…there’s a sort of standing joke about the UK & the US being divided by a common language…&…we seem to have had a striking example of that this week…involving guns…& the police

The Metropolitan Police said on Monday that some officers were no longer carrying firearms “while they consider their position.” In a dramatic move, the police arranged a contingency plan with the army to provide “routine counterterrorism contingency support,” should it be needed. But by Monday afternoon, the police said in a statement that a “sufficient” number of armed officers had returned that they no longer needed backup from the British military.

The BBC, citing unnamed sources, reported that more than 300 armed officers over the weekend had turned in their weapons permits. It was unclear how many of those officers had since returned to normal duties. The Washington Post could not independently verify the figures.

…I don’t know how much of it is lost in the lack of translation…but…it’s certainly had me thinking…because I’ve seen people saying things like “if only they’d react like that in the US”…&…they do?

The Metropolitan Police said that the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision to charge an officer with murder “signals a shift in the way the decisions [that police] take in the most challenging circumstances will be judged.”

…there’s been plenty of stuff that sounds reasonable with, say, spouses talking about their fear that their other half could be prosecuted for taking an action without which they or someone else might not make it home…but…effectively what they seem to be angling for is something along the lines of that qualified immunity deal where they can’t suffer a downside if when the dust settles it turns out they shot the wrong person

The police officer, who has not been named, was charged Wednesday in the fatal Sept. 5, 2022, shooting of Chris Kaba. The 24-year-old, who was shot in South London, was driving an Audi with a license plate number linked to a “firearms incident” from the previous day, according to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which oversees England’s police forces.

An unmarked police vehicle followed Kaba until around 10 p.m., when he turned onto a road where a marked police vehicle was waiting, according to the office. Officers approached the Audi and “contact was made” between the Audi and police vehicles, the office stated. An officer standing in front of the Audi fired one shot through the vehicle’s windshield, striking Kaba.

…now…I (& I have to assume quite a lot of the people who have been making free with opinions about this) know very little about the actual circumstances & events that culminated in that shot being fired…but…it seems unclear whether there was anything but the car to suggest that the driver was in any way likely to be armed…& his family are adamant that he was not…so…it does bear the hallmarks of a bunch of seeming parallels in US policing

Fatal shootings involving a police officer are relatively rare in Britain. According to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, there were three in the year leading to March 31, 2023 — one more than the number recorded in the previous year.

…there’s also the part where less than 10% of met officers are armed…for a total of less than 3,000 in a police force of over 30,000…&…for all that I can recall a time as a youth when that number was zero…& it’s hard for me not to feel like that was a good thing…it probably isn’t realistic to imagine it going back to that level…but…it’s also hard for me to imagine what the response would be if somewhere in the US a bunch of police officers said they’d refuse to carry guns on duty because they couldn’t promise to never shoot the wrong person & they weren’t willing to [be prosecuted for] commit[ting] murder

“Accountability matters, but we should not have allowed ourselves to develop a system where police officers get investigated for safely pursuing suspects, just because the suspect acts recklessly and as a result injures themselves or someone else,” [Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley] wrote. “This is unfair on our officers and discourages them from chasing down criminals.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/09/25/british-police-guns-chris-kaba/

…not that I have an answer or anything…just a lot of questions…but…if you don’t have enough confidence in your judgement to be willing to face the consequences of making the wrong call…maybe you shouldn’t be getting paid to wield a thing that’s for killing people…at any rate I don’t see how…on either side of the pond…having the people doing that do it in the sure & certain knowledge that there won’t (or even can’t) be any personal consequences for shooting someone who didn’t deserve it…which still sounds ass backwards to me…is the better way to go…so…sorry if the idea of cops handing in their guns seemed like driftwood to a drowning man…but…in context…that part might be the opposite of what it sounds like

Donald Trump said Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC, “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’” and promised to do so should he be re-elected president next year.

…I mean…you see how that works

The US media was “almost all dishonest and corrupt”, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, “but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC News, and in particular MSNBC … should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’.”

…now…randomly…I also ran across a clip that seemed to involve the man saying he’d like to buy a glock (at some kind of trade show or event given the people posing for pictures with him & the pistol one of them was holding)…which…as someone pointed out (possibly a lot of someones but I kind of skipped past the whole thing which is why there isn’t a link here) the man’s a defendant in multiple federal criminal cases…which would make selling him one an actual crime all on its own…& that famous line of his about shooting someone on 5th avenue sucks any way you look at it…but a lot more for every step it ratchets closer to a plausible reality

Juliette Kayyem, a Kennedy School professor and CNN national security analyst, pointed to a previous warning: “To view each of Trump’s calls to violence in isolation – ‘he attacked Milley’ or ‘he attacked NBC’ or ‘he attacked the jury, the prosecutor, the judge’ – is to miss his overall plan to ‘introduce violence as a natural extension of our democratic disagreement’.”

