As a general-ish thing, a lot of “conservatives” believe in some sort of “married women are not separate entities from their husbands; the married couple is a single item, represented by the husband, and the wife acting separately from the husband is an exception that needs to be specifically documented.”
So it makes some sort of sense -for them- that there has to be a process for married women registering to vote on her own, as opposed to as part of a couple.
Remember, there’s no one so crazy that will do something that it doesn’t make sense to them.
I have noticed I tend to like better the appetizers than the mains in most restaurants I go to. Hence a lot of times I just get two appetizers, one served with the rest of appetizers, and one brought out with the rest of the main courses.
And eating out tapas is one of my favorite things in the world. It combines eating the best food in the world (Spain’s) with being super social, and sharing everything with your friends. Tapas is best eaten in a group of four or more, so we can really load the table with lots of different yummy things.
In line with DavidTC just said, I asked mid November our company’s head of Business Development, in charge of budgeting and planning, what our 2025 inflation premises were, given the tariffs I was sure were coming, and he told me 2.5% was the banks’ consensus.
I said I very much doubted that, and he said our policies were to use banks’ analysts consensus that we paid for. I told him he should keep an eye on that.
So as DavidTC says, the markets thought Trump was lying. Me, I thought he was being honest for once.
I was telling my spouse (who’s Brit) this weekend that you shouldn’t follow what Trump says, but what he is and what he’s done, to know what he will do. I find Trump actions very easy to predict. None are good for America, though.
I have one: Are we talking about acres, or people?
Because a lot of empty acres voted for Trump, and a couple of cities where a lot of people live voted for Harris.
I live in Texas, in the most populous county. More people live here than in the combined 219 less populated counties. My county voted for Harries. Those 219 counties almost sure voted for Trump.
If you give me a list that says Harris lost Texas 219 to 1, that would be kind of useless, don't you agree?
So if it didn't happen at work, or a similar environment, where you are forced to sit at a LatinX explanation, have to at least outwardly express you understood it, and are expected, under penalty of a visit to HR or equivalent, to refer to your Romance language colleagues as your LatinX colleagues, then no, this is not an example of corporate DEI running amok.
It is probably an example that you hang out with very ignorant and insensitive friends, or acquaintances.. So, in the name of Romance language speakers, I empower you, next time, to tell your friends that calling Romance languages *sexist* is (a) deeply ignorant of how Romance languages (and many others, more languages than not are gendered) work; and (b) quite offensive. If they are so incensed about gendered nouns, what about TacXs (male), or PizzX (female). Why aren't they fighting for Mexican Restaurants (another male word, perhaps we should say Restauranxs) to offer TacXs de PuercX. Why ignore the contribution, or sacrifice, of female pigs? Whay are we only celebrating the male pigs? It's pure chauvinism and sexism.
You like, Jaybird, to bring LatinX a lot to these discussions, and many commenters, including me, have pushed back on you. LatinX is not a real thing in the corporate world, or almost anywhere outside of it. To the extent you keep bringing your game night friends as examples of corporate or government overlords, it's borderline trolling, now that we know Elon Musk is not a part of it.
So please find something real on DEI that can be a real problem about which we can have a serious discussion, or not. But please do not talk more about LatinX or other similar faff.
You've put, Jaybird, a lot of effort and love in tis site through the years, and i am grateful for that. Don't burn and crash it for luls
"It may be stuff that I have experienced (you know, with people giving short lectures on the importance of gender neutral language and whatnot and explaining, at length, that Spanish, as a language, is sexist)."
To the extent you you have really been exposed to people saying *this* this exact same way, that "Spanish, at length, is sexist", the exact way you described it, then you should have called your HR department then and there, because that statement is racist and discriminatory not only against Spanish, but against all romance languages. So either your trainer is a racist, or they (see what i did here?) is a moron. Or, third alternative, it was a trick question. You were supposed to react and defend your Romance languages speaking colleagues. If you didn't, well you failed your DEI training.
