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2:07 AM
Anti-vaxxers think this is their moment. (But whose idea were the Th ligatures in the headline?)
Oh, I guess they're not ligatures. The headline is just kerned to within an inch of its life.
> The misleading claims Americans will soon hear about the newly released COVID-19 vaccines are nearly identical to claims made about smallpox immunizations 120 years ago: The ingredients are toxic and unnatural; the vaccines are insufficiently tested; the scientists who produce them are quacks and profiteers; the cell cultures involved in some shots are an affront to the religious; the authorities working to protect public health are guilty of tyrannical overreach.
 
3:06 AM
It's the closest thing to a coup. What they've done since election night, I call it a « slow coup ». It's going to take decades to undo the damage they have done. Furthermore I no longer consider the common law originating from the SCOTUS to be binding. I strongly disagree with Senator Romney about the court needing to reflect the worst America has to give, although he did not phrase it like that. Anyways, I wasn't here for that...
The name Dolemite that Rudy Ray Moore used for his character, it's unusual to me. For a native speaker, is that meaningful? Do you see the suffix -mite applied to "dole" in there? Or it's just a name like that?
If you think I should ask in the learners chatroom, let me know.
Thanks.
 
4:02 AM
@Robusto Adobe Garamond Pro — Network resource (36 glyphs)
I do use fonts that have that ligature, but it's hard to come up with it in just 36 glyphs. :)
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if that one has such. Not sure how to make it tell me which 36 glyphs it used.
Bringhurst disapproves of putting Th ligatures in the default set.
 
4:29 AM
But I think we can all agree that the ffi ligature reigns supreme
 
5:14 AM
@Mitch Those are bad from any country. But they only visit us occasionally. No, it is the British tourists who pillage our city every single day of the year (except now).
@Mitch I agree football fans wear ugly orange.
And they are terrible.
A while ago, there was this scandal of Dutch football fans damaging a 16th-century fountain in Rome that had just been repaired.
And Dutch tourists can no doubt be awful.
We have lots of them in Amsterdam, and they are awful indeed.
But the behaviour of British tourists is worse.
Also because Dutch tourists in Amsterdam are more like the average Dutchman, whereas British tourists are probably nothing like the average Brit.
We get a certain type.
 
 
2 hours later…
7:04 AM
@Cerberus Why do you think that is?
 
7:40 AM
 
8:20 AM
@tchrist How about Latini? Plural Latinis. No glass-grinding.
 
8:41 AM
@Robusto No: they are ligatures, like "officials" in the sub-head. Separate letters in the source, ligated in display. It needs the ligatures to be present in the font file, and that the browser can handle them. Th is a common ligature in Garamond, and Adobe Garamond Pro is one of the better examples.
 
9:03 AM
 
@CowperKettle That one's easy. Long-press; delete. Presto! Back in the real world. It may not feel any different, but that's the thing about alternate realities (according to Star Trek, anyway).
 
9:36 AM
@tchrist I don't get the argument. How does slaughtering animals lead to deadly pathogen mutations and cross-species transmission?
@Mitch Yalda is kinda our Halloween, now that I think about it.
Practicing diabetes-inducing eating habits once a year
 
10:08 AM
@CowperKettle I’m fed up too. They deliver to me stuff for others (including legal documents and elegant flower arrangements) and deliver my stuff to others (wine and food). Much neighborhood scramble results.
The UK is in another mess, with a new super-infectious strain of Covid already spread around to four other countries that we already km
xxx know about.
 
@Xanne I just read something about this in an article. Is the mortality rate worse?
 
10:42 AM
@FaheemMitha I don’t think it’s yet known whether the mortality rate is higher or lower. It’s just more contagious for now.
 
@Xanne So the virus is still mutating. Wonderful.
@CowperKettle Some days I have that feeling too. This can't be all there is.
My name is not April, though.
Though seriously, not being able to do simple calculations without a calculator is just sad.
I remember when I was "teaching math", that people used to whip out their calculator for everything.
 
