Friday
So here's an admittedly fairly trivial matter that's been on my mind lately. This is a bit of Fun, bit of Wellness, take it mainly as a lighthearted question because it's really not weighing on me too badly all things considered.
It's Friday and I'm home after 10 hours poring over numbers in Excel spreadsheets. I find that after a workday like this it's hard to get myself to do anything at all, it's almost as if there is a daily quota of mental effort I can expend on things. Once I devote all of that to preparing people's financial statements, income tax returns, business activity statements and so on I can't devote any more of my focus to my own projects and endeavours. Not to mention memory limitations, I am now using a significant portion of my storage capacity to track goings-on at work (made worse by my clients' numerous demands, which I will mention later) and remember the appropriate accounting and tax treatment for various matters as well as the relevant circumstances of each of my clients. The work itself isn't necessarily super difficult in and of itself, it's just that there are a lot of clients asking for a lot of different things.
It's quite hard to coordinate anything after work too, because my clients are often absolute fucking children who expect they be catered to on a timeframe that suits them - for example, they want things to be done at a certain time yet sometimes take forever to provide the information necessary to do the work they request, and their delays sometimes require me to stay long after close of business. Yesterday, I had scheduled something with a family member at 6pm, and near close of business the client returned with over a dozen transactions they wanted me to process (while this is something that happens on Thursdays the client usually provides the relevant info earlier in the day), and I was forced to complete the work hastily and hand it over to a reviewer - who unsurprisingly found errors. Said reviewer was not happy about that, and I have stopped planning anything after work because of this. Compared to other stuff that's happened though, this is a small matter - this same client requested that we do work over the Christmas period for them, when the office is closed and people are expected to take annual leave. Please note, they sprung this on us in November, when almost everyone else working on the client had already made travel plans, and as a result I might be the one who has to do that work.
I can't really list anything significant I do outside of work at the moment, because as it is right now the work week smashes me enough that I can't build up the level of focus necessary to actually do things. In other words, I feel as if I'm becoming my work, and I'm not sure if I like that.
How do you not be a boring person after work? Help, please.
jkf
1yr ago
They have Al-Aqsa under occupation and yet they're still willing to dole out what seem like significant concessions to the Muslims.
Concessions that don't involve giving up control of any part of Jerusalem under any circumstances!
Like, do you really think that Israel would be cool with some other country controlling the Temple Mount, so long as they mostly let Jews visit? (unless of course they don't feel like it at some point)
If not, why not?
hydroacetylene
1yr ago
I have never met a moderate Muslim, and I have met a large number of US Muslims.
Now, don't get me wrong, most Muslims I have met do not want to throw homosexuals off of buildings. But for the most part, these men are Muslim in the sense that the religious services to which they do not go take place on Friday, in a mosque. They eat turkeybacon but get the pulled pork at Dickey's. They shave, fornicate, have a beer, go on hajj for a vacation, borrow money at interest for their convenience stores, and keep a Quran they've never opened on the nightstand by the bed in which they sleep through morning prayer.
This isn't the "moderate Muslim" of progressive legend; it's a not-particularly-religious man who might or might not follow a few cultural eccentricities.
miras_chinotto
certified low iq
1yr ago
Perhaps it's like black Friday models of TVs and they produce cheaper, lower quality candy for the season knowing people will be buying a ton.
I kind of doubt it though. Most of these kinds of candies I liked as a kid taste awful and cheap to me now as an adult so I think it's more likely a matter of taste.
FarNearEverywhere
1yr ago
As I was telling @Meriadoc yesterday, if I ever meet the Omnibenevolent loving Creator who created ichthyosis vulgaris, I'll kick them in the Holy Nuts.
That's the President Jed moment from "The West Wing", right? He's in a church (Protestant, I'm presuming hard here because even though it's set up as liturgical there's no cross, much less a crucifix, on the wall) and waffling away about how he's done all this great shit and that doesn't buy him good things, so to hell with God.
And I'm thinking "Yeah, this is not written by a Christian" (even though Martin Sheen gives a great performance). It's very, very telling that the only things we see are the abstract stained glass, because if he's standing in front of a crucifix with the image of the dying Saviour, then his "I kept all the rules, I deserve that bad things never happen to me, we had a deal!" rant is seen for the dogshit it is.