Occam razor also proposes another explanation. That this absurd hyperbole never happened. That no one said, or implied, that Spanish is sexist. But that would not be in your character, Jaybird. You wouldn't make up such an extreme example just for giggles
We could call both "persons" and leave it at that;
We could write, for instance
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Bush the Lesser, of all people, proposed (a lot of) migrant workers visas, for a period of X months every year, so workers could come and take temporary jobs in agriculture, construction, etc. . They would come without their families (minimizing the services costs), and would leave every year at the end of their visa, returning the following year, when work would be again available. The GOP killed the idea faster than an AK-47 shot bullet.
The undocumented workers didn't want to move permanently to the USA. They wanted to make enough money to support their families back home, to go back to them in the low season, and to retire back home. That system worked for decades.
Until it worked no more. It became too difficult, too expensive, too dangerous, to come and go. The yearly migration became a permanent move. Families no longer could stay back, so they too moved to the USA, requiring schools, hospitals, services.
And once the whole family was in the USA, and children grew here, there was no reason to go back, and nowhere and no one to return to. Twenty years ago, W wanted to implement a win-win-win solution. But he couldn't, and here we are
And of course, peoples without visas are NOT "subject to the jurisdiction of the USA", as the Administration was repeatedly told us, so they have nothing to be concerned about
Regarding blandness, croquettes are a staple in Spanish and Portuguese cuisine, which does not use (spicy) heat. Being Spaniard myself, I don't expect heat (not even Spanish paprika heat) in croquettes, but I expect them to be a normal level of saltiness.
My only other comment would be the pureeing. I like texture in my croquettes, so I would never puree them to smooth (potato puree) consistency. You want to be able to feel some resistance.
As an aside, we normally drizzle some high quality olive oil on croquettes when we are about to eat them. We drizzle it on a croquette by croquette basis, just as you are about to start eating each individual one. It gives them a refreshing aroma and feeling, and the contrast between the warm croquette and the room temperature oil is quite pleasant.
So all this is about USAID? That's the win? We get rid of USAID (without actually having to go to Congress and having the USAID disbanded) and we all go home?
Somehow I thought Trump (or Musk) were trying to do significantly more than ridding us of USAID, or of Politico. that they were traying to remake America
If they are successful, President Mayor Pete will have a blast. He'll in turn remake America with his vision. He'll make us all very (McKinsey) efficient, and will make us all gay, too, for good measure.
Whatever they WIN, they have also won for the next Democratic President (Go Mayor Pete!!), who will have his own agenda to impose, using the same (newly found in the penumbras of the Constitution) powers, with the exact same (lack of) limitations.
Unless WIN means only Republicans (and only some Republicans) are allowed to run, and, Bath-like, they win with 101% of the votes.
So I'll repeat the question that, mutatis mutanda, I ask every time we talk about the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Where do you want this process to end? What is your end-game?
I'm not the first person to notice that Vance has apparently disappeared into thin air, but it's very peculiar that he doesn't seem to have any role in selecting the cabinet and other top members of the administration.
My personal Kremlinology theory is that Trump wants Vance as far away as possible, so that Vance does not have a faction of his own in government. He's not planning to let anyone (except perhaps his children) be in place to be their successor.
And I'm fine with it. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have burning their political future than Vance
I understand you are a very young man with egg still in your face, but in the olden days of the Bush Jr administration we were told that 50% +1 is a majority, and Republicans pushed their policies without any interest in trying to build any consensus with the other side (the Hastert rule, in substance if not in name, predates the Bush II administration, being established by Republican speaker Newt Gingrich). In other words, I barely remember the time when Republicans were willing to consider what Americans that voted for the other guy might want.
A long winded way to say I was never expecting Republicans to care about alienating voters or reaching out to moderates and independents.
