White noise. I bought a white noise machine years ago when I lived near a large emergency room that had ambulances going by all day every day. It really helped with the sirens, and when I moved away I kept using the machine. My brain now interprets the white noise as profound silence, and I sleep so deeply that I don’t know how I ever got by without it.

MacBeth has left the chat

Many different kinds of organizations are organized as corporations. Charities, newspapers, churches, etc. If the amendment was not carefully written, it could be construed to deny important rights, such as press freedom or religious freedom, to organizations that really ought to be protected. Similarly, the protections against unwarranted search and seizure or taking of property for pubic use without compensation should probably continue to cover corporations.

Really, the only problem I see WRT corporations having constitutional rights is the decision that political spending is protected speech. The other constitutional rights are generally not problematic.

So maybe something like this:

1. No person, whether natural born human or legal fiction, shall spend, donate, or otherwise make valuable contributions to any candidate or campaign, if said person is not entitled to vote in the election for such candidate or campaign.

2. Only natural born human beings shall be entitled to vote in any election.

The TOS doesn’t say anything about crimes like murder, and of course you can’t waive that anyway.

What it does say is that any disputes arising out of the use of their website are subject to arbitration. If the plaintiff is correct and Disney is liable because they posted the menu on their website, then that would be a dispute arising out of the use of their website.

The plaintiff doesn’t say that Disney owns it, though. They are basing their argument on the fact that Disney posted the restaurant’s menu on their website. The website is also under the Disney+ TOS. So, if the plaintiff is correct and Disney is liable then the TOS probably applies.

Today, the US is withholding billions of dollars in Afghan assets, cutting off a crucial economic lifeline for the people of Afghanistan.

What assets are they talking about here?

Annual commemorative pastry observance

Fritz Leiber’s short story “A Pail of Air”.

This story portrays the effects of the most terrifying natural calamity I have ever encountered in fiction: Earth being ejected from the solar system. In any other disaster there’s still hope because even though humanity might die out, life on Earth would eventually recover. Not so in this case. Without the Sun we’re fucked. Even the air freezes (hence the title).

Super Mario Brothers 2

Bust this trust.

Stop, drop, and roll

Florence Foster Jenkins singing the Queen of the Night’s aria.

I’m not familiar with the idiom “spitting on the wrong horn.” Here’s the context of the quote:

But weigh this [the evils of liberty] against the oppression of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem [“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery”]. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

I feel like you’re arguing a point I haven’t taken a position on. I’m only saying that arrests like this seem insane to an American sensibility.

The conservatives gave it the power to prosecute people for protesting climate change and made it inadmissible evidence for them to explain the reasons for their protest

But I will say that changing the law like that is also insane to an American sensibility.

It’s less about thinking she shouldn’t be punished for her speech, and more about thinking that the state shouldn’t have the power to punish speech. To quote Thomas Jefferson, “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”

It’s not a question of what speech I think should be allowed, but rather a question of what powers I think the state should have.

Windows 95 had to change the time zone selection map because of disputed borders.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42823

I’m not confusing them. But I’m also not a fan of using the power if the state to punish people I disagree with, even if they say vile things. Such power will inevitably be abused, turned against me, etc.

It’s safer in the long run to preserve free speech and expression, even if it means people get away with being asshats.