Factual Dispatch

This dispatch assumes you're vaguely aware of the news, so it will endeavor to provide perspectives, visualizations, analysis, and other odds & ends you won't find anywhere else.

NBC is reporting that a team was able to buzzsaw through Trump's Steel Slat "Wall" using common tools. For everyone else living on this planet, this is nothing new. Not only did testing by DHS in 2017 show all potential wall prototypes were quite vulnerable to being breached by the clever or energetic, even traditional walls don't work. If you're dealing with people who think they do, feel free to send them any of these sources in response:

• The World Is Full of Walls That Don’t Work (Politico 2016)

• What History Teaches Us About Walls (New York Times, 2016)

• Walls Don't Work (Foreign Policy, 2019)

• Why Walls Won't Work (Berkeley Planning Journal, 2013)

• Why the Wall Won't Work (Cato Institute, 2017)

• ‘If there’s a concrete wall in front of you, go through it’ (Trump, 2004)

Of course immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than natural born citizens (interesting research into why here), and of course arrests at the border hit a 46-year low last year. Not only has the number of Mexicans living in America illegally declined by almost 1 million since 2007 (the last year of the George W. Bush administration), Latinx immigrants have not been the largest % of arrivals since 2010, when the torch was passed to Asian immigrants. In 2017, more non-Mexicans than Mexicans were apprehended at our borders for the first time, even with the increased numbers of migrant families being arrested. Cities with high immigration since 1980 saw their crime rates plummet. Even Stephen "Wormtongue Ascended" Miller can't dispute a report from the American Law & Economics Review in 2014 confirming that Mexican immigration is not associated with a change in rates of property or violent crime in our cities. But, it's never been about facts, MS-13, or anything other than a loyalty test. As Sarah Kendizor reminds us, the barrier is Trump and his demands of loyalty from those who serve him. So why have we been sucked into this vortex of stupid, as Chris Hooks of the Texas Observer notes:

My favorite penetration of The Wall remains the catapult story from 2017. The best part about using trebuchets & other medieval siege tech to traffic drugs is that humans aren't needed. Once your 50lb bale of pot is launched across the border, someone just picks it up because it has a Nokia from 1998 packaged in it. 

On an oddly lighter note, Gabon faced a failed coup this week. Pro-tip for anyone thinking about overthrowing your government, bring more than 8 mans. The coup went so badly that the Gabonese took to dunking on the failed coup on social media. When elementary school kids on Twitter own your little movement, you might want to sit down & have yourself a think during your trial for treason.

Eye-Watering Data Visualization of the Week: How Old is Congress (1788-2017)? Older but not necessarily wiser it seems. Source

Vaguely Dystopian News of the Week: Bounty Hunters don't need to hack you to find you, they can just buy your data from your cell phone company. Also, we finished crossing the uncanny valley back in December.  Annoying-But-Correct Take of the Week: Stop saying Judeo-Christian."Huh, Interesting" Read of the Week: Beavers have returned to Milwaukee after 180 years.Dunk of the Week: 

Where do we go from here? Ever Upward!Tarik