…I’d probably buy that he doesn’t actually grasp the reality of any of this shit firmly enough to be in any way conscious of what he’s doing that way…that all of his dog-whistles & demented shibboleths are just…fungible tokens…just so many chips to throw into a pot he’s trying to buy out because that’s how he’s always been able to beat a stronger hand than he’s holding

Trump’s rantings were also coupled with threats to Gen Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff whose attempts to cope with Trump were detailed in an Atlantic profile last week.

…& that a lot of it is yet another tantrum because someone got credit for doing their job

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/general-mark-milley-trump-coup/675375/

…but…sound & fury notwithstanding…I wouldn’t say it’s signifying nothing?

Another new poll, from NBC, showed Trump and Biden tied at 46% but Trump up 39%-36% if a third-party candidate was added. A “person familiar with White House discussions” about the prospect of a candidacy from No Labels, a centrist group, said it was “concerning”, NBC said. Biden, the report added, was “worried”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/25/trump-nbc-msnbc-comcast-country-threatening-treason

…which…might even be important…if…you know…the choir he’s been preaching to since what feels like forever ago…were listening to anything other than what they want to hear

What is striking about the traveling circus is not what has changed over that time but what has stayed the same. Hawkers still move up and down the line selling Trump calendars, keychains and other regalia with captions such as “Gun rights matter”, “Fight for Trump”, “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president”, “No more bullshit”, “Trumpinator: I’ll be back” and “Fuck Biden and fuck you for voting for him”.
[…]
The former reality TV star still enters to thunderous cheers and chants of “USA! USA!” People wave signs bearing his name and snap photos on their phones; one stood on a chair wearing an “I love Trump” T-shirt. Trump still plays the parts of demagogue, divider and standup comic, serving red meat to supporters who revel in shared grievance and the thrill of transgression.
[…]
Indeed, whereas for millions of Democratic and independent voters Trump’s first term and its fiery denouement are his biggest liability, an essay in American carnage, for the true believers of the Maga movement they are his biggest asset.

…I mean…polls & voter safaris are mostly things I’d lump into the sound & fury column…sure they may signify something…but…so can a metaphor…& they’re about as binding…all the same…while I’m not in the habit of using “trigger warnings”…if you’re on meds for blood pressure or something you might want to skip this next part since it damn near gave me an embolism

The White House quotes figures showing that inflation is in decline and unemployment at a 50-year low. But Ruff responded: “Yeah, that’s their opinion. They’re not the ones that have to worry about going to the gas pump and pumping gas that’s almost five bucks a gallon. When Trump was in there it was a dollar something.”

…that shit is legitimately making me doubt the concept of natural selection…the sheer density of wrongheaded upsidedown & back to front “logic” contained in that supposedly devastating comeback is…an altogether different kind of devastating

Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims during his four-year presidency, according to a Washington Post count. But Doyle added: “Yeah, he says some stupid stuff – the tweets and everything – but that doesn’t bother me because ultimately he’s an honest, truthful person. I like his personality. I like that he’s a businessman.”

Trump is facing 91 criminal counts in four jurisdictions, but Susan Tayloe, 59, who works for a bank, said: “He obviously has a great respect for the rule of law and also just he’s shown when he was in office before that he got a lot of things accomplished for a lot of people and did a lot of good things. He got persecuted and I like him even better now because of that.”

Asked what she would like to see Trump do in a second term, Tayloe replied: “I would like to see the border closed. I would like to see drilling: drill, baby, drill. We have tons of oil here. Why are we shutting down Alaska reserves? We bought Alaska for the oil. Let’s use it. More energy independence. I’d like to see less of this Green New Deal bullshit.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/24/donald-trump-supporters-rally-iowa

…suicidal stupidity is one thing…but…this isn’t that…or maybe it is…but the gun that isn’t a gun is pointed at everybody’s head…& this stockholm syndrome bullshit could credibly kill us

Today, the insatiable search for oil and gas has become the latest threat to the country’s endangered aquifers, a critical national resource that is already being drained at alarming rates by industrial farming and cities in search of drinking water.