I can well believe Jed went to school to the Jesuits, but even they would have taught him that "you don't make that bargain with God, just going along as 'I'm a good guy, I never did anything bad' is not enough, not nearly enough, and the thing that is going to happen to you is the world will hate and persecute you for being faithful to Christ".
"I was the Golden Boy all my life, I succeeded at school and then afterwards, I made it all the way in politics! I'm President of the United States, I got a ton of liberal policies passed, I deserve the good life!" is answered by the Good Friday Reproaches.
For your sake I scourged your captors and their firstborn sons, but you brought your scourges down on me.
My people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me!
ReadyToUseBoth
1yr ago
It's not just issues, it is tone and emphasis. Launching a school board campaign that puts (largely hypothetical) trans kids front and center is running a narrow campaign on aggression and identity politics. Running for county executive on a platform of investigating election fraud is putting the actual business of the county second behind national issues (which the vast majority of voters don't really care about in that case anyway). The candidates we're seeing don't carry and groom and present themselves well, they don't have long resumes of accomplishments to point, they don't have pedigrees and when they do they run against them rather than on them. That's the kind of thing we're having problems with.
A lot of it is focusing on good governance and emphasizing concrete actions over vague culture war issues. The strategy question isn't just about what you want to do, it's what you want to talk about, what you put center stage and crow about vs what you do quietly backstage and dump in a Friday afternoon procedural news release.
At the county council level right up to the federal level, reduce the grip of government, make it easier to build a shed or start a business. Procedural reform, by which for every new rule put in place, one old rule is removed. That can be instituted throughout levels of government: for every new ordinance, one old ordinance has to go. Ratchet it up to two ordinances, and now you're shrinking government.
At the school board level, reduce administrative waste and extracurricular bloat to cut costs and ultimately taxes. Improve test scores.
If the competency slate for school board also puts in place a minor rule on where kids go to the bathroom, great, but don't make it the centerpiece of why they're running for office and everything else an afterthought.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
1yr ago
You should read up on atrocity propaganda before you make suggestions about “winning arguments”. Since the Congo Propaganda War of the 1800s nations have used atrocity propaganda to manufacture public support and/or outcry. They do that to win arguments, by creating a sticky grotesque visual image that can be repeated ad nauseam. Like, you know, beheading babies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocity_propaganda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State_propaganda_war
The initial claim is wrong anyway; there is no evidence of babies decapitated
No war is fought with bullets and bombs alone. For as long as enemies have taken up arms against each other, propaganda has proven a robust weapon. During the Civil War, Southern printing presses put out materials that claimed Northern victory would lead to “race-mixing” and newspapers portrayed Union soldiers as rapists and thieves. World War I brought the rise of “atrocity propaganda,” which highlights, exaggerates, and sometimes outright fabricates the gruesome acts of violence committed by opposing combatants.
“Yesterday the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said that it had confirmed Hamas beheaded babies & children while we were live on the air,” she posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Friday. “The Israeli government now says today it CANNOT confirm babies were beheaded. I needed to be more careful with my words and I am sorry.”
There is an enormous emotional difference between a child being shot and a baby being beheaded.
Here we are two weeks after Kevin McCarthy was first removed as Speaker for the United States House of Representatives. About to have our first vote on the House floor to try and select the next Speaker.
It's been a bit of a tumultuous two weeks. At the beginning of last week Steve Scalise (R-LA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Kevin Hern (R-OK) announced their candidacy for Speaker. Hern subsequently dropped out before any internal polls of the conference had been done. Scalise won the initial round of internal Conference votes over Jordan on Wednesday 113-99. Over the course of Wednesday and Thursday around 20 Republicans came out as hard no's on Scalise, more than enough to deny him the Speakership. Scalise subsequently dropped out leaving Jordan as the presumptive candidate. On Friday, shortly before the internal Conference vote, Austin Scott (R-GA) declared his candidacy for Speakership though went on to lose the internal vote 124-81 to Jordan. While there have been subsequent developments indicating many of Jordan's critics have come around the margin in the House is so close there may still be enough to deny the Jordan the Speakership.
This is a presently ongoing event and I'll update as the situation develops and I am able.
ETA:
As of the time of this writing the first ballot is still being counted but five nine Republicans have voted for someone other than Jordan, meaning he will not be Speaker on the first ballot.
