Monthly Archives: February 2018

“In the event, I will do everything in my power to keep your child safe.”

all these ghosts (tumblr): I’m your kid’s teacher, and I would take a bullet for your child. But I wish you wouldn’t ask me to.

“So when adults tell me, “I have the right to own a gun“ , all I can hear is: “My right to own a gun outweighs your students’ right to be alive.“ All I can hear is: “My right to own a gun is more important than kindergarteners feeling safe at school.“ All I can hear is: “Mine. Mine. Mine.“
[…]
We live in a country where children are acceptable casualties. Every time someone tells me about the second amendment I want to give them a history lesson. I also want to ask them: in what universe is your right to walk into a Wal-Mart to buy a gun more important than the lives of hundreds of children shot dead in their schools?

Parents send their kids to school every day with this shadow. Teachers live with the shadow. We work alongside it. We plan for it. In the event.

In the event, parents know that their children’s teachers will do everything in their power to keep them safe. We plan for it.

And when those plans don’t work, teachers die protecting their students.

We love your children. That’s why we’re here. Some of us love the subject we teach, too, and that’s important, but all of us love your kids.”

Link via MetaFilter.

“The indictment is a reminder that Trump won a tainted election”

Mother Jones: Mueller’s Latest Indictment Shows Trump Has Helped Putin Cover Up a Crime. “By continuing to cast doubt on Russian involvement, the president is helping the Kremlin get away with its election attack.”

“This means that Mueller’s probe could yield additional information regarding the details and breadth of the Russian campaign to intervene in the election to assist Trump. The president, who has yet to say anything in public showing he is committed to preventing Russian meddling in this year’s election, can continue to dismiss such material as “fake news“ produced by a “witch hunt.“ (According to the Washington Post, in his first year as president, Trump said the Russia probe was a Democratic hoax 44 times.) Hours after Friday’s indictment, Trump issued a statement once again dismissing the Russia investigation for producing “outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories.“ But with this indictment—and possibly others—Mueller has demonstrated that Trump, by refusing to acknowledge fully the Russian assault of 2016, has been helping Putin cover up a crime. “

Link via dangerousmeta!.

The total number of school-children killed by bullets to date (as of February 1, 2018) is 218 school-children.

Add 17 to the total, which now rises to 235 (source).

Another school shooting in the USA. No need to link, it’s all over the internet. For this foreigner who has spent her whole life in a country were very few people have guns and where regulations are strict (and became even stricter after the Winnenden school shooting in 2009 in which 15 students were killed) it is still incomprehensible why the majority of US politicians (and citizens? voters?) still support the current status quo and the second amendment.

Garret proposes to take over the NRA. I wonder if that would work.

Superhero-vision camera

NPR all tech considered: Super Sensitive Sensor Sees What You Can’t.

“A team of engineers at Dartmouth College has invented a semiconductor chip that could someday give the camera in your phone the kind of vision even a superhero would envy. […] Fossum calls his new technology QIS, for Quanta Image Sensor. Instead of pixels, QIS chips have what Fossum and his colleagues call “jots.” Each jot can detect a single particle of light, called a photon.”