law, or even true. It’s an aspirational concept. The Preamble, on the other hand, is a lucid, if flowery, 10,000 ft. outline of the idea behind America. At the time the definition of “people” was limited to white folk, but that’s the thing about weasel language being used to establish important institutions. The words you choose could have an unintended outcome at some point in the future.
That point in time has been here since, at the very least, Reconstruction and “We the people” must now mean all humans. So-called “minorities” have been struggling for inclusion in the privileged caste since their feet first touched the shores of this ancient land, and while we’ve made progress over the course of a few hundred years, we keep getting dragged back by parties who are both inclined towards racial animosity and have amassed the resources necessary to control the direction of government. Those “resources” also include questionably warm bodies like almost the entire Republican party currently in office. Besides, much of the progress seen in minority populations is merely token, a bone if you will, to keep the boat from rocking too much.
Wading the shallows…
It might just be me, lord knows I never finished college (half a dozen times), but when your founding document starts with “We the people” and you use the formalized structure of organized society outlined in said document to exclude actual human people from deriving those benefits or achieving those aspirations while simultaneously granting favored whites free reign to commit crimes against minority bodies, that it specifically means we haven’t achieved the very first, most basic mandate of our Constitution in nearly 250 years?
Kinda feels like we’ve all been getting gaslit for the last 400 years.
Or maybe, just maybe*, we had a Civil War over the enslavement of human beings for purposes of building the nation we stole from the natives who had been establishing societies for thousands upon thousands of years where the slavers lost, but because of government flaccidity on the matter, didn’t bother actually enforcing equality for all those supposedly now free, new Americans and caved on States Rights, so that racist states could continue to oppress its citizens, but now with a veneer of sovereign legitimacy.
Who knew we’d develop such deep, violent rifts between races in a country where non-white humans have been chewed up and spat out, all to appease fragile white egos, but what do I know…
PS: YouTube is something of a cesspool. Despite this, I really love it. Well, I love the creators. Most of my content consumption is on YouTube, as I’ve found many, many creators who love what they do and put in the work. And yet, much of YouTube is filled with crap. Sure, it might be a nice place to keep your family videos of your meals and pets or terribly racist screeds and calls for race wars, but all the extra bandwidth, in storage, over the network, and in your hardware/software solutions, consume a constant flow of electricity to maintain.
PPS: Meanwhile, our Earth-bound resources, which have a limited lifespan, are being burnt to spin the turbines that delivers power to the infrastructure, systems, suppliers, and services that reliably energize global capitalism efforts, but is used as a tool of oppression for the terminally lower class minorities. Don’t pay your bill, you get cut off, so you have to work, but you can only take a job that pays minimum wage, which isn’t a living wage, so you need to take another job or two, just to keep the water and lights on and for trash to get picked up on occasion. Oh, and don’t forget rent…
PPPS: As the non-1% are dragged along with hypercapitalism’s reckless, futile desire to chase the mythological beast of unlimited growth, it seems we must make ourselves content with just waiting to see what happens. Maybe we should rewrite the Preamble:
We the selfish, recognized white People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union in our image, establish Justice for some, insure domestic Tranquility for the few, provide for the common defence of the powerful, promote the general Welfare of private business, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to just us and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America until we think it’s no longer worth maintaining and drop the pretense.
And if that’s what’s going to happen, then the death of planet Earth will come sooner, at least for us, than I think most of us would hope. The wealthy and their sycophants will just build themselves bunkers or whatnot so they’ll live, as will their descendants, and what do you think their parents are going to teach them about the world?
What, indeed.
* There’s no question that the Civil War happened due to disagreements over slavery. I’m just being sarcastic. The enslavement of human beings should never, ever be something that can be disagreed with. It’s criminal. Period.
Where’s the rage? | Pandemic Edition
Where is it, the rage? We should all be really, quite upset. Why aren't we marching in the streets, demanding accountability for the endless stream of corruption and criminality that has been unveiled on an almost daily basis for quite a few years? The French? Fuck, they're out in the street if anyone, anywhere sneezes on their rights! The Yellow Vests? You might have heard of them?
