The steady drumbeat of racism

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https://twitter.com/DanBarryNYT/status/1215397840450736129?s=20

https://twitter.com/jduffyrice/status/1215750506406195201?s=20

These two tweets showed up in my feed, back to back. (One retweeted by Patrick Skinner, the other, by Sarah Jeong.) I’m tired; and I’m not even the target.

Dan Barry (@DanBarryNYT) Tweeted:
I wrote an obituary for a woman who died in Buffalo, and the fact that she lived to 111 isn’t close to being the most impressive thing about her. Please read: “Mamie Kirkland, Witness to an Era of Racial Terror, Dies at 111” https://t.co/vK6vsCUeGf

josie duffy rice (@jduffyrice) Tweeted:
a man in mississippi was in jail for a misdemeanor. he asked an officer if he could charge his phone, which was apparently never taken from him. he was then charged with having a phone in jail and was sentenced to TWELVE YEARS IN PRISON. https://t.co/BCfZXNrPNH

Previously, Qasim Rajid had tweeted this, and I just scrolled past it, going, “yeah, yeah, yeah, racism”.

Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) Tweeted:
Ethan Couch: Drives drunk & kills 4 people, injures 2
•0 prison

Willie Nash: Has cell phone in jail
•12 years prison

The criminal justice system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as intended to uphold prison slavery. Horrific. https://t.co/65SPI4m18P https://twitter.com/QasimRashid/status/1215830815273357312?s=20

‘Chaos Is the Point’: Russian Hackers and Trolls Grow Stealthier in 2020 – The New York Times

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/us/politics/russia-hacking-disinformation-election.html

Excerpts:

«Facebook is looking for threats it barely knew existed in 2016, such as fake ads paid for in rubles and self-proclaimed Texas secessionists logging in from St. Petersburg.
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Most political campaigns are unwilling to spend what it takes to set up effective cyberdefenses. Millions of Americans are still primed to swallow fake news.
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The Russians were sloppy in 2016 because they could be: They caught Americans off guard. Now hackers and trolls, who have seen their tradecraft splashed across the pages of American intelligence assessments and federal indictments, are working far harder to cover their tracks. They are, as one American intelligence official put it, “refreshing” their operations.
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The trolls at the Internet Research Agency — the now-indicted outfit behind much of the Russian disinformation spread in 2016 — have ditched email accounts that were being tracked by Western intelligence agencies and moved to encrypted communication tools, like ProtonMail, that are much harder to trace. They are also trying to exploit a hole in Facebook’s ban on foreigners buying political ads, paying American users to hand over personal pages and setting up offshore bank accounts to cover their financial tracks, said an official and a security expert at a prominent tech company.
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With Americans so mistrustful of one another, and of the political process, the fear of hacking could be as dangerous as an actual cyberattack
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American officials, however, are nearly unanimous in the conclusion that Russia interfered in 2016, and that it remains the greatest threat in 2020.
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“They’ll try many tactics and can adapt,”
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“In every single case, we found ways for attackers to sabotage machines and to steal votes,”
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in about a fifth of the attacks, hackers compromised the accounts of campaign consultants and affiliates, and used those to send malicious lures to people inside the campaign. It is an extra step for hackers, but individuals are softer targets than the campaign, and people are far more likely to click on a link if they know the sender.»

The Trailer: Their candidates lost. Here’s what they say about the race now. – The Washington Post

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/paloma/the-trailer/2020/01/09/the-trailer-their-candidates-lost-here-s-what-they-say-about-the-race-now/5e15ffc488e0fa32a514992f/

Question to each was: What makes you optimistic and worried?

«Worried: Trump’s durability in poll numbers and massive financial war chest. This is not going to be easy, and Trump could very well defeat the Dem nominee. It is going to take a completely unified party, vast resources, and a laserlike focus on Trump and what’s at stake if he wins to be successful. Too many people think SURELY Trump is done and will lose, but every indicator is it’s a toss-up. That always worries me.»

Boeing Employees Mocked F.A.A. and ‘Clowns’ Who Designed 737 Max – The New York Times

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/09/business/boeing-737-messages.html

This is definitely the best response. Instead of fixing the systemic problems that led to these comments, find the people who said these things and fire them. Especially that guy who said a presentation was so complex it was like dogs watching TV. The PowerPoint is fine, the problem is the guy who made the observation.

«“The language used in these communications, and some of the sentiments they express, are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response. This will ultimately include disciplinary or other personnel action, once the necessary reviews are completed.”»

Deep-Sea Mining and the Race to the Bottom of the Ocean – The Atlantic

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https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/20000-feet-under-the-sea/603040/

Finally finished reading this over many lunches.

«About a third of the carbon dioxide generated on land is absorbed by underwater organisms, including one species that was just discovered in the CCZ in 2018. The researchers who found that bacterium have no idea how it removes carbon from the environment, but their findings show that it may account for up to 10 percent of the volume that is sequestered by oceans every year.»