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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)JO
Posts
10
Comments
224
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • I love the confidently incorrect.

    What is California’s right of publicity law?

    The right of publicity forbids the unauthorized use of an individual’s name or likeness for commercial or other certain exploitative purchases. [...]

    Any right of publicity is subject to First Amendment defenses. A defense team may claim if the alleged violation “contains significant transformative elements, it is not only especially worthy of First Amendment protection, but it is also less likely to interfere with the economic interest protected by the right of publicity.”

  • Abbott's a bigoted demogogue asshole, but this entire thing feels way overblown, thanks largely to poor reporting.

    The Supreme Court ruling in question was one of those zero-commentary "shadow docket" things that simply struck down a lower court injunction holding that the federal Border Patrol was not allowed to cut razor wire laid by the Texas state guard. The clear implication is that the feds have ultimate jurisdiction and the state needs to stay in their fucking lane. But because of the ruling's terseness, there's wiggle room for Abbott to say that they didn't explicitly order Texas to stop placing wire or to obstruct Border Patrol operations, only that the feds were permitted to remove it if they wanted. So he takes that legal loophole and uses it to give a big middle finger to the administration and the Court using the same hysterical rhetoric he always has.

    Problem is all the reporting on the Court ruling glossed over the mechanics and interpreted it as saying more than it actually did, which in turn makes Texas's obstinacy look less like legal trolling and more like a full-blown constitutional crisis. But Abbott has not (yet) directly disobeyed a Supreme Court order, and I expect the administration will petition the Court for an expedited slapdown of his semantic bullshit. If he ignores that, or right-wing threats pressure the Court into reversing their prior decision, then we're really into nullification crisis territory. But the freakout roiling progressives is, at this point, premature.

  • Repeating for emphasis that the state house map was redrawn after 2020; the most similar district under the old map was HD-42, which went R by 1% in the 2020 election, but the borders were different around Orlando so it's an apples-and-oranges comparison.

  • Note that this question (#13) was only asking "likely Republican primary voters."

    To me, the most disturbing stat was #19, the 50-50 split among all likely voters between valuing "a strong economy" versus "a functioning democracy."

  • I listened to it and it's genuinely not bad (on a content and voice synthesis level), to the point that I have a hard time believing it was entirely AI-generated. If it's not a fake ghostwritten by the creators, it must have been heavily rerolled and edited to make it so coherent.

  • Defederating Beehaw would not only weaken it as an instance, but remove its positive influence from the wider fediverse. The big platforms wield so much power and influence and money, the smaller upstarts need to connect as much as possible to stand a chance at relevance as a credible alternative. We're all better together. I really hope you reconsider.

  • Sinfest. Used to be a charming and funny daily webcomic about an eclectic cast of colorful characters getting into surreal and philosophical situations. Then one day in 2011 it suddenly swerved hard into radical feminism. I'm not anti-feminist myself, but the comic became obsessed with it -- literally every strip was related to The Patriarchy in some way and it became extremely preachy and boring.

    I checked out for the better part of a decade, and when I randomly revisited a couple years ago it turned out that the author had transited the TERF-to-fascist pipeline and turned into an extreme-right antivax conspiratorial fascist loon, of the "teachers are secret pedos" and "the war in Ukraine is a hoax" variety. Super sad to see.