I’m not in favor of defunding the police, but we do need police reform. One of the first reforms that I would make is to give police officers better training on how to de-escalate potentially violent situations.
Proposed for discussion purposes: mainstream acceptance that a debate about police reform, and what that reform looks like, did not occur until more-extreme advocates of defending reached a critical mass, pushing the center of political gravity from "let's focus on why the non-police officer in this scenario might have deserved some level of violence" to "let's focus on how encounters between police officers and non-police officers can stay nonviolent." (Which is a good development, earned with far too much blood and pain.)
Much more because of the subject matter of the OP than "bad day and a Coke" kinds of posts. The banality of the latter I often found soothing, in a way. Or made me feel a connection, however tenuous.
No, it was mainly Instant Outrage From All Directions, which for me was exemplified by The Former Guy and the kinds of comments he inspired. Oftan fom haters as well as acolytes.
Better to not be in that soup. If only I could get my Boomers to turn the TV News off, because it too offers up a steady daily diet of Instant Outrage About Everything and that's just not a good way to live.
Koz, I have no idea why you felt it necessary to call out any of this.
Of course there are Constitutional rights involved in evictions. There are Constitutional rights involved in any judicial proceeding, by definition. And of course possession of real property is a dimension of the right to own property at all, and transference of that right in exchange for mo ey is, inherently, what renting property is. If you don't think property rights are worth treating with Constitutional seriousness, that makes me question what sort of a libertarian you are, and it makes me question your understanding of the Constitution in the first place since both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clauses are quite explicit about the government (which includes the courts) being required to afford due process before depriving people of their property.
Nowhere have I said, and nowhere did Em say, that a landlord ought not have the right and practical ability to evict a defaulting tenant. In other comments on this very page I remarked that very very bad things would happen if this were not the case. And I remarked above that while it's unfortunate and uncommon, there really are tenants who abuse the judicial system and treat their landlords in the worst faith imaginable.
In case you don't know or didn't remember, for about ten years, representing landlords in eviction cases was a significant part of my practice. The bulk of my clients were mom-and-pop type landlords rather than big property management companies. The accusation that I somehow don't appreciate their interests (apparently because I think the legal system should be fair to everyone, even tenants) stings to the point of insult. This is a similar feeling of insult as you surely felt when I questioned your libertarian bona fides just now.
Let's call it even, then. I AGREE with you that there needs to be an efficient eviction process. I wish you would agree with me that it needs to be fair and Constitutional.
There are no such complicated Constitutional rights issues with rental agreements.
I guess that depends on whether you see possession of land as an incident of property, which is how Ye Olde Common Lawe treats it. If possession is an incident of property, then it is a property right and you can't deprive someone of a property right without first affording them due process of law. Which, at minimum, requires notice of charges and penalty, the right to retain and enjoy the assistance of legal counsel, a neutral decision-maker, an opportunity to present evidence to that neutral decision-maker, and an opportunity to challenge evidence offered against you -- all before a decision as to whether or not state power is deployed to then deprive you of that property interest.
Eviction procedures in most states provide this minimal amount of due process, with the neutrality of the decision-maker being sometimes questionable. Often, it appears that someone has made some effort to make sure that the procedures just barely provide this amount of due process. For a good or at least plausibly defensible reason, I might add, but all the same, there is a Constitutional dimension and so we can't have summary evictions consistent with the Constitution.
In most cases I've seen with mom and pop landlords as clients, the eviction is generally a stop-loss procedure. The least bad remaining option for the landlord, and the inevitable bad outcome for the tenant. Nobody wins, it's just a question of who gets to lose more in the future.
At least in my state, we need three times as many public defenders for Gideon-eligible charges as we have. As described in the linked article, nearly 300 cases of serious crimes have been dismissed as of December 2022 because the state can't fulfill its Constitutional mandate to provide counsel to people who a) have been charged with serious crimes and therefore b) face serious prison time. Why this hasn't outraged conservatives and victim's rights groups to the point of torches and pitchforks is an absolute mystery to me.
