None of the opinions seemed especially persuasive to me, even though I have long had problems with Apodaca and the Williams case, concerning the permissible size of criminal juries. While it seems to me unlikely that the framers and ratifiers of the 6th amendment intended to constitutionalize all the then-existing features of the common-law jury trial, like size and voting, the 6th amendment itself contains no hint of a principled way to decide which features could be modified and, if they can be modified, by how much. Is 10-2 OK and 7-5 not? Is a 6-person jury OK and a 4-person jury not? In the absence of such an identifiable principle, as I saw it there were two alternatives: stick with the way it was done in 1788 or anything goes. Apodaca and Williams did neither, leading to incoherence. That said, nobody is seriously proposing 4-person juries or 7-5 votes, no one can seriously argue, our common-law practice aside, that 6-person juries and 10-2 votes are, as an original matter, unjust, and we have lived with the present regime for almost 50 years, without visible adverse consequences. Under the circumstances, this is not much of a case for upsetting settled law, even if some of us would have decided differently in 1972.
It has always taken a thick skin to do unpopular things. I was doing them 50 years ago. I haven't stopped. I'd say "grow a pair," but I might be criticized for my word choice. F**k it.
I, too, like what Progressive has done with Jamie. I'd like to see Celebrity Death brought back so Flo from Progressive and Jan from Toyota could slug it out. Maybe the winner would take on the AT&T woman, though I haven't seen her in commercials lately.
I'm a GEICO customer, from before funny commercials (hell, almost before cars), and I once sent them a commercial idea, complete with explicit permission to use it for free (though I said I would enjoy being there for the filming). It featured the GEICO cave men spelunking and finding marvelous cave art. The lead caveman goes deeper into the chamber and screams. When the second caveman rushes to see what is wrong, the camera pans to a GEICO gecko painting among the mammoths and stick figures. I don't know why they didn't use it.
I've wondered why sober insurance companies have been commissioning so many funny or weird (or both) ads. I've long thought that the files of the insurance companies contain rich comic material and Farmers has been using it. GEICO. Progressive, it keeps going. I like the trend, but wonder how and why it got started.
This was a big bill passed in a hurry. I think Aaron David is right that income normally is subject to garnishment unless some law carves it out. There's no carve-out in the law. Did somebody advocate for one and not get the vote? If so, I haven't heard about it. That means it's absolute nonsense to blame anyone, Republican or Democrat, that nobody thought about this in the mark-up sessions. It isn't even incompetence. Big legislation usually has some unintended gaps, especially if it is thrown together fast. This looks perfectly normal to me. Now that it has come to public attention, let's see if someone proposes a fix and, if so, who lines up on which side. Then we can all have our partisan fun if anyone thinks that worth doing.
MacMurray made his bones playing bad guys, like his character in Double Indemnity, so he wasn't cast against type in Caine. His later career as a Disney dad was the switch.
There are a few people still around who were alive during the 1918 flu epidemic, but they were too young to remember it then and are too old to remember it now.
One of my quarantine entertainments is competitive BBQ shows. It's getting to where I have become a fan of certain repeat competitors, and I can predict what Myron Mixon is going to say. Ask me what my favorite regional style is, and my answer is "Yes." NYC doesn't have a style of its own, but it has in recent years developed many fine BBQ joints in a variety of styles. I haven't found a place that does Alabama style, yet, but I haven't given up.
Back in the day when we had only a few networks, millions of people watched shows that ended up cancelled -- rightly from the network point of view -- for low ratings. With all the channels and networks available now, in a country of 300-odd (some very odd) million potential viewers, millions of people will watch just about anything. There's no accounting for taste, and I don't much care who watches what, but it does mean that, given a critical, but not very large mass of fans, their obsessing and arguing about marginal entertainments that the vast majority of people don't even want to be bothered having an opinion about leach into the culture at large and take up the time of innocent bystanders, unlike, say, the disputes among opera fans, which outsiders can easily ignore.
Quite a few people have a vested interest in finding, and a powerful incentive to find, voter fraud. They've looked. They found bupkis. The solutions proposed -- like er photo ID -- would do next to nothing to prevent voter fraud on a large enough scale to affect elections. Especially if you consider what you would have to do to swing an election.
