SCOTUS 2023: Rice pilaf from Louisiana...is that like an ISIS video?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > SCOTUS 2023: Rice pilaf from Louisiana...is that like an ISIS video?

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

hobbesmaster posted:

Then, do they just want the government carte blanche to remove whatever drugs they want from their insurance's formulary?

This triggered a thought for me:
The reason birth control is mandatory under Obamacare is that it's really expensive to deliver a baby, and then provide healthcare to that baby. If women have no access to birth control, their general premiums are going to be way loving higher because they're more likely to have expensive babies.
If the SCOTUS finds that "religious corporations" are allowed to ban birth control, can a law be passed that requires them to cover any increase in premiums and OOP costs caused by removal of birth control from the health plan? Kinda like requiring them to pay into workman's comp for pregnancy? Since it's their religious duty to make their employees healthcare more expensive by not providing birth control, isn't it also their religious duty to pay for the associated costs of forcing their employees to have babies?

# ¿ Dec 2, 2013 21:15

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 14:14

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Chuu posted:

Isn't the whole point of this lawsuit to answer that question? The claim isn't that google copied java's implementation; just the API.

I can't comprehend this at all. The whole point of an API is that it just describes the way in which programs should interact with the VM/runtime environment/OS/hardware they run on. How could you program at all without copying the API? Is it just that they're angry that Android isn't 100% Java? Would this lawsuit have been moot if Android was just an embedded Linux distro with a JVM on it?

# ¿ May 15, 2014 06:43

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

lifg posted:

There's nothing to read, it's a two paragraph decision. Here's the meat of it.

I don't really understand it. It sounds like a temporary order until a proper decision can be made.

The 7th circuit basically ruled with only two months to the election that they could enact the law posthaste, loving anyone who hadn't gone to get an ID yet and couldn't make time before the election. That's too distasteful even for Roberts.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 07:40

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Green Crayons posted:

A potential reason why Roberts signed onto the order in Wisconsin:

In other words, it has nothing to do with the merits of the case, and everything to do with how close to election the decision is.

That was pretty obvious to everyone. The supremes basically told the 7th circuit "Are you crazy, you can't just change the rules two months out?" It wasn't a stay based on the merits of the case, it was a stay in response to irresponsible behavior by the lower court.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 17:22

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

hobbesmaster posted:

Microsoft has been through this dance once, a language better than Java was the result.

Seriously. At this point C# is rapidly becoming the One True Language on the Only Platform That Matters as far as consumer software is concerned, and there's way better options for enterprise and systems software. Java continues to exist mostly for maintainers of existing software that was made on Java back when they were still pretending that you could actually write platform-independent code in Java (if you actually want to do anything more complex than a command line application, you can't).

# ¿ May 28, 2015 18:09

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

It seems like the real question is "should companies be able to make their own implementations of another company's API?" If you care at all about systems being interoperable, the answer is clearly "yes". The whole purpose of an API is to define a set of common names and data types that you program your software against. If the names of standard functions and their return types aren't known (and constant), programmers can't write code and know that it will work everywhere.

What kinda confounds this case, though, is that Android doesn't actually need to be interoperable with other platforms Java runs on. Not only can you not run Android apps on, say, Windows (outside an emulator) because the Android libraries aren't implemented on that platform, who would want to run an android app on a desktop computer? Google reimplemented Java on android simply to take advantage of the large existing programmer base, and possibly because they couldn't get any of their own attempts at a language ready for prime time (some people like Go, but I think it's a pain to use).

You could argue that using Java allows them to keep naughty programmers' fingers out of the system and let them manage resources better, but there's no reason they couldn't have defined their own, novel API for, say, C that did all that without exposing too much system control to application programmers.

Of course, we can't actually know what google's motivations were, but I think it's all fuzzy enough that I can see why the court doesn't want to deal with it.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 17:48

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

OddObserver posted:

There is some interoperability, though: libraries can be written (and sold by ISVs!) that work on both standard Java platforms and Android.

True. My primary point was that Google's reasons for reimplementing Java rather than just building a runtime around another language or making a language of their own are opaque enough that the court probably doesn't want to attempt to rule from the middle of a fog. It would be nice if they at least took the case to say "this ruling applies only to the specific case at hand and is not binding for future cases". I'd rather not have a ruling be definitive when much of the conflict stems from shady licensing behavior from both sides.

# ¿ May 29, 2015 18:44

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

ulmont posted:

By "prove", you mean "convince a US jury," right?

I'm pretty sure if you file in Texas and then tell the jury Saudis are Muslims that will be enough.

There is this thing called "appeals".

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 05:41

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Jimbozig posted:

... too far?

Yes.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 16:06

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Potato Salad posted:

Uncle Thomas is a clever and appropriate criticism of Justice Thomas' quiet assent to the new Jim Crow.

