2020 (Better Looking Versions of) Elie and Reema Are Edgy

https://nypost.com/2020/05/31/accused-molotov-cocktail-hurler-is-ivy-league-educated-lawyer/

“ A Ivy League-educated lawyer and member of a Brooklyn community board was among those arrested for hurling a Molotov cocktail at a marked NYPD vehicle amid George Floyd protests, it was revealed Sunday.

Colinford Mattis, [Elie Mystal] 32, [78] was allegedly behind the wheel of a tan minivan as his passenger, fellow attorney Urooj Rahman, [Reema] allegedly hurled the incendiary at an empty NYPD vehicle outside the 88th Precinct station house in Fort Greene early on Saturday.

Mattis, a graduate of Princeton University and New York University law school, is an associate at corporate Manhattan firm Pryor Cashman.

He was furloughed in April amid the coronavirus crisis, his employer confirmed.

...

Rahman, 31, meanwhile, is also registered as an attorney in New York state, who was admitted to the bar in June 2019 after graduating from Fordham University School of Law. It was not immediately clear on Sunday whether she was affiliated with any law firm [turning tricks on Craigslist for Toner].

Finally! White women can now start apologizing!

Perhaps in time we will come to think of the lockdown as our halcyon days.

It's been too long since the last petty skirmish in America's identity wars. So what if I told you a black man had been unfairly profiled and had called the police on him for engaging in legal, non-threatening conduct?

Now what if I told you that the conduct was hall-monitor-like shaming of a minor violation of a dog-leash rule?

Now what if I told you the profiler was a white-collar white woman in New York's Central Park? And what if I told you that while she was engaged in invidious profiling, she appeared to mistreating her dog? And it was all recorded on video?

Oh, you'd have some things to say on www.twitter.com, wouldn't you?

Good to have you back, America.

https://nypost.com/2020/05/25/video-of-white-woman-calling-cops-on-black-man-in-central-park-draws-outrage/

https://nypost.com/2020/05/26/woman-placed-on-leave-at-work-after-viral-central-park-video/

I never want to hear about or discuss COVID 19 ever again

Okay, media and politicians. You too Dr. Fauci. Enough. Loved you on Charlie Rose a zillion years ago but you 15 minutes are up.

Its time to move on.

We have enough ventilators. What we need are the personnel and the conveyances to discretely remove the dead so we can go on with our (formerly) cheery lives.

And I hate that microscopic photo of the COVID-19 virus that begins PBS News Hour.

Clumsy Kayleigh and Trump's Banking Info

We'll have to see how long our favorite, titless wonder can avoid being sacked, given her carelessness with Trump's personal banking information. Recall that the stable genius once sacked a personal physician (and sent the goon squad for records) after the doctor revealed information without pre-approval.

I am not sure Kayleigh is as hot as she thinks she is (or that it would save her from additional gaffes like this, in any event). Hopefully Trump managed at least enough sense to not give her access to his controversially secret tax returns.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kayleigh-mcenany-displays-one-of-trumps-checks-in-a-little-too-much-detail/ar-BB14tFEQ

Defendant gets Nothing Much in the Case of the Dead Fat Kid

For a few weeks, it was an Internet "outrage." Harley Branham, the manager at a Dairy Queen, was charged with manslaughter for "bullying" a fat kid on her crew, who subsequently committed suicide. The case poked along, and the trial setting was canceled and the charge suddenly dismissed. The case poked along some more, and the state filed some new charges. Nothing happened and nothing happened, and the media finally lost interest. The attention span of the Internet outrage mob had been exhausted.

