Mischievous Ramblings II

A Day That Should Live in Infamy

Manzanar War Relocation Center, on US 395, near Lone Pine, CA.
Photo by Evan Robinson.

Seventy-five years ago today, on 19 February, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, "Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas".  Roughly 120,000 American legal residents of Japanese descent -- about 70,000 of whom were American citizens -- were moved out of coastal exclusion zones and incarcerated in concentration camps.  Around 14,000 residents (or citizens) of German and Italian descent, as well as some refugees, were also rounded up and jailed under EO9066.

Assembly centers were set up at convenient locations like racetracks (Santa Anita in Southern California, and Tanforan in the Bay Area) and soon housed thousands of internees.  By October, ten "Relocation Centers" were set up outside the coastal exclusion zones: Manzanar and Tule Lake in California; Poston and Gila River in Arizona; Granada, Colorado; Heart Mountain, Wyoming; Minidoka, Idaho; Topaz, Utah; and Rohwer and Jerome in Arkansas.  Manzanar was the first, opened in March 1942.  Tule Lake was the largest, housing nearly 18,800 internees.

American citizens and legal residents had everything taken away but what they could carry, were stuffed into horse stalls and temporary housing, then moved hundreds or thousands of miles away and crammed into tar paper shacks behind barbed wire perimeters with machine gun towers.

In 1944, the Supreme Court ruled in Korematsu that the exclusion zones were constitutional, but sidestepped the question of incarceration.  In 1983, Fred Korematsu's conviction was overturned because the US government had knowingly submitted false information to the Supreme Court (in other words, the government perjured itself) and that the information was material to the Court's decision.  Other significant decisions upholding curfews for Americans of Japanese descent were Yasui and Hirabayashi.  Both were overturned in the 1980s for the same reasons as Korematsu -- government perjury.

So far as I can tell, no Supreme Court ruling ever addressed whether or not the internment (the incarceration of tens of thousands of legal residents and citizens) was constitutional, despite the occasional news story to the contrary.  Some such stories claim that Korematsu touched on the constitutionality of the internment, but the decision included the language:

"The provisions of other orders requiring persons of Japanese ancestry to report to assembly centers and providing for the detention of such persons in assembly and relocation centers were separate, and their validity is not in issue in this proceeding."

which clearly excludes the question of the constitutionality of the internment.  Ex parte Endo further muddies the water by the ruling (on the same day as Korematsu) that there was "...no authority to subject citizens who are conceded loyal to its leave procedure."  In other words, the government had no authority to detain citizens not proven disloyal.  But they may imprison anyone for refusing to be illegally detained.

The Roosevelt administration lifted the internment orders immediately before the Korematsu and Endo rulings were announced. Public Proclamation No. 21, issued on 17 December 1944, rescinded the exclusion orders.

Legislation was signed in 1988 providing that the survivors of the internment were to be paid $20,000 in redress, and additional legislation appropriating additional funds was signed in 1992.  The internees did not get their property or belongings back, and fortunes were made by complicit white Americans who bought real property for pennies on the dollar during 1942.

And if, by chance, you think we would never do this again, let me quote from Executive Order: Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements, issued 25 January 2017:

Sec. 5.  Detention Facilities.  (a)  The Secretary shall take all appropriate action and allocate all legally available resources to immediately construct, operate, control, or establish contracts to construct, operate, or control facilities to detain aliens at or near the land border with Mexico.

Note that those to be detained are not "undocumented aliens" or "aliens illegally in the US", but any "aliens".

How many of you carry proof of citizenship with you at all times?

(Cross posted to Group News Blog)

Trump Jr.'s Nazi Skittles Metaphor is Bad Math

 

So Donald Trump Jr. tweeted a metaphor about poisoned Skittles and Syrian refugees.  It's drawn directly from a Nazi children's book which uses the same metaphor for Jews, who are the "poisonous mushrooms" you must not gather in the forest.  It's worth pointing out that the author was hanged at Nuremberg (same article).

We have some actual data on this.  Since 9/11, 745,000 Syrian refugees came to the US (until late 2015), and there have been two (2!) terrorism related arrests among them (both for financing terrorism in other countries).  That's 2/745,000 or 0.27 per 100,000 Syrian refugees vetted and brought to the US.  About 1/4 of a terrorist per 100,000 refugees admitted.

How much does that raise our risk?  The pool of terrorist attacks in the US is small.  Let's start with violent felonies, instead.

