Police officers in Los Angeles have long faced accusations of institutional racism, but now it appears their dogs may be unjustly discriminatory, too.
A new report focusing on the Canine Special Detail of the LA Sherriff’s Department (LASD) has uncovered a vast increase in the number of minority individuals bitten by police dogs since 2004.
And in the first six months of this year, every single victim of a bite by a LASD dog was African-American or Latino.The data was published in a new report by the Police Assessment Resource Centre (Parc), a Los Angeles-based non-profit organisation, devoted to “advancing effective and accountable policing”.
For an up-coming “Professional Development” day, all teachers in my district were notified that we’d have to sign up for one of several “technical” classes to be held throughout the district on that day. Sign-up is managed through a website the district maintains that catalogs up-coming courses and tracks the courses you’ve already taken. Each course is limited to 30 people and we were warned that signing up would be like buying tickets to a concert -- the best courses would fill fast. Sign-up would begin Friday at 3:30 pm -- after most teachers have left for the weekend. Since there was only once course that interested me, I wanted to sign-up at the first possible moment and avoid getting stuck with a class that would be a waste of my time.
The designated minute arrived, I clicked on the login button, and…waited. It took a full 5 minutes for the page to load. Please understand that this page is little more than a banner with six menu options. I clicked the “catalog” menu button and…waited. Another few minutes and the first page of the catalog loaded -- none of the new courses were on it. I clicked through to the second (and last) page, and….waited. The second page loads and…no new courses. WTF? How am I supposed to register for a course when the courses aren’t in the catalog? I refresh the catalog and while waiting for it to reload, I check my email. There’s a message from the Director of Educational Technology asking everyone to log out of the site for 10 minutes. I try to logout and get a 503 error -- Service Unavailable. I restart my browser and wait 10 minutes. The system is still just as slow, but now there’s a third page to the catalog! After another 4 or 5 minutes I manage to get that last catalog page to load, only to find that only a few of the courses are on it. The only one that would not be a complete waste of time is “Google Docs -- Advanced”. Where are the other courses? I check my email again and find another new message: we’ve overloaded the website, we’re stopping registration. New Plan: elementary teachers can register on Monday at 3:00, secondary teachers on Tuesday. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Sorry for the inconvenience? You couldn’t anticipate the demand after the build-up you gave? What kind of website can’t handle 900 simultaneous logins? That’s 40 minutes of my life I’ll never get back! Are these the same people who designed the Healthcare.gov website? I decided to look at the code for the first page you reach after logging in -- remember, this is just a banner with a few menu items. There are about 350 lines of code and the page calls 21 scripts. As a web-coder I’m a pretty good plumber, but that seems a bit excessive to me.
Later that day another email arrived announcing the new head of IT (not to be confused with head of educational technology). He has degrees in English and History and experience in Educational Technology. I don’t think things are going to get better anytime soon.
Unlike Sven, I was able to (mostly) create an account at Healthcare.gov. Unfortunately I don’t have access to the email account vilenin@kremlin.gov, so comrade Lenin won’t be able to finish creating his account.
Gummint is as gummint does. Ditto publick skulez; crikey!
He has degrees in English and History and experience in Educational Technology.
Translation: He was in the A/V club in junior high school. Until he got booted for burning too many filmstrips with teh projector bulb and/or doing a sub-par job cleaning overhead projector sheets.
Wait until he decides to start, um, “reprogramming” the A/V devices in your classroom. Or fix the fume hood. 😉
Oh, no -- those tasks are for the peons, not lofty Directors. I’m sure he’ll just make lofty pronouncements and give weighty directives. He’ll also probably try to fertilize the server farm.
Reports from around the country began pouring in around 9 a.m. on Saturday that customers’ EBT cards were not working in stores.
The glitch, however, did not appear to be part of the government shutdown. At 2 p.m., an EBT customer service representative told CBS Boston that the system was currently down for a computer system upgrade.
The representative said the glitch is affecting people nationwide. She could not say when officials expected the system to be restored.
People calling the customer service line were being told to call back later.
State officials said they were preparing a statement to further explain the issue.
The federal EBT website was unavailable due to the government shutdown.
That last sentence represents teh sprinkles on teh icing of that particular schadenfreudetort.
I’ll bet some supermarket checkers had a profoundly unpleasant day today.
If you go to the Twitchy home page, you’ll find lots of “people of color” using all sorts of foul language as they predict riots because their food stamps are unavailable. That would be people with internet-connected phones, tats, and designer shades whining about not getting their goobermint cheese. I guess cutting expenses and prioritizing expenses is something they have in common with the Feds -- neither one has a clue how it’s done.
It would absolutely have a salutary effect on my bruxism. (Because clenching my jaw is too-often the only thing preventing my being quite ugly to someone eating better than us on our money.)
I also like the idea of replacing the virtual EBT button on POS terminals with one which reads “MOOCHER” in flashing red letters.
Caturday O Grabbin’!
“The only question I ever thought was hard was do I like Captain Kirk or Picard”
-- Weird Al’s ” White & Nerdy”
Olive that song!
Caturday compliments from sunny, disobedient and Happy Larryville, GN!
Hola, RabBeet!