 
1 hour later…
12:16 PM
Word of the day: muleta (the red flag used by bullfighters); a diminutive from mule
 
12:27 PM
Current weather.
It became much warmer. -12°C
Tomorrow it will be -8°C
 
12:46 PM
@FaheemMitha We were prohibited in school from using a calculator until the latest couple of years.
 
@CowperKettle Last couple of years? Probably sensible. I seem to remember our school wasn't too fond of them either. Though I forget the details.
 
During my first years of school, mom sometimes took her work to home to finish it up at home. And she brought a calculator with her. It was half the size of my 17" laptop, and it plugged into the mains.
 
And anyway, calculators are too primitive to be worth bothering with.What's the use of something you can't write programs on?
@CowperKettle I suppose that was some time ago.
 
That was in 1986-87
Handheld calculators were very rare and expensive then. In the USSR.
And we had thousands of perforated cards at home. Dad took them from his work to use as a kind of note paper. Of course they were clean, without perforations.
I mean computer punched cards
 
@CowperKettle That was around the time of the first home computers.
Like the early Apple Macs.
 
12:51 PM
Due to the general slowdown of the Soviet economy since 1966 till 1986, the USSR got very far behind in computers.
 
After Brezhnev ousted Nikita Khruschev, there was a slow period of degradation, which accelerated in 1979, when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. The West stopped providing new technology to us.
 
@CowperKettle Oh, I thought the USSR was very industrial. Lots of weapon development. If only to keep up with you-know-who.
@CowperKettle Did they use to provide technology to the USSR?
I thought it was either stolen or developed in-house.
 
@FaheemMitha If I remember well, hundreds of factories were built from scratch in the USSR from 1929 by American engineers and workers.
 
@CowperKettle Well, that was very kind of them. Why?
I thought they were mostly interested in overthrowing the USSR, because they didn't want the competition.
 
12:54 PM
@FaheemMitha Stalin collectivized peasants, putting them into collective farms. After that, he sold all the grain he could, and paid this money to build factories.
@FaheemMitha No, they were not interested in overthrowing the USSR.
Maybe not until 1980
> В период индустриализации в СССР работали две тысячи западных фирм, двадцать тысяч иностранных инженеров и рабочих.
 
@CowperKettle So the people who came in worked for businesses who were paid by the USSR to build factories?
 
> During the Industrialization of 1929-1940, two thousand Western companies and 20 000 foreign engineers and workers were busy in the USSR.
 
@CowperKettle Sounds unsustainable. What would a simple one line description of collectivization be?
 
@FaheemMitha Yes, thousands of American, Czech workers came to build factories.
 
@CowperKettle That's a lot of people. I had no idea.
 
12:57 PM
Collectivization was a policy of forced consolidation of individual peasant households into collective farms called “kolkhozes” as carried out by the Soviet government in the late 1920's - early 1930's.
@FaheemMitha Whole new industrial cities arose in the USSR. In the Donbass basin, huge factories that helped a lot during WWII.
 
@CowperKettle I see.
 
Collectivization led to one of the biggest famines in Russian history.
The Soviet famine of 1932–33 was a major famine that killed millions of people in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region and Kazakhstan, the South Urals, and West Siberia. It has been estimated that between 3.3 and 3.9 million died in Ukraine and 2 million (42% of all Kazakhs) died in Kazakhstan.. Robert Conquest had cited a number of Kazakhstan losses of one million. A large number of nomadic Kazakhs had roamed abroad, mostly to China and Mongolia. The exact number of deaths is hard to determine due to a lack of records, but the...
Up to 40% of Kazakhstan population died of hunger.
And that at an age when railroads were available.
Stalin just starved people in order to buy heavy industry facilities from the USA, Czechoslovakia and other countries.
 
@CowperKettle Why did it have the effect? On the face of it, it doesn't sound so harmful.
Unless this was combined with heavy exporting, like the British did in India.
 