And I definitely oppose Democrats being 90% of the opposition to Trump's craziest shenanigans (plus 1 or 2 safe Republicans). If the institutional GOP doesn't want Project 2025, the institutional GOP, a majority of the majority, must vote against it.
Otherwise, let the 50% +1 run their policies in full. It is not as if they didn't run on them.
I had two reactions to the news (from this post) about Frommer’s death.
First, I’m very sorry about his death. He did good things and will be missed.
Second, I was happily surprised that he was still alive. I hope he enjoyed his life until the last moment.
Full disclosure. I like, and have used Frommer’s guides, though after trying different authors , I’ve settled for the Michelin guidebooks, and if those are not available, then I go for Lonely Planet, with Frommer as a third preference. I much prefer a guidebook than a phone, for reasons that would merit a separate post (Asimov had the same idea on this matter as I do, which speaks volumes about Asimov’s genius).
I am not playing it cool. I am quite convinced it’s going to be an absolute disaster for the country. It's going to be very bad indeed, but running around like a headless chicken won’t make anything better
I am also quite convinced no one in the Republican party (inside or outside of Congress) is going to do zilch to stop or ameliorate the disaster. They are facing a collective prisoner’s dilemma: any particular Republican that stands up against Trump will be rolled over (metaphorically, via primaries, or really). As someone else said it somewhere, most Republican senator’s plan involves keeping a low profile all the way to the 2028 election.
Democrats in Congress can’t do anything, and shouldn’t. They should just vote present and not provide their votes to oppose Trump and save the Republicans from themselves. Democratic governors and state legislatures are in a different situation.
This is going to be a catastrophe, and it should be the Republican catastrophe. My heart bleeds for the country, which will likely won’t be the same.
I’m a foreign born, albeit naturalized, gay man with a funny accent, so it’s not that I’m above it all. On the plus (for me) side, I’m white, blue eyed, close to retirement, without children, and with a healthy balanced portfolio. My chances are better than most.
I have yet to try black garlic, but if I understood your black garlic experience correctly, it felt like it’s less garlicky that regular garlic.
Also, if I understood your story correctly, you didn’t make alioli from scratch, you mixed the garlic in the posh store bought mayonnaise, which, no matter how posh the bottle, tastes very different to home made mayo (probably the flavor of stabilizers). I would use some bottled mayo (Hellman) for hotdogs, but just a smidge. More, it tastes of chemistry sets to me.
But freshly made mayonnaise, with or without garlic, is something totally different. Thats what I use if I’m cooking something nice, like a roast, or to elevate a side of vegetables.
That’s why Belgians, who invented the French fries, dip them in (fresh) mayonnaise, and not in ketchup (another foul invention). Come on, you can(I can) eat fresh mayonnaise on its one, with a spoon. It’s yummy.
This Toom thing looks suspiciously like Allioli or Aioli (*) sauce, which you can do with or without citric, and with or without eggs (I prefer with eggs and without lemon), and which is the both the most delicious and simplest thing to do at home.
I suggest you try your own. Better quality ingredients, and you can vary the seasoning to your taste.
I think you might have a point with respect to making abortion a federal constitutional right, absent the Right to Privacy hook (which I believe is a valid hook, but I’m only an engineer). If I was to codify abortion at the federal statutory level, I would go the route of codifying abortion as a medical procedure, and establishing that states can’t interfere with a doctor/patient that have determined that an abortion is necessary for medical or psychological reasons (yes, I know, psychological creates a loophole you can drive a train through; that’s on purpose on my part)
It’s far from ideal, and it would likely require a doctor signature for every abortion, but it would eliminate all the extreme cases we keep reading about, and would at least immunize doctors from most legal jeopardy.
Of course, a very easy way to eliminate any future extreme cases is for the Attorney Generals of states with abortion bans except “to save the live or health of the mother” to issue legal opinions clarifying that “obviously you can have an abortion if the health of the mother requires it, and no one can prosecute you for that”.
