All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Well played, sir. You win social media today.

That does point to the weirdness of Kamala Khan's name in the comics, though. She has a Hindu girl's name but is a Pakistani Muslim without any story reason given as to why a pious family would give their daughter such a syncretic name. My South Asian comics pals pointed that out to me. Apparently the writers based it on the fact that "Kamal" is Arabic for perfection but that that's basically a linguistic false friend (i.e. coincidence) and Kamal doesn't have a female form at all. And of course Arabic isn't the majority language in South Asia. The VP having part-Hindu Indian heritage means that her name Kamala comes from Sanskrit for the Lotus flower which obviously has significance in India (it's the national flower there).

I wonder if they'll address this some way because you can make a bold claim for India-Pakistan unity with the character or alternatively you can perpetuate some weird confusion about Islamic cultures.

The recent Spider-Man trailer did this dumb joke about Otto Octavius' name which obviously didn't land in the real world but those kind of name combinations is there across Marvel history. Like a Romani having a German surname "von" that's only ever been used for aristocrats, an Old Money New York WASP having Catholic middle and last names like Charles Francis Xavier. And of the lot Otto Octavius makes a whole lot more sense since those are names in the real world just combined differently and obviously a tyrannical mad scientist who's vaguely foreign gets to echo Otto von Bismarck or Caesar Octavius (aka Augustus).

[shooshoomanjoe]

Where is Kamala? Have you seen Kamala?

Her schedule is public. But I understand that conservative media needs to omit certain facts so they can keep their supporters to be easily angered.

[shooshoomanjoe]

That does point to the weirdness of Kamala Khan's name in the comics, though. She has a Hindu girl's name but is a Pakistani Muslim without any story reason given as to why a pious family would give their daughter such a syncretic name. My South Asian comics pals pointed that out to me. Apparently the writers based it on the fact that "Kamal" is Arabic for perfection but that that's basically a linguistic false friend (i.e. coincidence) and Kamal doesn't have a female form at all. And of course Arabic isn't the majority language in South Asia. The VP having part-Hindu Indian heritage means that her name Kamala comes from Sanskrit for the Lotus flower which obviously has significance in India (it's the national flower there).

I wonder if they'll address this some way because you can make a bold claim for India-Pakistan unity with the character or alternatively you can perpetuate some weird confusion about Islamic cultures.

The recent Spider-Man trailer did this dumb joke about Otto Octavius' name which obviously didn't land in the real world but those kind of name combinations is there across Marvel history. Like a Romani having a German surname "von" that's only ever been used for aristocrats, an Old Money New York WASP having Catholic middle and last names like Charles Francis Xavier. And of the lot Otto Octavius makes a whole lot more sense since those are names in the real world just combined differently and obviously a tyrannical mad scientist who's vaguely foreign gets to echo Otto von Bismarck or Caesar Octavius (aka Augustus).

Pakistan used to be a part of India. I guess they kept their Indian culture.

[Tami]

That does point to the weirdness of Kamala Khan's name in the comics, though. She has a Hindu girl's name but is a Pakistani Muslim without any story reason given as to why a pious family would give their daughter such a syncretic name. My South Asian comics pals pointed that out to me. Apparently the writers based it on the fact that "Kamal" is Arabic for perfection but that that's basically a linguistic false friend (i.e. coincidence) and Kamal doesn't have a female form at all. And of course Arabic isn't the majority language in South Asia. The VP having part-Hindu Indian heritage means that her name Kamala comes from Sanskrit for the Lotus flower which obviously has significance in India (it's the national flower there).

I wonder if they'll address this some way because you can make a bold claim for India-Pakistan unity with the character or alternatively you can perpetuate some weird confusion about Islamic cultures.

The recent Spider-Man trailer did this dumb joke about Otto Octavius' name which obviously didn't land in the real world but those kind of name combinations is there across Marvel history. Like a Romani having a German surname "von" that's only ever been used for aristocrats, an Old Money New York WASP having Catholic middle and last names like Charles Francis Xavier. And of the lot Otto Octavius makes a whole lot more sense since those are names in the real world just combined differently and obviously a tyrannical mad scientist who's vaguely foreign gets to echo Otto von Bismarck or Caesar Octavius (aka Augustus).

Did a quick search, and one thing I found was that there is a street in Karachi Pakistan named Kamala Nehru, after the wife if the first Prime Minister of India and mother of Indira Gandhi, according to Wikipedia.

That's about the only connection I could find between the name and Pakistan.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Pakistan used to be a part of India. I guess they kept their Indian culture.

That's not exactly the case. As Johnny Harris explains here:



With Partition, the single landmass became India and Pakistan with this huge population exchange and overflow. It's as accurate to say India used to be part of Pakistan as vice versa since cities and places that before Partition had mixed ethnic populations had exchanges and ethnic cleansing on both sides, creating an artificial sense of nationality for both nations.

