is syria an isolated event or some kind of domino?

“The average cost of a three-day hospital stay is $30,000.” @helenouyang.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2024/12/08/o...

pretends not to notice but it has some egg on its face.

(thanks!)

a lot still seems pretty prevalent… link suppression on x / threads, difficult cancelations, pop-ups demanding email addresses, etc. the FTC was working on banning junk fees, but they’re still all over my hotel bookings and rent. i saw incipient hope in the Khan FTC, but very far from vanquishment.

and an abiding faith—based on a tendentious misreading either of the Christian religion or Adam Smith, pick your poison—that ruthlessly seeking “what’s in it for me?” can only yield a brilliant, sustainable future so there’s nothing to have misgivings about, regardless of what eggs must be broken.

there was the moment they decided dark patterns are really bright patterns because they are profitable patterns, and what is profitable is efficient and good, progressive in the only way that is ultimately meaningful. that was the moment they left us, became something apart. they continue to diverge

perhaps a pony would be more practical.

a cosmopolitan Constitution, if you can keep it.

I agree we should do absolutely everything we can to insist upon no widening of the exclusion based on jurisdiction. The Court already has come up with justifications like the sky isn’t blue, several times now. US v Trump and Trump v Anderson both qualify. We collectively shrugged.

maybe! but these are arguable questions, malleable definitions. we have a Supreme Court that’s very capable of finding ways to justify the conclusions it prefers, and this question of jurisdiction which has already admitted exceptions is quite a wedge for them to play upon.

i mean, i hope you are right. i just think it’s no more of a stretch than other things this Court has done to read those who have concealed themselves from the US as not meeting the bar of being subject to jurisdiction in this sense. again, what the court did with 14A sec 3 was at least as farcical.

i agree this is absolutely horrifying.

we really want black-letter Constitutional support. the more invocation of legislation+precedent are required to make our case, the bigger an invitation to a Supreme Court which has given massive middle fingers to stare decisis when they think they know better (even though they are the very worst).

it’s a good question, but it’s already interpreted as excluding children of diplomats from automatic citizenship. the parents have diplomatic immunity, so the child is deemed not subject to the jurisdiction.

i hope you are right + something would be a bridge too far here. but a Supreme Court that inverted the plain meaning of Section 3 of the 14th A (requiring Congressional action to disable, when the text requires Congressional action to remove the disability) strikes me as willing to make new history.