As of 2012, there were just over 721,000 convicted violent felons incarcerated in the US.  That's 721,000 out of roughly 330 million, or about 240 per 100,000 Americans (including men, women, and children).  So there are 1000 times as many violent felons in the US as there are terrorists in vetted Syrian refugees.  Adding those refugees raised our risk by 2 in 721,000.  That's a number so small it's not worth doing the math.

How about actual acts of terrorism within the US?  There have been 491 individuals designated as having "launched extremist attacks" in the US since 2001.  Of those, 397 were US citizens, 39 were legal residents, 10 refugees, and 8 held visas, while 37 had unknown or "other" citizenship status.  According to the fact checking article just referenced:

Individuals were counted as extremists if they have been indicted on or convicted of terrorism-related crimes, or had been killed and “widely and credibly reported” as having extremist motives, according to New America’s website.

Which is a MUCH higher bar than funding terrorism elsewhere.

397 American citizens having launched an extremist attack out of 330 million is about 0.12 per 100,000.  Only about half as many as Syrian refugees have funded terrorism overseas -- about twice as many.

To be clear, twice as many vetted Syrian refugees have been convicted of funding terrorism overseas as American citizens have launched actual terrorist attacks against the United States.

Of the 28 deadly homegrown terrorist attacks in the US since 9/11, 18 have been made by violent right-wing extremists, versus 10 violent (homegrown) Islamists.  Adding .4% to the pool of violent Islamists would up that total from 10 to 10.4, or maybe one, making the ratio 11 to 18.

So adding all those Syrian refugees might, possibly, have added one deadly terrorist attack in the last 15 years, except that the Syrian refugee "terrorists" were funding terrorism overseas, not making attacks here.

Syrian refugees are not three in a bowlful of Skittles.  They are 1 in 400,000.  Since there are about 400 Skittles per pound (Thank you, Walmart!), that means one dangerous Skittle per half ton.

I'll take those odds.  Remember that Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian political refugee.

Thoughts on the Apple Watch after less than 24 hours

 1) it's a little strange to be wearing a watch again.

 2) the apps screen gets full really really fast

 3) I want to write complications for it.  Complications are the elements that can be configured in watch faces.  A quick google search has not turned up any information on creating them.

 4) It was obvious that the watch was going to be a relatively simple i/o device attached to my phone. Brief experience bears that out -- with the exception of the watch face and complications (some of which DO depend upon the iPhone -- Weather, for instance) -- it's a new interface into existing apps on your iPhone.

As such, it creates a new category of interactions which used to be folded into your phone -- extremely brief ones for which you might have carried your phone in your hand (e.g., moving to the next song or changing the volume on your music -- exactly what buttons on your headphones or cable were intended to do) -- like incessantly checking the time, or a countdown timer you have in place.

So I'm not quite sure that I like the idea of games on the watch.  If you are sufficiently engaged in something to interact with it constantly, why not use your phone, which has a bigger screen and better UX?  The only game type I can see working on the watch is something where you make a very simple decision every few minutes or so.  Definitely NOT highly interactive systems.

5) Oddly, the watch is more intrusive than the phone for interacting, because it absolutely requires two hands.  There are a lot of things I can do on the iPhone with a single hand (the previously mentioned music manipulations, simple short texts or typing with one thumb, swiping, etc.) but I have to have my phone out and in one hand to do it.  The watch, which doesn't need to be taken out or put away, must be manipulated with the opposite hand.  It sounds small but it it weighing heavily right now -- partly because in each case the primary use hand is my right hand.  If i'm holding the phone to do one handed manipulations, it's in the right hand.  If I'm manipulating the watch in any way other than just flipping my wrist to the see currently displayed glance or app, I'm doing it with the right hand.  I assume that lefties will act correspondingly using the left hand.

Anyway, those are the first thoughts.  More later, I imagine.

 

Cross Posted to Group News Blog

Losing a Toccoan at GNB

Losing a Toccoan:

One of the "Band of Brothers" died yesterday at the age of 90.  William "Wild Bill" Guarnere, who was portrayed by Frank John Hughes in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers", died of a ruptured aneurysm at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.  Guarnere received the Silver Star, Bronze Star with cluster, Purple Heart with two clusters, and the Croix de guerre with palm, among other decorations.

Medal of Honor stamp unveiled today

From the Congressional Medal of Honor Society website:

The Medal of Honor is the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force which can be bestowed upon an individual serving in the Armed Services of the United States.

The Medal of Honor ("Congressional Medal of Honor" is incorrect usage) has been given 3468 times (according to Wikipedia) or 3463 times (according to the CMOHS).  Nineteen men received two, the most recent of them during The Great War.

