Notices by Brian Marick (marick@mstdn.social), page 2

@vy @inthehands I agree Biden got a raw deal. He was a good President. Better than Clinton. Better than Obama.

And the Congress did OK, given the hand they were dealt.

I don’t see what that has to do with the present situation.

@vy @inthehands No, I was not complaining about Durbin on judges. *You* brought up judges. As far as I know, Durbin was a good Whip. But being able to ride herd on Democrats is not the entirety of the job.

Nor did I accuse Democrats of being corrupt, or unmanly, etc. I accused them of being ineffective. Specifically, at the job of coping with a fascistic opposition.

You are confusing me with the boogieman in your head.

82-year old Chilean, granted permanent legal residency (political asylum) by the US in 1987.

Lost his “green card”. While getting it replaced, ICE snatched him. Family couldn’t find out where he was, thought he was dead. Then they were told he was dead (anonymously? - unclear)

Instead, he had been deported. Not to Chile. To Guatemala. He’s now in a hospital there.

His fate depends on the whims of the people who sent him, people immune to the law.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ice-deported-grandpa-green-card-b2792290.html

@br00t4c @inthehands Hey, Padilla’s one of the ones the law should protect but not bind, not one of the ones it should bind but not protect!

https://slate.com/business/2022/06/wilhoits-law-conservatives-frank-wilhoit.html

With a soupçon of the standard right wing “Now that I’ve found my dear friend John is gay, I’m in favor of Obergefell.”

@nberlat.bsky.social @inthehands How about "replace ICE"? As with "REfund the police," it would be a slogan unclear enough to prompt conversation, rather than one allowing everyone to construe it in a way that best reinforces their prejudices.

@dimsumthinking @inthehands @heidilifeldman A lot depends on three people on the Supreme Court deciding, "OK, this has gotten out of hand."

Maybe the Great Man theory of history is passe¹, but the "failed to rise to the occasion" theory has legs.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory

@dimsumthinking @inthehands @heidilifeldman Haven't read the details yet, but I expect "we'll figure out what to do with this man sent in error to a hellhole in maybe a few months, maybe a year or so" should make Roberts fear the judgment of the God I guess he only pretends to believe in.

This is an affecting story of what it's like to be one of the casket carriers for soldiers killed in foreign lands.

https://charlotteclymer.substack.com/p/trump-picks-golf-over-dead-american

(via @charlotteclymer, @inthehands)

@wolfsbruder @inthehands I wouldn't assume that Venezuela's Interior Ministry reporting on this topic is any more credible than Musk, say, reporting on fraud in the Social Security Administration.

@inthehands @ajsadauskas @tomquinn.bsky.social Worked for Solomon, except this time both petitioners will say, "Sounds great! Can we watch?"

@ajsadauskas @inthehands @tomquinn.bsky.social You have to retroactively take Rupert Murdoch back, first.

...
Stop the presses! @jmeowmeow has a much much better epigram for the idea:

Nouns, like gems, shine best in a setting.

I've had a few epigrams that were sticky, most notably "An example would be handy right about now" and "you have to go slow to get fast."

How's this for one:

"Nouns should be like quarks: rarely found in isolation."

I sing today of the noun phrase. When thinking of users, think "overworked accountant," not just accountant. (Hat tip: Jeff Patton). A "neighborhood" should be a "searchable neighborhood."

A bare noun shrieks "unexpressed assumptions."

In 1950, the American Political Science Association's Committee on Political Parties published "Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System," in which they called for the Democratic and Republicans to become more different.

I guess they didn't notice the monkey's paw curling in the desk drawer.

Fast forward some decades. "Everyone" now includes self-confident twitter trolls who think tagging themselves "bigballs" on social media projects an attractive swagger. Dumbasses, in other words, working for the biggest dumbass of all. (2/6)

One such dumbass sees a report with some dates of birth showing as 1875. A non-dumbass might think, "That date appears oddly often" and ask for an explanation. Our dumbass, though, has a brain thoroughly pickled by social media conspiracy theories. And is tasked with finding fraud. (3/6)

In computers, dates are commonly represented as integer offsets from some fixed date. Nowadays, that "epoch" date is usually January 1, 1970. In Cobol, it was 1875. (Both are semi-arbitrary choices, made for historical reasons.)

A problem is that there's no way to represent "unknown." But the field has to contain *something*. So Cobol programmers used the epoch, knowing that everyone would know to interpret 1875 as "unknown". (1/6)

'Hawthorne warns of the arrival of a technology so powerful that those born after it will lose the capacity for mature conversation. They will seek separate corners rather than common spaces, he prophesies. Their discussions will devolve into acrid debates, and “all mortal intercourse” will be “chilled with a fatal frost.” Hawthorne’s worry? The replacement of the open fireplace by the iron stove.' [Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1843]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/01/27/the-sirens-call-chris-hayes-book-review

The state of Washington (USA) is debating a bill that would require some schools to increase their "lunch hour" to 20 "seated" minutes. WTF?

https://www.king5.com/article/news/investigations/investigators/washington-considers-minimum-lunch-time-for-school-kids/281-c40cedc7-a50d-458c-a9fc-4eb88de7b400

My son (born '95) had "about an hour" for lunch. Has that gone away, nationwide? Jesus Christ on a pogo stick.

"Street medicine providers and homeless outreach workers who travel into Las Vegas’s drainage tunnels have noticed an uptick in the number of people living underground."¹

Any other Olds noticing how much the vibe today resembles the dystopian "New Wave" science fiction of the late '60s and '70s?² Rather more than the later Cyberpunk genre.

¹ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-living-in-las-vegass-tunnels-urged-to-get-medical-treatment/

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_(science_fiction)