I caution people to not rejoice over death, anyone's. It's bad for your soul to cheer death, to wish for death, to take pleasure in it.
And then death takes someone whose principal public achievement has been doing great harm to others, as was true for Pat Robertson, and my adherence to this maxim is once again sore tested.
Now, the Joe Biden administration is going bigger: a war on autocracy, which, instead of being centered on the Middle East can now be spread to…well, anywhere. You are with democracy—i.e., the latest progressive trends—or you are with fascistic autocracy. There is no in-between.
[¶]
In response to Anakin’s “If you are not with me, then you are my enemy,” Obi-Wan responds with an unknowingly hypocritical, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes”—which is itself, of course, an absolute. Even at the end, he failed to realize the hypocrisy of the Jedi Order and lost focus on what truly mattered.
If there is a War on Autocracy going on, where exactly is the middle ground between the absolute positions? Am I supposed to accept some autocracy mixed in with my democracy?
For purposes of storytelling, it's easy enough to see the Jedi Council versus Palpatine conflict in Episode III as a clash between Lawful Evil and Neutral Good. For purposes of allegory, it's a reminder that when we evaluate politicians and their use of power to change the law, procedural formalism is not a proxy for moral gravity.
The procedural vote failed 206-220, an embarrassing and rare floor defeat for leadership that effectively sank legislation to ban the prohibition of gas stoves and to impose new congressional oversight on federal rules. A procedural vote – known as a House rule, which sets parameters for floor debate – typically pass with the support of the majority party. The last time a rule failed in the chamber was in 2002.
So when they come to take your gas stoves away like the tyrants they are, you'll have Matt Gaetz & Co. to thank for it, because they let their guard down to flex on Kevin McCarthy!
Oh, good advice. I had one like this in my home back in California's high desert. My then-wife and I had a lovely vision of sitting out on our back patio with fresh cold ice in our drinks, and for that first day it was a lovely reality. The second day, there was a sandstorm and many many many tiny particles of sand got in there and it was never clean again.
But that first, calm night, with our grilled dinner and some freshly-iced cocktails? We felt like royalty.
The government can engage in speech of its own. when it does so it is not required to be viewpoint-neutral or give "equal time" to competing viewpoints. Pleasant Grove v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460 (2009). This particular case makes me queasy, but the basic idea--the government gets to speak on matters, including those of public controversy, and take a side in that controversy--is not particularly bothersome. For instance, it seems obvious that the government ought to be able to use its power of speech to encourage people to engage in desirable but non-mandatory behavior like vaccinating their children or quitting smoking. If the government can go so far, as in Summum as to say "We don't like this particular religion so we aren't going to set aside any space in the public park for its monument," then it can surely also say "The 2020 election was free and fair and the result was valid and legal."
Da, Comrade, San Jose is like former Soviet Union: you pretend to work at big tech company doing things you and company and government all pretend are important. They pay you much money for this and then the government takes this money from you.
But look at attractive stucco facing and lovely red Spanish tiles on the standardized housing units! Is much better.
We can have a lengthy, wonky, in-depth discussion about why that is, and the degree to which it is true, and the inexact boundaries of it. An interesting place to start would be United
States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012), finding the Stolen Valor Act inconsistent with the First Amendment. Suffice to say it is at best unclear that truth is the teleological function of free speech.
That's not the impression AG Bailey's thread leaves -- Bailey suggests that the government encouraged Twitter (etc.) to censor certain kinds of statements (questioning masking efficacy, vaccine safety, and election integrity) based on viewpoint. Something (experience) tells me there's WAY more nuance to what's going on than that.
As to the "catspaw" theory, I believe the standard is if it can be proven that an agent of the government intentionally induced a private company to do something that it would not otherwise have done and which would violate the constitution if the government did it directly, that is also a constitutional violation. Note you need all three elements: 1) private action was something private actor would not otherwise have done, 2) government intentionally induces private actor to do this thing, and 3) the thing would violate the constitution if the government did it.
Is that what's going on with Missouri's case? I dunno, we don't have a transcript or the pleadings at hand from the thread. What we're reading is the plaintiff's lawyer's version of what was said at an oral argument. Which is in no way slanted away from strictly neutral objectivity.