@FaheemMitha You should download some book on Russian history ))
It was combined with super-heavy exporting of grain, as I said above
 
@CowperKettle I already can't keep up with my reading.
@CowperKettle Yes, as I guessed above. So the collectivization itself was not so harmful?
 
1:07 PM
Collectivization itself was harmful by enslaving people. But yes, it was not aimed at killing them outright.
Up until 1970 collective farm workers were not issued internal passports. They could not just take a bus to a town and start a work there.
They were enslaved, forced to work the ground.
Collectivization threw Russia back to "before 1861".
In the year 1861 the Tzar abolished serfdom. Collectivization restored serfdom.
The whole "communism" bullshit was a sham, helped about by Western pro-Soviet idiots, like Jean-Paul Sartre etc. Useful idiots.
It was enslavement, a huge corporation.
 
1:22 PM
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulak @FaheemMitha This Wikipedia article is an overview you might find useful.
To fill in so Cowperkettle doesn’t have to describe the whole era.
 
@CowperKettle So like bonded laborers? India has a lot of those. Basically a latter-day form of slavery. Though in India it's more of a capitalist thing.
@Xanne Ok. I do read Wikipedia. And other things.
But sometimes it's easier to get a clear picture from someone who knows the topic. You can't ask a Wikipedia page questions.
In India I think indentured (bonded?) laborer is when you owe someone money and then they own you. Not sure how it works, actually.
This page claims it doesn't exist anymore. Hmm. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…
I read the other day it was a big problem. I've read similar things over the years. Perhaps they changed the name.
Like that program the US govt has to train its foreign "friends" in torture and assassination.
The School of the Americas? I think they changed the name. But I'm rambling as usual.
> Debt bondage in India or Bandhua Mazdoori (बंधुआ मज़दूरी) was legally abolished in 1976 but remains prevalent due to weak enforcement by the government.
India in a nutshell. And for weak enforcement read "actually supports it". In fairness, I don't know that for a fact, but it's in line with general Indian "governance" standards.
 
2:03 PM
@Xanne Hey I love it when Cowp goes crazy with the history lessons
@FaheemMitha that's gangster logic
 
@Cerberus I'm just trying to figure out what it is exactly the British tourists do in particular different from everyone else that makes them stand out as bad. Is it just the sheer numbers? Do they stand in the bike lanes, unlike the French who politely step aside and spit into the bike lane from outside of it?
Do they, I hesitate to say in polite company, 'spill their tea'?
Do they sleep in your doorway?
 
@Mitch It's the only place I found that's comfortable
 
Do they ask 'How are you?' And sincerely mean it and expect a response?
@MattE.Эллен It's just the right size
Do you like a door mat or not? Some people are door-matters, others they complain about waking up with 'doormat face'.
I don't understand those people. The comfort is worth it.
 
2:19 PM
They're gypsies with Brad Pitt as gang leader
 
@CowperKettle Somehow I wouldn't put Trump and Sartre in the same box.
@M.A.R. Travellers?
 
@Mitch Crusty jugglers
 
Today I keep referencing Hot Fuzz. It must be a good day
 
@MattE.Эллен How accurate was Brad Pitt's accent in 'Snatch' (where he plays a hard hitting (Literally) head of a Traveller group)?
@M.A.R. Or maybe it's just a good movie.
and the day is aspirational
 
2:21 PM
@Mitch How on Earth would I know?
My accent is so garbled Imma just call it Irish
It's non-rhotic and rhotic at the same time
 
@M.A.R. What? Why would I ever think you would know?
You must be mad
uh crazy
not angry
probably angry too
 
There's a chat history!
 
but the important part is the crazy part
 
This libel will not stand!
 
@M.A.R. mlah m;aj; am;lajdm; mpja
 
2:22 PM
@Mitch I don't know. I don't really know the Traveller (Romani?) accent.
 