But not one of the Attorney Generals have even hinted they will issue such an opinion, even if they are happy to say, after the woman dies, that “we all know there’s an exception for the health and life of the mother, and it’s regrettable that the doctors failed to acted, but that’s on them doctors”. The fact that they could easily prevent more such episodes but won’t means that this is exactly what they wanted to happen when they purposely wrote vague laws; that doctors would refuse to perform any abortions at all.
I followed your link and got to a page where It was explained to me that Senate candidates Lucas Kunce promptly assisted a reporter that was mildly injured at a freak accident with guns during a campaign event.
His presence of mind and his empathy towards the reporter makes me want to vote for Kunce if I could. So, I agree with you. This was a good day in his campaign.
Now, in being fair and balanced, I’m sure you will point out to some other generous act by a Republican candidate. I’m sure there are plenty of those. It can be only Democrats are decent people.
So @jaybird, can you share a couple of links of Republicans candidates being kind to someone in the campaign?
Plus, in FORTRAN, which is the only computer language I know ( I’m old) there’s no possibility that the machine would ever answer 9.25>9.6? with anything but a HELL NO!!!!!!!!
On “Open Mic for the week of 3/17/25”
As a general-ish thing, a lot of “conservatives” believe in some sort of “married women are not separate entities from their husbands; the married couple is a single item, represented by the husband, and the wife acting separately from the husband is an exception that needs to be specifically documented.”
So it makes some sort of sense -for them- that there has to be a process for married women registering to vote on her own, as opposed to as part of a couple.
Remember, there’s no one so crazy that will do something that it doesn’t make sense to them.
On “Lies, Damn Lies, and Appetizers”
I have noticed I tend to like better the appetizers than the mains in most restaurants I go to. Hence a lot of times I just get two appetizers, one served with the rest of appetizers, and one brought out with the rest of the main courses.
And eating out tapas is one of my favorite things in the world. It combines eating the best food in the world (Spain’s) with being super social, and sharing everything with your friends. Tapas is best eaten in a group of four or more, so we can really load the table with lots of different yummy things.
On “The Trump Crash”
In line with DavidTC just said, I asked mid November our company’s head of Business Development, in charge of budgeting and planning, what our 2025 inflation premises were, given the tariffs I was sure were coming, and he told me 2.5% was the banks’ consensus.
I said I very much doubted that, and he said our policies were to use banks’ analysts consensus that we paid for. I told him he should keep an eye on that.
So as DavidTC says, the markets thought Trump was lying. Me, I thought he was being honest for once.
I was telling my spouse (who’s Brit) this weekend that you shouldn’t follow what Trump says, but what he is and what he’s done, to know what he will do. I find Trump actions very easy to predict. None are good for America, though.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
I have one: Are we talking about acres, or people?
Because a lot of empty acres voted for Trump, and a couple of cities where a lot of people live voted for Harris.
I live in Texas, in the most populous county. More people live here than in the combined 219 less populated counties. My county voted for Harries. Those 219 counties almost sure voted for Trump.
If you give me a list that says Harris lost Texas 219 to 1, that would be kind of useless, don't you agree?
On “From Vox: How Democrats should respond to Trump’s war on DEI”
So if it didn't happen at work, or a similar environment, where you are forced to sit at a LatinX explanation, have to at least outwardly express you understood it, and are expected, under penalty of a visit to HR or equivalent, to refer to your Romance language colleagues as your LatinX colleagues, then no, this is not an example of corporate DEI running amok.
It is probably an example that you hang out with very ignorant and insensitive friends, or acquaintances.. So, in the name of Romance language speakers, I empower you, next time, to tell your friends that calling Romance languages *sexist* is (a) deeply ignorant of how Romance languages (and many others, more languages than not are gendered) work; and (b) quite offensive. If they are so incensed about gendered nouns, what about TacXs (male), or PizzX (female). Why aren't they fighting for Mexican Restaurants (another male word, perhaps we should say Restauranxs) to offer TacXs de PuercX. Why ignore the contribution, or sacrifice, of female pigs? Whay are we only celebrating the male pigs? It's pure chauvinism and sexism.
