When something horrible happens in a novel I’m reading, at least I can detach myself and say, essentially, “It’s only a dream.”
Wish that worked in real life.
It’s only a dream
Leave a reply
Author Archives: John Lusk
You Have a First Amendment Right to Record the Police | EFF
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/you-have-first-amendment-right-record-police
Also ICE:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/02/yes-you-have-right-film-ice
(Just don’t interfere, basically. The law will not protect you if you do.)
I always wondered about this. Never had any reason to actually figure it out, because the system does a pretty good job of hiding violence from me.
#whiteGuyWakingUp
“Are We Sleepwalking into Autocracy?” Trump Embraces Authoritarian Playbook of Hungary’s Orbán | Democracy Now!
«So, Orbán has this English-language think tank. It’s called the Danube Institute. You can google it and see what it’s up to. And the Danube Institute had entered into a formal agreement with the Heritage Foundation to actually provide consulting on how the Trump people were going to copy what Orbán had done. In the meantime, you know, when Orbán gives his Hungarian-language speeches, one of the things he keeps saying is, you know, “We are deep into the Trump administration and involved in its central planning.” So, you put all this together, and it’s actually not just that the Trump people are aping Orbán from a distance, it’s that Orbán has actually been involved in the design of Project 2025.»
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/2/12/kim_scheppele_autocracy_trump_musk
Oh, great.
«I think what Trump has learned, and what Orbán also, I think, taught him is that, you know, think of government as an aquarium. If you just stick a blender in it and make fish soup, you’re not going to be able to restore the aquarium even when courts tell you, “No, you shouldn’t have done it like that.”
…
I think it’s good for people who are in office to say, “I’m not leaving until you force me,” and just create friction in the system. Slow it down is actually the best defense in circumstances like this.»
US sues New York state officials over immigration enforcement, attorney general says | Reuters
Oh, this is interesting.
IGNORE THE COURTS! WE’LL DO WHATEVER WE WANT! THE VOTERS HAVE **CHOSEN**!!!
Oh, wait, except if they rule in our favor. Then please follow the courts’ rulings.
This obscure law is one reason Trump’s agenda keeps losing in court
Now I wanna know the history of the Administrative Procedure Act. That can go in the 2nd volume of my two-volume set on decisions.
- Vol 1: *Decisions: Bad*.
- Vol 2: *Decisions: Obscure and Effective*
The Danger of Trump Disobeying Court Orders [Updated]
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/02/11/the-danger-of-trump-disobeying-court-orders/
I haven’t read this post because reason.com, but I get the feeling they’re taking another step toward “leopards ate my face but it’s ok because it’s what electorate voted for.”
Sigh
Here’s my little cri de couer.
Reviewing a PR by a co-worker for a (Azure) CI/CD pipeline I created. He knows only languages that start with the letter “C” and SQL, so no PowerShell, no bash, no python. He doesn’t understand the pipeline technology and how this particular pipeline works, and he’s following the “spend as little time as possible (preferably none) coming to an understanding, just hack on the code” methodology of software development. He got this work item because I ran out of time in a sprint, like, three sprints ago. His changes won’t work, so I reject the PR. He has an Outlook rule that routes config system (Azure DevOps) emails to a folder he never looks at. Back and forth, back and forth, sprint after sprint, in slow motion. At least it’s leading me to improve documentation, and somebody besides me will understand the system (maybe).
Now I’m looking at his latest PR, composing my proposal on how he should structure the code so it’ll work and realizing he needs a bigger refactor than it looks. And I’m (temporarily) totally defeated.
Let’s look at Mastodon for a bit.
Oh. My entire country is both on fire and sinking fast. It’s getting to the point that work is a break from social media.
Back to work.
Oh, this half-composed PR comment.
Stares off into space.
Maybe LinkedIn? Been a while since I’ve been there, maybe I got a job offer! (Ha.)
Oh, look, a former colleague just started a (richly-deserved) job as a principal member of technical staff at Oracle. Big loss to the old company we both used to work at, but if they wanted to hold on to him….
But the rest… ech, now I need a shower.
Back to work. PR reply finished and sent. On to the next thing (more pipeline work, more corporate nonsense; at least I get to learn about templates and parameters and variables, in their many, many forms).
Sigh. Maybe I’ll dash off a quick blog post and get my complaints off my chest.
Early retirement looks better to me day after day. Unless someone wants to hire a generally intelligent, experienced developer who doesn’t have enough buzzwords in his resume (but is adaptable, a team player (usually), and a value-add).
And, yes, it’s totally unfair that early retirement is an option for me.
Actually, it wouldn’t even be retirement. It would be “scouting out my encore” or “just writing whatever software I want to write.”
It’s not even a CRI de couer, it’s more of a quiet whine de couer.
On getting away with it
«They want you to think “Oh no, they’re going to get away with whatever they want, no point in continuing to fight them.” And they really want you to go around saying that the fight is hopeless, because that demotivates everyone else on our side who wants to keep fighting.»
I wonder if we’ll see the Congress’s Sergeant at Arms taking some sort of actual enforcement action (for Congressional subpeonas).
Moose. And ticks.
«Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — state motto: Alabama, but colder and with moose»
https://www.wonkette.com/p/sen-katie-britt-yeah-cut-those-federal
Forgot to add “tick-ridden” to that moose part. And tick-ridden because why? It’s a mystery. Definitely not climate change, though.
Ok, followup, to be fair:
«Oh, the state of Maine is a party to that lawsuit, so the state government is currently doing significantly more to save biomedical research than Susan Collins.»
And more than the state of Alabama.
Today’s calls to congresspeople
Today’s #5calls call (via https://5calls.org):
- To Congresswoman Foushee expressing my opposition to H.R. 722, the national abortion ban. Spoke to a nice gentleman in her office who reminded me (unnecessarily) that Congresswoman Foushee is totally opposed to this bill. I just couldn’t not call, though, because everybody needs support when other people are probably calling and yelling at her.
- To Senator Thom Tillis asking him to support the mission of the EPA. I got voice mail again (I always do), but I left a short message and didn’t get cut off this time.
Onward!
Here, Read This 