ETA2:
At the end of the first ballot the votes stand at:
212 - Jeffries
200 - Jordan
20 - Other
2 - NV
With 2 NV that means the total to win is only 216. House now in recess rather than another vote. This vote total is within a couple of votes of where McCarthy was for the first three days and eleven ballots in his Speaker campaign. Hopefully this one doesn't take so long.
ET3:
No more votes today, House has gone home.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
1yr ago
If you do accept them as the descendants of the hippies of yore, they were already calling their outgroup fascists back in the late sixties
I remember once watching a rerun of an episode of Dragnet — which ran back in the 50s — with a couple of proto-hippy California college students calling Joe Friday a "fascist pig."
A lot probably depends on how many members of their remaining opposition still subscribe to their status hierarchy, and either side has a correct feel for this figure.
Or how many notables among their remaining opposition can be subjected to sufficient negative consequences as to make others among the opposition switch sides out of fear of the same — "Kill the chicken to scare the monkey" and such.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
1yr ago
(Looks you in the eye) This is a true poem.
I'd agree here with @omfalos. Still, I would suggest no one has to like the same kinds of poems. That you dismiss this one is your good right.
This poem has some nice evocative imagery, and various types of rhyme, including in some cases eye and slant rhyme.
Consider the play of wet with wedding; grime with china; were, drawer, wear; then, linen, given; Dublin, linen, origin; scutched, much; cluster, muster. Even in the final stanza linen, origin, and, yes, machine.
Now not everyone loves free verse, which I would say this poem is an example of. And it's true I am not as close to the material (the context, whatever) as you may be. I might have a similar response to something written about, say, the rural South of the US--and I am, for example, not a big fan of folk art for perhaps this reason. It's too close to me, or I am too close to it (not physically). You probably know everything I'm saying already, maybe even better than I do. Without knowing who I'm writing to it's hard to know what to write.
Below is one of my favorite poems, by Anne Sexton, who taken alone would have been was a fantastic poet, but who unfortunately was mimicked by enough writers that the whole dubious subgenre of so-called "confessional poetry" ended up producing a lot of poor writing. When I first read this one--about thirty years ago--I was blown away. I could try to explain why but I don't know how good a job I would do. Poems are like jokes--you either get them or you don't, or you get them and they're still not funny to you. Either way, explaining them never works. (I have put little dots between stanzas because I don't know how to get them to separate.)
Some Foreign Letters
I knew you forever and you were always old,
soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold
me for sitting up late, reading your letters,
as if these foreign postmarks were meant for me.
You posted them first in London, wearing furs
and a new dress in the winter of eighteen-ninety.
I read how London is dull on Lord Mayor's Day,
where you guided past groups of robbers, the sad holes
of Whitechapel, clutching your pocketbook, on the way
to Jack the Ripper dissecting his famous bones.
This Wednesday in Berlin, you say, you will
go to a bazaar at Bismarck's house. And I
see you as a young girl in a good world still,
writing three generations before mine. I try
to reach into your page and breathe it back...
but life is a trick, life is a kitten in a sack.
This is the sack of time your death vacates.
How distant you are on your nickel-plated skates
in the skating park in Berlin, gliding past
me with your Count, while a military band
plays a Strauss waltz. I loved you last,
a pleated old lady with a crooked hand.
Once you read Lohengrin and every goose
hung high while you practiced castle life
in Hanover. Tonight your letters reduce
history to a guess. The count had a wife.
You were the old maid aunt who lived with us.
Tonight I read how the winter howled around
the towers of Schloss Schwobber, how the tedious
language grew in your jaw, how you loved the sound
of the music of the rats tapping on the stone
floors. When you were mine you wore an earphone.
This is Wednesday, May 9th, near Lucerne,
Switzerland, sixty-nine years ago. I learn
your first climb up Mount San Salvatore;
this is the rocky path, the hole in your shoes,
the yankee girl, the iron interior
of her sweet body. You let the Count choose
your next climb. You went together, armed
with alpine stocks, with ham sandwiches
and seltzer wasser. You were not alarmed
by the thick woods of briars and bushes,
nor the rugged cliff, nor the first vertigo
up over Lake Lucerne. The Count sweated
with his coat off as you waded through top snow.
He held your hand and kissed you. You rattled
down on the train to catch a steam boat for home;
or other postmarks: Paris, Verona, Rome.
This is Italy. You learn its mother tongue.
I read how you walked on the Palatine among
the ruins of the palace of the Caesars;
alone in the Roman autumn, alone since July.
