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Ghost of LL

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Ghost of LL

  1. What was “it?” The first communication that used “does” rather than “will?” Because that seems at worst a little sneaky and kinda shit-eating. But probably more likely just a mis-assumption that it was close enough. Hardly “reprehensible.” Or was “it” the subsequent communication reminding employees of the Company’s employment policy against being an asshole and expressing disagreement with the Court’s judgment? Because that seems not just non-reprehensible, but constitutionally protected. Southwest Airlines Co., after all, is a person with constitutionally protected free-speech rights. And unless you think questioning the decisions of the Starr Chamber isn’t constitutionally protected speech, that ought not to be the “it” on which the sanctions are based. But really, it was @Litig8r who deemed something “reprehensible.” And so I’d like to hear from him what he meant.
  2. I’m still wondering what @Litig8r thinks was “reprehensible conduct” by Southwest.
  3. You're wrong on multiple grounds. 1) Look at PACER--it shows that Plaintiff did not seek this as a sanction. This was entirely made up by the Court. 2) Southwest's conduct wasn't "egregious." Southwest's posting to its employees was in substantial compliance with the Court's Order. The Court ordered Southwest to inform its flight attendants that it "will not discriminate" on the basis of religion. Southwest posted that it "does not discriminate." Weird biblical analogies aside, any reasonable reader would interpret that to mean that "Southwest does not discriminate, and isn't going to start doing so." What really raised Judge Starr's ire was the subsequent posting to employees, which basically said "don't be a dick to your fellow employees." That's good advice in any circumstance. And by taking that to be a violation of the Court's Order, Judge Starr is kind of telling on himself and the Plaintiff. Apparently, being a dick to one's fellow employees is protected religious exercise, according to Plaintiff and Judge Starr. 3) If you don't know much about ADL, you ought to educate yourself before posting. ADL has been identified as a hate group by the SPLC. And there's good reason for that. It's positions are strongly anti-gay and anti- . . . well, anti-everything that isn't white Protestant Christian Nationalist. The only thing cited for the proposition that ADL does training sessions is a press release put out by ADL, which is the authority on which the Court relies. But nothing ADL posts on its website reflects that. The only "training" they do is for lawyers to train them to advocate for ADL's Christian Nationalist positions. As set forth on ADL's website, But it's also worth noting . . . 4) The underlying case here is really interesting. Plaintiff's co-worker attended the March for Women, to which Plaintiff took offense. So Plaintiff undertook a year-long cyberbullying campaign of posting pictures of aborted fetuses to Plaintiff's Facetrons and calling her a baby-killer. Southwest counseled her; she kept doing it. So Southwest fired her. Plaintiff sued on the basis that Southwest discriminated against her on the basis of her religious exercise in violation of Title VII. So let's unpack that a bit. Apparently, Plaintiff's religion requires her to bully her coworker. And Southwest is legally obligated to accommodate her religious obligation to bully her coworkers. Discussion of the legal merits of that aside, it is a really weird statement of the nature of Plaintiff's religion.
  4. Three-quarters of the Asian continent's land mass, but a tiny fraction of the continent's population and economy. I don't think anybody is predicting China's economy to collapse. It's having a slow recovery. But its recovery is aided by deep discounts on Russian energy. That's not going to change. Even if Russia were to limit supplies--and Russia really doesn't have any leverage to limit supplies to China; they need the money--that supply would be provided by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And if Russia were to limit supplies to a degree the Chinese found unacceptable, the Chinese have other ways of dealing with that problem.
  5. Yeah--I don't understand what is so mysterious about the resiliency of the Russian economy. The Russian government is spending its reserves. No shit that is keeping the economy going. The question is: what happens when those reserves run out. Presumably, they'll start borrowing. Or maybe they'll just start printing rubles. But in either event, the economic consequences are going to be significant. I mean, for one thing, they're going to have a shockingly high cost of borrowing. Between the danger of western sanctions and the (significant) possibility of non-repayment, I can't imagine the interest rate lenders are going to demand.
  6. Rule 29.3. But don’t be surprised if the Third COA imposes its own injunction.
  7. Yeah--I don't think that's particularly predictive of an election 15 months out. But it does reflect that Sinema is incredibly unpopular with Democratic voters. She'd have gotten beat 2- or 3-to-1 in a primary against Gallego.
  8. Yep--we're fucked. Those are people moving from San Bernardino to Prosper because they think California has become a liberal shithole. Little do they appreciate that San Bernardino was always a shithole.
