An Open Letter to Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin of Raleigh NC

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May 312020
 

To the mayor,

Resign, now. You have no legitimacy after allowing the police to brutalize a peaceful protest last night and trigger rioting.

The chief of police and wake county sheriff need to go too. What did you think would happen when the police showed up fully jackbooted in riot gear off the bat? Do you not understand the message that sends? That they followed up by lobbing chemical weapons at peaceful protesters made it deafeningly loud: we are an occupying force, and you are the occupied. You are in charge of that force, and are ultimately responsible for last night.

You went on to blame outside agitators: I hate to break it to you, but the agitators took their uniforms off and quietly went back to their homes in our communities last night.

You’ve made it clear through your many tone deaf comments (remember when you endorsed Bloomberg, making it clear that you’re fine with monstrous policing that brutalizes marginalized communities as long as the tax base increases?) that you are only the mayor of upper class white Raleigh. Disbanding the CACs because the underclass used them to complain about being tread upon, creating a joke of a police advisory board with no teeth as a giant “fuck you” to the communities suffering from state violence, even continuing to push forward on the stadium project (made possible only by Trump’s “opportunity zones” which were created specifically to destroy minority communities!) even as the COVID-19 crisis began. But you created a few special parking zones! Mission accomplished! You’re a joke.

You’ve made it clear you view the majority of Raleigh as an annoyance, and wish to silence their pleas for a better life as they are ground underheel (until they are silenced forever: dispossessed by gentrification courtesy of your friends in the construction industry).

  • Clinton Ebadi, Resident of District D


And did those feet in ancient times
Walk bare upon these lonely streets like mine?
Does God watch us from that penthouse high above
His children down below who live on air and love?

May 262020
 

Lawsuit claims Charter’s ‘fixed’ monthly fees are anything but Analysis  In many ways it’s a rite of passage in America: being ripped off by your cable company and trying to figure out how they did it. Now a lawsuit against Charter Communications is seeking to uncover just that.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/27/charter_lawsuit/

 2020-05-26  Comments Off on US cable subscribers are still being ‘ripped off’ by creeping price increases – and this lot has had enough The Register
May 262020
 

The latest maps of coronavirus cases in the U.S. confirm much of what we already know about the economics of location: People in poor neighborhoods have it worse. Health care isn’t as accessible, the ability to socially distance is less, and many residents fall into the role of essential workers, unable to work from home. What new research shows is that number of poor neighborhoods in metropolitan areas has actually doubled from 1980 — and…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2020/05/poverty-economic-data-neighborhood-income-research-census/611947/?utm_source=feed

 2020-05-26  Comments Off on Poor Neighborhoods Are Only Getting Poorer CityLab | All Articles
May 222020
 

More than four years ago, the Copyright Office kicked off a project to do a big “study” on Section 512 of the DMCA, better known as either the “notice-and-takedown” section of copyright law, or the “safe harbors” section for websites. The Office took comments, held a few, somewhat bizarre “roundtables” (that we participated in)… and then… silence. Years of silence. Until yesterday when it finally released the report. It’s 250 pages and there’s a lot…

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 2020-05-22  Comments Off on Does The US Copyright Office Not Know That Copyright Policy’s Main Stakeholders Are The Public? Techdirt.
May 222020
 

With one glaring exception, all persons born in the United States or its territories are U.S. citizens. The exception are persons born in American Samoa — a U.S. territory since 1900 — who hold an obscure and discriminatory status as “non-citizen nationals.” In December, a Utah federal court rightly held that because American Samoa is a U.S. territory and part of the United States, the Constitution’s Citizenship Clause applies to persons born there just as…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.aclu.org/news/voting-rights/nationals-but-not-citizens-how-the-u-s-denies-citizenship-to-american-samoans

 2020-05-22  Comments Off on “Nationals” but not “Citizens”: How the U.S. Denies Citizenship to American Samoans American Civil Liberties Union
May 222020
 

BEIJING—In an effort to prepare Chinese citizens for the ongoing pandemic, President Xi Jinping struck a dour note Friday, warning that a second wave of coronavirus had the potential to disappear thousands of Hong Kong residents. “If Coronavirus cases begin to spike again, we all have to be ready for a tragic reality…Read more…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.theonion.com/xi-jinping-warns-of-second-coronavirus-wave-likely-to-d-1843610026

 2020-05-22  Comments Off on Xi Jinping Warns Of Second Coronavirus Wave Likely To Disappear Thousands Of Hong Kong Residents The Onion
May 212020
 

This story describes the third general election debate of 1960, in which Richard Nixon and John Kennedy were in different states at the time of their debate. The story says that the remote format worked quite well. … Continue reading →

External feed Read More at the Source: http://ballot-access.org/2020/05/20/one-general-election-presidential-debate-in-1960-was-held-with-the-candidates-in-different-cities/

 2020-05-21  Comments Off on One General Election Presidential Debate in 1960 Was Held with the Candidates in Different Cities Ballot Access News
May 212020
 

Governments around the world are using surveillance technologies to monitor whether COVID-19 patients are complying with instructions to quarantine at home. These include GPS ankle shackles, phone apps that track location, and phone apps that require patients to periodically take quarantine selfies and send them to government monitors. All of these surveillance technologies burden fundamental rights. And they can harm public health, by discouraging people from getting tested. No patient should be compelled to submit…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/05/covid-19-patients-right-privacy-against-quarantine-surveillance