If we make counsel necessary for evictions -- and in a world with unlimited resources I'd say we should -- that will create, effectively, a massive eviction moratorium. Which would be very good in the very short run for some renters, and then very quickly become very, very bad for everyone.
I'd love to say that this sort of thing is rare and almost never happens. Buti have experience. Best I can say instead is, it's relatively rare. It's a risk a lot of landlords don't consider when setting rent, especially the smaller, less sophisticated ones -- and part of the reason bigger, more sophisticated landlords charge so much.
I'm willing to give Pence the same benefit of the doubt I afforded to Biden. I'm not willing to give that benefit of the bargain to Trump, on the basis of the sheer volume of documents found and the amount of bullshit, obfuscation, and rigamarole Trump vomited upon the process which in any context is good evidence of consciousness of guilt.
With that said, it does seem like we ought to be asking how it can be that so many former high public officials seem to have stray classified documents in their possession after they leave office, even if they do the right thing and turn them back in upon discovery. There is something amiss about how those documents are being handled and that probably does transcend any particular individual and certainly transcends partisanship.
The Land of the Long White Cloud is worse off for it. By all measures readily apparent to me, Arden was more than competent at her job, and during an amazingly difficult time to be in charge of a government.
3. Nero Wolfe's scrambled eggs look quite good also but oy, what a lot of work. Also I disagree strongly with adding salt during the scramble. Will estop the rise to fluffiness we all seek in our eggs. I recommend keeping some cleaned-out jelly jars and cracking your eggs in them. Add a dash of cream (not much) if you want, and a generous amount of chopped chives, and (very important) one drop of water for each egg. Close and seal the jelly jar, and shake it well. Immediately pour into a buttered pan and cook over low heat. As fluffy as Wolfe's? Maybe not,but ready in ten minutes instead of thirty.
4. I know there are people who have scrambled eggs with no cheese on them. I just don't understand why they do this.
Assuming that people are your opponents because of a trivial disagreement when they're actually quite willing to mostly be your friends on most things is a really good way to not have anyone by your side when an actual opponent shows up.
Assuming that said opponent is dumb because they have a different opinion is a really really good way to get your ass handed to you, and that's when you need friends to help you out the most.
IOW Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema are sometimes frustrating, but without them, Mitch McConnell would be running the Senate, so maybe if you don't have as many blessings as you'd like, count the ones you do have, slowly.
This concludes today's episode of "Burt Likko venting about bizarrely short-sighted Portland progressives." Thanks for tuning in.
If TYT produced a movie with Amy Schumer and some liberals complained that it wasn’t woke enough?
Actually, that would totally happen. At least in certain coffeeshops and taphouses I drop by in from time to time and can't really help but overhear such complaints because I'm kind of meant to overhear them.
I don't think I need to drop my left-of-center bona fides to roll my eyes when I hear competitors in the Portland Woke Olympics complaining about relatively minor deviations from the Perfect Progressive Policy Platform. Just wait until they hear what I want to do with the homeless encampment out in front of my neighborhood's grocery store (I want the city to house them, for the record).
As always, love these. Not a lot to add other than my understanding has been that people who have bothered to think about it have always believed the Earth is roughly a globe, in part for reasons discussed here. As triumphant and elegant as his experiment was, Eratosthenes did not come up with the idea of using long-distance trigonometry to test the size and curvature of the Earth on his own. The notion of the Earth as a very large globe would have been a well-known theory to him, which he surely regarded as almost certainly correct even beforehand (by looking at ships sailing over the horizon and disappearing hull-first).
Puts paid to the idea that the Marshal of SCOTUS does anything more than chant "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" at the start of oral argument. (More soberly, Marshal Curley has a pretty impressive resume. But what else could she do but ask everyone involved if they would confess?)