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT – ‘Not only did the FBI not report my abuse, but when they eventually documented my report 17 months later, they made entirely false claims about what I said,’ Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney told U.S. lawmakers https://t.co/J14eAYuVes pic.twitter.com/i1R9Ct0VJl
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 15, 2021
Today as I am writing these words... the Nassar child rape case that alleges this one asshole raped potentially hundreds of young gymnasts for decades with the apparent support of the Olympics committee people, U.S. gymnastics, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
What about the January 6th insurrection of the Capitol? Why, when we've seen clear evidence of deeply concerning activity from sitting Federal representatives of American people, are these people still making (or more precisely, stopping) laws?
How about The Big Lie? The lie, initially floated by Trump, that he won in 2020 and that the Presidency was stolen from him? Really? Larry Elder and the California GOP tried spinning the Big Lie into the recall attempt of state Governor Gavin Newsom that just ended last night in a complete rout. Apparently, Californians are mostly on-board with the mask mandates, Larry.
Oooh. Here's one. How about the rape kits? How many haven't been processed for 1-20 years? Everyone loves statistics. Here's some about this terrible crime from the Natasha Justice Project:
Sexual Assault in the United States
The Rape-Kit Backlog
Just some of the unprocessed rape kits being stored somewhere... Doing nothing... While more get raped...Let's go back a few years to the Sandy Hook massacre... yes, massacre. Scroll back to the top of this post and look at the pictures of the victims of Adam Lanza [Source: Wikipedia]. The idea that these children were fabricated in an effort to take away people's guns is patently absurd. The Alt-Right has become obsessed with spinning lies to win since fewer people give a shit about their increasingly terrible ideological stances. Crisis actors? Insane.
List of victims Killed:
Wounded:
Just look at those children, all six or seven years old. Imagine what would be going through your mind if you and nineteen of your classmates were all lined up, staring down the barrel of a Bushmaster XM15-E2S assault rifle. Then it points at a friend down the line, perhaps Jessica or Noah. There's an impossibly loud crack, a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and one or more of those friends are lying on the floor, dead, blood pouring out of their tiny bodies.
CRACK!!
CRACK!!!
CRACK!!!!!
Then the barrel points at you. The last sounds you hear are the screams of those who will also be dead soon. Then silence. Step into those shoes, you foul, despicable Sandy Hook deniers. You are the negative drain. You extract and give nothing in return, but I digress...
How much of a monster must you be to understand what happened at Sandy Hook and think to yourself that someone must have concocted the entire tale and spun it up like some fake, made-up Hollywood production to trick gun-toting Americans into giving up their guns? It is utterly in-FUCKING-human to treat these murders as anything but what they were.
TWENTY SIX & SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILDREN WERE GUNNED DOWN IN COLD BLOOD INSIDE THEIR CLASSROOM IN 2012... PERIOD. COMMENTS CLOSED.
That shouldn't require a lot of brain power to understand.
Need even more child abuse? When are we going to start getting answers about the Jeffrey Epstein case? What about the very, very long list of very, very important people who have been associated with Epstein and have travelled on his private 727 or ventured to his private island? When do they get questioned?
Please, someone tell me, what does it take to get the people in America who have a few brain cells to rub together and don't believe all the lies to stand up for themselves and fight? I'd seriously like to know. I mean, FUCK!! What are we doing here? Are we legit going to give fascists and racists equal standing in America when the only demanding work they've EVER done is figure out how the FUCK to subjugate People of Color and extract as much wealth from the land as possible.
Look, you can be that American. You know, the one who thinks the world owes you, and that you owe the world nothing in return because, 'MERICA, FUK YEH, but the sad reality is that you've done little, if anything, to make America "Great", like ever. You couldn't be bothered to find your own place and carve it out with your own hands. Instead, you made a bunch of other people do it all for you, you know; the slaves, and that's just pathetic. I hope, however, that you choose a different path, one that involves marching with a load of like-minded peeps and letting our elected state and federal government officials know that we know they aren't doing it right.
