A bumper sticker of hate

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Fig. 1. Photograph by author, August 25, 2020.

What kind of an asshole puts a bumper sticker like this (figure 1) on the back of their car? I take that question on in a new blog post entitled, “The Donald Trump supporters’ campaign message: Fuck Your Feelings.”


Tropical Storms

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Fig. 2. 72-hour gif of satellite imagery for the eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico, as of August 26, 2020 at 8:01 am EDT.

Laura now appears to be setting its own course (figure 2) and may graze both the Louisiana coast and the extreme eastern Texas coast.


Walbridge Fire isn’t quite yet a memory

Walbridge Fire

There are almost no evacuation warning areas left. What remains are some residual fires and some mandatory evacuation zones and one evacuation warning zone (figure 1).
FireShot Capture 310 - County of Sonoma Fire Incident Map - sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com.png
Fig. 1. Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map taken by author on August 25, 2020 at 9:58 pm EDT (6:58 pm PDT).

Barring adverse developments, I’ll probably stop paying attention here.


Tropical Storms

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Fig. 2. 72-hour gif of satellite imagery for the eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico, as of August 25, 2020, 10:01 pm EDT.

It’s still a bit ambiguous to my eye, but Laura appears to possibly be on a more westerly track than the one followed by Marco (figure 2). My guess would now be landfall in Louisiana or Mississippi. I’m expecting a better idea tomorrow, yeah, probably just as the storm actually is making landfall.


Abolish the police

Pandemic

This probably isn’t another hydroxychloroquine. It looks like blood plasma therapy might be effective for some COVID-19 patients. We don’t know how many. We don’t know how often. But it probably isn’t 35 percent of patients.[1]

“For the first time ever, I feel like official people in communications and people at the F.D.A. grossly misrepresented data about a therapy,” said Dr. Walid Gellad, who leads the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh.[2]

Katie Thomas and Sheri Fink, “F.D.A. ‘Grossly Misrepresented’ Blood Plasma Data, Scientists Say,” New York Times, August 24, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/health/fda-blood-plasma.html


Police

There is a new blog post entitled, “Don’t just defund the police. Abolish them.”

Stephen Maturen, “Wisconsin calls out National Guard after unrest over police shooting of Black man,” Reuters, August 24, 2020, https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-race-usa-wisconsin/wisconsin-calls-out-national-guard-after-unrest-over-police-shooting-of-black-man-idUKKBN25K0CP


Walbridge Fire

At this point, it’s very much looking to me like residual smoke, rather than fire itself, is the principle concern here. Though there have been no further downgrades of evacuation zones since 6:00 pm EDT (3:00 pm PDT) yesterday, the number of active fires seems to be diminishing (figure 1).
FireShot Capture 307 - County of Sonoma Fire Incident Map - sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com.png
Fig. 1. Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map taken by author, August 25, 2020, at 8:04 am EDT (5:04 am PDT).

The threat of lightning[3] should also be diminishing as that low pressure area, now roughly west of Monterey, is looking pretty weak (figure 2), but I would be cautious about this for at least one more day.
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Fig. 2. 72-hour gif of satellite imagery for the western U.S.

Tropical storms

Marco is gone, its remnants appear over the Atlantic; Laura is entering the Gulf of Mexico and looks to me likely to follow roughly the same track as Marco, hitting the Florida panhandle (figure 3).
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Fig. 3. 72-hour gif of satellite imagery for the eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico


  1. [1]Katie Thomas and Sheri Fink, “F.D.A. ‘Grossly Misrepresented’ Blood Plasma Data, Scientists Say,” New York Times, August 24, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/health/fda-blood-plasma.html
  2. [2]Katie Thomas and Sheri Fink, “F.D.A. ‘Grossly Misrepresented’ Blood Plasma Data, Scientists Say,” New York Times, August 24, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/24/health/fda-blood-plasma.html
  3. [3]Michael McGough, “More weekend thunder, lightning in Northern California forecasts stoke wildfire concerns,” Sacramento Bee, August 21, 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/weather-news/article245139635.html

Maybe my Mom can go home soon

Walbridge Fire

FireShot Capture 304 - County of Sonoma Fire Incident Map - sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com.png
Fig. 1 Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map taken by author, August 24, 2012, 9:07 pm EDT (6:07 PDT).