Did a quick search, and one thing I found was that there is a street in Karachi Pakistan named Kamala Nehru, after the wife if the first Prime Minister of India and mother of Indira Gandhi, according to Wikipedia.

That's about the only connection I could find between the name and Pakistan.

Double checked. That happened before partition, when Karachi was a majority Hindu population. Afterwards it became less so. Nehru's wife died before Partition and the naming happened at the time when it wasn't controversial and it stuck afterwards.

[Tami]

And here we go....

"NOT UNLIKE WHAT KYLE RITTENHOUSE DID"

On same day as Rittenhouse verdict, defense for accused Proud Boy files this motion in January 6 case...

It argues the Proud Boys came to DC on Jan 6 to "defend vulnerable demonstrators" ===>

Twitter Link

[Iron Maiden]

Its not the not guilty verdict. it is the he is a hero talk and the all important talk of the Next legal step for Riettnhouse being to file a bunch of Defamation lawsuits against people talk. I dont like the verdict but the jury came back not guilty and I have to accept that. He had a trial and the Jury found him not guilty. That is the system. But he damn sure aint a hero and he aint a victim. That is the stance a lot of people are taking. And that is what bothers me.

No matter the political leanings, vigilantes are usually not encouraged by the law enforcement community. That's not to say I'm sure Rittenhouse had some sympathizers in Kenosha. Even when he was surrendering, the police at the site ignored him for a while and let him wander around with a high powered rifle. Switch that to a 17 year old black male and you have a different outcome.

[Jack Dracula]

Okay, even if I concede all that. Why does he have to let someone hurt and potentially murder him if he was walking away when they attacked him? They didn’t have to chase him and attack him. If his goal was goading someone into giving him a reason to use the gun, he did a hell of a job.

Also they were also armed. At least one of them lived twice as far away. Were they looking for a fight?

I’m not arguing he had to let people hurt him. My point is he voluntarily put himself in a situation he fully understood was dangerous since he took an assault rifle with him. Therefore he bears a significant level of responsibility for what transpired from that action. I believe the degree of responsibility is enough to negate a claim of self-defense. He was the catalyst in this. If he hadn’t been there, no one would’ve died. It’s really that simple. The jury got it wrong. He should’ve been charged with something to demonstrate to the public that vigilantism isn’t to be tolerated.

[kidfresh512]

I’m not arguing he had to let people hurt him. My point is he voluntarily put himself in a situation he fully understood was dangerous since he took an assault rifle with him. Therefore he bears a significant level of responsibility for what transpired from that action. I believe the degree of responsibility is enough to negate a claim of self-defense. He was the catalyst in this. If he hadn’t been there, no one would’ve died. It’s really that simple. The jury got it wrong. He should’ve been charged with something to demonstrate to the public that vigilantism isn’t to be tolerated.

The worst part of it imo. Is that he is being crafted into some kind of Patriotic hero. Getting the right wing rockstar white vigilante treatment. Along with all the Jan 6 insurrectionists they want to brush under the rug and downplay what they did. It will just encourage more of them.

They will be fundraising off of him, encouraging other white guys to do the same.

[Mister Mets]

I don't see how far it has strayed as you don't share the framework and the specifics are not accessible. https://electionfraud20.org/in-detai...ounty-georgia/ and the rebuttal https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFi...hereReport.pdf

My background in Social Sciences tells me Ansolabehere is full of Grandstanding by authority and establishing grounds that are not to be established in applying for a case where things like methodology can be discussed. I said Hand Waving and we have a confirmed protector of the establishment in his own words much of his "rebuttal" is a CV dump and speaking for State's processes. The ruling on standing was made because they didn't want to get into specifics. That is bad faith for you.

Most people have no access to the election records so hunches and hints are all that is being allowed. Pulling down the gates is just as likely to rile people up as much as putting out the facts for the world to see. In the event that the election was stolen, dismissing as just conspiracies is doing just as bad a thing. A democracy that can't rely on democratic processes is a FAKE state which we have decried the world over but hesitate to look at in our own home.

In the event the election were stolen, it doesn't reflect poorly on ordinary news consumers who were skeptical of claims of fraud. They would be victims of a massive conspiracy at the highest level. There would also be the problem of all the time Trump and the people on his side wasted on nonsense, which buried the useful evidence.

Ordinary people do just have hunches and hints, but BS conspiracy theories do reflect poorly on people who believe them. Experts who are lying and misleading the ignorant fall in a different category. I think we should all be in agreement that anyone who does this is a reprehensible piece of **** who should be shunned by polite society until they admit all their wrongdoing.

Rulings on standing are an ordinary part of court process. We don't want every crackpot to be able to waste the time of the courts on any case they want.

