Linked List: June 8, 2020

Monday, 8 June 2020

CNBC Posts, and Somehow Still Hasn’t Retracted, One of the Worst Charts You’ll Ever See ★

Using a line graph to plot a +2.5M month after a -20.7M makes it look like a +23.2M month. Misleading doesn’t begin to describe the severity of this chart crime. Hard to believe this could have been an honest mistake in the first place, but the fact that it’s still up three days later is malpractice.

(Twitter thread with numerous suggestions to accurately illustrate these numbers.)

Update: CNBC reporter Jesse Pound updated the chart in a reasonable way. Small miracles. Thanks to Jamie Dwyer for bringing it to Pound’s attention and letting me know it was updated. Click through to the Twitter thread above to see the original.

‘What It’s Like to Get Doxed for Taking a Bike Ride’ ★

Olivia Nuzzi, reporting for New York Magazine on a terrifying case of mistaken identity:

It was based on that initial, false information that Weinberg had become a suspect for the internet mob. To his surprise, the app that he used to record his regular rides from Bethesda into Georgetown via the Capital Crescent Trail shared that information publicly, not just with his network of friends and followers. Someone had located a record of his ride on the path on June 2, matched it to the location of the assault from the video, matched his profile picture — white guy, aviator-style sunglasses, helmet obscuring much of his head — to the man in the video, and shared the hunch publicly.

It took off. Weinberg didn’t know what “doxing” meant, but it was happening to him: Someone posted his address.

Twitter mob justice run amok — just awful. Read through to the end for the best “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth can get its shoes on” kicker you’ll ever read. When it comes to a furious Twitter mob, the truth doesn’t even have shoes.

Also, a serious lesson regarding the use of any sort of app that combines location-tracking with social media. I was going to say that if you use Strava, you should check your settings, but really you should check your settings for all apps with location access.

William Barr’s Bullshit Claim That Pepper Balls Are ‘Not Chemical’ ★

Glenn Kessler, reporting for The Washington Post:

Here’s the full exchange between Barr and interviewer Margaret Brennan.

BRENNAN: There were chemical irritants, the Park Police has said —

BARR: No, there were not chemical irritants. Pepper spray is not a chemical irritant. It’s not chemical.

BRENNAN: Pepper spray, you’re saying is what was used —

BARR: Pepper balls. Pepper balls.

But this is simply wrong. PepperBall’s website declares: “With multiple payload options and a proprietary chemical irritant that’s proven more effective from even greater distances, PepperBall projectiles offer the protection and versatility for any situation.” (The company did not respond to a request for comment.)

What’s that ingredient? It’s called pelargonic acid vanillylamide, or PAVA, a “synthetic” form of capsaicin, the active ingredient in hot peppers. Anyone who’s tried to insert contacts in their eyes after cutting hot peppers knows what that feels like. PAVA is mostly derived from synthesis rather than extraction from natural plant sources, according to the “Handbook of Toxicology of Chemical Warfare Agents.”

So basically Barr is trying to use “chemical” to mean “synthetic” or “artificial”, as opposed to “natural”. As if attacking peaceful protesters with natural hot pepper irritants would be OK. But that’s not even the case. They can’t even get their bullshit straight.

Video Timeline of Trump’s St. John’s Church Photo Op and Lafayette Square Crackdown ★

The Washington Post:

Drawing on footage captured from dozens of cameras, as well as police radio communications and other records, The Washington Post reconstructed the events of this latest remarkable hour of Trump’s presidency, including of the roles of the agencies involved and the tactics and weaponry they used.

Watch the reconstruction above to see how it unfolded.

Tremendous video journalism.

Josh Marshall: ‘For the First Time Trump Faces Crises Not of His Own Making’ ★

Josh Marshall, writing at TPM:

But the biggest difference can be obscure even as it stares us in the face. Every crisis President Trump faced until this year was a crisis purely of his own making. That meant that he could more or less stop them at will. Whenever things got hot enough and his advisors could convince him to stop being weird for a while it would go away. Because it was all about him, all of his own making.

This is what makes 2020 different. Each of today’s overlapping crises are ones for which Trump bears significant personal responsibility. But they are not crises of his own making and they are real quite apart from whatever actions he might choose to take. Donald Trump could turn magically into the perfect President and there would still be a COVID epidemic and tens of millions out of work. He could go through the motions on racism, police killings and criminal justice reform and those issues would remain only slightly less intractable.

None of this means Trump can’t recover. It does show how 2020 is different.

‘Soros Riot Dance Squad’ ★

Ciara O’Rourke, writing for PolitiFact about false news spreading on Facebook:

“White busses marked ‘Soros Riot Dance Squad’ spotted in Michigan: It’s official, the riots are staged,” reads the headline on a June 2 Intellihub story. “The invisible man behind the curtain has now become visible.”

The post goes on to say that the buses “show the current Black Lives Matter/ANTIFA-sponsored unrest is most likely without a shadow of a doubt part of a much larger George Soros, Barack Obama, Democratic National Committee-backed plan aimed at taking back the Office of the President once and for all.”

The proof, the post says, is a photo published on Facebook.

It’s not half-bad photoshopping. If it said something innocuous you probably wouldn’t think twice about it. So, OK.
But “Soros Riot Dance Squad”? Really? I want to believe this image had to originate as a joke, not propaganda. I mean even if you are squarely in the target demographic for this sort of propaganda — paranoid, racist, anti-Semitic, stupid, and scared — how do you take this seriously? “Soros Riot Dance Squad” is like a Simpsons joke.
That someone actually typed the phrase “most likely without a shadow of a doubt” makes me think, OK, yeah, there are people stupid enough to believe this is real.

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver: ‘Police’ ★

“Our whole show is actually going to be about one thing, and you probably know what, and you probably know why.”

Look, my family is a John Oliver family. It’s one of our favorite shows. It’s consistently excellent. But this week’s episode is so great, and so on point. And my god, the ending. Wow. HBO has posted the entire 33-minute episode to YouTube, so save it for when you have time. It demands your attention.