You like, Jaybird, to bring LatinX a lot to these discussions, and many commenters, including me, have pushed back on you. LatinX is not a real thing in the corporate world, or almost anywhere outside of it. To the extent you keep bringing your game night friends as examples of corporate or government overlords, it's borderline trolling, now that we know Elon Musk is not a part of it.
So please find something real on DEI that can be a real problem about which we can have a serious discussion, or not. But please do not talk more about LatinX or other similar faff.
You've put, Jaybird, a lot of effort and love in tis site through the years, and i am grateful for that. Don't burn and crash it for luls
"
"It may be stuff that I have experienced (you know, with people giving short lectures on the importance of gender neutral language and whatnot and explaining, at length, that Spanish, as a language, is sexist)."
To the extent you you have really been exposed to people saying *this* this exact same way, that "Spanish, at length, is sexist", the exact way you described it, then you should have called your HR department then and there, because that statement is racist and discriminatory not only against Spanish, but against all romance languages. So either your trainer is a racist, or they (see what i did here?) is a moron. Or, third alternative, it was a trick question. You were supposed to react and defend your Romance languages speaking colleagues. If you didn't, well you failed your DEI training.
Occam razor also proposes another explanation. That this absurd hyperbole never happened. That no one said, or implied, that Spanish is sexist. But that would not be in your character, Jaybird. You wouldn't make up such an extreme example just for giggles
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/10/2025”
I was told in my citizenship test that "a well ordered militia" was some inkblot on the original text, and had no significance.
"
We could call both "persons" and leave it at that;
We could write, for instance
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
"
Bush the Lesser, of all people, proposed (a lot of) migrant workers visas, for a period of X months every year, so workers could come and take temporary jobs in agriculture, construction, etc. . They would come without their families (minimizing the services costs), and would leave every year at the end of their visa, returning the following year, when work would be again available. The GOP killed the idea faster than an AK-47 shot bullet.
The undocumented workers didn't want to move permanently to the USA. They wanted to make enough money to support their families back home, to go back to them in the low season, and to retire back home. That system worked for decades.
Until it worked no more. It became too difficult, too expensive, too dangerous, to come and go. The yearly migration became a permanent move. Families no longer could stay back, so they too moved to the USA, requiring schools, hospitals, services.
And once the whole family was in the USA, and children grew here, there was no reason to go back, and nowhere and no one to return to. Twenty years ago, W wanted to implement a win-win-win solution. But he couldn't, and here we are
"
And of course, peoples without visas are NOT "subject to the jurisdiction of the USA", as the Administration was repeatedly told us, so they have nothing to be concerned about
On “Weekend Plans Post: The Longest Month”
Duly saved in my recipes archive. Many thanks
Regarding blandness, croquettes are a staple in Spanish and Portuguese cuisine, which does not use (spicy) heat. Being Spaniard myself, I don't expect heat (not even Spanish paprika heat) in croquettes, but I expect them to be a normal level of saltiness.
My only other comment would be the pureeing. I like texture in my croquettes, so I would never puree them to smooth (potato puree) consistency. You want to be able to feel some resistance.
As an aside, we normally drizzle some high quality olive oil on croquettes when we are about to eat them. We drizzle it on a croquette by croquette basis, just as you are about to start eating each individual one. It gives them a refreshing aroma and feeling, and the contrast between the warm croquette and the room temperature oil is quite pleasant.
On “Keynesian Beauty Contests, Schelling Points, and the Omnicause”
So all this is about USAID? That's the win? We get rid of USAID (without actually having to go to Congress and having the USAID disbanded) and we all go home?