I can't hear you
@MattE.Эллен But Brad Pitt looks like a Traveller, right?
 
He's busy vandalizing his chat histories
 
@Mitch in the film? Yeah, I guess.
I don't think so for everyday life
 
Brad Pitt looks like the guy that cheats on his wife in a Christmas romcom
And gets away with it
There are no happy endings
 
only happy middles
 
2:24 PM
@M.A.R. Wait until 2098 when the US normalizes relations with Iran, and then you'll be flooded with container ships full of obesity.
 
2021 with be 2020 but with extra antivaxx sauce
@Mitch No please we make our own soap
 
Shabe Yalda Obesebarak.
 
Check out Maragheh soap. It makes me feel like a barbarian whenever I use it
 
@M.A.R. It's unsoap? You get dirtier with every use?
Because barbarians are dirty as everyone knows.
 
But it cleans so well you picture yourself reflecting light
@Mitch No it just often has an unpleasant smell and it's pretty rough
 
2:27 PM
@M.A.R. That's Jude Law.
 
difficult to picture yourself if you don't reflect light. hahhahahahaha. physics joked
 
Whenever I see Lux ads I think if the Bollywood lady caressed herself with Maragheh soap it'd scrap off the skin and all the plastic under it
 
@MattE.Эллен hahahaha
physics
 
@Mitch No, he's the guy who cheats on his wife in a normal romcom and he's a writer
 
@M.A.R. Wow. Bollywood ladies are made of plastic?
 
2:28 PM
Maybe cake
 
@M.A.R. There seem to be a lot of the same guys
 
Aykroyd
Honestly I never understood how people like the guy
Very punchable face
Or maybe my first impression has been pretty bad
 
My impression, through the funhouse mirror of ... of... well, through a funhouse mirror, is the American tourists (it's all about the Americans anyway) are annoying because
1) They're American. That's a problem right there.
2) Loud. As in every one else is either deaf, the other Americans they're talking to are deaf or no one exists outside of their immediate conversational circle.
3) They _look_ loud. None of the colors match.
4) They smile like the idiots they are. Like they're 8 months old and just farted.
@M.A.R. Nope. That's the most appropriate first impression.
Probably a couple of later impressions too.
Like with your fist.
in his face
 
I just learnt a new idiom "(one's) cup runneth over" meaning "One has such an abundance of good things or happy benefits that one is overwhelmed by them or cannot contain them."
Is there an idiom expressing being overwhelmed with mishaps or catastrophes?
 
@CaptainBohemian 'a perfect storm' - a combination of very different bad things that all happen at the same time. I don't know if it is perfect for the opposite of 'cup runneth over', but it's one possible match for 'overwhelmed with mishaps.
 
3:00 PM
a perfect storm in a teacup
 
A friend asked me. She is studying at medical courses and they are taught Latin words. Is there a good website with pronunciations for Latin words?
 
3:16 PM
> Leading Russian opposition figure tricked one of the several security officers linked to his poisoning into outlining the details of the operation in a phone call,
@navalny
announced Monday
Navalny actually called one of Putin's thugs who were hired to kill him. He called prior to publishing his big investigation. And the thug spilled the beans, believing that the call was made by one of his bosses.
The video has just been uploaded on YouTube, and it has 700 000 views already.
aaaamazing.
The killer's flat is being besieged by journalists right now.
And there are lots of policemen there.
 
3:29 PM
A million views already. Wow.
I haven't even finished watching.
 
3:49 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with a link in answer, potentially bad ns for domain in answer (81): Word for disposable cutlery etc preferably without using "disposable" by Custom Box on english.SE
 
@CowperKettle This is all so cinematic. I dunno how to feel about it.
3
@CowperKettle A good online Latin dictionary, you mean?
 
@M.A.R. No kidding.
 