There are people who think that runaway juries goaded by crazed liberal-woke trial attorneys and their greedy and cynical race-baiting clients are a problem sapping the vitality out of America. Then there are the people who understand that this result is closer to what one normally expects in a police abuse case.
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/19/1149924822/army-lieutenant-virginia-police-traffic-stop
Many electrons have been spilt regarding Velma's sexuality as well in recent years. It's probably not important whether Kaling's Velma is iterated thusly, although as you describe the show, it sounds a lot like it's Riverdale-ing Scooby-Doo (sans chien). I thought Riverdale was a very clever idea, but lost interest after watching a few episodes because the novelty of thirty-year-old-actors playing teenagers alongside cast alumni from Dawson's Creek, and the "Dark Archie" character profiles, all that just wore off. I anticipate the same problem here: the novelty of a South Parkification of a beloved Saturday morning cartoon from my childhood will appeal to who it appeals to, and then it won't anymore when the novelty fades, and that'll be all she wrote and cool beans to Kaling and the rest of the people involved for trying.
I presume if the NYT had suddenly started an unanimous, no-dissent-tolerated campaign against gas burners that would have been bad too. But I read here that expressing different opinions and ideas is ALSO bad because the Times' message is incoherent from one day to the next.
On “Police Brutality Rears Its Ugly Head in Memphis”
Proposed for discussion purposes: mainstream acceptance that a debate about police reform, and what that reform looks like, did not occur until more-extreme advocates of defending reached a critical mass, pushing the center of political gravity from "let's focus on why the non-police officer in this scenario might have deserved some level of violence" to "let's focus on how encounters between police officers and non-police officers can stay nonviolent." (Which is a good development, earned with far too much blood and pain.)
On “Outrage: To Love “A Good Hate””
Joining you in this.
Much more because of the subject matter of the OP than "bad day and a Coke" kinds of posts. The banality of the latter I often found soothing, in a way. Or made me feel a connection, however tenuous.
No, it was mainly Instant Outrage From All Directions, which for me was exemplified by The Former Guy and the kinds of comments he inspired. Oftan fom haters as well as acolytes.
Better to not be in that soup. If only I could get my Boomers to turn the TV News off, because it too offers up a steady daily diet of Instant Outrage About Everything and that's just not a good way to live.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: On Silent Protagonists”
I'm remembering a number of jokes in Portal 2 about the protagonist never talking despite the fact that at least two NPCs were quite chatty.
On “Biden’s Renter’s Bill of Rights: Is it Time for the Right to Counsel to Evolve?”
Koz, I have no idea why you felt it necessary to call out any of this.
Of course there are Constitutional rights involved in evictions. There are Constitutional rights involved in any judicial proceeding, by definition. And of course possession of real property is a dimension of the right to own property at all, and transference of that right in exchange for mo ey is, inherently, what renting property is. If you don't think property rights are worth treating with Constitutional seriousness, that makes me question what sort of a libertarian you are, and it makes me question your understanding of the Constitution in the first place since both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clauses are quite explicit about the government (which includes the courts) being required to afford due process before depriving people of their property.
Nowhere have I said, and nowhere did Em say, that a landlord ought not have the right and practical ability to evict a defaulting tenant. In other comments on this very page I remarked that very very bad things would happen if this were not the case. And I remarked above that while it's unfortunate and uncommon, there really are tenants who abuse the judicial system and treat their landlords in the worst faith imaginable.
In case you don't know or didn't remember, for about ten years, representing landlords in eviction cases was a significant part of my practice. The bulk of my clients were mom-and-pop type landlords rather than big property management companies. The accusation that I somehow don't appreciate their interests (apparently because I think the legal system should be fair to everyone, even tenants) stings to the point of insult. This is a similar feeling of insult as you surely felt when I questioned your libertarian bona fides just now.
Let's call it even, then. I AGREE with you that there needs to be an efficient eviction process. I wish you would agree with me that it needs to be fair and Constitutional.