Kirk or Picard? Hmmmm…neither. 😉
I shouldn’t be amused by this, but fark it:
That’s probably raaaaaciiiiiiiist: sticks => birch switches => whippings => SLABERY!!1 [sic]
(Or, as BrendaK mockingly couches it: “multi-generational PTSD”; hee!)
No ‘probably’ about it; of course it is.
T’anks, Sven…I feel better knowing with certainty. 😉
Oh…g’mornin’!
Glad to help, Fatwa, and good morning!
Altho I do feel a little cheated, Mr Arbuckle. I thought you’d be returning to SoCal for a visit this summer.
And good morning to you guys, Rabbit and Paddy. May your Saturday be wonderful and productive.
Happy Caturday, Gerbil Nation!
Good morning, RabBiT and Fatwa!
Racist canines? Who would’ve thunk it?
Hey, Paddy!
Don’t get me started on incisors…and those dastardly molars.
Well once again I am unable to create an account for my free Obamacare coverage. It’s like some kind of cruel twisted joke.
Being a bad gerbil and all, I’m taking much perverse satisfaction in Washington’s failure to reopen the govt.
Here’s my Rant of the Day:
For an up-coming “Professional Development” day, all teachers in my district were notified that we’d have to sign up for one of several “technical” classes to be held throughout the district on that day. Sign-up is managed through a website the district maintains that catalogs up-coming courses and tracks the courses you’ve already taken. Each course is limited to 30 people and we were warned that signing up would be like buying tickets to a concert -- the best courses would fill fast. Sign-up would begin Friday at 3:30 pm -- after most teachers have left for the weekend. Since there was only once course that interested me, I wanted to sign-up at the first possible moment and avoid getting stuck with a class that would be a waste of my time.
The designated minute arrived, I clicked on the login button, and…waited. It took a full 5 minutes for the page to load. Please understand that this page is little more than a banner with six menu options. I clicked the “catalog” menu button and…waited. Another few minutes and the first page of the catalog loaded -- none of the new courses were on it. I clicked through to the second (and last) page, and….waited. The second page loads and…no new courses. WTF? How am I supposed to register for a course when the courses aren’t in the catalog? I refresh the catalog and while waiting for it to reload, I check my email. There’s a message from the Director of Educational Technology asking everyone to log out of the site for 10 minutes. I try to logout and get a 503 error -- Service Unavailable. I restart my browser and wait 10 minutes. The system is still just as slow, but now there’s a third page to the catalog! After another 4 or 5 minutes I manage to get that last catalog page to load, only to find that only a few of the courses are on it. The only one that would not be a complete waste of time is “Google Docs -- Advanced”. Where are the other courses? I check my email again and find another new message: we’ve overloaded the website, we’re stopping registration. New Plan: elementary teachers can register on Monday at 3:00, secondary teachers on Tuesday. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Sorry for the inconvenience? You couldn’t anticipate the demand after the build-up you gave? What kind of website can’t handle 900 simultaneous logins? That’s 40 minutes of my life I’ll never get back! Are these the same people who designed the Healthcare.gov website? I decided to look at the code for the first page you reach after logging in -- remember, this is just a banner with a few menu items. There are about 350 lines of code and the page calls 21 scripts. As a web-coder I’m a pretty good plumber, but that seems a bit excessive to me.
Later that day another email arrived announcing the new head of IT (not to be confused with head of educational technology). He has degrees in English and History and experience in Educational Technology. I don’t think things are going to get better anytime soon.
< /rant off >
Unlike Sven, I was able to (mostly) create an account at Healthcare.gov. Unfortunately I don’t have access to the email account vilenin@kremlin.gov, so comrade Lenin won’t be able to finish creating his account.
Gummint is as gummint does. Ditto publick skulez; crikey!
Translation: He was in the A/V club in junior high school. Until he got booted for burning too many filmstrips with teh projector bulb and/or doing a sub-par job cleaning overhead projector sheets.
Wait until he decides to start, um, “reprogramming” the A/V devices in your classroom. Or fix the fume hood. 😉
Oh, no -- those tasks are for the peons, not lofty Directors. I’m sure he’ll just make lofty pronouncements and give weighty directives. He’ll also probably try to fertilize the server farm.
Oh…he has “experience” in, how you say, animal husbandry, too?
Buwahahahahaha!
How about “lpberia@nkvd.ru.org”?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…
Computer Upgrade Blamed For Nationwide EBT System Shutdown On Saturday.
That last sentence represents teh sprinkles on teh icing of that particular schadenfreudetort.
I’ll bet some supermarket checkers had a profoundly unpleasant day today.
If you go to the Twitchy home page, you’ll find lots of “people of color” using all sorts of foul language as they predict riots because their food stamps are unavailable. That would be people with internet-connected phones, tats, and designer shades whining about not getting their goobermint cheese. I guess cutting expenses and prioritizing expenses is something they have in common with the Feds -- neither one has a clue how it’s done.
I denounce ma’ sef!
I’m down with this idea:
It would absolutely have a salutary effect on my bruxism. (Because clenching my jaw is too-often the only thing preventing my being quite ugly to someone eating better than us on our money.)
I also like the idea of replacing the virtual EBT button on POS terminals with one which reads “MOOCHER” in flashing red letters.