I can brag about my own blue-collar cred until the cows come home. If anyone looked down on me as human scum for delivering them beer, all I can say is that I never had such an experience. Few people I know among the fancier peer group I now inhabit look down on people who do honest, blue-collar work. Maybe you run in, or imagine from a distance, a snottier crowd than mine.
All of this is true, but, given the choice, would Bill Withers go back to making toilets? Of course he wouldn't. He himself thought his life was better when he no longer made toilets, and in his position, so would we. And we may as well admit it.
Don't bother. With Jaybird, it isn't what's so (lots of people recognized HRC's mistakes and there is little prospect of any 2020 candidate repeating them), but what rolls across his Twitter feed. In the places where Jaybird looks, people didn't say what he wanted said -- relevant or not -- in the way he wanted to hear it said. That in other parts of the world people who cared or had reason to care gave it the attention it deserved and moved on to more relevant matters doesn't register.
Eventually, they'd get used to it. Especially since they won't have a say. Hell, I still want nurses in tight white skirted uniforms, but nobody seems to do that anymore except theme strippers.
On “Wednesday Writs 4/22: Ramos v. Louisiana”
None of the opinions seemed especially persuasive to me, even though I have long had problems with Apodaca and the Williams case, concerning the permissible size of criminal juries. While it seems to me unlikely that the framers and ratifiers of the 6th amendment intended to constitutionalize all the then-existing features of the common-law jury trial, like size and voting, the 6th amendment itself contains no hint of a principled way to decide which features could be modified and, if they can be modified, by how much. Is 10-2 OK and 7-5 not? Is a 6-person jury OK and a 4-person jury not? In the absence of such an identifiable principle, as I saw it there were two alternatives: stick with the way it was done in 1788 or anything goes. Apodaca and Williams did neither, leading to incoherence. That said, nobody is seriously proposing 4-person juries or 7-5 votes, no one can seriously argue, our common-law practice aside, that 6-person juries and 10-2 votes are, as an original matter, unjust, and we have lived with the present regime for almost 50 years, without visible adverse consequences. Under the circumstances, this is not much of a case for upsetting settled law, even if some of us would have decided differently in 1972.
On “Harsh Your Mellow Monday: Problems, Progress & Progressive Edition”
It has always taken a thick skin to do unpopular things. I was doing them 50 years ago. I haven't stopped. I'd say "grow a pair," but I might be criticized for my word choice. F**k it.
"
That's Celebrity Death Match.
"
I, too, like what Progressive has done with Jamie. I'd like to see Celebrity Death brought back so Flo from Progressive and Jan from Toyota could slug it out. Maybe the winner would take on the AT&T woman, though I haven't seen her in commercials lately.
"
I'm a GEICO customer, from before funny commercials (hell, almost before cars), and I once sent them a commercial idea, complete with explicit permission to use it for free (though I said I would enjoy being there for the filming). It featured the GEICO cave men spelunking and finding marvelous cave art. The lead caveman goes deeper into the chamber and screams. When the second caveman rushes to see what is wrong, the camera pans to a GEICO gecko painting among the mammoths and stick figures. I don't know why they didn't use it.
"
I've wondered why sober insurance companies have been commissioning so many funny or weird (or both) ads. I've long thought that the files of the insurance companies contain rich comic material and Farmers has been using it. GEICO. Progressive, it keeps going. I like the trend, but wonder how and why it got started.
On “Stimulus Legislation “Loophole” Allows Garnishment of Relief Checks”
This was a big bill passed in a hurry. I think Aaron David is right that income normally is subject to garnishment unless some law carves it out. There's no carve-out in the law. Did somebody advocate for one and not get the vote? If so, I haven't heard about it. That means it's absolute nonsense to blame anyone, Republican or Democrat, that nobody thought about this in the mark-up sessions. It isn't even incompetence. Big legislation usually has some unintended gaps, especially if it is thrown together fast. This looks perfectly normal to me. Now that it has come to public attention, let's see if someone proposes a fix and, if so, who lines up on which side. Then we can all have our partisan fun if anyone thinks that worth doing.