Mandatory evacuation zones continue to recede (figure 1) but the possibility of lightning[1] remains (figure 2).
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Fig. 2. 72-hour gif of satellite imagery for the western U.S.

The low pressure area responsible for that lightning risk appears to be substantially weakening and centered southwest of Monterey.


Tropical storms

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Fig. 3. 72-hour gif of satellite imagery for the eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico.

Marco has come ashore in the Florida panhandle and is entering Georgia, seemingly on track for South Carolina, while Laura is pretty close to where Marco was when it entered the Gulf of Mexico (figure 3).


  1. [1]Michael McGough, “More weekend thunder, lightning in Northern California forecasts stoke wildfire concerns,” Sacramento Bee, August 21, 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/weather-news/article245139635.html

The Talk

It wasn’t that long ago, I had a young Black man in my car who had received only a mild form of “The Talk,” that is, the conversation Black parents very unfortunately need to have with their children about what to do when confronted by police.

I explained to him that cops will lie, that they will just make shit up. Don’t believe me?

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Public Defendering

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23 Aug, 14 tweets, 3 min read

Thread about my retaliatory arrest:

6 police units arrived at my mom’s house at 5:30am, 3 different police agencies showed up, all exits from my mom’s house were barricaded, had officers surrounding the house, 1/6

my mom saw through the ring speaker that two officers were sniffing through their license plates under the carport. Mom “may I help you?”thru the ring. They said they had a warrant for me but refused to say what for. Mom told them that I was a public defender and at court. 2/6

I immediately leave my house so not to put my husband or my dog at risk should they get the right address. Driving on the road, I’m anxious that I’ll be targeted and stopped to execute the warrant.

Make it to my office, immediately start hiding out in my colleagues office who has no fucks to give should shit go sideways — there we plan to stay in the office to avoid arrest while figuring out exactly what is going on. My colleague begins by calling the PD with the warrant—

The officer who answered the phone knew me and that they were out trying to execute a warrant for me. When asked what the warrant was for they said they didn’t have to say. When asked for a copy— they said they did not have authorization to provide us with one.

The conversation switched drastically after those two questions to — “where is she? At her office. Bring her to us so we can execute the warrant and arrest her. My colleague told the police officer that would not happen without more information on the warrant.

About 5 minutes later the phone rings, my colleague answers and hands the phone to me. The guy who was trying to execute the warrant was on the phone telling me that this will get ugly if I continue to avoid arrest. Again, I am at my officer and in court at 2pm.

At this point their refusal to come to the courthouse to arrest me or arrest me at my office—was making me think something really sketchy was going on.

I was working on a attempted murder of a police officer case representing the defendant. It seemed far fetched but I was starting to think it was retaliation for that.

I called a few ADAs I knew would do favors for me and asked them to look into it. They later reported that the police wouldn’t give them any information about what the warrant was for— nothing. The ADAs checked the warrant system and a warrant for me didn’t exist.

“When the ADAs called me back they said the same thing “Don’t know what’s going on but this is retaliation about that case. They won’t tell us anything about the warrant but it doesn’t exist. You need to stay somewhere other than your house tonight.

Don’t let them arrest you. I don’t know exactly what is going on but I do know they intend to not release you and fuck with you. The cop mentioned 30 days but They are going to try to hold you for as long as they can.

I plan on finishing them but imma wait to see how much interest I get before I bother typing it all out for nothing

I’m going to finish, I swear. I’m just falling asleep and to do the remainder of the story justice I need to finish it in the morning, so stay tuned.[1]

The cops are trying this on someone they know to be a lawyer, someone they know will know her rights, someone they know has the means to check their claims. Consider what they will do to someone, anyone, who doesn’t have the privilege and the access that this public defender has.


  1. [1]Public Defendering [pseud.], [Twitter thread], August 23, 2020, https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1297405642848837633.html

Organizations for people of color, betraying people of color

Updates

  1. Originally published, August 23, 2020, at 9:38 pm.
  2. August 24, 5:50 am:
    • But for the predicted lightning storms,[1] with matching development now appearing, the Walbridge Fire looks more and more like something in the rear view mirror. I have replaced the screenshot of the Sonoma County Fire Incident Map with one taken at 5:26 am and updated the satellite imagery.
    • Similarly, I have updated the satellite imagery for the eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico. Marco appears to be making landfall in the Florida panhandle. Laura is now south of Cuba and looks to me like it could be caught in the same pattern that shifted Marco east. That pattern is itself shifting east so Laura would likely hit further east than Marco.