When you were mine they wrapped you out of here
with your best hat over your face. I cried
because I was seventeen. I am older now.
I read how your student ticket admitted you
into the private chapel of the Vatican and how
you cheered with the others, as we used to do
on the fourth of July. One Wednesday in November
you watched a balloon, painted like a silver ball,
float up over the Forum, up over the lost emperors,
to shiver its little modern cage in an occasional
breeze. You worked your New England conscience out
beside artisans, chestnut vendors and the devout.
Tonight I will learn to love you twice;
learn your first days, your mid-Victorian face.
Tonight I will speak up and interrupt
your letters, warning you that wars are coming,
that the Count will die, that you will accept
your America back to live like a prim thing
on the farm in Maine. I tell you, you will come
here, to the suburbs of Boston, to see the blue-nose
world go drunk each night, to see the handsome
children jitterbug, to feel your left ear close
one Friday at Symphony. And I tell you,
you will tip your boot feet out of that hall,
rocking from its sour sound, out onto
the crowded street, letting your spectacles fall
and your hair net tangle as you stop passers-by
to mumble your guilty love while your ears die.
(1960)
LRealist
1yr ago
Wow. It's been over a year since I posted on the Motte or even Reddit; I came back to find this place is definitely... different. It seems much smaller, a bit more subdued, but possibly better. I know a lot of the reason I stopped contributing then was the Reddity feel of the place. But I remember the Friday Fun Threads were always pretty cool.
Who do you think has been left behind? I'm asking in terms of demographic shifts. Are there fewer younger posters? Hotheads? The general consensus seems to be this place is much more conservative, but I don't know if I've seen that, yet.
So I looked up more on this Nakba:
Before, during and after the 1947–1949 war, hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were depopulated and destroyed. Geographic names throughout the country were erased and replaced with Hebrew names, sometimes derivatives of the historical Palestinian nomenclature, and sometimes new inventions. Numerous non-Jewish historical sites were destroyed, not just during the wars, but in a subsequent process over a number of decades. For example, over 80% of Palestinian village mosques have been destroyed, and artefacts have been removed from museums and archives.
You shouldn't be able to get away with this sort of thing right in the middle of the 20th century. After that, it's no wonder if there are Palestinians who will never accept Israel, and I also think Israel doesn't really have a leg to stand on to negotiate, as it's not really a legitimate state, just a top-down imposition.
Debating this elsewhere, some reactions were "Oh, but the Arabs wouldn't accept the partition plan", but why should they, why does the UN have the right to just impose that on them? Actually, the UN involvement just makes Israel seem like another High Modernist fuck up, another of the numerous errors of the first half of the 20th century.
Addressing something Ike Saul said below:
I don’t view Israelis and Brits as colonizers any more than the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Romans or the Mongols or the Egyptians or the Ottomans who all battled over the same strip of land from as early as 800 years before Jesus’s time until now. The Jews who founded Israel just happened to have won the last big battle for it.
No, I am not moved by appeals to ancient history. That cycle has to end at some point, and the end of WW II seems like a good stopping point for that sort of shenanigan.
Also, you can't have your high officials expressing themselves like the guy above and like this:
Gallant said that he had ordered “a complete siege of the Gaza Strip,” which is home to 2.2 million Palestinians, nearly half of them children. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he said. “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”
Netanyahu:
The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong.
You can't talk like this and then pretend you're the civilized party here! Though of course, looking at the so-called developed nations, especially America, maybe they don't talk like this, but they sure behave like it, so maybe there actually are no or few civilizations around.
But that doesn't make me think Israel is legitimate, it just makes me think the developed world is fake too.
Sam Kriss had a great article on Israel from some time ago:
It was almost inconceivable that this wasteland had been made by Jews, that my people and my religion could have created something so ungodly. I did not recognise myself in this mirror. Jews—like Mel Brooks, like Franz Kafka, like Albert Einstein, like Bruno Schulz, like Woody Allen, like the Coen brothers, like Walter Benjamin, like me. People with sexual hangups and a good sense of humour. Bookish men with overbearing mothers. Latkes and lokshen pudding. Candles on a Friday night. Jews, the guilty conscience of Europe, the bearers of messianic hope through every generation—reduced to this.
American support for an ethno-nationalist state can't last. All it takes is a sufficiently left-wing administration coming around to undo this by simply withdrawing support, which could easily happen in the next few decades.
