Tag: data

IDAHOT: 102 and counting

 photo banner-April-v32_zps5560c78e.png


Saturday is IDAHOT, the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.  It’s a little annoying that there is only one day for this…rather than it being a year-round concern.

To kick off the event, I’ve got some data for you.  The Transgender Violence Tracking Portal is a new project, started in March of this year…so their data is a bit limited by the fact that only 14 countries have submitted data to them so far.

the TVTP project was created to allow public access and grassroots reporting of incidents of violence, and any registered user to easily query the TVTP database at any time to see the anti-transgender violence that has been reported.  Researchers will be drawing from standard sources (news media, law enforcement, GLBT groups and many other sources) for additional and corroborative data.

Are We Really the Reality Based Community? We Don’t Act Like It.

This is not directed at the reality based Docudharma community.

And by “we” I don’t mean me or I, because I make a good effort to at least try. I’m talking about blogs like Daily Kos. I had always assumed, because of the many insightful writers on the site and on the front page that was the case. However, we are starting to see some of what we see with corporate control of all airwaves in how site moderation is run.

For instance, whether on Fox News, CNN or MSNBC there is always a fake debate when it comes to climate change which is undeniably happening since we have hit 400 ppm of CO2 in our atmosphere for the first time in 3 million years. When this spectacle that pretends to be a live debate on TV happens, there are always two guys picked by the network to come on TV to debate the issue; one a NASA scientist like say James Hansen and one fringe dwelling Koch funded climate changed denier to debate as if there is something to debate as if both sides have an equal argument to make. WRONG. The science is in.

I always thought we in the progressive blogosphere prided ourselves on not accepting that dynamic, but now I am starting to wonder. On the issues I go to great lengths to cover when it comes to the economy, there are certain undeniable facts that have to be acknowledged whether you are a Post Keynesian MMT proponent like me or not. I mean, if we are any different than debates on red state or the corporate owned media, that is. I have to wonder about that now, because it now appears from what went on in my last diary in the comment section that a moderator here stepped in and made an effort to portray the troll like behavior and continual denial of established facts in every diary of mine as “just an honest disagreement.”

It was inferred that I was “out of line” for accurately describing a commentator while using a term that accurately describes his brand of troll like behavior. That’s not out of line. When people act like trolls in every diary of mine I can only ignore it for so long before calling it out directly. We can’t just ignore this kind of behavior forever in this community. I mean, not if we still consider ourselves part the reality based community. Do we?