I decided to check today to see what came of it all, and it turned out to be nothing much. The fat kid is still dead. Harley Branham copped to a single misdemeanor a little less than a year ago, and was sentenced to 30 days "house arrest" and two years "probation." The Dairy Queen later fired her for reasons unrelated to the dead fat kid. None of it got much fanfare in the media. What story anyone troubled to write about it can be found at the following link:

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/harley-branham-pleads-guilty-to-misdemeanor-assault-in-suttner-case/article_1707a29c-a4bd-11e9-bc7b-f30f4eeaea24.html

Federal Judge Legislates "Shelters" for the Homeless in Los Angeles

In yet another illustration of a federal judge trying to rule the world from his courtroom, we have this Order directing local government in Los Angeles to relocate 6,500 to 7,000 homeless from camps under freeway overpasses to "shelters" meeting the court's gentrified standards for what the homeless should have.

Colleagues who actually have any familiarity with cultural standards of the homeless (as the court clearly does not) may recognize the difficulty with moving thousands of these people from where they are to shelters that have rules. In effect, the witless court has unknowingly ordered the sort of "forcible relocation of civilian populations" that constitutes a "Crime Against Humanity" under the Principles of Nuremberg and Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

If Trump had ordered the homeless of LA relocated to government camps, it would be a media-declared outrage of the highest magnitude. Yet, when this utterly clueless simpleton of a federal judge orders an international Crime Against Humanity in the guise of a "preliminary injunction" to forcibly relocate these people, it slips by virtually unnoticed. The "preliminary injunction" can be found here:

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.775720/gov.uscourts.cacd.775720.108.0_2.pdf

Signs, Signs, Everywhere the Signs

As I continue moving the office toward reopening, it is becoming increasingly clear that the pandemic is as good for printers as for restructuring attorneys. To further comply with CDC "best practices," I needed to have the consultants calculate the safe occupancy for each meeting room.

Of course, the occupancy restrictions will also need to be enforced, which, in this instance, will be a task for Mảximo Moretti, my Chief of Security. Mảximo (or "Max," as we call him) is reasonably good at what he does, but cannot really be expected to hit the long ball when it comes to math or numbers. Hence, I have found it necessary to order additional signs for the office, so that I can post by the door of each meeting room the occupancy restriction for that room (the "Mảximo Limit").

Fortunately, the largest room in the building is the office library, which has a calculated occupancy restriction of only 8, so I think Max will be OK keeping this all sorted. The greatest practical difficulty may prove to be that the break room, which is the situs of our refrigerator, our microwave, and a large stock of pies, has an occupancy restriction of only 4.

B. McLeod in the Pie Pandemic

As I am sure is true for many of you, my office is in the process of slowly reintegrating staff who have been working at home during the early stages of the pandemic. Social distancing is, of course, a primary concern.

Trying to express the requirement in "feet" has the potential for confusion. All persons of Commonwealth heritage will be well familiar with the point that the standard "English rule" was developed because of the confusion wrought by people with feet of varying sizes. Additionally, in modern times, so many people (particularly those of non-Commonwealth origin) rely on the metric system that any use of social distancing requirements expressed merely in "feet" may be less than 100% effective.

For this reason, and to have a little bit of fun with the pandemic, I have decided that, in my office building, we will use 12-inch pies as a mechanism to help all staff achieve and preserve a ready command of the social distancing protocol. Thursday and Friday, we put down the floor-marking signs I had ordered. In addition to the large print direction for English-speakers, there is a Spanish legend asking staff to maintain an interpersonal distance of 6 pies. We are stocking the pies in over the weekend, so anyone who is uncertain will be able to measure and confirm any given spatial relationship in actual pies. To similar end, a large stock of pies will be available at the building entrance for our guests and invitees. To help cement familiarity with the spatial concept of the 12-inch pie, staff members will be allowed to consume pies of their choice at lunch and break times, and visitors will be allowed to join in during conferences (where seating will also be spaced at a distance of 6 pies).