@M.A.R. A dictionary with pronunciations.
@M.A.R. It all dovetails with the results of the multi-team investigation.
And Navalny's claims can be easily checked. The phonecall data are stored after all, by the providers.
The voice recording can be checked to verify that it was indeed this person who talked.
Russian police's refusal to open a criminal investigation speaks louder than any facts.
They use to open investigations on much more minor accidents.
They routinely open investigations on how this or that clinic handled a miscarriage or something. And here we have a major politician collapsing into a coma, and 3 months later - still no investigation.
That seals it for me.
 
4:51 PM
@CowperKettle "Not once..." fantastic understatement!!!
@M.A.R. better than double-oh seven?
If it's a real transcript, it just goes to show that the best hacks are still just good old-fashioned human engineering:
> A: Well, I can't tell you that over this phone.
> B: That's why I'm calling you, because I need this paper urgently!
 
5:13 PM
LOTR sidebar: in one of the LOTR films, there is a scene when a group (probably the Fellowship) is sailing down the river, and the come to a passage cut into the rock which is composed of two gigantic statues, one on either side. I thin they were full body statues of men (or men-like creatures). Does that ring any bells? Does anyone know which film this appears in, and when?
Never mind. I entered some words, and Google unexpectedly found it. youtube.com/watch?v=YzAKRT07wt0
And it's from the first film, "The Fellowship of the Ring".
And the statues even have a name.
 
5:32 PM
@Conrado Frankly, I was amazed. There are so many scammers constantly phoning me to tell that my bank account is in danger and they are bank workers etc. that I just drop the phone any time. I was amazed that he even replied to the call.
As soon as I hear that "it's Sberbank calling" I say "sorry, busy" and drop the phone.
I thought that FSB employees were all using some encryption or even avoiding any use of phones.
On the other hand, so many records surfaced when Russia invaded Ukraine. Phone records of Russian colonels commanding invasion forces. Even a record in which the Russian army mistakenly shelled a living area in Mariupol and they are discussing this.
They wanted to shell Ukrainian army positions but missed and killed civilians, shelling the city proper.
And if you try to provide these investigations to pro-Putin Russians, they just.. they become zombies.
It's like a zombie movie.
They just flat out disbelieve anything that does not fit their worldview.
 
@CowperKettle Only now?
 
@Cerberus No, as soon as Putin came to power it was clear who he was.
"Seals it" means it's a very strong proof.
 
OK.
 
As soon as he came to power, the corruption criminal investigation, the Mabetex Case, began to fall apart. In this case, Boris Yeltsin's close friends were involved in stealing oodles of money from the Russian budget.
 
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted username, blacklisted website in answer (183): Idioms to say If there is something needed to be done, then do it today? by Ayush Antiwal on english.SE
 
5:38 PM
Unfortunately, it is all less than surprising. It's how the Soviet Union has operated for a century.
 
So basically as soon as he came to power, Putin started to cover up for Yeltsin's corrupt "family". And gradually he installed his own "family" in power, the so called "Ozero cooperative". All his friends were members of this "construction cooperative".
 
Naturally.
 
Ozero (Russian: О́зеро, lit. lake) (full name: дачный потребительский кооператив «Озеро», Dacha consumer cooperative "Ozero") is a dacha housing cooperative associated with Vladimir Putin's inner circle. == History == The dacha cooperative Ozero was founded on November 10, 1996 by Vladimir Smirnov (head), Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Yakunin, Andrei Fursenko, Sergey Fursenko, Yury Kovalchuk, Viktor Myachin, and Nikolay Shamalov. The society united their dachas in Solovyovka, Priozersky District of Leningrad Oblast, on the eastern shore of Lake Komsomolskoye on the Karelian Isthmus, near Sain...
And voila! Members of this cooperative became billionaires.
 
6:20 PM
@CowperKettle Ooh ooh where do I sign
 
6:35 PM
UK goes steeply up
This is a chart with number of cases per 100 000 population
 
 
2 hours later…
8:07 PM
@CowperKettle Don't many countries have a similar graph?
We do.
 