The amount of water consumed by the oil industry, revealed in a New York Times investigation, has soared to record levels. Fracking wells have increased their water usage sevenfold since 2011 as operators have adopted new techniques to first drill downward and then horizontally for thousands of feet. The process extracts more fossil fuels but requires enormous amounts of water.

Together, oil and gas operators reported using about 1.5 trillion gallons of water since 2011, much of it from aquifers, the Times found. Fracking a single oil or gas well can now use as much as 40 million gallons of water or more.

These mega fracking projects, called “monster fracks” by researchers, have become the industry norm. They barely existed a decade ago. Now they account for almost two out of every three fracking wells in Texas, the Times analysis found.
[…]
The problem is particularly acute in Texas, where the state’s groundwater supply is expected to drop one-third by 2070. As the planet warms, scientists have predicted that Texas will face higher temperatures and more frequent and intense droughts, along with a decline in groundwater recharge. Some experts have warned that water issues could even constrain oil and gas production.
[…]
Since 2011, BP has dug at least 137 groundwater wells in Texas for its oil and gas operations and reported using 9.1 billion gallons of water nationally during the past decade. EOG, one of the country’s largest frackers, consumed more than 73 billion gallons of water for fracking at the same time. Apache Corporation, Southwestern Energy, Chevron, Ovintiv and other major operators also have intensified water usage, the Times analysis found.
[…]
Oil companies require no permits to drill their own groundwater wells and there is no consistent requirement that groundwater used for fracking be reported or monitored. As drought has gripped Texas and the surrounding region, many communities have instituted water restrictions for residents even as fracking has been allowed to continue unabated.
[…]
“This is Texas. If you’re using water for oil and gas, it’s considered exempt,” said Ronald T. Green, a hydrologist who advises Wintergarten. So when fracking plans collide with drought, Dr. Green said, “you just have to hope that if they’re a good, community-oriented company, they might decide not to frack that well till next year.”
[…]
But that water, sometimes called fossil water because scientists estimate that it pooled underground as long as 30,000 years ago, started to dry up as farms irrigated vast tracts of land. Farms that couldn’t afford to drill ever deeper started to plant less or shut down.

Today, much of America’s oil and gas comes from parched land like this. And now, fracking companies are the ones scrambling for water. A 2016 Ceres report found that nearly 60 percent of the 110,000 wells fracked between 2011 and 2016 were in regions with high or extremely high water stress, including basins in Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and California.

This is partly because of the increasing complexity and size of fracked wells. For example one technique, horizontal drilling, involves wells that stretch thousands of feet sideways, not just downward. In the Permian Basin, average well length grew to more than 10,000 feet in the first nine months of 2022, compared with less than 4,000 feet in 2010, federal data shows.
[…]
The problem is actually two-fold. Fracking companies are pulling more water out of the ground, and then, after the fracking process, they must treat or dispose of millions of gallons of contaminated water, removing it from the natural water cycle.

Some companies are making strides in reusing that fracking wastewater to drill for more oil and gas, but it’s a small percentage. In the sprawling Permian Basin in Texas, the largest oil field in the country, just 15 percent of water used for fracking is recycled water, according to state estimates.

The Times based its water-use analysis on data from FracFocus, a registry of chemicals used in fracking that is operated by two national associations of state agencies, the Groundwater Protection Council and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. In 27 states, companies report the data to FracFocus.

That data revealed surging water use even though the numbers, which are self-reported by industry, are sometimes incomplete.
[…]
Of course, water use by energy industries isn’t limited to fracking. Water is important in oil refining and the cooling of power plants, and also plays a role in the mining of lithium and other minerals essential in the transition to cleaner energy.
[…]
Industry groups also stress that oil and gas production uses a small fraction of the water required by other activities, like irrigated agriculture.

But researchers at Colorado State University who compared water used for fracking in oil- and gas-producing states between 2011 and 2020 found that, under arid conditions, frackers could use more water than irrigation. In La Salle for instance, under arid conditions, fracking used more water than irrigation and local homes and businesses combined. Fracking activity, they found, responded to oil prices, and seemed largely unresponsive to droughts or water restrictions.

Compounding the problem, about a quarter of Texas operates under rules that let landowners pump as much water on their property as they like, regardless of consequences to neighbors.