Ridesharing

It’s a sadly familiar story: Historically, some unions have been co-opted by employers, helping in their own emasculation, while union officials feather their own beds. Only this time, it’s organizations that should advocate for people of color, advocating California’s Proposition 22, arguing that ridesharing provides access to transportation and work for people of color. What they mean is that that work pays an estimated $5.64 per hour in California.[2]

These organizations ought to be ashamed of themselves. But hey, their beds are feathered.

Kim Bojórquez, “Why are Black and Latino advocacy groups backing Uber, Lyft in California labor law fight?” Sacramento Bee, August 23, 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article244812707.html


Walbridge Fire

FireShot Capture 301 - County of Sonoma Fire Incident Map - sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com.png
Fig. 1. Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map, taken by author, August 23, 2020, 9:23 pm.

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Fig. 2. 72-hour gif of western U.S. satellite imagery.

The mandatory evacuation zones are beginning to recede a bit as the active fires look sparser (figure 1). Thanks to lightning forecasts, we’re not out of the woods.[3]


Tropical Storms

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Fig. 3. 72-hour gif of satellite imagery for the Eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico.


  1. [1]Michael McGough, “More weekend thunder, lightning in Northern California forecasts stoke wildfire concerns,” Sacramento Bee, August 21, 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/weather-news/article245139635.html
  2. [2]Kim Bojórquez, “Why are Black and Latino advocacy groups backing Uber, Lyft in California labor law fight?” Sacramento Bee, August 23, 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article244812707.html
  3. [3]Michael McGough, “More weekend thunder, lightning in Northern California forecasts stoke wildfire concerns,” Sacramento Bee, August 21, 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/weather-news/article245139635.html

It might be time to start keeping track of those seven signs of the apocalypse

Tropical Storms

If you think you’re seeing double (figure 1), it’s because you are. I didn’t quite manage to scale the forecast cone map for Marco[1] to line up with the forecast cone map for Laura[2] correctly. It’s only close. Sorry. Marco is also the faint one—I had to reduce the opacity on one image so the other could be seen.
laura-marco-2020-08-23.png
Fig. 1. Forecast zone maps for Tropical Storms Laura[3] and Marco[4] overlaid.

The upshot is that Marco hits first, probably on Monday. Laura follows, probably late Wednesday or early Thursday. Both are forecast to hit roughly the same piece of Louisiana coast as hurricanes.
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Fig. 2. 72-hour gif of Eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico satellite imagery.


Walbridge Fire

FireShot Capture 295 - County of Sonoma Fire Incident Map - sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com.png
Fig. 3. Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map taken by author on August 23, 2020, at 8:41 am EDT (5:41 am PDT).

I don’t think I’d noticed before that the mandatory evacuation zones extend as far south as Guerneville Road, northeast of Graton, but on the other side of Highway 116. Zone 4C1 is mostly vineyards to the south, but includes a lot of the forest I was worried about with Kincade last year.

The good news for the moment is that the active fires seem a bit sparser. The bad news is that lightning projected for tonight.[5]
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Fig. 4. 72-hour gif of Western U.S. satellite imagery.

You see that swirling thing off the coast near Santa Barbara (figure 4)? That’d be the culprit.


  1. [1]National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center, “Tropical Storm Marco,” August 23, 2020, https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/093347.shtml
  2. [2]National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center, “Tropical Storm Laura,” August 23, 2020, https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at3+shtml/114508.shtml
  3. [3]National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center, “Tropical Storm Laura,” August 23, 2020, https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at3+shtml/114508.shtml
  4. [4]National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center, “Tropical Storm Marco,” August 23, 2020, https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at4+shtml/093347.shtml
  5. [5]Michael McGough, “More weekend thunder, lightning in Northern California forecasts stoke wildfire concerns,” Sacramento Bee, August 21, 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/weather-news/article245139635.html

Ain’t the climate crisis fun?