  9. That’s pretty ballsy when I have a gas pump in my hand and a lighter in my pocket.
  10. I love Top Gun and Maverick as much as anybody. And the F-35 appears to have turned out to be a very capable platform. I'm sure the aviators who fly those planes walk around with their chests puffed out like their shit smells of lilacs. So if the first ship sunk by the United States Navy in a generation is credited to a guy flying a goddamned 737, I'm going to laugh my ass off.
  11. Fuck Obama. We lost more than 1,000 seats in state legislatures during his presidency because he actively undermined state parties and fundraising. And it's the gerrymandering that resulted from that negligence that causes us so much difficulty today. Republicans have supermajorities in legislatures in places like North Carolina and Wisconsin entirely because of Obama's failures. I mean, I guess. But making a national monument in the desert isn't really starting a "serious conversation" in my book. But I guess maybe points for trying.
  12. Yeah, there's a national monument in the desert. But if you asked 100 Americans what Manzanar is, how many do you think would answer correctly? Our leaders don't have spines and never have, because spines aren't rewarded at the ballot box. Fairy tales are what the people want, and that's what they're given. You think any Texan wants to hear about how the Rangers were basically a state-sponsored terrorist organization geared toward ethnic cleansing? Or Minnesotans want to hear about how Native Americans were basically genocided under the Nelson Act? Fuck no. And if you say those things in Texas or Minnesota, you're not going to get broad agreement that they're true. That's because such things have been consigned to the forgetting.
  13. We did New Orleans a few years ago and had a blast.
  14. Serious conversations about unpleasant things in our past is not something Americans do. For the really big things, we don't have serious conversations. We come up with myths. Like "slavery was contrary to America's founding principles and ideals" and "the Civil War was over states' rights." Those can be unpacked by academics. But in the popular imagination of America and a place and Americans as a people, those myths hold sway. But for the lesser unpleasantries, they go to a Land of Forgetting. Like, there was an entire anarchist terrorist campaign in the United States that killed a bunch of people between about 1890 and 1941. But we learn nothing about that in school. The closest we get is Sacco and Vanzetti, who were actually innocent. But there were actual anarchists who actually killed people (including a president). Trump is going to be consigned to the Land of Forgetting. There will be no truth and reconciliation. We don't do that. It's not our bag, baby.
  15. You're Top 3 in rep points solely as a result of your number of posts. On a per-post basis, . . . you aint looking so hot, friend.
  16. From the author's description of Prof. Snyder: "Snyder has been chided as a perma-pessimist; a leading figure in a western liberal intellectual elite so browbeaten in recent years, the critique runs, that it is now hopelessly addicted to catastrophising." Hey, @Brisketexan--I might say that you've been revealed, but then nobody would ever accuse you of being "a leading figure" any "intellectual elite."
  17. I also am old enough to remember that. And I would also observe that about half our wars start over a dispute over freedom of navigation--the Quasi War, the Barbary Wars, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II (if you drill down far enough into our dispute with Japan). So that's a real good way to start a war with Russia. And I'm just not sure we're going to do that for the benefit of . . . checking notes . . . people in the developing world.
  18. Something you want to talk about, cowboy?
  19. I guess I don't share your sense of humor. Because they're two separate things. 1) People who work in fast food (or any other service industry) deserve a living wage. And by the way--that's the term you used: "living wage." So think about what you just said. You apparently think some people in our society don't deserve a living wage. That's gross. 2) Companies that put up a tip screen for positions that have not traditionally tipped suck. There are a number of reasons for that conclusion, including (a) suspicion that the "tips" don't actually make it to the workers, and (b) that could enable the employer to lower wages while not reducing prices. But it has nothing to do with any conclusion that the worker is making just too damned much money. Nobody thinks that. And you're an idiot.
  20. For the next two years, Colorado is one of the biggest stories in college football. So at least during their first year in the conference, they're a big draw. After that, it all depends on how the Deion Sanders experiment goes. If Coach Prime crashes and burns like so many of us expect, then Colorado will revert to its usual form. And in that event, you're right--they aren't an engine; they're a waterskier. And that's a problem for a conference that just lost its two biggest engines and has a whole bunch of skiers. So at least in the short- and medium-term, the success or failure of this move for the conference is entirely dependent on the success of Deion Sanders at Colorado. And I gotta tell you--that's not where I'd be putting my money.
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