Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate, Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center., Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: I have told you over and over that I see the endless Republican rantings about Democrats being the reason crime has gone up as a political fraud. Paul Krugman explains this, and I agree with him.
Credit: Matt Rourke/Associated Press
During last week’s Oklahoma gubernatorial debate Joy Hofmeister, the surprisingly competitive Democratic candidate, addressed Kevin Stitt, the Republican incumbent, who — like many in his party — is running as a champion of law and order.
“The fact is the rates of violent crime in Oklahoma are higher under your watch than New York and California,” she declared.
Stitt responded by laughing, and turned to the audience: “Oklahomans, do you believe we have higher crime than New York or California?”
But Hofmeister was completely correct. In fact, when it comes to homicide, the most reliably measured form of violent crime, it isn’t even close: In 2020 Oklahoma’s murder rate was almost 50 percent higher than California’s, almost double New York’s, and this ranking probably hasn’t changed.
Was Stitt unaware of this fact? Or was he just counting on his audience’s ignorance? If it was the latter, he may, alas, have made the right call. Public perceptions about crime are often at odds with reality. And in this election year Republicans are trying […]
Stephan: The Republican bloviation on crime is not fact-based. Here are some facts. Why the Democrats can't seem to put together an effective response to the Republicans, I think, arises from their failure to understand what is motivating voters.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on June 18, 2020 during a roundtable discussion with governors and small business owners on the reopening of America’s small businesses. Credit: Shealah Craighead
In the 2022 midterms, countless Republican candidates — hoping to distract voters from the abortion issue — have been focusing heavily on violent crime and blaming Democrats for the crime rates in major cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans and Philadelphia. Crime was one of the subjects that Democratic nominee Joy Hofmeister and incumbent Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt debated on Wednesday, October 19, when Hofmeister reminded him how high the murder rates are in some red states.
Hofmeister told Stitt, “The fact is, the rates of violent crime are higher in Oklahoma, under your watch, than in New York and California. That’s a fact.”
Stitt disagreed, not surprisingly. But when podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen tweeted video of that part of the debate, he illustrated her point by also tweeting a study released in March 2022 by the centrist Democratic think tank Read the Full Article
Stephan: How interesting it is to contrast the differing cultural visions of Canada and the United States when it comes to guns. In both countries, so similar in so many ways, there are a lot of guns held by citizens. But as this act by Trudeau shows, where Canadians like guns, they also understand there are limits for a safe civil society. Whereas in the U.S., we tolerate the muder of tens of thousands each year, 120 school shooting so far just this year, and yet we still scream about any attempt to create limits.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Credit: Naresh777 / Shutterstock
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is placing a nationwide freeze on the sale, purchase and transfer of handguns, effective immediately.
The handgun freeze is the latest in an ongoing battle among Canadian lawmakers over gun control measures. In parliament, legislators are still debating the passage of a bill, introduced in May, that would be one of the strongest pieces of gun control legislation in decades. The new handgun freeze is an “immediate action” the Trudeau administration said it is taking as conversation around the bill continues.
“When people are being killed, when people are being hurt, responsible leadership requires us to act,” Trudeau said at a news conference on Friday, announcing the new measure. “Recently again, we have seen too many examples of horrific tragedies involving firearms.”EMBED
In addition to a ban on handgun sales, it is also now forbidden to bring newly acquired handguns into Canada. The freeze is being met with elation from gun reform groups who welcomed the immediate […]
Stephan: I see this report as the opening cord of a massive social transformation, and will follow this closely.
The research paper on which this report is based can be found in Nature Photonics https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-022-01082-z
A new photonic chip design has achieved a world record data transmission speed of 1.84 petabits per second Credit: Depositphotos
The speed record for data transmission using a single light source and optical chip has been shattered once again. Engineers have transmitted data at a blistering rate of 1.84 petabits per second (Pbit/s), almost twice the global internet traffic per second.
It’s hard to overstate just how fast 1.84 Pbit/s really is. Your home internet is probably getting a few hundred megabits per second, or if you’re really lucky, you might be on a 1-gigabit or even 10-gigabit connection – but 1 petabit is a million gigabits. It’s more than 20 times faster than ESnet6, the upcoming upgrade to the scientific network used by the likes of NASA.
Even more impressive is the fact this new speed record was set using a single light source and a single optical chip. An infrared laser is beamed into a chip called a frequency comb that splits the light into hundreds of different frequencies, or colors. Data can then be encoded […]
Stephan: Welcome to America, where about a third of the country, the MAGAts are actively trying to destroy the nation's democracy. Armed vigilantes egged on by Republican politicians, are hovering around ballot boxes, trying to scare people away from voting. They remind me of little girls dressing up, or little boys in Superman costumes. This is exactly what the Nazis did in the 1930s in Germany, and it destroyed German democracy. I think it is a toss-up as to whether we will be a democracy by 2024. If you want to preserve democracy in this country you better not only vote, but volunteer to work in some way in preserving the election process. We are 15 days out, and you will notice the silence of Republican officials condemning these actions. Inflation comes and goes, when democracy goes it's gone.
Two armed individuals dressed in tactical gear surveilled a ballot drop box in Mesa, Arizona, on Friday. Credit: Maricopa County Elections Department
Armed individuals dressed in tactical gear are surveilling ballot drop boxes in Arizona, raising concerns about intimidation during early voting in the midterm elections.
The Maricopa County Elections Department said two people with weapons were spotted at a ballot drop box in Mesa on Friday. The two wore masks to obscure their faces and left the area after the county sheriff’s office responded.
And on Saturday night, four people ― two of them reportedly armed with handguns ― got into a confrontation at the same drop box when another individual arrived and attempted to record their license plate information.
“He chased over at me and pushed me and grabbed me as I was pulling the cloth of his license plate to video his license plate,” the woman, who was dressed as a nun, told KTVK News.
“I just felt fair is fair — they’re videotaping voters’ license plates, so I didn’t […]