Apologies if this is too much heat, but looking at the circumstances of Israel's founding, Israel genuinely just seems to me to be an injustice. Maybe Israel could have happened legitimately if they hadn't been in such a hurry, and maybe the hurry could have been excused because of the Holocaust, but not to the point that you pull a Nakba.
EDIT: And of course, Hamas' attacks were barbarous, but that doesn't really conjure up legitimacy for the state of Israel. Why should they?
Eetan
1yr ago
No good news are coming from anywhere, whether from culture wars or the real ones. As fitting for Friday the 13th.
Except one thing that is large, and good.
First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student
For ancient history nerds, this is big, really big. Imagine how will space nerds feel if/when Elon delivers what he promised and gets his Starship to the orbit. This big.
So what is the hype about?
Ancient books were in form of scrolls made of papyrus that had to be constantly rolled and unrolled in order to be read. This was hard on the material, and ancient books had limited shelf time(pun intended).
Ancient libraries needed constant recopying of books to stay functional, and this was laborious and expensive (no need to blame Christians or Muslims for destruction of ancient literature, ordinary daily wear and tear would be sufficient). No surprise that new revolutionary technology of bound book took the world by storm.
All ancient libraries are long gone - except one, found in Herculaneum under 100 feet of volcanic ash. And not ordinary library, but library of wealthy Roman, owner of one of most luxurious villas known from the Roman Empire.
You can visit modern replica in California.
Nearly two thousands of ancient scrolls, unfortunately they now looked like this.
For 250 years, ancient history nerds didn't gave up and tried to find ways to read the scrolls. Mostly destructive ways
Since their discovery, previous attempts used rose water, liquid mercury, vegetable gas, sulfuric compounds, papyrus juice, or a mixture of ethanol, glycerin, and warm water, in hopes to make scrolls readable.
but they sometimes worked.
By the middle of the 20th century, only 585 rolls or fragments had been completely unrolled, and 209 unrolled in part. Of the unrolled papyri, about 200 had been deciphered and published, and about 150 only deciphered.
Now we can finally do better. So what can we hope for?
Do not expect lost masterpieces of classical literature.
Owner of the library was single mindedly dedicated to philosophy, particularly Epicurean philosophy. Expect more writings by Philodemus of Gadara, Zeno of Sidon and Epicurus himself.
Epicureans, these pig ignorant fedora atheists whose teachings can appeal only to the worst degenerates, as Stoics, Jews and Christians said (and as their major competitors, they had to know best)?
(after 2000 years, "epicurean" is still insult used for secular Jews by their observant brothers)
Or Epicureans, founders of science and inventors of modern enlightened values?
The revival of Epicureanism in the 17th century coincided with the growth of scientific rationalism and classical liberalism. There can be no doubt these facts are connected. It may, indeed, be argued that the first was a leading cause of the second two, and that we are now living in a world shaped, in every worthwhile sense, by the ideas of Epicurus.
We could finally find out, we could read Epicurus' and Epicureans own words instead of fragments and more or less hostile refutations. For true ancient history nerd, this would be as exciting as finding new poem by Sappho or new play by Euripides.
But what got them into trouble was taking the wrong side on Zionism.
Prior to last Friday, taking an anti-Zionist stance would have gotten you applause in progressive circles. For that matter, you're still clear to say "I'm anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic" as long as you can resist the urge to openly celebrate massacres of Israeli civilians. Before Friday, you were clear to say Israeli civilians should be massacred.
This seems to imply two things
Alternatively, it implies your model is wrong. That it's not as simple as "people higher up the progressive totem pole get to do what they want and Jews are at the top".
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
1yr ago
@self_made_human is wrong: I am completely humorless. And this isn't the Friday Fun Thread.
Knock it off.
CriticalDuty
1yr ago
I don't think it's comparable, because the British weren't signing a treaty with the IRA. Ireland had a fully-developed spectrum of normal political parties and civil organizations, and they signed the Good Friday Agreement as a reflection of the overwhelming popular desire for peace. After that, any Irish group that wanted further conflict would lack a credible basis to do so. Who are you supposed to talk to in Gaza? Hamas is the only authority there, and the population's views are more aligned with Hamas than peace advocates would care to admit. Peace is nice if you can get it, but when the other side doesn't want it (and probably couldn't agree to it even if they wanted to, being an Iranian proxy), there's not really any solution besides a total purge.
zeke5123
1yr ago
Doesn’t the solution to the Troubles and the Good Friday accord speak to an ability to accomplish the same through peace?