There is nothing intolerant about drawing parallel between him and an era where out of sight, out of mind was the way disaffected, wealthy people could afford to ignore the plight of POC.

poo poo, the election of Donald Trump is partially a case study in disaffected, well-off individuals--right and, depressingly, left--placing....you know what gently caress it.

Actually, it's never OK to use a slur against a POC regardless of how mild it is. Call him ignorant, short-sighted, whatever. There's no need to make even mild racial attacks against him.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2017 17:56

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Dead Reckoning posted:

To be fair, if trolling people who ascribe unreasonable importance to a particular brand or media property is no longer legally protected, this forum is going to be even more dead.

i dont think "being a dick to women for no reason" is really trolling. it's just being a dick. to women.

# ¿ May 29, 2017 23:42

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Dead Reckoning posted:

It isn't being a dick to women as a whole, it's being a dick to the subset of people who think Zack Snyder producing a franchise movie about a character that started life as BDSM wank material is An Important Moment For Feminism, as well as a few people who got sucked in by WB's social media campaign to portray their $120 million movie as an underdog that women should buy tickets for to send a message to the patriarchal studio system. And I'm OK with that being legally protected.

Is there a well actually emote? I need it

# ¿ May 30, 2017 02:15

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

tetrapyloctomy posted:

This civil forfeiture ruling is way overdue. It's insane in this day and age that anyone at any level could be thinking, "It would be great if the police could just seize property even if it's not actually associated with criminal activity!"

my favorite part is where they seize drugs as an asset instead of evidence and then use all the drugs after any legal action involving them is over. that happened constantly to the coke and weed dealers in my home town.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2017 19:53

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

FAUXTON posted:

Do courts typically distinguish between advocacy (e.g. hemlock society) and incitement (get back in that truck)? I imagine they would no matter how lovely an anti-RTD plaintiff would be.

Yes, absolutely they do. This is why it is fine for neonazis to say "black people should be killed" but they get arrested when they say "you, people in this audience I'm speaking to; go kill black people right now."

# ¿ Jun 16, 2017 20:24

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Groovelord Neato posted:

never knew that the cake boss (cakeboss!) was a homophobe.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cake-boss-transgender-disaster

there's a reason that rear end in a top hat isn't hosting bakers vs fakers anymore. he's legitimately toxic as hell. don't watch cake boss.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 16:44

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

El Mero Mero posted:

It was a little over a year ago now. I held off on the attorney route after tac season, when I called the Franchise Tax Board and they also confirmed the full re-payment of the loans (but who knows maybe they're just looking at the same NSLDB I am.)

o_0

oh hey navient bought a couple of my loans too. i'll have to tell my wife to try scheduling an overpayment to see if it blows up our debt :v:

# ¿ Jul 5, 2017 15:52

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Rigel posted:

That is exactly what the people pushing gay marriage bans wanted to do, though. They were specifically focused on the sex of the individuals, not gender. They were loose with their language sometimes but if you pin them down, they cared about their physical sex.

It's always cute when cis people start trying to debate gender like this. "Physical sex" is a borderline incoherent term. Under the construction you're arguing (that discrimination can be based on "physical sex" in some way distinct from gender), you're forgetting several cases:

a) People with ambiguous genitalia that are assigned a sex at birth by the hospital. These people generally live their lives presenting as this assigned sex despite not having the "physical sex" in the way you define it and they are generally not discriminated against because they are not obviously intersex with their clothes on.

b) People who are not XX or XY yet have the physical appearance of one of the two binary sexes. These people do not have a physical sex in the way you suggest. People who have internal ovaries and enlarged clitorises yet look otherwise male and live their lives as men with no discrimination, or people with micropenises who look otherwise female and live their lives, again, with no discrimination because with their clothes on they look female. And a million other varieties of intersex condition that still result in an "obvious" sex when you just look at a clothed person in front of you.

c) Transgender people who have had a gender confirmation surgery like a phalloplasty or vaginoplasty. How exactly are you defining "physical sex" in this sense? Are you suggesting that people be DNA tested to decide if something was sex discrimination or not? Examined by a sex surgeon to decide if their genitals are "real" enough?

What it ultimately comes down to is that intersex and trans individuals who are discriminated against are discriminated against precisely because they don't conform to the sex stereotype someone has formed based on their appearance. A trans man with wide hips and a high voice being discriminated against, for example, is being discriminated against precisely because the discriminator has looked at him, heard him, and decided he is female and not conforming to this "innate" sex assignment.

The whole idea that there is an innate physical sex that can be clearly categorized in the way your argument requires is a complete fallacy.

