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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • I actually read the 7 page opinion, because normally there is at least some shred of reasonableness in these crazy opinions. But this one … those 7 pages have nothing.

    I’ll just leave this little nugget from the end:

    The points we have made above provide some clarity about the legal standards and framework for this sensitive area of Texas law. The courts cannot go further by entering into the medical-judgment arena.

    The really telling part of all of this is that there was no reason for this to be a thing. The state attorney general chose to fight this specific case. Then chose to send a letter to every hospital saying the injunction did not actually protect them, and chose to appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court.

    None of that had to happen. He could have let the extreme cases go through while fighting to remove women’s rights on the more “controversial” cases, but instead chose to make a test case out the most extreme interpretation of his extremist ideology.

    Despite this, the court seems willfully blind to the fact that the reason for needing an injunction is that the state is acting in demonstorable bad faith.

    Side note. Remember when the US SC ruled that this law could not be challenged because the state was not going to be the one enforcing it?


  • This is a civil case, not a criminal one. His 5th amendment protections are much weaker. If he says that his testimony may support criminal charges, then he is allowed to take the 5th. However, in a civil trial, the fact finder is allowed to draw a negative inference from that.

    Having said that, none if this is relevent. He already testified during the State’s case, which is the only time he would need to invoke privilege. Since this is the defense case, they get to simply not call him.

    Unless one of his co-defendants subpoenaed him, which is also not the case.



  • Neutral and Israel alligned countries have been calling for a humanatarian pause on purely humanitarian grounds. Even if you don’t care about the hostages, that Hamas was willing to offer them means that they had an interest in such a pause as well; making Israel the only obstacle to it happening. That is to say, the severity of the humanitarian disaster in Gaza is squarly on Israel’s shoulders. The most charitable reading of the situation is that they have determined that the tactical advantage of blocking a humanitarian pause outways the civilian lives they put at risk by doing so.



  • US Jews aren’t that closely alligned to Israel; particularly if you are talking about the current Israeli leadership (which a significant portion of Israelis also aren’t alligned with). Further, the preferences of US Jews is pretty corralated to their political party; where Jewish Republicans are far more pro Israel than Jewish democrats.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/21/u-s-jews-have-widely-differing-views-on-israel/

    The above survey is old, but I don’t think the story has fundamentally changed.

    Across all US Jews (as of the time the survey was conducted)

    40% rate Netenyahus leadership as good or excellent (25% of Democratic Jews, 80% of Republican Jews)

    34% Strongly oppose the BDS (anti Israel Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) movement. (28% Democratic Jews, 54% Republican Jews)

    33% Thought that Israel was making a sincere effort to peace. (20% Democratic Jews, 66% Republican Jews)

    32% Thought that God gave Israel to the Jews. (22% Democratic Jews, 60% Republican Jews).

    When people talk about the “Jewish” position for Israel in thr context of US politics, they are really talking about the Republican position.







  • In the US, the covid vaccine has a sticker price of about $120; which is already a meaningless and overinglated number, but puts an upper bound on the cost of the treatment.

    Suppose you are a healthy young adult, working a job earning $15/hour. You do not get vaccinated and end up catching covid. Nothing major, you just call in sick for a day and sleep it off. 8 hours of lost labor at $15/hour gives a lower bound of $120 in economic damages. Of course, your work produces more value then your wage: there is profit, per-employee overhead, non-wage benefits, cost of unplanned disruptions.

    Maybe you need 2 days to recover. Now the damages are large enough to have covered at least 2 vaccinations. Maybe you infected someone else, who proceeded to infect someone else. Maybe you value not getting sick at a rate above $0. And this is all just the cost associated with 1 sick day. Some young healthy adults will get even sicker, and there is no way to know ahead of time who they will be.