Yeah, but A decent designer aided by a structural engineer could surely come up with some way to modify these and make them visually pleasing. Or if not these, then something similar.
Add in some decent landscaping...? It would be fine. Re-sellable, at least. Not the Taj Mahal, but it doesn't need to be. It needs to be, as you say, aesthetic.
Tomorrow: Metric and Garbage "open" for some other group.
Saturday: A visit from an old friend from these very pages!
Sunday: Brunch and Holst's The Planets
It's not glamorous and I hear your concern about how durable it is (or isn't.) And there's no doubt at all that "dirt costs more than sticks." The only thing we see here are the sticks. I echo Greg's concern above that the mobile home park model, where you own the dwelling but rent the land it sits on, doesn't seem to be a real great way to go. Buy it or rent it.
All the same, this is a good thing. Is it a mobile home? Yeah, at least it looks a lot like that. Is it for everyone? No, but it's better than what a lot of people have and it probably can be a good thing for a city or a county to buy maybe 80-100 of these things, set them up as first-step-off-the-streets housing for people, and help work on housing the unhoused.
Which makes me ask: is it modular enough to stack them one on top of the other? Could you build a superstructure and plug these into one? If not, it's not hard to imagine some similar housing unit that could be done that way.
Alternatively, they might also be used as starter homes, or as ADUs. It's certainly a piece of the puzzle for combating the housing shortage which is one of the great shames of this wealthy nation of ours.
Love this comment. I suggest that when people are exposed to an actual clash of ideas, they tend to cherry-pick out facts and arguments supporting the point of view they held entering the debate for affirmation, and cherry-pick out facts and arguments supporting different points of view for rejection. During the debate, their attitudes harden and polarize, and they become angry and frustrated with the person with a different point of view. Most people leave a debate feeling stronger and more energetic about the opinions they held before the debate; the debate tells them that they were right all along. This is true for both sides of the debate and the actual merits of the issue are, most of the time, irrelevant.
A technical problem with Twitter is not the same thing as a political problem with DeSantis. DeSantis is, on paper, everything a Republican could want. Except for the fact that he's not Donald Trump. We shall soon enough find out if Republicans really are "over" Trump and my marker is on "plurality wins for Trump over fragmented opposition in the primaries, to be followed by a colorful and frenetic but ultimately simple lesser-evil pitch for the general."
And it seems to me that at least some of the time, Target employees were handling the self-owning a-holes, angry that Target was offering products that were appealing to people different than themselves, quite professionally and appropriately. See:
https://twitter.com/alex_abads/status/1661370324137435137
Yeah, this, basically. The norm of "the strong should use their strength to protect the weak and govern themselves with justice," which is maybe we would like chivalry to have been, we can pretend that's what chivalry is all about today.
And as a general rule, I like the ethic much better than a Hobbesian War of All Against All. It enables things like NATO to exist; I for one still see NATO as a force for good which we ought support. More, not less, involvement of our European allies in NATO is good; and more, not fewer, members of that alliance is good. Welcome, Finland and Sweden!
Gonna quibble with your definition of M1 because you omit liquid deposits in banking institutions. If you're just looking at currency, and omitting deposits altogether, what you've got is M0 and that's a far smaller number than M1. As for the reserve ratio to which you refer, the Fed already reduced it to zero, more than three years ago, and it seems content to leave it there (presumably, not enough banks have failed from overextension yet to raise the Governors' concern).
But we aren't talking about the Fed here. The Fed doesn't resolve the government's debts, it doesn't collect taxes, it doesn't redistribute the government's money at the pleasure of Congress. That's the job of the Treasury.
You're very probably correct that the only two parties anywhere that could use a $1,000,000,000,000 coin would be the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Plenty of private businesses already refuse most cash transactions (try to buy a beer on an airplane with currency, for instance, and I bet you'll stay thirsty). Query, then, if calling a physical object "legal tender" has the significance either of us attribute to it.
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/5/2023”
I caution people to not rejoice over death, anyone's. It's bad for your soul to cheer death, to wish for death, to take pleasure in it.
And then death takes someone whose principal public achievement has been doing great harm to others, as was true for Pat Robertson, and my adherence to this maxim is once again sore tested.
On “Mike Pence RetCons Mike Pence”
That's a good point. Now we're all left to wonder how often Mike Pence partakes of human flesh.