CanofWorms
1yr ago
I can tell you my experience as someone who has worked as an electrical engineer in the power industry. I left my first job (where I also put together electrical blueprints) to do consulting work. I found it to be very boring, slow, and unfulfilling. There was none of the excitement of watching my design actually getting built and none of the camaraderie you get when working with construction guys. I regretted my decision and ended up returning to my first company about three years after I had left.
One of the reasons I left in the first place was because I HAD to be in the office 8AM to 5PM Monday through Friday. This schedule, coupled with an hour commute each way, sucked the soul out of my body. I was too tired to do anything after work and during the weekend, I was so burnt out from the work week, I hardly left the house. This was always going to be unsustainable for me, even for as much as I enjoyed the work and the team atmosphere.
One of the conditions of my return to my company was the option to work from home two to three days a week. They begrudgingly agreed to this request and I’ve had a hybrid schedule ever since. And honestly, it’s fucking wonderful. I go into the office two days a week, get a ton of work done, hang out with my team, and show my face to let everyone know I’m still working. I work three days remotely, saving a ton on commuting expenses, food, and most importantly, my time. I’m able to do things on weeknights without feeling exhausted. I can run errands during the day instead of after work. It’s a complete game changer and I am super fortunate to be in this situation.
So for me, I’ve found a company with a perfect work schedule, great company culture, and reasonable pay. For you, I can only recommend doing some soul searching on remote work. For most people, it’s a benefit. But for some, the isolation is grueling. The other thing to think about is the company culture. If that is important to you, and you’re not a person who just wants to get his work done and get his paycheck, you might inquire about that from the new company.
Lastly, you’re getting a 40k raise. Even if you find the work is not what you signed up for, you can grind it out for two years, stack a lot of extra money, and figure it out after that.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1yr ago
I vaguely remember someone mentioning Hanania a week or so ago, blogging about how most books are rubbish, or outdated and not worth reading, while his book is unusually good, and absolutely deserves people's attention. That was the only other time I remember hearing his name. It looks like it was discussing this post https://www.richardhanania.com/p/the-case-for-reading-one-particular
You aren't thinking of this post, based on his The case against (most) books piece? I kinda get the impression he wrote that 'one particular book' article partially in response to critics of the 'case against most books' article. Either that or he wrote it on a backwards bike, and the backpedalling just seeped in.
FarNearEverywhere
1yr ago
I think, and this is not being a jerk (thanks Ammie), that it would be helpful to have some definition of what should go where. No more bare links (but I didn't include a link). So - suitable question for the Sunday post? Okay, but it does seem to have triggered some culture warring (not my intention) so bounce it back to here?
Friday fun thread - only fun, jokey, non-serious stuff? Gotcha.
Wellness Wednesday - health and related matters? Gotcha.
Now we get to "what is long enough not to be modded as bad faith/low-effort, but not too long to be modded as ChatGPT bait/unserious trolling?" and believe you me, Ammie Lambie, I'd certainly appreciate a model answer on that one.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
1yr ago
Or you could just put it in the Friday Fun Thread and not be a jerk.
cjet79
1yr ago
This is not fun.
Can you not post this kind of thing in the friday fun thread?
It would be fine in the general culture war thread.
Some updates from New Mexico since two weeks ago.
Firstly, the court ruled on requests for a temporary restraining order, most pertinently that:
... Defendants New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, New Mexico Department Secretary Patrick M. Allen, New Mexico Department of Public Safety Jason R. Bowie, Chief of the New Mexico State Police and any other New Mexico officials (“Defendants”) are ENJOINED from applying, enforcing, or attempting to enforce, either criminally or civilly, Section (1) of the New Mexico Department of Health’s “Public Health Emergency Order Imposing Temporary Firearm Restrictions, Drug Monitoring and Other Public Safety Measures” (“PHO”) published on September 8, 2023, which reads:
(1) No person, other than a law enforcement officer or licensed security officer, shall possess a firearm, as defined in NMSA 1978, Section 30-7-4.1, either openly or concealed [within complex metric that means Bernallio County]...