Walbridge Fire

Much of Healdsburg and parts of Windsor are now included in evacuation warning zones, which extend to the very northern extent of Graton and Occidental (figure 1).
FireShot Capture 292 - County of Sonoma Fire Incident Map - sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com.png
Fig. 1. Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map, taken by author on August 22, 2020, at 9:11 pm EDT (6:11 pm PDT).


Tropical Storms

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Fig. 2. 72-hour gif of satellite imagery for the eastern U.S. and Gulf of Mexico.


Giant Meteor Small Asteroid in 2020

It turns out an asteroid is on track to pass by earth on the day before election day. You might call it a dark horse in the race with an estimated probability of hitting us of a mere 0.41 percent.[1]

Jay Croft and Melissa Alonso, “Oh, great: NASA says an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day,” CNN, August 22, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/22/us/asteroid-earth-november-2020-scn-trnd/index.html


  1. [1]Jay Croft and Melissa Alonso, “Oh, great: NASA says an asteroid is headed our way right before Election Day,” CNN, August 22, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/22/us/asteroid-earth-november-2020-scn-trnd/index.html

Cops, polls, and very old voter suppression tactics

Horse race

Rosalind S. Helderman, Josh Dawsey, and Matt Zapotosky, “Trump’s suggestion of deploying law enforcement officials to monitor polls raises specter of voting intimidation,” Washington Post, August 21, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-suggestion-of-deploying-law-enforcement-officials-to-monitor-polls-raises-specter-of-intimidation/2020/08/21/4ff6407a-e3bb-11ea-8dd2-d07812bf00f7_story.html


Walbridge Fire

FireShot Capture 289 - County of Sonoma Fire Incident Map - sonomacounty.maps.arcgis.com.png
Fig. 1. Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map taken by author on August 22, 2020 at 9:12 am EDT, 6:12 am PDT.


The problem of police handling protests against the police

California

Summer Lin, “How are wildfires named? What’s the Lightning Complex? Answers for California fire season,” Sacramento Bee, August 20, 2020, https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article245117530.html


Pittsburgh

I’m not sure if this is more bullshit or if Bill Peduto is climbing down[1] from being an asshole about protests at his house.[2] In a way, it’s inherently bullshit and can’t be otherwise because police are, in many ways, fundamentally a wrong answer.[3] And it certainly doesn’t help when Peduto claims,

My job is the only job in the city that has to be in that middle and has to be able to recognize the rights of everyone. And yes, that makes me unpopular to both sides, but if I wasn’t unpopular to both sides, I would not be doing my job.[4]

If there is one thing that can be said about the “middle road” in any contest of ideas, it is that it is guaranteed to be incoherent. In this case, it’s at the very least problematic to (still) have police enforcing controls on protests when police are in fact a large part of the problem protesters are protesting against with the racial justice movement—anything they do other than withdraw is guaranteed to further exacerbate protesters’ anger. But Peduto is changing how protests will be handled;[5] I hope it’s really an improvement. But the problem really is more fundamental than the command structure.

Andy Sheehan, “Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto Makes Leadership Changes In Response To Police’s Handling Of Protests,” KDKA, August 21, 2020, https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/08/21/pittsburgh-mayor-bill-peduto-police-changes/


  1. [1]Andy Sheehan, “Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto Makes Leadership Changes In Response To Police’s Handling Of Protests,” KDKA, August 21, 2020, https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/08/21/pittsburgh-mayor-bill-peduto-police-changes/
  2. [2]Megan Guza And Abby Mackey, “Police disperse overnight protesters at Peduto’s house, mayor decries neighborhood harassment,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, August 19, 2020, https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-allegheny/police-disperse-overnight-protesters-at-pedutos-house-mayor-decries-neighborhood-harassment/
  3. [3]David Benfell, “On police,” Not Housebroken, August 12, 2020, https://disunitedstates.org/2020/08/10/on-police/
  4. [4]Bill Peduto, quoted in Andy Sheehan, “Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto Makes Leadership Changes In Response To Police’s Handling Of Protests,” KDKA, August 21, 2020, https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/08/21/pittsburgh-mayor-bill-peduto-police-changes/
  5. [5]Andy Sheehan, “Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto Makes Leadership Changes In Response To Police’s Handling Of Protests,” KDKA, August 21, 2020, https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/08/21/pittsburgh-mayor-bill-peduto-police-changes/