odd_primes
14d ago
Not surprised they avoided the entire topic of race-based jury nullification, which seems to have become more frequent post-BLM. Out of curiosity I tried digging up some stats on the prevalence of the phenomenon (eg. conviction rate of black defendants if they have a majority/plurality black jury) but everything seems to reference a single study from Florida, which of course claimed that white jurors are the only biased ones.
odd_primes
17d ago
The BLS has an interesting piece on household computer ownership in the 1990s broken down by education level and race. The overall rate went from 15% in 1990 to 35% in 1997, but households headed by a college graduate went from 23% to 56%. It didn't take long for it to become a majority though - that was around the year 2000.
odd_primes
20d ago
What's the Indian education system like in terms of academic integrity? I was a TA in college and Indian international students were disproportionately getting in trouble for plagiarism, handing in identical assignments, or trying to cheat on exams. A common excuse was "this is a cultural difference, this was allowed (explicitly or tacitly) in India". With all the weight for admissions being placed on one entry exam, is there genuinely just a more cavalier attitude about cheating on other work, since its perceived as busywork that doesn't matter?
Actually digging into this a bit further, there have apparently been major NEET cheating scandals in 2024 and this year. I suppose with so much of a student'a academic (and therefore economic) future riding on one test, there is a lot of incentive for it. American admissions criteria might be less legible, but they are at least less vulnerable to being gamed by cheating on a single test.
odd_primes
21d ago
On one occasion, he said, he was held down, stripped naked, and as he was blindfolded and handcuffed, a dog was summoned. With encouragement from a handler in Hebrew, he said, the dog mounted him.
Another possibility consistent with the victim's statement that doesn't require "trained rape dogs" - they easy could have had the dog jump on him and then penetrated him with some other object. The guy tied up, blindfolded, and panicking is going to have no ability to tell the difference. Letting him believe he was raped by a dog would still be incredibly degrading and traumatizing.
odd_primes
21d ago
The Israeli military uses dogs pretty extensively, this is well documented by non-controversial sources. In the context of a large detention center run by the Israeli military, I'd imagine they are particularly useful to search for contraband like drugs, or to incapacitate combative detainees in a non-lethal manner.
This seems like it could easily be a case of "assholes taking the opportunity to do sadistic shit" especially because they know the Muslim perception of dogs, and therefore it would be even more humiliating and degrading than other forms of sexual assault.
odd_primes
24d ago
Okay, I'll be more precise - Israel is not a recognized nuclear weapon state ratifier or acceder under the NPT, but still possesses nuclear weapons. That puts them in the same category as North Korea, which followed the agreed-upon withdrawal procedure and is also not bound by the NPT.
Like a lot of infrastructure, it's dual use. Iran is a sovereign nation and can spend money on whatever it believes is in its strategic interest, as long as it abides by its international commitments.
That begs the question though, if Iran has been trying to develop nuclear weapons for decades, why don't they have them already?
From Iran's perspective, they are next door to a hostile nuclear power with illegal nuclear weapons. Iran knows that they won't get the same special dispensation from the international community, so they have to try to ride the line of maintaining some form of deterrent without ending up as an international pariah like North Korea. Historically that has meant having a robust civilian nuclear program, and then using their degree of further enrichment as a bargaining chip. That was the whole point of JCPOA - Iran's breakout time would be regulated through limits on enriched uranium stockpiles and centrifuges in exchange for diplomatic normalization and sanctions relief. These sorts of negotiations have been going on for decades with no prospect of Iran actually producing nukes, despite Israel's constant claims to the contrary. That's my understanding of Joe Kent's statement about IC reporting - he was saying that there was no indication that Iran was planning to break this holding pattern and try to actually produce a nuclear weapon.
From a game theory perspective a way to think about this I suppose is that they are deliberately giving away the information that they are incapable of performing a first strike, but maintaining the potential capability for a delayed second strike. That adds significantly more risk to an Israeli first strike without incurring the full diplomatic consequences of having nuclear weapons. The issue is that the potential for nukes in weeks/months is not the same as having nukes ready to launch - I highly doubt they would have risked a decapitation strike on Iran's top leadership if there was the prospect of immediate nuclear retaliation.
From America's perspective the old status quo was fine - or arguably even beneficial because it discouraged Israel from doing anything too disruptive. The American interest here is essentially just "don't fuck with the oil supply" and by that metric, this conflict is a complete own-goal.
odd_primes
24d ago
Yeah, there's no way that strike on Iran's top leadership would have been approved if they had nuclear weapons. Blowing up the top layers of the chain of command is too risky when you don't know who's going to end up with the launch codes, and what they are going to do with them. Just the existence of nuclear weapons alone is a powerful deterrent to regime change attempts.
odd_primes
24d ago
There seems to be no evidence that human to human infection is something the virus is really capable of, and even if this is a strain that mutated to do that, it also doesn't spread through the air.
Scientists are pretty sure the Andes strain is capable of human to human transmission. It's not particularly transmissible though since it requires either transfer of bodily fluids or exposure to respiratory droplets. A cruise ship with lots of people in close, prolonged contact is probably the worst case for transmission which would explain the mini cluster of cases.
Last I had heard, they thought the patient zero was a Dutch birdwatcher who visited a rodent-infested landfill with his wife.
This probably won't blow up into a global pandemic, but it's novel, scary (50% fatality rate), and like you said, people still have COVID trauma. Maybe the coverage is a bit overblown but I don't think it has been too egregious. Eg. Some of the cruise ship passengers exposed hopped on airplanes immediately after disembarking, which is another great enclosed space for human to human transmission... It's possible we might see cases pop up elsewhere if any of those passengers were infectious at the time.
odd_primes
28d ago
It seems like everyone (except the victim) basically got what they wanted here. The defendant got a very lenient deal, the prosecutors are making a show of protesting but still get to count this as a successful conviction for their stats, and the state of California can use a limited prison spot on a criminal who poses an actual danger to the public. It's not like this guy is going to make a habit of murder by megaphone. It's hard to muster up much outrage when this was a one in a million unlucky outcome from a typical scuffle at a protest.
odd_primes
29d ago
Canada did that after a high-profile sexual assault case imploded during trial thanks to the defense catching the accusers lying and colluding behind the scenes to coordinate their testimony. The solution, to prevent such an embarrassment going forward, was to hold mandatory pre-trial hearings where the defense is forced to lay all their cards on the table ahead of time if they want records admitted as evidence, making it even easier for accusers to tailor their testimony.
Hasn't this been pretty thoroughly repudiated by more recent studies? Yet it seems to live on in legal activism circles and anti-drug PSAs.
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