In addition, Defendants are ENJOINED from applying, enforcing, or attempting to enforce, either criminally or civilly, Section (4) of the New Mexico Department of Health’s “Public Health Emergency Order Imposing Temporary Firearm Restrictions, Drug Monitoring and Other Public Safety Measures” to the extent it imposes additional restrictions on the carrying or possession of firearms that were not already in place prior to its issuance.
The next hearing, for a preliminary injunction, was originally scheduled for October 3rd, three days before the initial state of emergency was scheduled to end, though I'd expect that gets delayed. How did the governor respond?
It's not terribly clear how this will work, either as matter of enforcement or of law. I'd say that she's trying to maneuver for mootness and standing challenges to the lawsuit, but this is still unconstitutional under Bruen and the state constitution, the loose definition raises serious due process concerns, and it's not even very likely that the state's public emergency law permits it even outside of the right to bear arms problems. This revision to the emergency order can't or at least shouldn't avoid the TRO, and were it a right-wing effort it'd likely just get the judge mad; as it is, the Biden appointee sounded just disappointed during the initial hearing.
Nor, on the other side, have I seen any reports of the video-driven Grisham enforcement had claimed to be bringing during initial protests. On the other hand, even while enjoined anyone who wants to carry needs to evaluate whether they're willing to become a poster child for today's constitutional challenge.
What sort of fallout is Governor Grisham looking at? KOAT7 has a wonderful quote from one of the state politicians:
"People need to realize this is the first time in New Mexico history that a governor could be impeached," State Rep. John Block said.
That is somewhat undermined by reality: No, they don't, because no, she can't.
There's only been one successful legislature-initiated special session in New Mexico history, and its context (responding to a budget's veto) made it far easier to coordinate on top of the far simpler political calculus (the final budget vote passed 90%+ in both houses). The paper gives a single federal Democrat saying he'd be willing to vote yes to condemn Grisham, should it reach the floor of Congress, but the same man voted against considering the resolution, which failed without a single Dem yes, which isn't quite the same as a vote against the resolution (because it was mixed with two other process matters) but makes for awkward bedmates. The Santa Fe New Mexican reports that the state's congressional Democratic party's official position is against a special session or impeachment.
It ain't happening, bruh.
There's been a bit of embarrassment from state politicians and police pushing back -- the state AG, another Dem, did not defend the executive order -- which, fair, kudos. Not the most significant kudos, but worth mentioning.
What about that shooting that motivated this whole thing? NBC reports:
A third arrest was made Friday in connection with a shooting outside an Albuquerque baseball stadium that killed an 11-year-old boy and prompted the New Mexico governor to issue a controversial gun ban. Albuquerque police took Daniel Gomez, 26, into custody a day after two other men were identified as suspects. Police didn’t immediately release further details about Gomez’s arrest.
Romero was already wanted for failing to appear in court in connection with alleged drug dealing, Medina said. Garley happened to be in custody when he was arrested in connection with the killing. He had been stopped by state police on Sept. 13 while returning from Arizona and authorities found a gun and about 100,000 fentanyl tablets in the car, state Police Chief W. Troy Weisler said at the news conference.
Police alleged that the men, both reputed gang members, pulled up in a car and attacked the pickup truck that was leaving the minor league game at Isotopes Stadium.
I haven't been able to find any records showing their CCW permits being pulled. Or that they had CCW permits. For some reason.
Apropos of nothing, a couple other interesting notes in firearms law :
On one hand, great work if you can get it. On the other hand, Paul Clement and Erin Murphy, the men who lead Bruen, no longer can, and it's just over half of their old law firm's typical billing rate. The reasoning, such as it is:
Plaintiffs failed to show that this was “a case requiring special expertise [and] that no in-district counsel possessed such expertise,” or that local counsel “were unwilling or unable to take the case,”.. .Plaintiffs’ arguments in support of out-of-district rates are limited to pointing to Plaintiffs’ success at the Supreme Court and the conclusory statements that “few in-district attorneys regularly practice Second Amendment litigation and even fewer practice this constitutional litigation on behalf of plaintiffs against government entities; . . . even fewer in-district attorneys have briefed or argued Second Amendment cases before the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court, like the attorneys Plaintiff selected; and . . . no in-district attorneys have the experience necessary for Plaintiffs’ challenge.”
