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“Scientists say a Homo sapiens fossil found in Ethiopia in the 1960s is at least 233,000 years old, which would make it 36,000 years older than the previous estimate.“
“ The new study is interesting, but it’s far from paradigm-shattering. That the oldest known fossil of an anatomically modern human is older than 233,000 years is hardly surprising, given that genetic evidence points to an even earlier emergence of our species, perhaps as far back as 600,000 years ago. For example, certain fossils from the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco date back some 300,000 years, butthey represent archaic, not modern, Homo sapiens .
The Jebel Irhoud fossils “present some characteristics of Homo sapien s but are not considered as complete Homo sapiens ,” said Vidal. Omo I, on the other hand, possesses features consistent with anatomically modern humans, such as a tall and round skullcap and a chin on the mandible.”
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Encouraging, yes, but I wonder how long democracy can hold up to this ongoing onslaught.
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“ The overall cancer death rate dropped by about a third (32%) from its peak in 1991 to 2019, from about 215 deaths for every 100,000 people to about 146, averting about 3.5 million deaths during that time, according to the data. Most of that decline can be attributed to a drop in mortality among lung cancer patients.”
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It is very confusing for the people outside US. How does this district stuff works? Is It a geographic or demographic thing?
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It is very confusing for people even in the US. Basically, the Constitution requires that a census be performed every ten years and that, as the result of this census, the lines that determine the geographical boundaries of each Congressional district must be redrawn so that each district in each state will be essentially the same size in terms of population. The idea is to prevent one district from having too few people, which would make each person’s vote in that district much more powerful.
With a practice called gerrymandering, the political party in charge of the state legislature will often draw the district lines in a way that is advantageous to them. They can put all of the opposing party’s candidates together so that they will have a majority in the other districts. For example, imagine that there are ten districts and 1,000,000 people in a state. 500,000 people are Democrats and 500,000 people are Republicans, so you would imagine that five districts will be won by Democrats and five districts will be won by Republicans. However, if the Republicans are in charge of drawing the district lines, they can make 3 districts with 100,000 Democrats each. Then, they can easily win all 7 of the other districts. The districts can be made in any shape, as long as they are unbroken lines that make each district the same population. They call it “gerrymandering” because a man named Gerry (his last name) was famous for doing it way back in the 1800s and people said that his districts looked like salamanders.
If, for example, the map is drawn in a way that intentionally tries to put all of the Black people in one district, etc., then the courts can strike it down as discriminatory…but the law is very unclear on what is okay and what is not.
ETA: Just to clarify, the districts are for the national Congress, but each state’s legislature draws the district map for the state. States also can gain or lose districts because there must be 435 Congressional districts in total.
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It’s dumb to even think about, and looks even stupider when explained as well as you have.
@BakaNeko this is a classic visual example.
And the historical salamander cartoon that helped give it the name:
Gerry was a fascinating guy, actually. Refused to sign the Constitution because he saw it as protecting elites, and was a major proponent of the Bill of Rights.
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I figure, where I live, they take the heavily Republican (but less populated) areas (like St. Mary’s & Calvert Counties) and graft a heavily Democratic (and dense) area onto that (e.g. a small(er) part of Prince George’s).
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Yes, my example was oversimplified, and the real idea is to make as many districts as possible where your side has 55%. They have mastered this process to the point where they can probably win eight of the districts out of the ten in my hypothetical state. This can come back to bite them if suburbs lose their taste for the party that drew the maps, but ultimately, very few Congressional districts are actually competitive.
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Interesting. You don’t have a neutral organ like the CDC, for example, to take care of this process.
Do you think creating something like an electoral supreme court would correct this situation?
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We really don’t. The US Constitution gives each state a lot of leeway to decide how to make its own districts (as long as they are unbroken lines of the same population). The Supreme Court of the United States can overturn what a state legislature has decided if the Court decides that the state is violating the US Constitution. (And each state has its own Supreme Court that can do the same if the legislature has violated the state constitution…because each state also has its own constitution…and that’s what happened in Ohio.)
Many states are trying to pass laws or change their state constitutions to create neutral organs within the state to decide its district lines impartially. Voter referendums and legislation have already kicked off this process formally in a few states, but many states have no interest in doing that for obvious reasons. The national Congress has also talked about making a national law to prevent gerrymandering, but (as you can imagine) one side is dead-set on making sure that that doesn’t happen. (ETA: To be fair, the Democrats do it too in some states, but the Republicans take it to Bond-villain evil genius level.)
It is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, problems in the US system of government, and it is very difficult for anyone to figure out a way to fix it…
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In large part because both political parties benefit from it. If they happen to be down in one area, the hope is they can claw back and use the same system to their advantage in the near future.
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It’s the tragedy of the commons. You either use it or you lose it, and the country as a whole loses as a result.
I mean, honestly, if someone suggested, “Then the Democrats should take the high ground and not use gerrymandering,” I would be like, “Well…”
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Another quirk is that the districts are drawn for equal number of population, not equal number of potential voters. If you add an area with a lot of non-voters–minors, non-citizens, prisoners–to another area, you multiply the effect of the votes in the area in which more people can vote.
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That’s essentially what they do. Maryland is gerrymandered in favor of Democrats, but it was done so for political and legal reasons (This is how stupid the practice can get!).
Oregon Democrats just redrew districts due to the census and the GOP have thrown a fit because they’ve gone from 1 out of 5 districts to 2 out of 6!?! But they call it gerrymandering.
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A good read on “Prison Gerrymandering”.
“Prison gerrymandering particularly distorts political representation along racial lines, and compounds the political disenfranchisement minority communities already face due to partisan gerrymandering and census undercounts. Not only do rural communities gain power as a result, but urban majority Black and brown communities lose it. Entire communities are impacted if they are in areas with a high incarceration rate, because they’re underrepresented.”
Makes one keep an eye on where “private” prisons pop up.
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