This Supreme Court sounds like an implausible parody of public corruption.
"[Jane] Roberts' apparent $10.3 million in compensation [for recruiting lawyers to prestigious law firms] puts her toward the top of the payscale for legal headhunters… she was 'the highest earning recruiter in the entire company 'by a wide margin.'' ... 'The monetary value of a senior government official will depend on the value they bring to a law firm's client base,' she said" https://www.businessinsider.com/jane-roberts-chief-justice-wife-10-million-commissions-2023-4
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[new draft post] Urgency https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2023/04/28/urgency/index.html
// corrected very bad misdating of post and URL in prior announcement, thanks @blakeashleyjr!
The Roberts Court is a cesspool of open corruption that works to legalize the same.
People like to describe John Roberts as an institutionalist a bit overwhelmed by how contentious his Court has become and how far and fast it has swung. Given his unwillingness to meaningfully address behavior that justifiably destroys public confidence in the Court, I don't think that's a fair description. Any "institutionalism" is eclipsed by… something else.
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"It is with real chutzpah…that Roberts has claimed judicial independence in order to circumvent an investigation into judicial independence… [O]ur Supreme Court does not exist in the constitutional order as much as it looms over it, a robed tribunal of self-styled philosopher-kings, accountable to no one but themselves." @jbouie https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/opinion/john-roberts-clarence-thomas-supreme-court.html
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“Preventing monopoly formation is infinitely preferable to breaking up monopolies after they form.” @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/27/convicted-monopolist/ ht @eARCwelder@mastodon.sdf.org
i periodically repost this, and now seems like a good moment.
Merge the Court https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7964.html
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A thing I did not know, from @ryanlcooper:
The US Supreme Court "struck down a law prohibiting political candidates from repaying personal loans to their campaign with post-election donations, meaning that interested parties can effectively place bribes directly into the pockets of our elected representatives."
https://prospect.org/justice/2023-04-26-democrats-supreme-court-corruption/
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( i may switch to a different instance — i love fosstodon.org, i'm a long-time free software guy and i love that world — but most of my posts are politics-ish and i've gotten a bit of pushback that some fosstodoners prefer the local timeline to be respite from all that. i could CW politicsy posts, but that doesn't seem to be the norm among the people i converse with. anyway, i may a bit sadly be looking for a new home, and am open to suggestions. )
Jerry Springer’s passing reminds us of a more innocent, less decadent America.
some people find writing a function to reverse a string even just once to be annoying, but i've found a solution that is very concise and will reverse a string *twice*.
what if Biden cut a deal with McConnell to support an impeachment of Gorsuch and Thomas in exchange for agreeing to two McConnell-acceptable replacement nominees? the idea would be to separate ethics accountability from the political composition of the Court by holding the latter constant. would this be wise or terrible?
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(i’m going to make an imposter account of myself so that people think i’m important enough to have an imposter!)
(oh, wait.)
(i guess my account would be an imposter imposter?)
suppose when you write your Congressperson, the mail is read and responded by an AI with, in almost all cases, no human staffer (nor the representative themself) reading the mail. would that be okay?
suppose the AI produces (accurately, let’s stipulate) a summary of the issues on which mail has been received, the positions taken, and their frequencies among constituents.
would that affect your view?
Thank God we have somebody standing firm against all the snowflakes and the cancel culture.
From @w7voa via @chargrille https://journa.host/@w7voa/110266946177745015
I had an actual question, so I thought I'd Leverage The Power Of AI. It gave a clear answer (not the one I'd guess!), referring to a study. I asked for a citation, it duly gave me one.
Of course, the citation was bogus. I point that out, it apologizes and gives me the "correct" one. Nope! And we go 'round again!
It's stunningly shameless in the specificity of its frauds. And it goes for plausibility! The issue numbers, page numbers, dates are consistent. The articles just do not exist there.
How does antidepressant use compare between nordic and anglo countries? There is some evidence to suggest that antidepressant use varies between Nordic and Anglo countries. Nordic countries, which include Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, tend to have higher rates of antidepressant use than Anglo countries such as the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. For example, a 2016 study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders found that the prevalence of antidepressant use in Nordic countries ranged from 6.2% to 12.0%, compared to a range of 3.3% to 7.1% in Anglo countries. The study also found that Nordic countries had a higher rate of long-term antidepressant use than Anglo countries. However, it is important to note that there may be cultural and societal differences that contribute to differences in antidepressant use between countries, and that these differences may not necessarily reflect differences in the prevalence of depression or other mental health disorders. Additionally, variations in healthcare systems, prescribing practices, and access to mental health services may also play a role in the differences observed.
Can you please give me the full citation for the 2016 study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders you refer to? S Sure, here is the full citation for the study I referred to: Sundbom LT, Bingefors K. (2016). The use of antidepressants among 0-17 year olds in five Nordic countries from 2005 to 2012. Journal of Affective Disorders, 189, 187-93. DOl: 10.1016/jjad.2015.09.025. I hope that helps! SW Hi. The article you refer to seems not to exist! Here is the table of contents for Journal of Affective Disorders Volume 189: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-affective-disorders/vol/189/suppl/C Can you please recheck that citation for me? G I apologize for the mistake in my previous response. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. After double-checking, I found that the study I referred to was actually published in the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, not the Journal of Affective Disorders. Here is the correct citation: Sundbom, L. T., & Bingefors, K. (2016). Antidepressant utilization patterns and determinants of short-term and non-psychiatric use in the Nordic countries. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 70(3), 192-199. do: 10.3109/08039488.2015.1118673 I apologize for any confusion my previous response may have caused.
I am having a hard time finding that article as well. Here is the relevant table of contents of the Nordic Journal of Psychiatry https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/ipsc20/70/3?nav=tocList I apologize for the continued confusion. It appears that I made another mistake in my previous response. The correct citation for the study is: Sundbom LT, Helgesson M, Jing S, et al. (2015). Antidepressant utilisation patterns and determinants of short-term and non-psychiatric use in the Nordic countries. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 69(3), 218-225. DOl: 10.3109/08039488.2014.961964 I hope that helps clarify things.
#KrisAbdelmessih who writes one of the deepest finance substacks puts an older, but i think one of my best, posts on inequality in the excellent company of #ByrneHobart and #MaiaMindel. https://moontower.substack.com/p/house-rugged
are you a media personality?
i pass every turing test because it is obvious i am a shallow fake.
i've made myself a very overtly #scala means of specifying static sites, which is the opposite of slick or friendly, except maybe to people who find writing scala and interacting with scala libs a natural and precise way of specifying things. today i wrote a "Getting Started" README, on the unlikely theory i might not be alone. https://github.com/swaldman/unstatic/blob/main/README.md