Fifty Medals of Honor were given "belatedly".  At least 28 were given based upon past racial or religious discrimination (on the assumption that the higher commendation would have been given originally absent such discrimination).  Twenty of those went to members of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The US Postal Service will issue a WWII Medal of Honor Recipients stamp on 2013.11.11 (Veteran's Day, or Remembrance Day):

USPS recognizes the 464 who were awarded the medal for WWII with a Veterans Day unveiling of new stamps.

He has wrinkles now, and his hair has thinned. But Charles Coolidge clearly remembers the day nearly 70 years ago that he earned a Medal of Honor in France for leading his outnumbered combat group through four days of continuous fighting.

"Just a 20-year-old boy. I live it every day. I can't forget it," the Chattanooga, Tenn., resident, now 92, says of that day in Belmont sur Buttant. "If you were there in combat and they were shooting at you every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You'd never be able to forget it."

To make sure the nation doesn't forget his sacrifice either, the U.S. Postal Service is unveiling its newest stamp on Monday, Veterans Day.

Coolidge's face and those of 11 other WWII Medal of Honor recipients will provide the backdrop for what the Postal Service is calling the most iconic stamp in history: the Medal of Honor stamp.

The stamps will depict the WWII Army and Navy Medals of Honor, but sheets will include images of 12 living (as of 2012) living WWII Medal of Honor recipients.

 

Take a moment to think about all the heroes.  If you can't think of one in particular, I suggest Rodger W. Young, of Tiffin, OH:

SCOTUS on GPS trackers used by law enforcement

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects.

via www.msnbc.msn.com

What the Supreme Court Really Said About GPS Trackers

via WSJ Law Blog

 

IANAL, but I like the idea that SCOTUS seems to have decided that GPS trackers are not business as usual, that they are "a trespass", and they seem to require a warrant.

Good news.

"River of Meat Blood"

From Gizmodo:

Drone Pilot Discovers River of Meat Blood

Seems like a "Dallas drone hobbyist" was flying his camera equipped drone around when he "...discovered a huge stream of blood emptying into the Trinity River..."

Seems like the meat packing plant (aka slaughterhouse?) he was flying near was (probably) illegally discharging, um, waste material into the local watershed.

As more and more drones get into private hands, this is an example of the way that we, the people, can turn the tables on the wholesale surveillance state -- by turning the cameras on them.  Turn the cameras on the police, the corporations, the politicians... on The Man!

Apropos of, well, everything about this: Eye3; Engadget; TechCrunch

"...this report of my death was an exaggeration."*

From the Pine Bluff, AR Commercial:

Evan Robinson, Jr.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Mr. Evan Robinson, Jr., 60 of Pine Bluff, passed away, Friday, August 12, 2011. He was born in Pine Bluff to the late Evan Robinson, Sr. and Leona McKenzie.

His survivors include, wife, Linda Robinson of Pine Bluff; sons, James Robinson of Jackson, Miss., Herman Neal of Lafayette, La., Brian Neal of Pine Bluff, Brandon Hawkins of Denton, Texas, Gordon Johnson and Joseph Gray both of Pine Bluff; daughters, Lajeanne Miller of Denton, Texas; brothers, Arthur Williams of Kansas City, Kan. and Eddie Robinson; sisters, Teresa Tyson and Bettie Gray all of Pine Bluff; six grandchildren.

Services will be 10 a.m. Friday, August 19, 2011 at Family Time Baptist Church by Rev. Michael Williams. Burial will be in Forrest Lawn Cemetery.

Visitation will be from 5-7 p.m. Thursday at Brown Funeral Home of Pine Bluff.

The family will be at 1317 West 26th Street, Pine Bluff.

The body will lie in state at the church from 9:15 a.m. until time of service.

Online: Register: www.brownfuneralhomeandmortuary.com.

 

My condolences to the family of Evan Robinson, Jr, of Pine Bluff, AR.

* Samuel Langhorne Clemons (Mark Twain), May, 1897

R.I.P. Sun Microsystems: 1982 - 2010

(h/t James Gosling, Inventor of Java)

Interesting Musing on Oil Prices

Via Marginal Revolution, Calculated Risk discusses a possible scenario concerning oil prices, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country spending, and the US trade deficit:

The following graph is interesting. This reminds me of how the surge in California state government revenues in the late '90s (due to the tech stock bubble), led to a concurrent surge in government spending. When the tech bubble burst, the state budget went bust.

The same pattern has been repeated across the U.S. recently with surging government spending based on revenues from the housing bubble. Now, almost every week, we see a story about some state or local government laying off workers and cutting their budget as revenues from housing decline.