Somehow I thought Trump (or Musk) were trying to do significantly more than ridding us of USAID, or of Politico. that they were traying to remake America
If they are successful, President Mayor Pete will have a blast. He'll in turn remake America with his vision. He'll make us all very (McKinsey) efficient, and will make us all gay, too, for good measure.
"
And what does WIN mean, in this respect?
Whatever they WIN, they have also won for the next Democratic President (Go Mayor Pete!!), who will have his own agenda to impose, using the same (newly found in the penumbras of the Constitution) powers, with the exact same (lack of) limitations.
Unless WIN means only Republicans (and only some Republicans) are allowed to run, and, Bath-like, they win with 101% of the votes.
So I'll repeat the question that, mutatis mutanda, I ask every time we talk about the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Where do you want this process to end? What is your end-game?
On “All the President’s Nominees: The Legion of Groom”
I'm not the first person to notice that Vance has apparently disappeared into thin air, but it's very peculiar that he doesn't seem to have any role in selecting the cabinet and other top members of the administration.
My personal Kremlinology theory is that Trump wants Vance as far away as possible, so that Vance does not have a faction of his own in government. He's not planning to let anyone (except perhaps his children) be in place to be their successor.
And I'm fine with it. I can't think of anyone I'd rather have burning their political future than Vance
On “The Mandate That Wasn’t”
I understand you are a very young man with egg still in your face, but in the olden days of the Bush Jr administration we were told that 50% +1 is a majority, and Republicans pushed their policies without any interest in trying to build any consensus with the other side (the Hastert rule, in substance if not in name, predates the Bush II administration, being established by Republican speaker Newt Gingrich). In other words, I barely remember the time when Republicans were willing to consider what Americans that voted for the other guy might want.
A long winded way to say I was never expecting Republicans to care about alienating voters or reaching out to moderates and independents.
And I definitely oppose Democrats being 90% of the opposition to Trump's craziest shenanigans (plus 1 or 2 safe Republicans). If the institutional GOP doesn't want Project 2025, the institutional GOP, a majority of the majority, must vote against it.
Otherwise, let the 50% +1 run their policies in full. It is not as if they didn't run on them.
On “Safe Travels, Arthur Frommer”
I had two reactions to the news (from this post) about Frommer’s death.
First, I’m very sorry about his death. He did good things and will be missed.
Second, I was happily surprised that he was still alive. I hope he enjoyed his life until the last moment.
Full disclosure. I like, and have used Frommer’s guides, though after trying different authors , I’ve settled for the Michelin guidebooks, and if those are not available, then I go for Lonely Planet, with Frommer as a third preference. I much prefer a guidebook than a phone, for reasons that would merit a separate post (Asimov had the same idea on this matter as I do, which speaks volumes about Asimov’s genius).
On “How Republicans Can Save Trump’s Presidency”
I am not playing it cool. I am quite convinced it’s going to be an absolute disaster for the country. It's going to be very bad indeed, but running around like a headless chicken won’t make anything better
I am also quite convinced no one in the Republican party (inside or outside of Congress) is going to do zilch to stop or ameliorate the disaster. They are facing a collective prisoner’s dilemma: any particular Republican that stands up against Trump will be rolled over (metaphorically, via primaries, or really). As someone else said it somewhere, most Republican senator’s plan involves keeping a low profile all the way to the 2028 election.
Democrats in Congress can’t do anything, and shouldn’t. They should just vote present and not provide their votes to oppose Trump and save the Republicans from themselves. Democratic governors and state legislatures are in a different situation.
This is going to be a catastrophe, and it should be the Republican catastrophe. My heart bleeds for the country, which will likely won’t be the same.
I’m a foreign born, albeit naturalized, gay man with a funny accent, so it’s not that I’m above it all. On the plus (for me) side, I’m white, blue eyed, close to retirement, without children, and with a healthy balanced portfolio. My chances are better than most.
