Pocket Realities

There are tons of noteworthy Adolf Hitler quotes to choose from—including “Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Wilhelm?” and “Say, Eva, is this your cyanide tea or mine?”—but the best advice for properly using and citing Hitler quotes is, “Jesus Christ, don’t! What the hell, man? That’s Hitler! His Q score is lower than Matt Lauer’s!”

That’s good advice for anyone, but it’s especially pertinent if you’re a moms’ group proofreading your shit at Kinko’s and a juicy Hitler quote smacks you square in the face. And if you’re a moms’ group that’s already been flagged by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an extremist organization, as Moms for Liberty has, you may want to goose-step especially lightly. 
— Read on www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/22/2176913/-Moms-for-Liberty-chapter-uses-Hitler-quote-about-owning-youth-in-member-newsletter

Multiple mass shootings across the U.S. leave at least 6 dead on holiday weekend | MPR News:

A spate of weekend mass shootings and violence across the U.S. killed at least six people, including a Pennsylvania state trooper, and left dozens injured.

The shootings follow a surge in homicides and other violence over the past several years that experts say accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic. They happened in suburban Chicago, Washington state, central Pennsylvania, St. Louis, Southern California and Baltimore.

“There’s no question there’s been a spike in violence,” said Daniel Nagin, a professor of public policy and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. “Some of these cases seem to be just disputes, often among adolescents, and those disputes are played out with firearms, not with fists.”

Researchers disagree over the cause of the increase. Theories include the possibility that violence is driven by the prevalence of guns in America, or by less aggressive police tactics or a decline in prosecutions for misdemeanor weapon offenses, Nagin said.

This problem is uniquely USA, let’s question the last statement…

• “prevalence of guns in America” – The growth in mass shootings tracks with the growth of gun sales, and in this we’re alone in the civilized world.
• “less aggressive police tactics” – This seems to be limited to white males, but even with changes our law enforcement is the most aggressive and combative among civilized nations.
• “decline in prosecutions for misdemeanor weapon offenses” – This seems to also be limited to white males, and is accompanied by Stand Your Ground and Concealed Carry laws where Some People can literally get away with murder. This is another place we’re alone in the world, because in most countries gun ownership is severely regulated and offenses around ownership tend to be vigorously prosecuted.

So what’s different here? Too many guns.

After George Floyd’s killing, DOJ probe finds Minneapolis police show pattern of violating rights:

The Justice Department has found that Minneapolis police engaged in a pattern of violating constitutional rights and discriminating against Black and Native American people following an investigation prompted by the killing of George Floyd.

Daily Kos reads as the most detailed reporting on this, but we made the world stage too…

Daring Fireball: First Impressions of Vision Pro and VisionOS:

I got to spend about 30 minutes Monday afternoon using a Vision Pro and VisionOS at Apple Park, in a temporary “field house” building Apple constructed specifically for this experience. This was a one-on-one guided tour with someone from the Vision product marketing team, with the ground rules that I’m allowed to talk about everything I experienced, but photos and videos were not permitted.

It was a very fast 30 minutes, and the experience was, in a word, immersive. I’d pay good money just to run through the exact same 30 minutes again.

This is exactly the demo experience I was waiting to hear, someone who’s slightly skeptical but also knows Apple’s ability to create magic.

Calls for woman’s arrest grow after the fatal shooting of her neighbor in Florida:

The children of the victim, identified as Ajike “AJ” Owens, were playing in a field near an apartment complex in Ocala when, attorney Ben Crump said, an unidentified white woman, 58, “began yelling at them to get off her land and calling them racial slurs.”

According to Crump’s statement, after the woman yelled slurs at Owens’ children, they accidentally left an iPad behind, which the woman took.

When one of Owens’ children went to retrieve it, she threw it, hitting the boy and cracking the screen. Owens walked across the street to speak to her neighbor after she learned what happened, Crump said.

“She knocked on the door, and at that point, the woman allegedly shot through the door, hitting AJ, who later died from her injuries,” Crump said.

This is not a “polite society” – This is license to kill.

— via boing boing

ongoing by Tim Bray · Antifascist Ethics:

This essay was provoked by CNN’s recent Big Pander to Trump (no I didn’t watch it. He never says anything new or worth hearing), followed by observing the fact that roughly 40% of Americans have a positive opinion of that man, followed by reading DeSantis’ 2024 pitch: Make America Florida and then Texas pushes church into state with bills on school chaplains, Ten Commandments. You don’t need to read those, the MAGA chud performative cruelty is implicit in the headlines.

A brief anti-Fascism guide. Do read.

My Recent Media Diet, Summer 2023 Edition:

Oh no. It’s June? Where what how?!? I did not mean to let this much time elapse since the last installment of my media diet, all the way back on Dec 2 in a completely different calendar year. But there’s nothing to be done about it, we’re all here now, so tuck your arms inside the carriage and let’s do this thing. Here’s what I’ve been watching, reading, listening to, and experiencing over the last six months. Enjoy.

Kottke’s media diet is always an interesting survey of the landscape and what’s worth checking out.

Lessons from Washington State’s New Capital Gains Tax – The Urbanist:

One of the first lessons is that our state’s richest residents are much, much richer than we understood — and they are continuing to get richer at a faster rate than previously assumed.

According to the Department of Revenue, just 1,200 tax returns and 2,500 extensions represent the households paying the new 7% capital gains tax on profits over $250,000 gained from selling stocks and bonds. And despite high interest rates and a stock market that contracted by 25% in 2022, these capital gains tax payers would have had to rake in billions more in passive profits from their stockpile of wealth last year.