On “The Caine Mutiny: A New Reason to Appreciate A Classic”
When I was growing up, he was the father in My Three Sons and the classic Disney Dad. But I learned a thing or two later.
"
MacMurray made his bones playing bad guys, like his character in Double Indemnity, so he wasn't cast against type in Caine. His later career as a Disney dad was the switch.
On “Something Has Got to Give: Law, Liberty, and Coronavirus”
I did the same thing recently. I don't know what it does either.
"
There are a few people still around who were alive during the 1918 flu epidemic, but they were too young to remember it then and are too old to remember it now.
On “Burnt Ends: The Fast History of Low and Slow Life”
The style of not having a style -- a very NYC approach.
"
One of my quarantine entertainments is competitive BBQ shows. It's getting to where I have become a fan of certain repeat competitors, and I can predict what Myron Mixon is going to say. Ask me what my favorite regional style is, and my answer is "Yes." NYC doesn't have a style of its own, but it has in recent years developed many fine BBQ joints in a variety of styles. I haven't found a place that does Alabama style, yet, but I haven't given up.
On “Mini-Throughput: Visiting the Neighbors Edition”
Now it's back.
"
For some reason, the first comment is blank and "ignored" appears in a box. I'm not sure what "ignoring" is and wouldn't know how to do it on purpose.
On “Tiger King: America’s Newest Obsession”
Back in the day when we had only a few networks, millions of people watched shows that ended up cancelled -- rightly from the network point of view -- for low ratings. With all the channels and networks available now, in a country of 300-odd (some very odd) million potential viewers, millions of people will watch just about anything. There's no accounting for taste, and I don't much care who watches what, but it does mean that, given a critical, but not very large mass of fans, their obsessing and arguing about marginal entertainments that the vast majority of people don't even want to be bothered having an opinion about leach into the culture at large and take up the time of innocent bystanders, unlike, say, the disputes among opera fans, which outsiders can easily ignore.
On “A Clusterfark in Wisconsin”
Quite a few people have a vested interest in finding, and a powerful incentive to find, voter fraud. They've looked. They found bupkis. The solutions proposed -- like er photo ID -- would do next to nothing to prevent voter fraud on a large enough scale to affect elections. Especially if you consider what you would have to do to swing an election.
On “Hey WaPo, There is Nothing Wrong With Making Toilets”
I can brag about my own blue-collar cred until the cows come home. If anyone looked down on me as human scum for delivering them beer, all I can say is that I never had such an experience. Few people I know among the fancier peer group I now inhabit look down on people who do honest, blue-collar work. Maybe you run in, or imagine from a distance, a snottier crowd than mine.
"
All of this is true, but, given the choice, would Bill Withers go back to making toilets? Of course he wouldn't. He himself thought his life was better when he no longer made toilets, and in his position, so would we. And we may as well admit it.
On “Joe Biden: Staying Alive”
Don't bother. With Jaybird, it isn't what's so (lots of people recognized HRC's mistakes and there is little prospect of any 2020 candidate repeating them), but what rolls across his Twitter feed. In the places where Jaybird looks, people didn't say what he wanted said -- relevant or not -- in the way he wanted to hear it said. That in other parts of the world people who cared or had reason to care gave it the attention it deserved and moved on to more relevant matters doesn't register.
On “Andrew Yang, Bringer of Pestilence”
Which of them is/are "relevant"?
On “Wednesday Writs: Schoolboy Innuendo Edition”
But -- but -- it's the opponents of Citizens United who don't believe in free speech.
On “Carnage: 6.6 Million in Initial Jobless Claims, 10 Million Two Week Total”
Eventually, they'd get used to it. Especially since they won't have a say. Hell, I still want nurses in tight white skirted uniforms, but nobody seems to do that anymore except theme strippers.
"
Didn't there used to be a government agency that would have been tasked with looking into just this sort of thing? Whatever happened to it?
On “Joe Biden: Staying Alive”
Need I point out that that's still not a denial?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.