On “Star Wars Episode III, The War on Terror, & The Wars To Come”
From the OP:
If there is a War on Autocracy going on, where exactly is the middle ground between the absolute positions? Am I supposed to accept some autocracy mixed in with my democracy?
For purposes of storytelling, it's easy enough to see the Jedi Council versus Palpatine conflict in Episode III as a clash between Lawful Evil and Neutral Good. For purposes of allegory, it's a reminder that when we evaluate politicians and their use of power to change the law, procedural formalism is not a proxy for moral gravity.
On “FDR’s D-Day Prayer Still Calls For A Response”
My goodness that peroration was every bit as good, uplifting, and challenging as FDR's. Well done, good sir.
On “Thirty Years of Dinosaurs: An Ode To Jurassic Park”
IIRC, Chekhov had already scattered quite a few firearms around this film.
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/5/2023”
Indeed:
So when they come to take your gas stoves away like the tyrants they are, you'll have Matt Gaetz & Co. to thank for it, because they let their guard down to flex on Kevin McCarthy!
On “Ice! Ice, Baby!”
Oh, good advice. I had one like this in my home back in California's high desert. My then-wife and I had a lovely vision of sitting out on our back patio with fresh cold ice in our drinks, and for that first day it was a lovely reality. The second day, there was a sandstorm and many many many tiny particles of sand got in there and it was never clean again.
But that first, calm night, with our grilled dinner and some freshly-iced cocktails? We felt like royalty.
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/5/2023”
Thought it was pretty obvious, actually.
"
Sadly I lost interest before it occurred to me to look up and read the briefs.
"
Have you considered the possibility that Taylor Swift actually is the Goddess? The Swifties certainly all act consistently with that theory.
"
The government can engage in speech of its own. when it does so it is not required to be viewpoint-neutral or give "equal time" to competing viewpoints. Pleasant Grove v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460 (2009). This particular case makes me queasy, but the basic idea--the government gets to speak on matters, including those of public controversy, and take a side in that controversy--is not particularly bothersome. For instance, it seems obvious that the government ought to be able to use its power of speech to encourage people to engage in desirable but non-mandatory behavior like vaccinating their children or quitting smoking. If the government can go so far, as in Summum as to say "We don't like this particular religion so we aren't going to set aside any space in the public park for its monument," then it can surely also say "The 2020 election was free and fair and the result was valid and legal."
"
Da, Comrade, San Jose is like former Soviet Union: you pretend to work at big tech company doing things you and company and government all pretend are important. They pay you much money for this and then the government takes this money from you.
But look at attractive stucco facing and lovely red Spanish tiles on the standardized housing units! Is much better.
"
We can have a lengthy, wonky, in-depth discussion about why that is, and the degree to which it is true, and the inexact boundaries of it. An interesting place to start would be United
States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709 (2012), finding the Stolen Valor Act inconsistent with the First Amendment. Suffice to say it is at best unclear that truth is the teleological function of free speech.
"
That's not the impression AG Bailey's thread leaves -- Bailey suggests that the government encouraged Twitter (etc.) to censor certain kinds of statements (questioning masking efficacy, vaccine safety, and election integrity) based on viewpoint. Something (experience) tells me there's WAY more nuance to what's going on than that.
As to the "catspaw" theory, I believe the standard is if it can be proven that an agent of the government intentionally induced a private company to do something that it would not otherwise have done and which would violate the constitution if the government did it directly, that is also a constitutional violation. Note you need all three elements: 1) private action was something private actor would not otherwise have done, 2) government intentionally induces private actor to do this thing, and 3) the thing would violate the constitution if the government did it.
Is that what's going on with Missouri's case? I dunno, we don't have a transcript or the pleadings at hand from the thread. What we're reading is the plaintiff's lawyer's version of what was said at an oral argument. Which is in no way slanted away from strictly neutral objectivity.
On “Affordable Single-Family Housing at Scale”
Laws are malleable, if there is the political will to change them.
"
Yeah, but A decent designer aided by a structural engineer could surely come up with some way to modify these and make them visually pleasing. Or if not these, then something similar.
Add in some decent landscaping...? It would be fine. Re-sellable, at least. Not the Taj Mahal, but it doesn't need to be. It needs to be, as you say, aesthetic.
