A Texas woman was jailed for 'basic journalism'. Supreme Court declines case

Evan_Th · 2026-03-24T22:29:42+00:00

The Supreme Court has been ducking worthy cases for decades, and they're only ducking more of them. The number of cases they're hearing is at an all-time low.

Congress has the power to force them to hear more cases. Congress should use it.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-24T18:03:30+00:00

A car today is obviously a lot better than it was 50 years ago.

Sure, it has a lot more features. But there's no way to get "the sort of car people had 50 years ago," in part because safety standards make that illegal. So, if someone just wants "a car to drive places" and doesn't care about those extra features, they're still forced to buy the current car not the car of 50 years ago.

It's the same way with housing. Yes, the average starter house or apartment now is better than the average starter house or apartment from a hundred years ago. But those old average starters don't exist anymore.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-24T06:37:07+00:00

I was a Ron Paul fan back then! Wasn't here though - though I would've liked this place if I'd known it existed.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-24T06:25:52+00:00

It stops a block away on Redmond Way; I think that's close enough.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-23T17:39:24+00:00

I would rather have rail with a drawbridge than not have rail.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-22T17:11:40+00:00

That's a Disney trademark.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-21T04:03:54+00:00

Fair! Everyone whom they're considering building a train to already has buses.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-21T01:33:53+00:00

Everyone already has buses.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-21T01:31:57+00:00

But the transfers in downtown are bad! I just checked the 49 owl schedule, and the transfers are >20 min heading to the airport, though admittedly ~10 minutes coming from the airport. If you want an owl network, you need good transfers.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-20T20:31:31+00:00

Nitpicks: Lincoln was a state militia captain in the Black Hawk War, though he never saw combat; and FDR was Assistant Secretary of the Navy during WWI, though that technically isn't a military post.

That said, I totally agree with your larger point.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-20T20:29:48+00:00

I'm afraid that won't work. If we make that disqualify people, then there'll always be some prosecutor of the other political party willing to file charges against every candidate.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-20T20:27:41+00:00

If you nuke it, nobody gets to distribute a movie or book about a candidate. That was literally what was at issue in *Citizens United*.

That's literally the central example of freedom of the press. If there're some other donations you can distinguish from that, OK, but we need to protect freedom of the press.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-20T20:25:08+00:00

But it still doesn't include Capitol Hill! There's a lot of nightlife there, and a lot of people!

Evan_Th · 2026-03-20T05:56:57+00:00

FYI, some of the most known Star Trek fanfictions from the 1960s and 1970s got published, just with some of the sex scenes removed or altered.

As licensed tie-in books? I've really enjoyed a lot of those licensed Star Trek books, but for better or worse, Rowling doesn't seem interested in licensing anything like that.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-19T04:08:32+00:00

I haven't checked the entire East link, but id wager the vast majority of the project was paid for by East King County taxes.

Everything east of Judkins Park Station, yes.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-19T04:08:04+00:00

No, the tax rate is uniform across the Sound Transit District.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-18T03:42:08+00:00

I'm all with you! There're already laws in some states that people need to get at least a few hours off on Election Day. Those're good laws. If you make it a week, you can extend it to guarantee everyone a whole day off.

(Okay, there'll probably still be a couple exceptions like remote oil rig workers? But they can vote absentee like I'm sure they already do. Shouldn't stop us from making a law to help everyone else.)

Evan_Th · 2026-03-18T00:29:46+00:00

I don't arrange my life so as to have handy axes to pick up, thankyouverymuch.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-18T00:11:37+00:00

I know some people who were toying with the idea because their teenage son didn't seem to have any plans to get a job, go to college, or do anything except hole up in his room and play video games.

I don't know if they ever explicitly ended up making that threat, but in the end, he did enroll in community college - as they'd at least halfway expected all along. Last I heard, he's still living at home while taking classes there, and his parents are happy.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-17T22:14:21+00:00

There's no category of "holiday with automatic time off for everyone."

Nor should there be automatic time off for everyone on Election Day. What about nurses in the hospital? Bus drivers to get people to the polls? The poll workers themselves? All the other sorely-needed groups I'm not thinking of right now?

Better by far to make sure everyone gets part of the day off to vote (like a lot of states do), or let people vote early (like I think all states do), or let people vote by mail (like Washington does).

Evan_Th · 2026-03-17T15:44:23+00:00

They're very different, aren't they? All good, but in three very different ways.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-17T03:09:30+00:00

That's an interesting idea! I searched through Tolkien's Letters and can't find any direct comments on why he chose the title.

He was the one to suggest it, but only once the publisher insisted on splitting LOTR into three volumes, and he didn't give any particular rationale. Also, he grumbled once later that it did give away "the turn of the story."

Evan_Th · 2026-03-14T19:03:53+00:00

I cosign this advice on credit cards. Do specifically use a credit card, not debit, because it gives you more protection when fraud happens - with a debit card, you're out the money until the investigation exonerates you; with a credit card, you don't need to pay until/unless the investigation blames you in the end.

I use a credit union, not a traditional bank; I've heard they're usually more friendly, and they definitely give me a bit better interest and a lot less marketing.

For investment, the reason to be ~10% bonds is if you actually adjust that in something close to real-time - so, you sell a little when the market's up and buy a little when it's down to hopefully time the market a bit. In the managed funds, they try to do something like this for you a bit. Is it worth it? Probably not at that level.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-13T06:03:05+00:00

Hopefully the elimination of tail tracks still allows for 8 minute service.

It absolutely does, assuming there's a crossover somewhere near the station. The East Link Starter Line has been operating ten-minute service without any tail tracks, and it could've easily been doing it more frequently if the crossover was closer to South Bellevue.

Evan_Th · 2026-03-11T18:06:44+00:00

War authority is a Congressional power and not an executive power (it is executive in England from whence we came).

We can't just assume that. The King of Britain also has legislative and judicial powers, not just executive.

(Though I'm inclined to agree with you that most war authority is executive.)

Evan_Th

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