"
I guess that depends on whether you see possession of land as an incident of property, which is how Ye Olde Common Lawe treats it. If possession is an incident of property, then it is a property right and you can't deprive someone of a property right without first affording them due process of law. Which, at minimum, requires notice of charges and penalty, the right to retain and enjoy the assistance of legal counsel, a neutral decision-maker, an opportunity to present evidence to that neutral decision-maker, and an opportunity to challenge evidence offered against you -- all before a decision as to whether or not state power is deployed to then deprive you of that property interest.
Eviction procedures in most states provide this minimal amount of due process, with the neutrality of the decision-maker being sometimes questionable. Often, it appears that someone has made some effort to make sure that the procedures just barely provide this amount of due process. For a good or at least plausibly defensible reason, I might add, but all the same, there is a Constitutional dimension and so we can't have summary evictions consistent with the Constitution.
"
In most cases I've seen with mom and pop landlords as clients, the eviction is generally a stop-loss procedure. The least bad remaining option for the landlord, and the inevitable bad outcome for the tenant. Nobody wins, it's just a question of who gets to lose more in the future.
"
At least in my state, we need three times as many public defenders for Gideon-eligible charges as we have. As described in the linked article, nearly 300 cases of serious crimes have been dismissed as of December 2022 because the state can't fulfill its Constitutional mandate to provide counsel to people who a) have been charged with serious crimes and therefore b) face serious prison time. Why this hasn't outraged conservatives and victim's rights groups to the point of torches and pitchforks is an absolute mystery to me.
If we make counsel necessary for evictions -- and in a world with unlimited resources I'd say we should -- that will create, effectively, a massive eviction moratorium. Which would be very good in the very short run for some renters, and then very quickly become very, very bad for everyone.
"
I'd love to say that this sort of thing is rare and almost never happens. Buti have experience. Best I can say instead is, it's relatively rare. It's a risk a lot of landlords don't consider when setting rent, especially the smaller, less sophisticated ones -- and part of the reason bigger, more sophisticated landlords charge so much.
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 1/23/2023”
I'm willing to give Pence the same benefit of the doubt I afforded to Biden. I'm not willing to give that benefit of the bargain to Trump, on the basis of the sheer volume of documents found and the amount of bullshit, obfuscation, and rigamarole Trump vomited upon the process which in any context is good evidence of consciousness of guilt.
With that said, it does seem like we ought to be asking how it can be that so many former high public officials seem to have stray classified documents in their possession after they leave office, even if they do the right thing and turn them back in upon discovery. There is something amiss about how those documents are being handled and that probably does transcend any particular individual and certainly transcends partisanship.
"
The Land of the Long White Cloud is worse off for it. By all measures readily apparent to me, Arden was more than competent at her job, and during an amazingly difficult time to be in charge of a government.
"
If you think Pence voluntarily took this hit so that Biden could look better, you have got more than a light touch of the cray-cray going on.
On “Piperade: A Spicy One Pan Breakfast for Whenever”
Have you used the silicone egg cups for mock-poaching?
"
1. Breakfast is amazing and I love it. I have eaten breakfast foods for three meals a day on some days and those days tend to be good ones.
2. Piperade looks quite a bit like shakshuka.
3. Nero Wolfe's scrambled eggs look quite good also but oy, what a lot of work. Also I disagree strongly with adding salt during the scramble. Will estop the rise to fluffiness we all seek in our eggs. I recommend keeping some cleaned-out jelly jars and cracking your eggs in them. Add a dash of cream (not much) if you want, and a generous amount of chopped chives, and (very important) one drop of water for each egg. Close and seal the jelly jar, and shake it well. Immediately pour into a buttered pan and cook over low heat. As fluffy as Wolfe's? Maybe not,but ready in ten minutes instead of thirty.
4. I know there are people who have scrambled eggs with no cheese on them. I just don't understand why they do this.
On “Don’t Be a “Kids These Days” Conservative”
Assuming that people are your opponents because of a trivial disagreement when they're actually quite willing to mostly be your friends on most things is a really good way to not have anyone by your side when an actual opponent shows up.
