Notices by Chris Adams (acdha@thepit.social)

“Musk is more or less openly breaking the law against vote buying in Wisconsin. He thinks — and there’s a decent chance that he’s right — that no one will indict him for increasingly brazen criminal conduct because his mix of money, a global communications megaphone and his hold over critical national security technologies makes him untouchable.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/elon-musk-and-the-the-threat-of-the-over-mighty-subject-part-ii

“the deputies also put the sisters in separate patrol vehicles and started asking even more inappropriate questions. ‘Mine asked, “I have an important question to ask you, which do you prefer, Canada or the United States?”’ Cassie told the Globe and Mail. ‘It seemed weighted, as if whether we were going to be given a further difficult time or if we were going to have the opportunity to go on our way depended on the answer I gave.’”
https://www.jalopnik.com/1814899/cassie-and-maggie-canadian-folk-duo-traffic-stop-ohio/

#DC is going to be furloughing fire, police, teachers, etc. if Republicans prevent DC from spending its own local tax revenue under the pretense of “efficiency”.

“The CR is an act of fiscal sabotage against D.C., and is an abuse of power over a disenfranchised jurisdiction—the consequences be damned.”

https://norton.house.gov/media/press-releases/norton-releases-floor-remarks-continuing-resolution-prepared-delivery

“if you’re curious about what some of these people who just got fired from #USAID actually did all day long? Here’s one story.” #Rwanda
https://crookedtimber.org/2025/03/08/usaid-my-next-to-last-project/

@fedward @ebooksyearn @steter I have occasional fantasies about stickers you could slap in the middle of the windshield which wouldn’t technically be damaging the vehicle but would inconvenience them correspondingly. Then I remind myself how many of them are packing and sigh wistfully.

@skinnylatte if you decide to write a book, you could do worse than “All the vast variety of noodles I know and love” for a title.

@skinnylatte the time that actually happened to me was a Morcheeba album, fittingly with Tape Loop on it, but looking at my play counts it’s shifted to be a competition between Waking Hour-era Vienna Teng and the last Yeah Yeah Yeahs depending on whether you go by track or album.

“In an interview on Fox Business on Thursday, Habba did not mention that a significant portion of her family's wealth comes from high prices charged to drivers for off-street parking and, instead, targeted the toll as unfair.”
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/02/20/parking-lots-trump-aide-on-anti-congestion-toll-push-is-married-to-manhattan-garage-magnate

I’m old enough to remember when Republicans mocked the USSR for having political commissars overseeing academics:
https://insidemedicine.substack.com/p/breaking-news-cdc-orders-mass-retraction

@mattblaze I’m also noting how aggressively they’re gunning for accessibility now that the election is over. Those memos look like someone might risk consequences for not reporting an ASL interpreter, getting a ramp instead of stairs on a building, etc.

@inthehands @q_aurelius @louis @mekkaokereke the conservative movement has created a perverse ratchet by normalizing treating others in ways you could only begin to justify if the conspiracy theories were true. I notice this most with religious people who play “Democrats made me vote for him” games because the alternative is admitting they’ve been wrong about everything. If the cartel child trafficking isn’t true, they’ve betrayed their principles and been beastly to former friends for nothing.

@ai6yr I’ve been pondering that for awhile. When I left San Diego, they were just starting to require better defensive measures for boundary communities – things like wide ice plant perimeters in addition to structural improvements – but that extra land is expensive.

I’m not sure low-density cities built around car travel can afford to defend sprawling fire perimeters, but anything more than modest density is expensive in earthquake country and a lot of people aren’t used to it and balk.

@ai6yr there’s just this achingly-hard collective action problem here, too, where we really need to reconsider everything we do from the standpoint of reducing emissions but politically even if Californians cut way back it won’t be enough to fix the problem, and the national political situation means it’ll be will likely be misused in attacks similar to what we’ve seen for years over water use reduction.

“I am a journalist. That means it is my job to convey truth to my readers, and to describe the Court that I cover as accurately as I possibly can. And the unfortunate truth is that the Supreme Court of the United States is now a partisan institution. I would do my readers a disservice if I covered up this reality. Or if I used euphemistic language like “conservatives” and “liberals” to describe fundamentally partisan political appointees.”
https://www.vox.com/scotus/371361/supreme-court-call-republican-justices-republicans

“Our findings show that when speed cameras are doing the ticketing, the proportion of tickets issued to Black and white drivers aligns closely with their respective share of roadway users. With human enforcement, in contrast, police officers stop Black drivers at a rate that far outstrips their presence on the road.”
https://theconversation.com/police-stop-more-black-drivers-while-speed-cameras-issue-unbiased-tickets-new-study-from-chicago-238170

It’s #ParkingDay on #KennedySt #DC and I am again reminded that you get fit an entire coffee kiosk, dining table for three, and merch table in the space one person would use for car storage.

“Haitians committed the greatest sin possible in the modern world: We took our freedom back from the white man. Haiti is the birthplace of the only successful slave-led revolt in the ‘New’ or ‘Western’ world.

…

This may sound like 200-year-old history, but what a lot of Americans don’t get is that … Haiti’s economic and political instability are largely the consequence of American policy toward the island.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/racist-cat-attacks-against-haitian-immigrants/

Every one of the dudes who whined about the bear comparison deserves a reminder that this isn’t rare and this case is only in the news because this guy killed an Olympic athlete:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vx0kq2xr2o

That activist #SCOTUS is starting to pay off for big businesses #NetworkNeutrality
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/net-neutrality-rules-temporarily-stayed-as-judges-weigh-impact-of-scotus-ruling/

@liztai every time I hear Atlassian advertising their products as what you need to develop great software I resist the urge to shout “physician, heal thyself!” It’s wild how many things just never get better in something so many companies pay so much for.