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May 212020
 

Facebook fastidiously copied Bitmoji’s artwork for its new avatars feature. Consider a) the access to legal expertise and b) the shameless indifference Facebook has to ethical standards, bad PR or media exposure. In this image (posted to twitter by Alex Heath) is a detailed lesson in exactly how closely you can copy others’ work and get away with it. Or if you prefer, it establishes the necessary quantum of difference to avoid liability, in Facebook’s…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/20/facebooks-blatant-rip-off-of.html

 2020-05-21  Comments Off on Facebook’s blatant rip-off of Bitmoji avatars is a legal lesson in skirting copyright Boing Boing
May 172020
 

The COVID-19 crisis, like the subprime mortgage crisis a decade ago, has sparked major public interventions to stabilize the financial markets. But the Fed isn’t stepping in to bail out the real estate sector — and the big losers are set to be ordinary households. Apartment buildings in Brooklyn, New York. (Flickr) Since the start of the coronavirus crisis, the Federal Reserve has won admiration from many quarters for the pace and magnitude of its…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/real-estate-crash-pandemic-coronavirus/

 2020-05-17  Comments Off on Another Real Estate Crash Is Coming Jacobin
May 172020
 

One of the most likely outcomes of this pandemic is that the vast majority of independently-owned venues will go out of business, wiping the slate clean for multinational superpredators Live Nation and Golden Voice to fill those voids. That’s been their mission for years, and this can only accelerate it.Their M.O. has long been to wait until an independent venue is in financial trouble, and then take it over and either turn it into an…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2020/05/16.html

 2020-05-17  Comments Off on DNA Lounge: Wherein COVID-19 is likely to finish the job that Live Nation and Golden Voice started. jwz
May 162020
 

Enlarge / Two rings buckling under the pressure of a soap film. The top ring is a narrow band (compared to its diameter), so it buckles inward. The bottom ring has wide walls. It wrinkles out of plane as it collapses inward. (credit: Finn Box) I once had a PhD student who joined our research program thinking he was going to be studying a mixture of plasma physics and gas diffusion. To his surprise, he…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1676267

 2020-05-16  Comments Off on Researchers count the kinks in a ring, predict their stability Ars Technica
May 152020
 

Enlarge / A Charter Spectrum vehicle. (credit: Charter) Charter is suing Maine to block a new state law that requires prorated refunds when cable customers cancel service mid-month, claiming that the requirement is a form of rate regulation and is preempted by federal law. The preemption question will be at the heart of the case, but Charter also told the court that its no-refund policy prevents its prices from rising even more than they usually do. “Charter’s…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://arstechnica.com/?p=1676380

 2020-05-15  Comments Off on Charter tells court that its no-refund policy helps prevent price increases Ars Technica
May 152020
 

On May 15, the Second Circuit heard Yang v Kellner, 20-1494. This article describes the 90-minute hearing. The article makes it sound as though all three judges will agree with the U.S. District Court that New York can’t cancel its … Continue reading →

External feed Read More at the Source: http://ballot-access.org/2020/05/15/second-circuit-judges-appear-inclined-to-let-new-york-presidential-primary-proceed/

 2020-05-15  Comments Off on Second Circuit Judges Appear Inclined to Let New York Presidential Primary Proceed Ballot Access News
May 142020
 

Last August, the North Carolina Court of Appeals decided it was OK for police officers to use protected speech as the basis for retaliatory stops. The stop — and the criminal charges that followed — originated from this interaction: While assisting the stranded motorist, Trooper Stevens turned his attention to another car traveling on the roadway. Defendant, a passenger in a small white SUV, had his arm outside of the window and was making a…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200510/10254244466/north-carolina-supreme-court-overturns-awful-decision-appeals-court-says-giving-finger-to-cops-isnt-crime.shtml

 2020-05-14  Comments Off on North Carolina Supreme Court Overturns Awful Decision By Appeals Court, Says Giving The Finger To Cops Isn’t A Crime Techdirt.
May 142020
 

Thanks for nothing, Bernie Sanders An amendment that would require the FBI get a warrant before they access Americans’ web-browsing history failed to pass by a single vote in the US Senate on Wednesday.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/13/us_spying_laws/

 2020-05-14  Comments Off on Now there’s nothing stopping the PATRIOT Act allowing the FBI to slurp web-browsing histories without a warrant The Register
May 142020
 

Joe Biden has named several progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sara Nelson, to newly announced policy “task forces.” This beats him just sneering at leftists — but it’s no great progressive victory that a few good people are on a random list of names for toothless task forces. Phil Roeder / Flickr I’ve had this sensation of late that when it comes to politics, we are now all trapped inside of a really dark,…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/joe-biden-move-left/

 2020-05-14  Comments Off on Don’t Pretend Joe Biden Is Actually Moving Left Jacobin
May 142020
 

The premise of 1995’s Waterworld [Amazon] was flawed in that there isn’t enough water in the ice caps to raise sea levels 7500m, as is established in Waterworld canon. But I wanted to see what that would look like, so here is a map of planet earth with the sea level raised 7500m, based on topographical data published by NASA. As you can readily see, only parts of the Tibetan plateau remain above the waves.…

External feed Read More at the Source: https://boingboing.net/2020/05/13/waterworld-world-map.html

 2020-05-14  Comments Off on Waterworld world map Boing Boing