If the court didn't want to hear Braynard's evidence, even though it indicates a stolen election, there are numerous avenues available. If he could prove that 20,312 absentee ballots were cast by people who were not residents of Georgia according to Georgia law, Sean Hannity would be happy to have him as a guest. Instead, the policy expert who evaluated the claims said "None of these claims meets scientific standards of my fields of research, including survey research, political science, statistics and data sciences. There is no scientific basis for drawing any inferences or conclusions from the data presented. None of the estimates are presented with statistical measures that meet standards for evaluating evidence."

He goes over the details.

The survey on which Claims (1) and (2) are based is riddled with errors and biases that render it invalid for purposes of drawing inferences about the quantities at issue here. There are data errors in the topline summaries of the survey data and obvious errors in the design of the survey that produced the results.
1 Specifically, individuals who may not have been the correct person were allowed to answer the survey. Further, registration-based surveys such as this rely on matching phone numbers to registration records, a process that is prone to error. The results observed by Mr. Braynard can easily be explained by mismatches of phone numbers to voter records in conducting the survey.

There are some very basic statistics errors.

The survey used to support Claims (1) and (2) and the survey used to support Claim (3) have unacceptably low response rates, and no effort is made to correct for non-response bias. Less than one percent of people who were targeted for contact ultimately responded to these surveys. The report naively extrapolates from the data, assuming that the 99 percent of people who could not be contacted or who refused to participate are just like the 1 percent who did participate.

Bryanard also refuses to share crucial information, which makes his methodology meaningless.

Claims (3), (4), and (6) are based on list matching. The list matching methodologies are not described adequately. The lack of a complete description of list matching methodology fails to meet scientific standards of transparency and data presentation. What little information is presented suggests that it is based on methodologies that have been debunked by statisticians and by the US Civil Rights Commission for producing large numbers of incorrect matches.

That's from your link. It's basically 27 pages of an expert saying that Braynard is either ignorant or a liar. Perhaps the expert is wrong, but there are presumably at least hundreds of others with a sufficient understanding of American election law or statistics to note any red flags.

There seems to be a weird subtext in the arguments for Trump that he should be allowed to benefit from extreme claims, even if those are not proven. It seems to be hinted that it was wrong to prevent him from making claims he knew to be wrong. For example, the subtext seems to be that he should have been able to take advantage of the red mirage, and claim early on Election Night that he really won, despite the predictable phenomenon (well-known enough that I wrote about it two months before the election) of in-person Republican-leaning votes being counted prior to absentee Democratic votes. A similar suggestion is that there are too many questions about the results to take them seriously, so other procedures should be followed like state legislators sending in their teams of electors, or decisions regarding election law minutiae should be left to potentially sympathetic juries. These Trump supporters are not willing to satisfy the high burden of proof necessitated by election claims. The hint from Trump fans is that this could be used as leverage to gain some kind of concessions from Democrats, even if Trump won't be President. But the Democrats have the law on their side, and wouldn't like the precedent established by rewarding Trump and his allies for bad-faith arguments.

[babyblob]

The worst part of it imo. Is that he is being crafted into some kind of Patriotic hero. Getting the right wing rockstar white vigilante treatment. Along with all the Jan 6 insurrectionists they want to brush under the rug and downplay what they did. It will just encourage more of them.

They will be fundraising off of him, encouraging other white guys to do the same.

This really is the part that has angered me about the not guilty verdict. Like I said I was not happy about it but he had his day in court and the jury spoke that is how the system works.

What bothers me are people who are hailing him as a hero. A defender of the American way of life. Fox News wont stop giving this guy a Verbal BJ. I swear if Rittenhouse wanted to sleep with Tuckers wife the dude would let him that us how in love he is with Rittenhouse. And they have been talking many times about Rittenhouse suing the press and Biden because of ho he was treated and get what is owed to him. They tore apart his life so of course he needs to be paid for that and not have to work again.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

This really is the part that has angered me about the not guilty verdict. Like I said I was not happy about it but he had his day in court and the jury spoke that is how the system works.

What bothers me are people who are hailing him as a hero. A defender of the American way of life. Fox News wont stop giving this guy a Verbal BJ. I swear if Rittenhouse wanted to sleep with Tuckers wife the dude would let him that us how in love he is with Rittenhouse. And they have been talking many times about Rittenhouse suing the press and Biden because of ho he was treated and get what is owed to him. They tore apart his life so of course he needs to be paid for that and not have to work again.

I had Conservative friend who echoed the Fox News bs on how Rittenhouse needs to sue the media and Biden. They don't seem to really nail why beyond how he was "painted bad". Like you know...shooting some folks during this isn't some heroic deed and the mean nasty media made hero Kyle look bad.

[Gray Lensman]

I had Conservative friend who echoed the Fox News bs on how Rittenhouse needs to sue the media and Biden. They don't seem to really nail why beyond how he was "painted bad". Like you know...shooting some folks during this isn't some heroic deed and the mean nasty media made hero Kyle look bad.