EvilWeasel's point is way more relevant, that w/r/t the military they don't need to prove that it's not discrimination, just that there's some justification for it no matter how thin.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2017 00:43

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

ulmont posted:

]

MURPHY v. SMITH ET AL.
Brief Background: [Murphy won a civil rights suit, with attorney's fees, against his prison guards. The statute says that “a portion of the [prisoner’s] judgment (not to exceed
25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney’s fees awarded against the defendant.” The district court awarded 10%. The 7th circuit said it had to be 25%.]
Holding:
This is a case about how much prevailing prisoners must pay their lawyers. When a prisoner wins a civil rights suit and the district court awards fees to the prisoner’s attorney, a federal statute says that “a portion of the [prisoner’s] judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney’s fees awarded against the defendant. If the award of attorney’s fees is not greater than 150 percent of the judgment, the excess shall be paid by the defendant.”

Whatever else you might make of this, the first sentence pretty clearly tells us that the prisoner has to pay some part of the attorney’s fee award before financial responsibility shifts to the defendant. But how much is enough? Does the first sentence allow the district court discretion to take any amount it wishes from the plaintiff ’s judgment to pay the attorney, from 25% down to a penny? Or does the first sentence instead mean that the court must pay the attorney’s entire fee award from the plaintiff ’s judgment until it reaches the 25% cap and only then turn to the defendant?
...
As always, we start with the specific statutory language in dispute. That language (again) says “a portion of the judgment (not to exceed 25 percent) shall be applied to satisfy the amount of attorney’s fees awarded.”
...
First, the word “shall” usually creates a mandate, not a liberty, so the verb phrase “shall be applied” tells us that the district court has some nondiscretionary duty to
perform.
discretion”). Second, immediately following the verb we find an infinitival phrase (“to satisfy the amount of attorney’s fees awarded”) that specifies the purpose or aim of the verb's non-discretionary duty. Third, we know that when you purposefully seek or aim “to satisfy” an obligation, especially a financial obligation, that usually means you intend to discharge the obligation in full. Together, then, these three clues suggest that the court (1) must apply judgment funds toward the fee award (2) with the purpose of (3) fully discharging the fee award. And to meet that duty, a district court must apply as much of the judgment as necessary to satisfy the fee award, without of course exceeding the 25% cap.
Lineup: Gorsuch, joined by Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito. Dissent by Sotomayor, joined by Ginsburg, Breyer and Kagan.

This literally reads like a childe writing a 2nd grade assignment on sentence diagramming. How is this man on the Supreme Court?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2018 23:23

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Stultus Maximus posted:

Okay. The piece I read either implied or I misinterpreted to say that unions would have to keep representing everyone in the workplace even if everyone doesn't have to contribute.

They kind of do. The whole point is that even if you refuse to join and don't contribute, you still benefit from the wage and benefits the union negotiates as an employer is not gonna maintain a separate pay scale and benefit set for the two assholes in the office who won't join the union.

The plaintiff here is being willfully obtuse by saying the union, by negotiating on his behalf, is engaging in political speech. He would like to not have to pay them money, even though he'll still benefit from the negotiation the union does. He wants a free ride. This breaks the union as people will stop paying dues and eventually they just won't have the money to operate.

Wisconsin passed a law like this in 2010 for public sector unions (Glen Grothman called me a hippie and told me to get a job at the protest). You can look at union membership trends and union activity in WI since then to get an idea of what this looks like for the country. My mom works for the department of corrections there and she says only about a third of her staff is in the union anymore. The contract is basically just dictated by the state now and the union has the resources to fight on one or maybe two critical issues per renewal and that's it.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 06:12

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Main Paineframe posted:

The argument is going beyond just this, too. The argument is that any negotiation a public sector union does is inherently political, because they're public employees whose paychecks come out of government budgets, and therefore how public employees are treated is "government policy" and has unavoidable political aspects. Kennedy seemed to be very sympathetic to that argument, too.

God this is the stupidest Ron Paul bullshit. The union is nothing more than the workers and their chosen representatives. Its only political in the sense that the idea that workers deserve to be paid enough to survive is somehow a hot political issue in our country.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2018 06:56

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Harrow posted:

Boy was this one fun to get a company-wide email about this morning.

This is also the day of Epic's monthly staff meeting so it was also definitely very fun to watch our CEO talk for like a loving hour and not bring it up once.

Jacob Lewis was my mentee at epic and I taught him to hate the place. When he first told me he was suing it was Obama Era and I was so hopeful. gently caress Gorsuch for snatching away our vengeance.

# ¿ May 22, 2018 04:50

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 14:14

The MUMPSorceress: Jan 6, 2012; ^SHTPSTS; Gary’s Answer

Harrow posted:

gently caress

I don't remember if I ever met Jacob. He left when I was still pretty new. Were you still around when all the writers got an email about saving detailed records of our work for evidence for the lawsuit?

I'm still angry at the bare minimum attempt at communication about this to current employees. I'm guessing most people here are just going to see the email and move on, which is probably the point, but I bet a lot of tech comm TLs are going to have to field questions they don't have anything approaching an answer for, which sucks.

I left last July, so probably. I was a developer at that point though.

# ¿ May 22, 2018 18:52

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > SCOTUS 2023: Rice pilaf from Louisiana...is that like an ISIS video?