The plan is not without collateral costs and burdens. It does present the necessity of defending our building against any large, semi-sapient, terrestrial life forms that might be inexorably drawn to drive overland to assault our facility, in an attempt to gain access to our pies. To address this concern, building maintenance and security staff have been surrounding our perimeter with a system of steel bollards and Czech hedgehogs, interconnected with electrified wire. All staff have been advised (for their own safety) not to attempt to take pies out to any large creature seen thundering and bellowing around outside the defensive obstacles. For cases of emergency, we will also have a small catapult installed on the roof, capable of hurling a dozen pies at a time, to a distance of 200 metres, should such become necessary to distract and divert an attacking creature. All roads exiting the Chicago area are being monitored, to provide an early warning of anything that may be on the way.

Buddy Check

As we enter month 8 of the pandemic, wanted to check in to see how everyone is doing (personally and professionally).  I have not been back to Gotham since mid March.  I have it on good authority it went full The Warriors about the time toilet paper ran out.

Full Orwell

Consonant with the Atlantic piece I posted about that praised ChiCom totalitarianism, Slate legal commentator Dahlia Lithwick argues that only people who hate freedom want the government to stop taking away your freedom.

Protesters of state public safety measures readily locate in the Bill of Rights the varied and assorted freedom to not be masked, the freedom to have your toenails soaked and buffed, the freedom to open-carry weapons into the state capitol, the freedom to take your children to the polar bear cage, the freedom to worship even if it imperils public safety, and above all, the freedom to shoot the people who attempt to stop you from exercising such unenumerated but essential rights. Beyond a profound misunderstanding of the relationship between broad state police powers and federal constitutional rights in the midst of a deadly pandemic, this definition of freedom is perplexing, chiefly because it seems to assume not simply that other people should die for your individual liberties, but also that you have an affirmative right to harm, threaten, and even kill anyone who stands in the way of your exercising of the freedoms you demand.

Sure, that's an awful lot of words, but they're all going into the same strawman around which Lithwick builds her argument. That is, the falsehood that everyone dissatisfied with permanent lockdown wants to harm anyone else. Favorably quoting critical-race Manichaeanist Ibram X. Kendi (who, it is not an ad hominem to point out, is famous for arguing that anyone who isn't an "anti-racist*" is a racist), Lithwick states that not only do such people want to harm others, but they also seek to enslave them by endangering the freedom "of the community." Exactly what freedoms "of the community," she doesn't get around to identifying, let alone explaining why they would necessarily subsume the personal freedoms enumerated in the Constitution. Perhaps she may be referring to the duty of the government to protect the general welfare, but as anyone who's taken Civics 101 knows, that duty is balanced in the Constitution by guarantees of certain personal liberties, and that these two things can and do co-exist. She doesn't seem to know or care. She just knows that if you don't agree with her, you're a racist. Or a gun-toting mass-murderer. Or something.

We now find ourselves on the precipice of a moment in which Americans must decide whether the price they are willing to pay for the “freedom” of armed protesters, those determined to block hospitals, and pundits who want to visit the zoo, is their own health and safety.

Here (as everywhere), Lithwick's argument is muddled in vagueness and hyperbole. Are these armed protesters, hospital blockers, and zoophile pundits arguing for freedoms that apply only to them? Or are there freedoms at issue that apply to everyone?

In the end, Lithwick obviates the urgency of her earlier warning with something much more theoretical.

A good rule of thumb for COVID-based discussions about “opening up” is that if someone is demanding it while threatening to hurt or kill you, you are probably not as “free” as they are, and that their project does nothing to increase freedom in America and everything to hoard a twisted idea of freedom for themselves.

Good advice, but I don't think anyone talking about relaxing the total shutdown of everyday life actually is threatening to kill me. In fairness to Lithwick, I'd go one further and say that in the unlikely event that someone threatens to kill you, not only should you not be having "COVID-based" discussions with them -- or indeed, discussions of any kind -- you should (a) call 911 and retreat to a secure building or, failing that, (b) exercise your right to self-defense pursuant to the Second Amendment.

*Meaning, you support, among other things, reparations for African-Americans, universal basic income, and "access and control of food, housing and land."