Assuming that said opponent is dumb because they have a different opinion is a really really good way to get your ass handed to you, and that's when you need friends to help you out the most.
IOW Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema are sometimes frustrating, but without them, Mitch McConnell would be running the Senate, so maybe if you don't have as many blessings as you'd like, count the ones you do have, slowly.
This concludes today's episode of "Burt Likko venting about bizarrely short-sighted Portland progressives." Thanks for tuning in.
"
Actually, that would totally happen. At least in certain coffeeshops and taphouses I drop by in from time to time and can't really help but overhear such complaints because I'm kind of meant to overhear them.
I don't think I need to drop my left-of-center bona fides to roll my eyes when I hear competitors in the Portland Woke Olympics complaining about relatively minor deviations from the Perfect Progressive Policy Platform. Just wait until they hear what I want to do with the homeless encampment out in front of my neighborhood's grocery store (I want the city to house them, for the record).
On “Video Throughput: Astronomy in Tolkien’s Universe”
As always, love these. Not a lot to add other than my understanding has been that people who have bothered to think about it have always believed the Earth is roughly a globe, in part for reasons discussed here. As triumphant and elegant as his experiment was, Eratosthenes did not come up with the idea of using long-distance trigonometry to test the size and curvature of the Earth on his own. The notion of the Earth as a very large globe would have been a well-known theory to him, which he surely regarded as almost certainly correct even beforehand (by looking at ships sailing over the horizon and disappearing hull-first).
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 1/16/2023”
Sometimes I regret quitting Twitter; I'd have learned about this earlier and gotten to enjoy conservapundits calling one another nasty names.
But, had I been on this, I'd have had to have dealt with too much of my feed gossiping about conservapundits calling one another nasty names.
"
Nyuck nyuck nyuck
"
Puts paid to the idea that the Marshal of SCOTUS does anything more than chant "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" at the start of oral argument. (More soberly, Marshal Curley has a pretty impressive resume. But what else could she do but ask everyone involved if they would confess?)
"
There are people who think that runaway juries goaded by crazed liberal-woke trial attorneys and their greedy and cynical race-baiting clients are a problem sapping the vitality out of America. Then there are the people who understand that this result is closer to what one normally expects in a police abuse case.
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/19/1149924822/army-lieutenant-virginia-police-traffic-stop
On “What Is It About Velma That Has Angered People So Much?”
Oh, well, so many electrons have been spilled already over Velma's sexuality! I suspect like much of the rest of the audience I won't care if Velma gets shipped either with Daphne or with Fred -- so long as whatever tension the writers develop, they never let it be released, lest we precipitously lose interest.
"
Many electrons have been spilt regarding Velma's sexuality as well in recent years. It's probably not important whether Kaling's Velma is iterated thusly, although as you describe the show, it sounds a lot like it's Riverdale-ing Scooby-Doo (sans chien). I thought Riverdale was a very clever idea, but lost interest after watching a few episodes because the novelty of thirty-year-old-actors playing teenagers alongside cast alumni from Dawson's Creek, and the "Dark Archie" character profiles, all that just wore off. I anticipate the same problem here: the novelty of a South Parkification of a beloved Saturday morning cartoon from my childhood will appeal to who it appeals to, and then it won't anymore when the novelty fades, and that'll be all she wrote and cool beans to Kaling and the rest of the people involved for trying.
On “The Babyproofed Society: The Urge to Eliminate Risk From American Life”
I presume if the NYT had suddenly started an unanimous, no-dissent-tolerated campaign against gas burners that would have been bad too. But I read here that expressing different opinions and ideas is ALSO bad because the Times' message is incoherent from one day to the next.
"
I guess it depends on where the risk comes from?
On “Don’t Be a “Kids These Days” Conservative”
Do it in Vienna.