I expect Clement and Murphy won't exactly cry all the way to the bank, to whatever extent their biglaw contracts covered this sort of case, but neither will it be a big war chest for their Second-Amendment-focused law firm, to whatever extent NYSPRA wasn't forking over those fees well before this point and is down some pretty pennies. Which matters quite a bit given NYSRPA was better titled NYSRPA II, and NYSRPA I was filed in 20_13_. Nor will it serve a particularly strong disincentive to avoid losing future court cases, or, for a matter where New York state might actually be persuadable, pad future court battles with beggaring levels of necessary paperwork to beggar their challengers.
At least they won, right? Well... Back in response to the NYSPRA II decision at the old place, a couple posters had different perspectives (with some format edits for brevity) :
Yes, the jursdictions which want to ban guns will simply claim historical justification, and the lower courts all the way up to the courts of appeals will pretend to believe them ("a bee is a fish"), and nothing will change. I expect New York's list of "sensitive locations" to include : Banks including ATM lobbies, Subways and other public transportation, taxis and other licensed transportation, All public buildings, All premises licensed to serve alcohol, Maybe all public parks.
Many, and it would require a whole-of-government sort of rebellion to engage in that level of open defiance. Even if Governor Hochul attempted to enforce the law, state judges would not follow such an instruction, especially as against an explicit binding precedent. I can go through the mechanisms if you like, but the idea that NY would openly defy this ruling is an absolute pipe dream for a few radical accelerationists on either side, and will not happen.
And neither is wrong, and indeed excepting a few quibbles Huadpe's later post is a good overview of procedural protections. No one planted their feet at the door of a school house, so it's not true Massive Resistance, it's just sparking legal warfare. On the other hand, if Nybbler had a time machine or a crystal ball, his description of the Bruen response bill and its reception in the judiciary would have been broader, not more narrow. And on those broader points, the state has been playing with mootness and standing to avoid the obvious revelation that it still does exactly what Bruen says the state may not.
And that's just the explicit stuff. One thing neither Nybbler's list nor I expected:
The NYPD approved fewer new licenses to people requesting permits to carry or keep firearms in their homes or businesses in 2022 than the year prior, data obtained by THE CITY shows — despite the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found a key provision of the state’s long-standing gun control law violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
In 2021, the NYPD — which vets firearm permits — received 4,663 applications and approved 2,591 of them, about 56%, all under the stricter “proper cause” standard the Supreme Court struck down last year. That standard required gun owners in New York to show “proper cause” in order to receive a permit to carry a weapon, but the court said licenses should be granted by default unless there was a specific reason to deny an applicant.
In 2022, the NYPD saw an increased number of new applications — 7,260 — but approved just 1,550, or 21%, even though applications filed in the second half of that year no longer had to meet the “proper cause” standard where applicants had to make an affirmative case for why they needed a license.
It's far from alone, here. Hawaii's response bill has repeated many of the same steps and components, California was just weird for waiting til this year before informing people that their right to carry a firearm is limited to sidewalks. Dick Heller from the 2008 Heller v. DC case is still working on being allowed to own the semiautomatic pistol and magazine he started that whole matter on. Defense Distributed is still fighting its mess of a case.
When I've made motions around this before, people have rejoined that lawsuits are a process: winning a case, no matter how big, does not mean winning everything forever and hearing the lamentations of your opponent's women. There have indeed been where state defiance has lead to significant costs. I don't mean to suggest that the court's never work.
But at the same time, it's hard to even find a pretense that this faces the same level of legal opprobrium or cynicism that favored rights get. Nor is it limited to guns. There's been a lot of Recognition that the aftermath of SFFA v. Harvard would result in a tremendous change in legal discrimination as teams of lawyers would be going through every admissions process in the country, and that's not wrong! But they've done so to hilariously transparent efforts. And there are lesser and lesser-known variants on a pretty wide variety of topics. There's no conservative equivalent that leads a country-wide and overnight shakeup, or even a state-level one, even in fairly egregious matters.
There's an argument that this shows what Really Matters is The Institutions, and while that might feel a little be retroactively defined by whatever conservatives aren't doing or by what they'd face massive discrimination should they wear their hearts on their sleeves -- can I point to Clement and Murphy again, and that even if you had their skills you'd be a fool to think you could follow in their paths -- it's not exactly wrong.
But then we're back to denouement of the post two weeks ago, but more so, and much broader.
I apologize. Friday is a drink and post day. And my grammar is below average as is. I edited it.
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