8:21 PM
 
 
1 hour later…
9:21 PM
@MattE.Эллен: I'm informed that all Brits know the term "Colin the caterpillar cake." Is that true? I've never heard the term before.
Also, is it grouped as [Colin the caterpillar][cake] or [Colin][the caterpillar cake]?
 
It looks pretty unhealthy
And/or terrifying
 
I wouldn't even poke it with a stick.
 
I'm already feeling squeamish just by looking at that
5000 Calories
 
5000 calories per slice, no doubt.
 
halb sieben = half six
 
@Færd ?
 
@M.A.R. 6:30 = German halb sieben = (British?) English half six
(halb = half, sieben = seven)
 
I had forgotten about the BrE usage
 
Me too. I was only just reminded of it by accident.
 
10:09 PM
I wonder if, like me, they were all like "wait, how does it make any sense to call 6:30 half seven?" then proceed to come up with something that makes even less sense
How common was telling the time before electricity?
 
lol yeah the math is all wrong.
Not uncommon, surely.
 
I have a physiology exam tomorrow. I've done all in my power to procrastinate
Alas, the lessons are too interesting
TTYL
Happy belated Yalda
 
See you. Have a good exam!
@M.A.R. Right back at ya
 
@M.A.R. Good luck.
Everyone knows half seven is 3.5.
 
It's a mystery to Germans, apparently.
 
10:14 PM
@Robusto pokes it with a stick
ew
@M.A.R. I never knew there was one.
do they really say 'half six' for '6:30'? Are you sure 'half six' isn't '5:30'?
 
@Mitch It is in German, but not in BrE.
 
In AmE 'half six' is a solecism. It might be fixed to 'half -past six'
 
The German way makes more sense, since it's "half of" six.
 
Well, you've got your own exclusive ways of telling the time, I think?
Like half after six?
 
@Robusto I'm very aware of the German usage, but had no idea the Brits say 'half six' and still unsure which way it means.
 
10:18 PM
tell the time = say what time it is?
Maybe it's just about children, when they're able to read the clock.
 
@Robusto In German class we were all agog (if that's the word I'm looking for) that 'halb sechs' goes forward. Made -no- sense to us. Why would you mention six if you meant seven (but only because we were so used to 'half -past- six'.
@Færd In AmE you don't say that either. 'half past six' or more likely 'six thirty'
 
@Mitch This has already been litigated:
Jan 21 '15 at 23:19, by Robusto
@MattЭллен: When a Brit says it's half ten, is it 10:30 or 9:30?
Jan 22 '15 at 8:21, by Matt Эллен
@Robusto 10:30
QED
 
There you go.
 
PROOF!
I want to appeal though.
Just because
 
The decision of the judge is final.
 
10:21 PM
But much more importantly...
> I'm an atheist 11 months out of the year, but in December... I'm eggnogstic.
 
> half past one/two/three etc
especially British English (also half one/two/three etc British English spoken) 30 minutes after the hour mentioned
@Mitch Rejected
 
@Færd link?
wow that was fast
 
Too fast.
Let me answer your next question before you ask it...
(any hints?)
 
@Færd I'm waiting
 
Ah, definitely not.
 
10:24 PM
@Færd I deny the authority of Longman
or rather question it.
 
you should "definitely not" do that.
 
I'm taking this all the way to the United Federation of Planets Supreme court.
Wait... isn't the Supreme Court simply the last in a long line of appeals courts?
 
@Mitch These cases are referred to local (planetary) courts.
@Mitch Could be thought as such, I guess.
 
eg go to court, rules against you, go to the next higher court, rules against you again, go to the one the next level up,... finally after having lost a whole bunch of legal cases -now- you're at the most important court in the country, and the decision will settle case law for decades based on the fact that you lost a whole bunch of times and were annoyingly persistent.
It's probably not how it works
But now I'm not sure
maybe I'll go up one authority from you guys.
like reddit
then quora
then Miss Manners
 
Then I'll take it to corpora.
@Mitch Do supreme courts tend to be more just than state courts?
Or are they how higher justice is defined.
 
