Ghost of LL

They're in Belarus in pretty large numbers. And Belarus doesn't really have a military to prevent Wagner from moving toward Russia. But the real trouble is that I don't think Wagner took any of their heavy weaponry to Belarus. At least the videos I saw showed them moving into Belarus in convoys of trucks, not tanks and IFVs.

I don't think you ought to hold up DART as a particularly successful rail model.

Honest question--who the fuck is paying $100K for dinner with Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani? If you have that kind of scratch, you buy your access through other (more effective) means. And anyway--who with access to that kind of money wants access to Trump right now given where he is politically and legally? The last thing you want to do is be known as a donor to this shitfest. You might as well ask for a subpoena. And at a time when Trump is pretty damned unlikely to win the presidency, there appears to be very little benefit.

In downtown Kyoto, there were no long lines. If you didn't have a reservation somewhere, you were going to have a hard time getting into any decent place. Perhaps that's something unique to Kyoto and not something you'd see in a larger city like Osaka. But it was definitely the case in Kyoto. As to @McCroskey's query--I'm happy to answer any questions based on my experience this Spring. I don't know anything about Osaka or Nagoya, though.

I was at a place for lunch the other day, and had this based on the pre-tax amount. I always tip based on the post-tax amount because (1) I only look at the bottom line, and I'm too lazy to track down the pre-tax amount, and (2) who honestly gives a rat's ass--we're talking about 20% of 8.25%, which by my math is around 1.5%. But I had already checked the "20%" box before figuring out that it was on the pre-tax amount. If I had realized that earlier, I would have checked the 22% box. So oops--the waiter lost out on $0.50.

Can you imagine what Collins' trip back to Earth would've been like? From a purely technical standpoint, it would've been difficult because the lunar module was designed to be flown by three men. But from a more human standpoint, I can't imagine the mental strain of the grief of just losing your shipmates coupled with the strain of not knowing what kind of reception you could expect when you got back on Earth. And what kind of reception would he get? He'd be the corporeal reminder of the mission failure for the rest of his life. NASA probably wouldn't have sent him back to the Moon; he'd probably be out of the space program. So what, you get a job at Eastern Airlines? Yeah--I'm sure every captain would be thrilled to fly to Miami with Michael Collins.

That's not what I'm saying. In Chicago, you don't go outside between December 1 and March 1. Kids don't go out and ride bikes or play outside. If they socialize, they do so the same way they do here in the summer--they go over to a friend's house or they talk on the phone/internet. And they've been doing that in Chicago for a very long time. So I think your concerns about child socialization are misplaced.

You've never lived in a place like Chicago or Minneapolis, have you?

And it's kinda risky for the employer to do that. I have some recollection that the DOL issued some guidance a few years ago that an "auto-grat" could be considered to be a service charge, and not a "tip." And in that case, a lot of "tipped employees" turn into employees who are essentially paid on a commission. And those employees need to be paid minimum wage, not the $2.13/hour tipped-employee rate. Oh, and by the way, you don't want to fuck with the Wage and Hour Division.

So it appears that they're not petitioning for mandamus. It's just an appeal of the sanctions order. I'm not exactly sure how that is jurisdictional under Section 1291, which limits appellate jurisdiction to "final orders" of the district court. But I think it's a separate appeal from their appeal of the judgment under the collateral-order doctrine. In any event, expect some real strategic action on the part of the Fifth Circuit judges on this. They don't want this going to SCOTUS, because it's liable to make some real bad law for the Christian Nationalists. It's going to be real interesting to see how they handle this. As I said above, I'm mildly surprised they're appealing. And as I said further above, the general corporate feel on this would be just to have the lawyers go do their day of religious indoctrination, because we're in the business of flying airplanes, not fighting culture wars. But I'll also say that Southwest is a bit different from the standard corporate culture. And the Southwest GC Department has traditionally been part of that. They take very seriously the idea that "we stand up for our people." We're not going to allow a nutbar flight attendant cyberbully her coworkers, even if Jesus told her to do so. And we're not going to let a federal judge impose a plainly unconstitutional and illegal sanction on our in-house lawyers. And yeah--it costs some money to stick up for your people. But if you're loyal to your people, then they'll reciprocate. You have their back--and they know you have their back--and they'll have yours. But if you don't, then they won't. And so yeah--it costs some money. But it's an investment. And I think it's an investment that's important to make and that usually pays off.

Southwest is petitioning for mandamus on the sanctions order. And they're definitely gearing up to fight on the judgment. My knowledge of the Southwest General Counsel's office is a little out of date. I still know a handful of the lawyers who are there. But regardless--my impression is that they don't take shit lying down. At least historically, they have a culture of litigating pretty aggressively. So I'm only mildly surprised that they're petitioning for mandamus on the sanctions order. But I'm not at all surprised to see them getting ready to take that judgment to SCOTUS.

I mean, that's cool once. But next time, I'm going to a different beer man even if that requires me to walk an extra section down.