I certainly don't want people to suffer, regardless of the reason (no matter how much I might desire it for some... ahem, people), and that's precisely what we are doing when we don't stop our leaders from doing terrible things as our proxy. We do that in several ways, but some of the most effective are:
If we do nothing, we'll lose this country to those who have no qualms lying, cheating, stealing, killing and raping to get there. Over 650,000 Americans dead from Covid because Trump lied. America in a war with the Taliban for twenty years because Bush lied. I'm sure there are more lies that have been told by more presidents, but I'm exhausted and can't be bothered to look them up.
In the end, I'm not entirely sure what this post is. I'll post more. Maybe.
PS: Please don't get mad if I left an issue out. There are many. COUNTLESS. I can't remember what I had for breakfast, much less the endless march of atrocities against human lives. Sorry.
Support reasonable regulation of the vaping industry
I was a smoker of 30+ years. I smoked a pack a day and, for a few years, I smoked two packs a day. Almost two and a half years ago, I tried an e-cigarette and I stopped smoking and started vaping. Millions of smokers try to quit every year and fail. They try patches and gum and drugs, but none of it works effectively. Electronic cigarettes, however, have been exceedingly effective in smoking cessation. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to regulate e-cigs and I’m not keen on kids getting into vaping because of the candy-flavored juices, but that’s no reason to let a small group of puritanical zealots smash the one industry that smokers can count on to quit into little bits. After all, you don’t use a sledge hammer to put in a thumb tack. If anything, the e-cig industry has been looking for regulation, but you have to understand vaping is NOT smoking. You can’t just apply the same laws that are applied to cigarettes.
So, stand up and say something. The following is a message I received from Mt. Baker Vapor, my supplier of vaping products. What the CTFK is doing is fine, but e-cigarette juice is not tobacco and analog cigarettes have around 7,000 chemicals (which is 6998 more than in e-juice). There is no comparison, and vaping actually helps people actually quit smoking. Sure, nicotine isn’t great, but neither is caffeine, and yet Americans drink tonnes of the stuff every day.
As a customer of ours, we try not to overburden you with messages, but we have been making a concerted effort to try and help inform our consumers around the nation about important government developments that threaten your ability to use electronic cigarettes and other vapor products.
Today, longtime vaping opponent, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) has assembled a call to action to urge President Obama to pressure the FDA to finalize their Tobacco Deeming Regulations. What has been failed to be mentioned is that if these regulations go into action, 99.9% of vapor products currently on the market will be gone within two to four years. These proposed regulations will have a crippling impact on businesses and consumers.
If you have not already done so, we urge you to please send an email to your Congressional representative and Senators and ask them to support and co-sponsor HR 2058, a bill that will stop the FDA from banning 99% of all vapor products.
The link [above] will take you to the CASAA blog where you will find all the information you need to contact the White House and let your voice be heard. Together we can show that the American people DO NOT support these regulations.
This only takes about 30 seconds and it’s the best resource we have for influencing the national conversation on vaping legislation. Please consider taking the time to send this important message!
Please be courteous and respectful at all times during your message. Ask that your representative support HR 2058 and be sure to share how vaping has made a positive impact on your life.
THANK YOU!
Thank you for your willingness to weigh in. It’s important for all adult consumers of electronic cigarettes and vapor products to help educate policymakers about vaping.
The Mt. Baker people are just trying run a business, provide a quality, American-made product, give great customer service, and all at the best prices around. And, no. They didn’t ask me to do this. I know a few dozen people who quit smoking through vaping. I’ve helped a few into it. I see thousands online, and I know that there are tens of thousands more whom I do not know, all who have used vaping to stop smoking. That’s a potential of hundreds of thousands of people who will no longer be murdered by the tobacco industry just for using their products.