Random Links of the Day for Wōdnesdæg

[pyesetz]

Weather.  The lowest low in the recorded history of meteorological lows is currently in the Bering Sea.  This is expected to produce unseasonably-warm weather for me throughout January, by sequestering all the cold out West.

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Racism:  In Boston they have now taken down a statue of a Black man kneeling before a Republican.  The original statue in Washington DC had been paid for in 1876 by freed Blacks, but this Boston copy from 1879 was funded by a “circus showman” who had white skin — the colouring of the money-donors’ skins is supposed to explain why the two statues are being treated differently.

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Incompetance?  These numbers do not add up.  Only 87% of the people expressed one of the three opinions about how financial institutions have been responding to the pandemic, yet somehow this chart-row extends all the way across and is labelled “100%” at the bottom right.  All the charts in the linked article are like this, but Fig. 1 is where it’s most egregious.
      I think they should either include an outlined white box in each row for the “no opinion” people or just rescale each row to be 100% of something: “Of the people who expressed an opinion, 29% approve of how financial institutions have been handling the pandemic”.
      This chart is from Probit, Inc., which is part of EKOS Research Associates.  These people present themselves as a professional polling company.  They seem to be implying in this article that they were paid for this work by the Government of Canada using tax dollars.  I expect clearer, less obviously-wrong charts from suppliers to Her Majesty’s Government, monarch in right of Canada (Head of the Commonwealth, Fidei defensatrix).

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Insanity?  In the news: Anthony Quinn Warner’s ex-lawyer tried to warn cops over a year ago that Warner was building a bomb in his RV.  Being a lawyer, he now claims that the story should be about Warner’s ex-girlfriend, whom he apparently was representing at the time when he told the cops that he (still) represented Warner.  But the girlfriend seemed suicidal so there wasn’t much the cops could do with the wild story about her ex-boyfriend.
      Pic unrelated, because I couldn’t find any usable pictures of Attorney Raymond Throckmorton of Nashville TN.

Comments

[rain_gryphon]

The whole Nashville thing is turning into a veritable cornucopia of strangeness. Christmas afternoon/evening, I went poking through the local news sources. They already had the villain's name and address, and that he'd given his house to his GF. However, the picture they had was of this strange-looking coloured man, with a tall, narrow skull, and his face sagged, like it was melting off the skull. He looked like a Dick Tracy villain. Then, next day, he had become this white, Johnny Cash lookalike.

Then, you have the Nashville Police Chief. The man has the most prominent sagittal crest that I've ever seen on a human. It's visually remarkable.

Lastly, one of the fire trucks that responded had a battalion logo of a flaming skull with an eyepatch and fire helmet. Admittedly, fireman is kind of a macho profession, but still...

[pyesetz]

Nashville's Police Chief, Steve Anderson, retired from the Force after 45 years of service.  He was considered a major obstacle to bringing genuine change to policing in Nashville.  I bet he's really glad he did this back in June.  He was replaced by Interim Chief John Drake, who is apparently now officially appointed.

What's a good picture of Chief Drake's "saggital crest"?  I see a fellow whose ethnicity includes a head-shape with a very rounded top (but I don't know which ethnicities have that).  He doesn't look all that much like a saggital crest, which would be a narrower top ridge.

[rain_gryphon]

Well, the picture that Fox had up, showing him sitting behind his desk, with the PoV looking down at him, and clearly showing the top of his head, is gone. You'll note that most pictures seem to be from a low angle, with no top key light (admittedly, not uncommon for bald men), or else with the top of his head washed out by excessive lighting. The top of his head had a literal crest, like one of those helmets that the French wore in 1940 when they were surrendering.

The mad bomber apparently believed that aliens were infiltrating the government. Perhaps the Chief contributed to that impression?