@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

maxkennerly

@maxkennerly@mstdn.social

Lawyer. Progressive.

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maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

Oof. Supreme Court grants certiorari in Loper Bright, which is a vehicle to undermine the Chevron standard. Part of the longstanding conservative dream to dismantle the regulatory state.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/050123zor_1an2.pdf

https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/loper-bright-enterprises-v-raimondo/

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

This is kind of amazing: Nate Silver rented his election forecasting model to Disney, and now that they’re trying to kick him out, they have only now realized they’re booting their star without the most important asset.

My bet: Disney pays him eight figures to keep the model.

https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/04/30/2023/rupert-called-zelenskyy

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

@ernie Hate to admit it but selling the site while only leasing the model was a pretty savvy move.

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

To everyone who thinks they'll be okay if they just play along with the anti-woke crowd:

UNC bent over backwards to placate the right-wing—giving millions to neo-Confederates, denying tenure to Nikole Hannah-Jones—and they're getting attacked by Republicans just the same.

"Proposed state law would end tenure at UNC and add scrutiny of faculty research"
https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article274596256.html

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

@mmasnick done by far the best job of chronicling the Twitter/Musk follies and the resulting social media diaspora. His 6-months-later piece, on where we stand in what I hope will be a massive move to decentralized networking, is a must-read: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/28/six-months-in-thoughts-on-the-current-post-twitter-diaspora-options/

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

@dangillmor @mmasnick I know it makes me finicky, but:

  1. boilerplate EULA terms
  2. minimal moderation capability
  3. no block feature, then rushed out block feature

Suggest to me that Bluesky really is ill-prepared to run a social network. They're going down the usual techbro path of putting 45% effort into engineering, 45% effort into looking cool for a handful of investors, 10% effort into solving known difficult problems of products like theirs.

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

@mmasnick @dangillmor Sure, Bluesky has a plan for moderation: the 'community' will do it, via server-level moderation and third-party 'community labeling' and so forth.

Which is a plan, I suppose, but it's not operational. Their primary moderation method is not even alpha testing yet. If it's true they know what they're doing, then the takeaway is they don't really care about moderation at all, it's an afterthought.

https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/4-13-2023-moderation

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

@mmasnick @dangillmor I don't think it's disingenuous to point out that Bluesky (1) isn't ready for moderation at scale and (2) likely won't be ready for moderation at scale anytime soon.

maxkennerly, to internet
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

It'd be nice to have a simple Twitter replacement but FYI the approach to moderation is "we'll do basic filtering of the worst stuff, but the rest is up to someone else, users, developers, whatever" https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/4-13-2023-moderation

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

@hammancheez Totally. Not moderating is much cheaper than moderating.

Is that truly in the company's best interest? Maybe, maybe not. Twitter's bad moderation post-Musk cost them billions.

But either way, it's something users should be aware of. The company isn't going to look out for them.

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

@aja Yes, Mastodon with data harvesting and advertising.

Probably a nicer interface too, just because they have more wiggle room to do it because they're setting the underlying protocol standards.

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

Sure, this is dangerous and will get children killed—but have you considered the improved profit margins for hedge funds from this "Precision-Scheduled Railroading"?

https://www.investigatetv.com/2023/04/26/rail-profits-soar-blocked-crossings-force-kids-crawl-under-trains-get-school/

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

dune 1: stellan it will take eight hours to put on this bodysuit and then we will submerge you in oil

dune 2: florence here's your crochet hat

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maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

Here's a couple excerpts from Disney v. DeSantis that sum it up.

In short, wants to prevent and his crony board from "voiding" the existing agreements between Disney and the Reedy Creek district.

And, yeah, Disney's right about that.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23789600-file-stamped-disney-complaint1

2. A targeted campaign of government retaliation—orchestrated at every step by Govemor DeSantis as punishment for Disney’s protected specch—now threatens Disney’s business operations, jeopardizes its economic future in the region, and violates its constitutional rights. 3. Today's action s the latest strike: At the Goveror’s bidding, the State’s oversight board has purported to “void” publicly noticed and duly agreed development contracts, which had laid the foundation for billions of Disney’s investment dollars and thousands of jobs. This government action was patently retaliatory, patently anti-business, and patently unconstitutional. But the Governor and his allies have made clear they do not care and will not stop. The Governor recently declared that his team would not only “void the development agreement”—just as they did today—but also planned “to look at things like taxes on the hotels,” “tolls on the roads,” “developing some of the property that the district owns” with “more amusement parks,” and even putting a “state prison” next to Walt Disney World.
166. The substantial—indeed, total—impairment of Disney’s contract rights was not “necessary” to serve an “important” govermment interest, as required to survive Contracts Clause serutiny. U.S. Trust, 431 U.S. at 25-26. As alleged in this Complaint, the Contracts were abrogated as part of an explicit campaign of official goverment retaliation against Disney for expressing a viewpoint the Governor and Legislature disagreed with. That objective is the opposite of important—it is categorically impermissible. 167. Any other asserted reasons for abrogating the Contracts are pretextual. RCID was fully empowered to enter into the Contracts. Special districts commonly enter into contracts with developers, including special districts with goveming structures defined by land ownership. And the law establishing CFTOD expressly provides that all preexisting RCID contracts remain fully enforceable. CFTOD Charter § 1.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF Plaintiff respectfully requests that this Court grant the following relief: A. Declare that the Legislative Declaration is unlawful and unenforceable because it abrogates Disney’s rights in violation of the Contracts Clause: B. Declare that the Legislative Declaration is an unlawful taking of Disney’s property rights without payment of just compensation in violation of the Takings Clause; C. Declare that the Legislative Declaration is unlawful and unenforceable because it was an arbitrary and irrational voiding of the Development Agreement and Restrictive Covenants in violation of the Due Process Clause; D. Declare that the Legislative Declaration is unlawful and unenforceable because it was enacted in retaliation for Disney’s speech in violation of the First Amendment; E. Declare that the Contracts remain in effect and enforceable: F. Declare that Senate Bill 4C and House Bill 9B are unlawful and unenforceable because they were enacted in retaliation for Disney’s political speech in violation of the First Amendment; G. Issue an order enjoining Defendants from enforcing the Legislative Declaration; H. lIssuc an order enjoining Defendants from enforcing Senate Bill 4C and House Bill 9B; I Award Plaintiffits attorney’s fees and costs: and J. Grant such other relief as this Court may deem just and proper.