10:31 PM
@Færd I don't know how any of this works. All I know about law I learned from TV shows.
 
I read about an interesting case a while ago. Let me dig it up...
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restrict the ability of American public officials to sue for defamation. Specifically, it held that if a plaintiff in a defamation lawsuit is a public official or person running for public office, not only must he or she prove the normal elements of defamation—publication of a false defamatory statement to a third party—he or she must also prove that the statement was made with "actual malice", meaning...
So this is probably the first case that sets the US apart in safeguarding the citizens' freedom of speech to a very high degree.
People think it's the first amendment that does that, but it's not.
 
@Færd There have even been movies made about this subject.
Absence of Malice, for example.
 
Rings a bell.
 
@Robusto Is that what that means? It sounds more like a cold-blooded killer standing over his victim saying 'It's nothing personal. I have no malice towards you. It's just a job'.
 
YMMV
 
10:40 PM
So this decision (like some others after it) bars the state from punishing speech, which is not the whole of providing for free speech, but still an essential step.
 
Is that a question or a statement?
 
It's a declarative.
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War & National Defense) but is now found under Title 18 (Crime & Criminal procedure). Specifically, it is 18 U.S.C. ch. 37 (18 U.S.C. § 792 et seq.) It was intended to prohibit interference with military operations or recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military, and to prevent the support of United States enemies during wartime. In 1919, the Supreme Court...
 
@Færd All of this is open to interpretation and, of course, further litigation.
 
And here's a great legal loophole which lets the state chastise whistleblowers and censure critical speech.
@Robusto Yeah. It looks like these progressive laws are not going to be improved on, to say the least.
 
Whenever this or that wold-be despot decides Freedom of Speech may be abridged for "the greater good," it is abridged.
 
10:51 PM
Yeah. A good example of that is Obama, who invoked the Espionage Act more than all presidents before him combined.
> Under the Obama and Trump administrations, at least eight Espionage Act prosecutions have been related not to traditional espionage but to either withholding information or communicating with members of the media. Out of a total eleven prosecutions under the Espionage Act against government officials accused of providing classified information to the media, seven have occurred since Obama took office.[92]
"Leaks related to national security can put people at risk," the President said at a news conference in 2013. "They can put men and women in uniform that I've sent into the battlefield a
That's how we've gotten here with Snowden and Assange living in exile or prosecuted.
 
The history of jurisprudence in the US is littered with terrible SCOTUS decisions: Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, Buck v. Bell, Korematsu v. United States, and so on.
 
also Debs vs US
 
Yes.
 
But you can boast of progressive and liberal decisions too.
 
Fewer of those, I think.
 
11:00 PM
More than ours.
 
That is unfortunate.
But in many cases, decisions like Brown v. Board and Roe v. Wade are targets for all kinds of abuse.
 
In what way?
 
Evangelical Christians want to repeal Roe v. Wade, and racists wish they could do away with Brown v. Board.
Often those are the same people.
 
The former has become more likely, I guess.
Repealing the latter one seems like a white supremacist's wet dream, but no more.
 
@Færd Yes. But Brown v. Board has been effectively repealed anyway by de facto segregation. Most blacks live in cities and their children attend all-black schools, while white schools in the suburbs have few if any non-white students.
 
11:07 PM
Ah yes that's bad.
But it's not like politicians can get away with explicit racist slogans like "segregate our schools", the way they can with "abortion is murder".
 
There is some integration, but whites who don't want it can insulate themselves from it fairly effectively.
@Færd No. They've pretty much stopped that and gotten their way otherwise.
 
Yeah with dog-whistle mottos like "Make America Great Again"
 
Genau.
 
Or "Secure our suburbs" or whatever it was.
 

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