“In Texas, if you own the surface, you own everything to the center of the earth,” said Mr. Martin of the Wintergarten water district.
[…]
Some local governments are starting to take action. In 2020, New Mexico halted sales of water supplies to oil and gas companies fracking on state land. This year, Colorado passed a bill requiring frackers to greatly increase their reuse of fracking wastewater. In May, Texas passed a bill designed to find more uses for fracking wastewater.

But cleaning up that wastewater, which contains hazardous chemicals, is costly and energy-intensive. Even if frackers were able to re-use their treated wastewater for all their production, the industry estimates it would still generate hundreds of millions of gallons of excess every day. And the diversion of fracking wastewater to other uses, whether for agriculture or to mist roadways in order to keep down the dust, remains contentious because of safety concerns.

So, in states like Texas, it remains cheaper to use groundwater.

Giant new oil and gas wells that require astonishing volumes of water to fracture bedrock are threatening America’s fragile aquifers. [NYT]

…so…this kind of thing is all very well…but…in context

Amount of [extractable] reserves that cannot be burned if we are to hold temperature rises to 2°C by 2050:

82% coal
49% gas
33% oil

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/ideas/how-much-worlds-fossil-fuel-reserves-can-we-afford-burn

…I’m back to feeling like I’m swimming in that suicidal stupidity…if swimming isn’t an inappropriate metaphor

Antarctic sea ice shrinks to lowest annual maximum level on record, data shows [Guardian]

…maybe we’d be better going with the one about frogs in a pot

New polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicates that extreme weather, including a summer that brought dangerous heat for much of the United States, is bolstering Americans’ belief that they’ve personally felt the impact of climate change.

About 9 in 10 Americans (87%) say they have experienced at least one extreme weather event in the past five years — including drought, extreme heat, severe storms, wildfires or flooding — up from 79% who said that just a few months ago in April. And about three-quarters of those believe climate change is at least partly to blame.

In total, 64% of U.S. adults say both that they’ve recently experienced extreme weather and that they believe it was caused at least partially by climate change, up from 54% in April. And about 65% say climate change will have or already has had a major impact in their lifetime.

This summer’s heat might be a big factor: About three-quarters of Americans (74%) say they’ve been affected by extremely hot weather or extreme heat waves in the last five years, up from 55% in April — and of those, 92% said they’ve had that experience just in the past few months.

…so you’ll have to forgive me…but…I am having…uncharitable thoughts…about “that guy”

Seventy-six-year-old Bruce Alvord, of Hagerstown, Maryland, said it wasn’t unusual to experience days with a 112-degree heat index this summer, and health conditions mean that “heat really bothers me because it’s restricted what I can do.”

Even so, the retired government worker doesn’t believe in human-caused climate change; he recalls stories from his grandparents about bad weather, and thinks the climate is fluctuating on its own.

“The way the way I look at it is I think it’s a bunch of powerful politicians and lobbying groups that … have their agenda,” said Alvord, a Republican who sees no need to change his own habits or for the government to do more. “I drive a Chrysler 300 (with a V8 engine). I use premium gas. I get 15 miles a gallon. I don’t give a damn.”

…I mean…isn’t that kind of the whole thing in a nutshell? …not giving a shit about the consequences of your actions while expecting a lack of any effort to mitigate them to somehow still ensure that they not in any fashion discomfort you or…heaven forfend…impose restrictions on your ability to do whatever the hell you like whenever the fancy takes you…I’ve seen some shitty small print in contracts but as social ones go…I feel kinda strongly that clause shouldn’t have made it past the lawyers

About 9 in 10 Democrats say climate change is happening, with nearly all of the remaining Democrats being unsure about whether climate change is happening (5%), rather than outright rejecting it. Republicans are split: 49% say climate change is happening, but 26% say it’s not and an additional 25% are unsure. Overall, 74% of Americans say climate change is happening, largely unchanged from April.
[…]
After a brutal summer, Maxwell, the Phoenix resident, said she hopes more Americans will accept that climate change is happening and that people are making it worse, and support measures to slow it.

“It seems very, very obvious to me, with all of the extreme weather and the hurricanes and flooding,” said Maxwell. “I just can’t imagine that people wouldn’t.”

After summer’s extreme weather, more Americans see climate change as a culprit, poll shows [NBC]

…that’d be comforting…if there weren’t so many “that guy”s out there that it’s abundantly clear no imagination is required

Shawn Meehan, 57, was a “fake elector” in Nevada, who in 2020, along with five other Republicans in the state, signed documents that authorities say aimed to interfere with Joe Biden’s rightful electoral victory. At least two fellow pro-Trump electors in Nevada have testified before a special grand jury in Washington, D.C. Meehan, who has retained an attorney, would not say whether he has been subpoenaed to testify.