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

To the extent America's polarized politics have a "center," that center is pretty close to Black Lives Matter (net favorability -2%) and quite far away from MAGA (net favorability -21%).
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/maga-movement-widely-unpopular-new-poll-finds-rcna81200

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

"Gorsuch did not disclose the identity of the purchaser. That box was left blank."

Now that's just consciousness of guilt, because he knew how it looked to suddenly sell his property to the chief executive of a massive law firm with regular business before SCOTUS.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/25/neil-gorsuch-colorado-property-sale-00093579

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

Nah. I don't buy it. This thread isn't sincere, it's the CEO of Quora (and board member of ) trying to use Cunningham's Law to gather free advice on training to interpret law.

I am happy to help any AI company with those issues—so long as you pay me. 💅

maxkennerly, to space
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

Sorry, but you can't convince me that the test of a reusable rocket system is supposed to involve destroying the launch site—which was reusable on every prior generation of space flight technology—and launching debris thousands of feet away.

is not a serious company, it's a clown show, and it should not have a single dollar in government funding, much less billions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViAb3vYIh_8

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

@michaelgemar @GreenFire @theogrin I think "physical goods" requires some differentiation.

If the government is purchasing physical goods that have a competitive non-government market, sure, purchasing from private industry is likely more efficient. Passenger vehicles, chairs, printers, etc.

But for customized items or goods without a competitive non-government market like spacecraft and weaponry, well...

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

@michaelgemar @GreenFire @theogrin There's a commercial market for the smaller satellite-launching rockets.

There's no commercial market for manned spaceflight—puffery from investors about space tourism doesn't count, as Virgin Orbit's failure shows—and that's a huge source of SpaceX's revenue. That's just government money going to billionaires so they can blow stuff up for lulz.

maxkennerly,
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

A good deep-dive (written pre-launch) on how the largest rocket in history was launched from a dirt-cheap site that would be substandard everywhere else in the world, including Russia and China.

This was a massive regulatory failure, everything from knowingly relying on bad data to outright evasion of review by omitting critical infrastructure.

There should be accountability.
https://blog.esghound.com/p/spacexs-texas-rocket-is-going-to

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

For a little while, Twitter was the fastest, most reliable newswire in history. Governments, journalists, celebrities, etc worldwide would put breaking news on Twitter first.

And then some goofball paid a ton of money to make it into 4Chan. 🤷‍♂️

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

Alito's failure to recuse in this big oil case reminds me of the big pharma case where Alito owned stock, failed to recuse, then remembered to recuse. Cert was granted without him, he saw the briefs filed by big pharma, then decided to un-recuse and wrote an opinion adopting big pharma's arguments. Merck v Albrecht, No. 17-290.

https://prospect.org/justice/2023-04-20-exxons-unethical-supreme-court-play/

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maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

Given the overall circumstances—Crow showered Thomas with gifts before and after, Thomas's mother kept living there, Crow paid for improvements—the only reasonable interpretation is: Thomas and Crow structured the transaction as a loss solely to avoid reporting it.

"Thomas claims he lost money and didn’t think he needed to disclose it — but the rules are clear that profit/loss isn’t a factor in disclosure"
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/17/politics/clarence-thomas-amend-disclosure-gop-megadonor/index.html

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

Crow's claim about buying it for a museum can't be squared with Thomas's mother still living in it after the purchase, the improvements made to the home, nor with Thomas breaking the law to keep it secret.

From @ProPublica

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-real-estate-scotus

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

There are a lot of commentators who claim the path to electoral victory lies in Democrats backpedaling on trans rights.

There are precisely zero (0) actual voters who will swing from voting Republican to voting Democratic on this basis.

In 2022, the GOP in Pennsylvania and Michigan leaned heavily into trans bigotry. Bans on gender transition surgeries, bans on trans athletes, the works.

Normie voters found it weird and creepy. The GOP got their teeth smashed in, huge losses in both states.

maxkennerly, to random
@maxkennerly@mstdn.social avatar

I remember when Aaron Swartz was criminally prosecuted for downloading too many academic journal articles, but, sure, it's totally cool to scrape everyone's personal photographs as part of a commercial effort to market discriminatory surveillance tech to police departments.

https://www.businessinsider.com/clearview-scraped-30-billion-images-facebook-police-facial-recogntion-database-2023-4

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