Distraction thread

If you were going to buy yourself something as a treat or splurge, what would you get?

(hi I work for capitalism)

Wallow

I was going to post a distraction thread, but I'm all consumed by Biden's age. And the stiffness and plasticky-ness that has ramped up in the past few months. Is it botox plus arthritis? Does he need a bit of prednisone? Adderall?

Have I been in denial, or is he recently markedly worse than he's been?

Can you win an election on rejection votes for a guy whose presidency has somehow faded from the median voter's mind?

I know this is all so defeatist and counterproductive, but bear with me as I spiral downward a bit.

DMV

The eldest Geeblet is getting her learner's permit this morning! Tell me all your best tips about teaching someone to drive.

Also I am curious about how the DMV process works in other states. Here they are booking appointments 6+ months out (due to chronic underfunding), and the paperwork is weirdly cumbersome. (Jammies found an appointment about an hour away at a rural DMV that had an opening a month out.) But this could be the norm everywhere - it's a hard thing to compare, because who would have many data points?

Guest Post -- Métis du Monde

Mossy Character writes: It rhymes!:

But before this, the children were placed in exclusive boarding schools across the Congo-Belge and Ruanda-Urundi (DR Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi) where they would be taught about Belgium. The children's mothers were discouraged from visiting them.

(Yes, the New Times is an RPF outlet, but the wider history seems to be real.)

Heebie's take: I didn't know about this, but it certainly is consistent with how colonialism played out elsewhere.

(What rhymes??)

Way To Go?

I'm in San Francisco and really wanted to hate the Waymo self-driving taxis, which I also believed didn't really work, and now, having taken two Waymo rides...I never want a human-encumbered taxi again. There was an algorithmic predictability to the car that was comforting, and it handled people jaywalking, cars poking out of their lane, and knowing when to pull forward in the outside lane of a two-lane, gridlocked turn. Acceleration and braking were smoother than with a human. It's a really pleasant experience.

I'm sure this has two huge caveats: 1) When it works. The friends whose account we were using definitely had stories of the cars going to the wrong place and some other snafus. 2) Humans remain in the loop remotely, so as a scaling enterprise it's not clear how well it works.

But it's gone a long way toward mitigating my skepticism of the technology.

Thursday

I did not watch any of the debates in 2020, almost out of principle but also generally out of disgust. I can't decide if my curiosity will get the best of me this week.

I'm definitely irritated that they're starting things up this early. This election is too stressful already - we don't need to double the length of peak-hyperventilation.

Joshua Wright

I'm so angry about the resolution of this local case. (I've posted about it before, somewhere.) Basically, Joshua Wright was an inmate who was in the hospital. They took off his handcuffs so he could use the bathroom. He still had leg shackles on though. When the corrections officer went to put his handcuffs back on, Wright tried to escape down the hallway (still wearing leg shackles). The officer shot him six times and killed him. Full account here.

So the officer was only indicted with deadly conduct, for firing in a hospital where staff and other patients were present.

The grand jury considered the possible charges of murder and manslaughter in connection with the shooting of Wright. Under Texas law, a corrections officer or peace officer may be justified in using force, including deadly force, if he reasonably believes it is immediately necessary to prevent the escape of a person in custody. After hearing the evidence and the relevant law, the grand jury declined to return an indictment for either of those charges.

So it's a Texas problem. You can kill an inmate wearing leg shackles in a hospital, not because you felt anyone was in danger, but because he stupidly made a break for it.

Apparently the family was deeply disappointed that there was no murder or manslaughter charge, and asked that the deadly force charge be dropped, and the state agreed to drop the remaining charge. (If I'm reading this correctly, there's also a civil case between the family and the officer, which was paused for the criminal case, and will now pick back up.)

So there you have it. Another black man dies in custody, and that specific officer was fired and will be fined whatever amount in the civil trial, and nothing will change with any systemic structures that led to this killing.

Semi-unrelatedly, I have a working theory that police departments receive some portion of activist anger that is due for the prison and justice system, because PDs are more visible and interact more with the public, whereas prisons are able to stay out of sight a little better.