On “Weekend Plans Post: School’s Out”
Tomorrow: Metric and Garbage "open" for some other group.
Saturday: A visit from an old friend from these very pages!
Sunday: Brunch and Holst's The Planets
On “Affordable Single-Family Housing at Scale”
It's not glamorous and I hear your concern about how durable it is (or isn't.) And there's no doubt at all that "dirt costs more than sticks." The only thing we see here are the sticks. I echo Greg's concern above that the mobile home park model, where you own the dwelling but rent the land it sits on, doesn't seem to be a real great way to go. Buy it or rent it.
All the same, this is a good thing. Is it a mobile home? Yeah, at least it looks a lot like that. Is it for everyone? No, but it's better than what a lot of people have and it probably can be a good thing for a city or a county to buy maybe 80-100 of these things, set them up as first-step-off-the-streets housing for people, and help work on housing the unhoused.
Which makes me ask: is it modular enough to stack them one on top of the other? Could you build a superstructure and plug these into one? If not, it's not hard to imagine some similar housing unit that could be done that way.
Alternatively, they might also be used as starter homes, or as ADUs. It's certainly a piece of the puzzle for combating the housing shortage which is one of the great shames of this wealthy nation of ours.
On “Hopeless Presidential Candidates Are Good for Democracy”
Love this comment. I suggest that when people are exposed to an actual clash of ideas, they tend to cherry-pick out facts and arguments supporting the point of view they held entering the debate for affirmation, and cherry-pick out facts and arguments supporting different points of view for rejection. During the debate, their attitudes harden and polarize, and they become angry and frustrated with the person with a different point of view. Most people leave a debate feeling stronger and more energetic about the opinions they held before the debate; the debate tells them that they were right all along. This is true for both sides of the debate and the actual merits of the issue are, most of the time, irrelevant.
On “DeSantis Enters the Race, Promptly Missteps”
A technical problem with Twitter is not the same thing as a political problem with DeSantis. DeSantis is, on paper, everything a Republican could want. Except for the fact that he's not Donald Trump. We shall soon enough find out if Republicans really are "over" Trump and my marker is on "plurality wins for Trump over fragmented opposition in the primaries, to be followed by a colorful and frenetic but ultimately simple lesser-evil pitch for the general."
On “Open Mic for the week of 5/22/2023”
I'll be a brewer! People will still want beer after the revolution.
"
Acceeding to the vandal's veto.
And it seems to me that at least some of the time, Target employees were handling the self-owning a-holes, angry that Target was offering products that were appealing to people different than themselves, quite professionally and appropriately. See:
https://twitter.com/alex_abads/status/1661370324137435137
"
Oh dear, that must have been very painful. RIP. We'll miss her.
On “On Geopolitical Chivalry”
Yeah, this, basically. The norm of "the strong should use their strength to protect the weak and govern themselves with justice," which is maybe we would like chivalry to have been, we can pretend that's what chivalry is all about today.
And as a general rule, I like the ethic much better than a Hobbesian War of All Against All. It enables things like NATO to exist; I for one still see NATO as a force for good which we ought support. More, not less, involvement of our European allies in NATO is good; and more, not fewer, members of that alliance is good. Welcome, Finland and Sweden!
On “Shake Shack, Suspect Specie, and Sane Stewardship of the State”
Gonna quibble with your definition of M1 because you omit liquid deposits in banking institutions. If you're just looking at currency, and omitting deposits altogether, what you've got is M0 and that's a far smaller number than M1. As for the reserve ratio to which you refer, the Fed already reduced it to zero, more than three years ago, and it seems content to leave it there (presumably, not enough banks have failed from overextension yet to raise the Governors' concern).
But we aren't talking about the Fed here. The Fed doesn't resolve the government's debts, it doesn't collect taxes, it doesn't redistribute the government's money at the pleasure of Congress. That's the job of the Treasury.
You're very probably correct that the only two parties anywhere that could use a $1,000,000,000,000 coin would be the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve. Plenty of private businesses already refuse most cash transactions (try to buy a beer on an airplane with currency, for instance, and I bet you'll stay thirsty). Query, then, if calling a physical object "legal tender" has the significance either of us attribute to it.