Just back from Disney World, and I had this same experience. It's not that they were completely absent. But it is that they were a much smaller percentage than my previous experience. But that may be because of a specific circumstance this past weekend. I don't know what was going on, but the number of Brits there was noticeable. Couple that with the beginning of school, and the percentage of Americans at Disney World was low compared by my previous experience. There were a ton of Brits, a fair number of Australians, and a decent number of Japanese. Oh, and by the way, the "Virtual Queue" is completely incomprehensible. The slots are taken within seconds. We just ended up doing the Individual Lightning Lane for Tron and Guardians of the Galaxy because we could never get a Virtual Queue spot.

What Desantis doesn't get is that the MAGAts love Trump not so much for Trump is, but how he acts. They love that he took down Jeb! and scoffed at Little Marco. They love that he's the only one to articulate what they want--to "lock her up." The only way Desantis would take over that enthusiasm is to take down Trump. Christie gets that. He sees that if he can go out there and make fun of Trump and turn him into a figure of derision even in the GQP, he wins. Nobody else gets benefit from that. And if you don't go out and take down Trump, then Trump doesn't get taken down. He will win the nomination from prison. Nobody's going to just lay the nomination at your feet. But that's exactly what Desantis is expecting.

Judge Yeakel approves of your use of the term “pendent jurisdiction” rather than “supplemental” jurisdiction.

The cabin on the Galactic Starcruiser is small, but that view is pretty sweet.

Can y'all appreciate what it must be like to be in the FBI's counterintelligence division right now? I mean, you have an entire party that thinks the current government is lawless and illegitimate. A substantial number of members of that party thinks the president drinks the blood of children. And a bunch have favorable feelings toward Russia. If you're FBI counterintelligence, how do you screen the innumerable Republicans in the federal government, when any of them could be a serious security risk based on their party affiliation and the example set by their party's leader?

I don't think so. Joe Manchin is in it entirely for Joe Manchin. And what does getting 3% in a presidential election and no electoral votes get Joe Manchin? Absolutely nothing. Well, absolutely nothing good. It gets him the everlasting enmity of the Democratic Party and every Democratic officeholder. What Manchin really wants is to stay in the United States Senate. So he's going to run for reelection. And worst case, he loses. But if that happens, he gets a gig on K Street making very serious money because he's known as a dealmaker who has friends on both sides of the aisle. And that very serious money can be used to get an even bigger boat. So maybe it's not as nice as the Senate, but it's not a bad deal at all.

We just went to Fleetwood's last month and had a great dinner. Lahaina isn't just a nice tourist town. It's also a point of cultural significance and history for the Hawaiians. It was the first capital of a united Hawaiian Kingdom. And its high school is the oldest high school in the United States west of the Mississippi. It's really just heartbreaking to see it destroyed like this. That's the dry side of the island. Lahaina and Kaanapali are in the rain shadow of the West Maui Mountain. So it's pretty dry over there in normal circumstances. But they've been in a significant drought for a while that has made it even more severe.

I wouldn't consider non-competes to be "employment law" as such. It's much more contract litigation. I consider "employment law" to be much more in the vein of non-discrimination statutes, wage/hour, ERISA, and the like. But I do know that Kingston has done some non-compete litigation in the past. I think he's perfectly competent to handle this representation. But look--there's kind of a consistent deal with non-compete litigation. The real goal for both sides is to extract a price by which the former employee buys his way out of the contract. Because enforcing a six-month non-compete through litigation doesn't really make a lot of sense for either side. Nobody asked me, but I'll offer an opinion. A TRO without notice just really isn't a thing in federal court. Rule 65 kind of allows for it, but as you can see from the language of the Rule, the burden is pretty damned high. And I really don't understand why you wouldn't provide notice and set it. Call chambers and let them know that you have an emergency motion coming. They'll set a response date and get you squared away. But there's nothing going on that really required the Plaintiff to haul off and seek a TRO without notice. It's just a bit weird.

You haven't been paying attention to Florida. Brightline is operating out of Miami to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm. And next month it opens its high-speed section to Orlando. I think they're planning on extending the line to Tampa in a few years.

I'll look forward to it.

But in electoral politics, the objective is to persuade a plurality of the voters to support you. And that's real difficult when a lot of the voters have no idea what the fuck you're saying. You saw that in the GQP response to Biden's SOTU last year. The Iowa governor would talk about things using these code phrases that, if you didn't watch Fox News or intently follow Trump's social media, you had no idea what she was saying. I was watching with Mrs.LL, who watches a lot of news, and even she turned to me at one point and asked, "what the fuck is she talking about." There's a GQP cult. Of that there's no doubt. But the cult's ability to expand its appeal is really limited by its cult-like behavior.

It's not me who says that (or even really thinks that). It's Plaintiff and Judge Starr, who apparently equate cyberbullying in violation of Southwest's employment policies with an obligation of Plaintiff's religious practice. Personally, I'm with you. Trolling a coworker's Facetrons with videos of aborted fetuses has nothing to do with the Christian faith with which I grew up. Well, fuck me running. I'm an idiot. Sorry, @Litig8r. So, @Lidig8r--what was Southwest's "reprehensible conduct" you referenced yesterday?

I think what you're missing is that in 2023 America, Christian=Asshole And ironically, in most contexts that means that a federal jury will be more employer-friendly than a state-court jury that only draws from Dallas County. I only called you that because you were being a bitchy cunt.