#politics

See tagged statuses in the local bookrastinating.com community

is depressing

let's check out what is going on in politics in more sane countries:

"One in six Britons are favourable towards Count Binface"

"Under 35s more favourable than "

https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/one-in-seven-britons-are-favourable-towards-count-binface

(i'm making a joke, but for those unawares: this is a real phenomenon)

edit: i have nothing against count binface. i wish count binface well. i am distracting myself from american politics

edit edit: they're on ! @CountBinface

Count Binface

Biden should have been advised to point it out when Trump doesn't answer questions. It would have made a huge difference in the way this is viewed and analyzed later.

The moderators aren't making Trump pay a price for dodging questions, and the Biden campaign should have anticipated that.

“Every state in the U.S., except Hawaii, charges pay-to-stay fees:”
Brittany Friedman, assistant professor of sociology & faculty affiliate of the Rutgers criminal justice program (2020).

I thought prison privatization was bad. I had no idea that prisoners pay room and board, despite @pluralistic’s recent books.

Public benefit, public funding, dammit.
5,000 prisons or jails
~2 million people


https://www.rutgers.edu/news/states-unfairly-burdening-incarcerated-people-pay-stay-fees

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/americas-dystopian-incarceration-system-pay-stay-behind-bars

Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of incarcerated people work behind bars. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, those who work regular jobs in prisons such as maintaining the grounds, working in the kitchen, and painting the walls of the facilities earn on average between $0.14 and $0.63 an hour. Those who are lucky enough to find jobs working for the state’s correctional industries, such as making furniture for other government agencies, make on average between $0.33 and $1.41 an hour. Arkansas and Texas don’t pay incarcerated workers at all, while Alabama only pays incarcerated workers employed by the state’s correctional industry. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/americas-dystopian-incarceration-system-pay-stay-behind-bars
“Every state in the U.S., except Hawaii, charges pay-to-stay fees,” said Friedman. “These fees and civil recoupment strategies force us to question the purpose and morality of criminal justice.” Friedman says rationales justifying these fees routinely do not recognize them as a form of punishment and instead policymakers see pay-to-stay as financial reimbursement to the state by portraying incarcerated people as using up system resources. The justification allows pay-to-stay statutes to survive legal arguments alleging double punishment. https://www.rutgers.edu/news/states-unfairly-burdening-incarcerated-people-pay-stay-fees
“A person can be charged $20 to $80 a day for their incarceration,” said author Brittany Friedman, an assistant professor of sociology and a faculty affiliate of Rutgers' criminal justice program. “That per diem rate can lead to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees when a person gets out of prison. To recoup fees, states use civil means such as lawsuits and wage garnishment against currently and formerly incarcerated people, and regularly use administrative means such as seizing employment pensions, tax refunds and public benefits to satisfy the debt.” https://www.rutgers.edu/news/states-unfairly-burdening-incarcerated-people-pay-stay-fees

This article evoked memories of living through the dissolution of the USSR, an experience characterized by gradual deterioration rather than a single cataclysmic event.

Each day brought new disheartening news and incremental decline, until eventually reaching a tipping point where the cumulative weight of issues overwhelmed the entire social structure, causing it to unravel.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weve-hit-peak-denial-heres-why-we-cant-turn-away-from-reality/

Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Imperial College London, reviews a new book called "Solvable: How We Healed the Earth, and How We Can Do It Again."

That's an upbeat title, but our reviewer is not quite so sanguine...
__________________________

I love Solomon’s optimism and agree that it is important to show that the climate crisis is solvable. Yet, as a climate scientist and philosopher, I don’t quite share her outlook.

Each struggle she explores, from pesticides and smog, to lead in paint and petrol, demonstrates just how keenly policymakers listen to industry — over other people and living things.

None of these cases were solved by overwhelming scientific evidence, or public concern and outcry. Each time, industry let go of a harmful product only once it was sure to make a profit from selling its substitutes — a strategy it could implement owing to its immense lobbying power …

As a measure of how much trouble the Tories are in, I live in a deep, blue Tory seat. It has literally never had an MP from any other party and in 2019, their candidate achieved an actual majority (rather than the plurality most MPs have).
Today, a Conservative Party leaflet came. Polls, including MRPs suggest anything from it being too-close-to-call to a Labour plurality beyond the margin of error.
They're on the run. Let's get them gone.