Now Meehan — who serves on the Nevada Republican Central Committee and a Douglas County GOP committee, told NBC News he has launched a venture whose objective is to educate the public on the Constitution and motivate citizens to engage with local officials. The end goal, said Meehan, is to prod elected officials to vote in a constitutionally sound manner by reaching out to them and making constitutional arguments before they take action.
[…]
The website will have an originalist perspective, mixing constitutional lessons with discussions of current events related to constitutional questions, he said. The venture, GuardtheConstitution.com, which goes online this week, will have a function to pay those who refer others to the site, a feature Meehan said had a patent pending.

…the layers of grift are getting to a point where you’d have an easier time diagramming the timeline of the movie primer…&…honestly…I’d rather be banging on about how much inception rips of jeff noon’s vurt or something…but…it kind of feels like I don’t get to harbor those uncharitable thoughts about the “I don’t give a damn” of it all if I up & quit engaging with a reality that infuriates me…so…here I am up to my eyeballs in newsprint once again

Asked how he squared the allegations around fake electors with the constitutional nature of his venture, Meehan said, “I can’t address those accusations. I’ve been speaking with counsel, and I just simply am not going to address that part of it any further.”

…tell me that doesn’t scream “ah well, you got me there…” with a fucking bullhorn if you haven’t lost your hearing entirely on account of overexposure to dog-whistles…&…all due respect…I’ll call you a fucking liar

“The irony runs deep because it is these folks who claim the most stringent adherence to the framers and the ideas that they had who are advancing these implausible, atextual and completely ahistorical readings of the Constitution, to try to reach their political goal — all while draping themselves in the Constitution,” said Jeff Mandell, a Wisconsin attorney who led a lawsuit against fraudulent electors in his state.

…I like to think of myself a pretty peaceable sort…but…if they succeed in taking away my faith in irony keeping my sense of humor intact…I’m not sure I can be responsible for my actions

“Makes me wonder if a Patriot out there aware of the theft might take a Second Amendment approach to solving the problem. I certainly don’t want violence, but the Battle of Athens in 1946 shows this is why the Second Amendment exists,” Meehan wrote in one of the [Text messages published by the Jan. 6 committee]. “I’m just baffled at the flippant attitude of the courts. To be clear for the NSA technicians reading this text, I do not want, nor am I advocating for violence. I’m simply calling out that there likely are others out there with far less impulse control in light of this tyranny.”

…so…unironically…should the world have gone nuts enough that those technicians (or anyone else in their line of work) might be taking the time to slog through these…I *actually* “do not want, nor am I advocating violence”…in fact…I generally think that taking “a Second Amendment approach to solving the problem” is a logically incoherent statement…since the only problem which that approach is qualified to “solve” is in the “who will rid me of this troublesome priest” column…so at best the solution part is euphemistic & as far as the “problem” part…is about as effective as whipping the sea to turn back the tide…but then

Of the 84 Trump fake electors across seven states, most have neither been charged nor cleared. Fake electors in Michigan and Georgia face state charges. Others, including in Arizona, await local decisions.
[…]
After the six Nevada fake electors cast their votes, the state GOP posted a photo of them on X, formerly known as Twitter, and wrote: “Our brave electors standing up for what is right and casting their electoral votes for @realDonaldTrump. We believe in fair elections and will continue the fight against voter fraud in the Silver State!“

…the GOP would actually make a pretty good fit for xerxes in that story

“A lot of people in America know what’s going on — they’ve expressed their frustrations,” Meehan said. “Not to be coy — but to be coy — I wouldn’t be surprised if I shared similar frustrations.”

Fake elector launches effort to ‘guard’ the Constitution [NBC]

…not to be coy…but if I met that guy feeling the way I do at the minute…I gotta imagine I’d catch a long stretch in the sort of institution I think he & his erstwhile avatar of civic dominion should have been languishing in for years…so I feel confident I could see those “similar frustrations” & raise them by considerable quantities of “righteous ire”…or at the very least something easier to mistake for it than the garbage these literally incredible assholes are peddling for their very lives…so…it’s probably for the best that I’m out of time for today…but…if anyone feels like setting a different mood the other side of the tunes I’m hoping my functionally-jetlagged ass will manage to wedge down here before I have to stumble out the door & hope my day doesn’t require me to operate any potentially dangerous machinery…I’m pretty sure it’d be a kindness?