Legally, Rittenhouse qualifies as a Limited Use Public Figure (if I have my legalese right from following the infamous Threadnaught), which is a category for private individuals dragged into the media limelight by famous Court cases, scandals, ect. That alone limits his ability to sue.

[Mister Mets]

I’m not arguing he had to let people hurt him. My point is he voluntarily put himself in a situation he fully understood was dangerous since he took an assault rifle with him. Therefore he bears a significant level of responsibility for what transpired from that action. I believe the degree of responsibility is enough to negate a claim of self-defense. He was the catalyst in this. If he hadn’t been there, no one would’ve died. It’s really that simple. The jury got it wrong. He should’ve been charged with something to demonstrate to the public that vigilantism isn’t to be tolerated.

The prosecutors could have alienated the jury by overcharging.

There isn't a good faith version for thinking that making a Muppet asian is a bad thing. And my point was I can't see them being okay with it if it was a blue Muppet instead, and do you think quotas would be a topic on Sesame Street? It's going to be about how we're all the same despite surface differences and how knowing that greatly reduces racism. It's as simple as that. And there is no good faith argument against that idea that isn't racist. Period.

And there's no good reason to be Conservative and gay, as the Republican party is always looking to minimize the rights of minorities. Other than posting #Pride what law has been proposed, never mind passed, by a conservative that protected the gay community?

The Republican Party is the party that was against gay marriage, and still is, that was against allowing gay Americans from serving in the military, and still is, is against allowing gay parents to adopt, and is all about passing bills making it harder for non-cis gendered people to exist. There is literally no support for gay rights on the right.

I suspect the only thing relevant to a Muppet's Korean-American background is the accomplishments of some Korean-Americans. I don't think they're even going to show anyone as the victim of racism on Sesame Street.

With gay rights, it's easy to forget how much and how quickly things have changed. If gay rights were exclusively associated with Democrats, it would mean that all the changes would be much easier to reverse whenever Republicans get back control. That usually hasn't happened.

I believe the key is intent. Rittenhouse chose to travel across state lines with a weapon with the intent of putting himself in harms way in order to protect property which wasn’t his not at the behest of the property owner. The fact he armed himself ahead of time with a weapon designed for killing tells us he intended to defend himself with deadly force if necessary. He went out of his way to create the circumstances which led to the shooting so can’t claim self-defense.
You can’t intentionally drive the wrong way down a one-way street and blame the other driver when you kill them in a head-on collision.

Others have noted that he didn't bring a weapon across state lines, but doesn't this logic make it tougher for anyone in a protest to claim self-defense? Plenty of protesters come from out of state.

The sad thing is my statements are not an attempt at humor or me being a smartass. I am just repeating what I have heard several guests on Fox News ranting about.

So when I say it is a sad mocking of the GOP through humor. But when the Fox News Network gives these statements airtime they become a serious rallying cry? I love that!

An issue with responding to what you overheard on Fox News is that it's rarely the best-articulated version of the argument.

But that can't be right. The majority of the media is liberal, aren't they?

I'm curious what standard people would use to establish that the majority of the American media is not liberal.

[numberthirty]

I’m not arguing he had to let people hurt him. My point is he voluntarily put himself in a situation he fully understood was dangerous since he took an assault rifle with him. Therefore he bears a significant level of responsibility for what transpired from that action. I believe the degree of responsibility is enough to negate a claim of self-defense. He was the catalyst in this. If he hadn’t been there, no one would’ve died. It’s really that simple. The jury got it wrong. He should’ve been charged with something to demonstrate to the public that vigilantism isn’t to be tolerated.

You are right in that it is really simple.

Just not what you are saying took place.

He was there for plenty of time where he did not so much lay a finger on anyone. Once other folks were actually foolish enough to attack a person holding a gun, he still let one of them live when the shot he fired was not lethal.

A while back here in Illinois, there was a two car rolling gang shootout. Kim Foxx refused to charge anyone because it amounted to mutual combat.

If the side that attacked Rittenhouse had never approached him?

What does anyone have that is anything like proof that Rittenhouse would have done anything to him?

There are sides here. Sure, one is that Rittenhouse not being there would have changed the outcome.

The obvious issue is that the other side is that if the folks in question had never confronted Rittenhouse no one would have died.

They insisted on doing that. That was the actual catalyst. Without it, nothing would have happened even with Rittenhouse being there. He acted in self-defense, and even let one of them live when he could not have.

It is obvious self-defense.

Past that, no one is discussing that the folks shot while chasing him down were taking part in the exact same vigilantism that they say Rittenhouse never should have been taking part in to start with.

That said, agreed on that they should have charged him with something that they could convict on to send a message.

They decided not to.