For the record, while the Supreme Court justices have refused to hold themselves to the same standards as lower court judges, a U.S. District Court judge like Cannon is indeed bound by the Code of Conduct for United States Judges and the policies of the Judicial Conference, which do require disclosure of such gifts and trips.

Don’t forget the huge energy savings (heating/cooling, transportation, infrastructure) by having denser housing. It isn’t just a measurement of “I can see trees,” but all the daily human activities that have a reduced environmental impact in denser development. It’s counter-intuitive, but rural areas that are “nearer to nature” are often worse for the environment.

There is probably a break-even point, I don’t think everyone living in skyscrapers is ecologically ideal and I wouldn’t want to live there anyway. But medium-density development with multi-unit (shared wall) buildings allows huge energy costs, while also making public transit more viable and providing a tax base that actually pays for its own infrastructure.

Thanks for the rec! I also love that you presume that there will be a next time, cuz, uh, that’s accurate. These little boxes are powerhouses, I probably want one for a TV set-top box now that all the TV boxes (Roku, Amazon Fire, even Android TV and soon Apple TV) are riddled with ads.

At this point, my only hope is that the failed business model will kill most of these before they get even worse, regulators don’t seem to have any appetite to monitor or restrict/tax the runaway energy usage.

Hardly. The arguments against race-conscious admissions or affirmative action are generally based (unironically) in the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Beelink and Minisforum are legit

I wish I knew a lot of this when I first started shopping for a mini PC. I ended up with a Beelink model that I’m quite happy with, but it seems almost luck that I didn’t pick another one, and I would have liked a “reputable brand” search function.

Pigs are the only animal I struggle with eating, morally.

Yeah, they’re pretty intelligent and emotionally aware, at least as much as your average dog.

Aldi employees do a lot (stocking, cleaning, cashiering, etc.) but are paid relatively well and get solid hours. The stores I have visited seem to retain their workers for long periods, too.

Taxing carbon at its source is the only feasible way of doing a carbon tax, we have to get serious about this if we even pretend to care about the safety and national security threats that come with global warming, rising sea levels, severe/changing weather, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MO9CUyuwf4

“. . . and you can put so much stuff in there, you wouldn’t even know!”

That’s basically the wave in the water planet scene from Interstellar. That’s terrifying.

And I have been very critical of Nashville DA Glenn Funk, including for his malfeasance in using person connections to get fake work to boost his own pension, but the formation of the Conviction Review Unit—once it was actually used, after an initially inactive period—deserves recognition and praise.

“What baby” 😆

Love love Hark! A Vagrant. And a lot of the other comics are way funnier, especially the historical ones. The comics about “marauding women on bicycles” (like this one) crack me up. I still think the “strong female characters” series is one of the funniest things ever.

I wish Beaton would keep doing Hark! A Vagrant, but given what her family went through and her sister’s misdiagnosis and death from cancer, I understand why she finished it up. Her graphic novel/memoir, Ducks, was one of the best books I read last year.

Have automakers gotten so used to fat profit margins from SUV sales, particularly during the post-pandemic boom, that they consider anything that requires investment to be “insufficiently profitable”? Or has the high-return mindset of Silicon Valley infected Detroit as well?

Who’s Yellen now? (This song was actually commissioned by APM’s Marketplace when Janet Yellen became Secretary of the Treasury, but feels appropriate now.)

I just started Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, which I’ve been meaning to read for ages.

Before that I read The Queen’s Thief series, by Megan Whalen Turner, which was fun.

North America is full of those dual carriage motorways, with no alternate roads in many areas. No one enjoys riding on them, they just don’t have another choice.

It’s also a North American past-time to blame the guy trying to get to work or school when some inattentive driver mows him down.

Not a surprise, but still somehow crushing. It’s a loss for us all.

This article is ~5 years old, but I recall at the time there were a few articles about selfie deaths and it became “a thing.” I don’t 100% agree with the opinion piece, but it’s definitely true that dumb rednecks have been falling off stuff for a long time. The only difference was the numbskull had a camera in his/her hand when he/she fell instead of just falling, or perhaps saying “Hey look at me, Bubba!” before falling.

Where I really disagree with the author is the notion that “no place has ever been ruined by Instagram.” Social media platforms absolutely drive huge numbers of people to very specific photogenic sites, and some of them are not in any condition to handle the crowds. Sometimes that’s fine, like the street in DUMBO (Brooklyn) that has a great shot of the Empire State Building framed under the supports of the Manhattan Bridge, which can handle the crowds and I think is now somewhat pedestrianized. Other places are more fragile, like slow-growing cave stalactite systems, or the protected mossy landscapes of Iceland, and the visitors do harm the place. I think a lot of the pressures on these places can be ameliorated, and there’s a conversation to be had about access versus isolation, but I can’t agree that no place has ever been ruined by an Instagram post.