On “Ordinary Times Needs Your Help”
@will, I sent you an email for the cheque info. Let me know if you didn't get it
On “Weekend Plans Post: Garlic (Specifically Toom)”
I have yet to try black garlic, but if I understood your black garlic experience correctly, it felt like it’s less garlicky that regular garlic.
Also, if I understood your story correctly, you didn’t make alioli from scratch, you mixed the garlic in the posh store bought mayonnaise, which, no matter how posh the bottle, tastes very different to home made mayo (probably the flavor of stabilizers). I would use some bottled mayo (Hellman) for hotdogs, but just a smidge. More, it tastes of chemistry sets to me.
But freshly made mayonnaise, with or without garlic, is something totally different. Thats what I use if I’m cooking something nice, like a roast, or to elevate a side of vegetables.
That’s why Belgians, who invented the French fries, dip them in (fresh) mayonnaise, and not in ketchup (another foul invention). Come on, you can(I can) eat fresh mayonnaise on its one, with a spoon. It’s yummy.
"
This Toom thing looks suspiciously like Allioli or Aioli (*) sauce, which you can do with or without citric, and with or without eggs (I prefer with eggs and without lemon), and which is the both the most delicious and simplest thing to do at home.
I suggest you try your own. Better quality ingredients, and you can vary the seasoning to your taste.
(*) Spelling varies by country.
On “An Election Map that Asks “What if Only Educated People Voted?” and a Follow-up Question”
Are we looking for a "no true Scotsman" angle here?
On “What If Kamala Wins?”
I think you might have a point with respect to making abortion a federal constitutional right, absent the Right to Privacy hook (which I believe is a valid hook, but I’m only an engineer). If I was to codify abortion at the federal statutory level, I would go the route of codifying abortion as a medical procedure, and establishing that states can’t interfere with a doctor/patient that have determined that an abortion is necessary for medical or psychological reasons (yes, I know, psychological creates a loophole you can drive a train through; that’s on purpose on my part)
It’s far from ideal, and it would likely require a doctor signature for every abortion, but it would eliminate all the extreme cases we keep reading about, and would at least immunize doctors from most legal jeopardy.
Of course, a very easy way to eliminate any future extreme cases is for the Attorney Generals of states with abortion bans except “to save the live or health of the mother” to issue legal opinions clarifying that “obviously you can have an abortion if the health of the mother requires it, and no one can prosecute you for that”.
But not one of the Attorney Generals have even hinted they will issue such an opinion, even if they are happy to say, after the woman dies, that “we all know there’s an exception for the health and life of the mother, and it’s regrettable that the doctors failed to acted, but that’s on them doctors”. The fact that they could easily prevent more such episodes but won’t means that this is exactly what they wanted to happen when they purposely wrote vague laws; that doctors would refuse to perform any abortions at all.
On “Open Mic for the week of 10/21/2024”
I followed your link and got to a page where It was explained to me that Senate candidates Lucas Kunce promptly assisted a reporter that was mildly injured at a freak accident with guns during a campaign event.
His presence of mind and his empathy towards the reporter makes me want to vote for Kunce if I could. So, I agree with you. This was a good day in his campaign.
Now, in being fair and balanced, I’m sure you will point out to some other generous act by a Republican candidate. I’m sure there are plenty of those. It can be only Democrats are decent people.
So @jaybird, can you share a couple of links of Republicans candidates being kind to someone in the campaign?
On “Weekend Plans Post: Thinkin’ ’bout Numbers”
Plus, in FORTRAN, which is the only computer language I know ( I’m old) there’s no possibility that the machine would ever answer 9.25>9.6? with anything but a HELL NO!!!!!!!!
"
I really don’t get it. Was I the only person that learned about significant digits in high school and didn’t forget it?
It took me a while to understand the story because to me, 9.6 IS ALWAYS bigger than 9.25, or 9.259999999999999 for that matter
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.