How much does a judge cost?

[EyeKhan]

Was going to quip something not very funny. Erased it because, obvious. Lesson #1 from Trump, if you have no shame, if you just stay put regardless of all your corruption, if you can handle everyone KNOWING you're a piece of fucking shit, you can get away with a hell of a lot. I don't see Thomas going anywhere unless he resigns. Just like Trump - obvious criminal in the White House and he could not be removed and he would never ever quit. All along it was the integrity that held back conservatives, or at least the pretense of it. You get caught doing your bad shit, you quit like an honorable man. Get rid of that and they can do whatever the hell they feel like.

[Nessus]

It's a Chaloobi! Hello friend!

[EyeKhan]

Hi Nessie. Been a while. You okay? Still shocking everyone with your love of fascism I see. Sigh....

[Nessus]

We should have a new megathread about non-human life. My fascism wouldn't interrupt that, and it might attract other nerds like Andrew! What do you say?

Also I am OK, thank you for asking.

[Nessus]

Shit, here's Andrew now, hide!

[EyeKhan]

Non-human life - very ironically that might be us. I've been leaning heavily into the idea that we're part of a big friggin' simulation - non-human and non-life, maybe. Definitions. One of a great many simulations, likely, running all the time, trying to figure out... just what the fuck happened at about this time in human history. It might be our ancestors running a computer they built out of Venus. Or the AI ancestors of the AI we're building right now, that also took Venus apart and made a computer. Or maybe aliens poking around the ruins and trying to understand just what the fuck these idiots thought they were doing. They might have brought their own computer. Or, you know, there's a lot of matter in Venus.

[EyeKhan]

Do I know Andrew?

[Nessus]

Non-human life - very ironically that might be us. I've been leaning heavily into the idea that we're part of a big friggin' simulation - non-human and non-life, maybe. Definitions. One of a great many simulations, likely, running all the time, trying to figure out... just what the fuck happened at about this time in human history. It might be our ancestors running a computer they built out of Venus. Or the AI ancestors of the AI we're building right now, that also took Venus apart and made a computer. Or maybe aliens poking around the ruins and trying to understand just what the fuck these idiots thought they were doing. They might have brought their own computer. Or, you know, there's a lot of matter in Venus.

The Soviets did a fairly good job sending probes to Venus, and it's an Earth-sized planet that had a run-away climate problem, really.

There's the Blazkowitz computer game about it, but GENERALLY SPEAKING, Venus had it and lost it. We, as in Earth, have a magnetic field keeping us from losing our outer atmosphere, and I think it's the consensus of the scientific community that we need that dynamo underneath Earth.

I might be wrong, this isn't my field.

Hah, field. I didn't mean to do that, I apologize.

[Nessus]

Do I know Andrew?

You might not, but our posting pal Wiggin picked his nickname from a science fiction book and well their full name was Andrew Wiggin. I also picked my name out of a science fiction book, but Nessus had no other names. Funny character though.

[Aimless]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...thomas-conway/

At this rate we'll have 5 revelations a day by next week

[wiggin]

You might not, but our posting pal Wiggin picked his nickname from a science fiction book and well their full name was Andrew Wiggin. I also picked my name out of a science fiction book, but Nessus had no other names. Funny character though.

It's good to see you too, Nessus. I'm afraid I'm (a) awfully sick with gastroenteritis or something similar and (b) have little meaningful to add to this thread other than 'this seems bad'.

But I have had an interesting (to me) topic rattling around my brain for the last couple months. Maybe if the drug cocktail starts working I can start it tomorrow. I'm certainly not going to be working!

[wiggin]

Btw I'd always assumed you took your name from Book of the New Sun (which I still don't fully understand as a series). But maybe given that it was a character and not a city you were referencing Niven or Dante. Odd that I never asked.

It is unfortunate that I had the hubris to pick such a handle, but I guess I should forgive myself because I was only a teenager.

[Nessus]

No, I loved Nessus from the original Ringworld, which is a "dumb big object" type of book, but it is the freaking Ringworld. And Nessus being a scaredy-cat who also manipulates Louis Wu and Chmeeee into helping them? They're a hilarious character.

For what it is worth, I don't think there's any hubris per se in your choice of moniker, or at least I don't think so. Andrew isn't, if I recall correctly, really a hero in any of those stories, hell the first book makes him seem like a victim more than anything.

But we were both, I suppose, teens when we picked our nick-names at an old and now gone web-site, and I suppose we would like to be more pretentious about the whole thing now.

[Hazir]

Appearantly I'm an Israeli pig. According to what another member of this board told me.

I thought I just was ready in Turkish. And I liked the word.

[wiggin]

Appearantly I'm an Israeli pig. According to what another member of this board told me.

I thought I just was ready in Turkish. And I liked the word.

Hazir does indeed mean pig in Hebrew, though only for some transliterations (the 'H' is actually a guttural, normally written with a diacritical mark). I never actually considered it, because I really don't read Hebrew transliterations much.

[EyeKhan]

The Soviets did a fairly good job sending probes to Venus, and it's an Earth-sized planet that had a run-away climate problem, really.

There's the Blazkowitz computer game about it, but GENERALLY SPEAKING, Venus had it and lost it. We, as in Earth, have a magnetic field keeping us from losing our outer atmosphere, and I think it's the consensus of the scientific community that we need that dynamo underneath Earth.

I might be wrong, this isn't my field.

Hah, field. I didn't mean to do that, I apologize.

I was thinking our descendant post-humans (remember Alberjohns?)/ AI would disassemble Venus and use its matter to make a very capable computer that is now simulating us in this time frame, because this has to be the most inexplicable time in human history. So many cusps and crossroads and with our clear glide path to failure - assuming we don't suddenly become planful - the future intelligences are probably interested in just what the fuck is our major malfunction.

They probably have to build a largish cloud of satellites around the sun - dare I say dyson sphere-like - to collect the requisite power for all this activity, and whatever else they're up to, so that's cool.

And if they have the required simulation capacity to run, say, a few thousand different human history sims at the same time using minutely different assumptions, and maybe they lightly simulate 100k years of dark past in a few minutes, then the current era deeply in an hour or so, rinse and repeat, then yeah, we could totally be in one of those. What are the odds to be alive in a most interesting time? Odds go way up if that interesting time is happening over and over again, rapidly, again and again.

And I have to wonder if Clarence Thomas is bought-and-paid-for in most of the scenarios or are there a few where he has some kind of integrity? Sucks we drew a scenario where Donald-fucking-Trump becomes president. HAS to be super unlikely, right?

[Wraith]

Clarence Thomas' wife Ginni was paid nearly $100,000 for 'consulting' by a nonprofit that ended up filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court
The corruption never stops.

Conservative lawyer Leonard Leo reportedly ensured Ginni Thomas' name was kept off the paperwork.

Because they knew what they were doing was corrupt.

[Wraith]

And I have to wonder if Clarence Thomas is bought-and-paid-for in most of the scenarios or are there a few where he has some kind of integrity? Sucks we drew a scenario where Donald-fucking-Trump becomes president. HAS to be super unlikely, right?

The man is famous for never asking questions about a case and sleeping through most of them. Not a shred of integrity.

[Wraith]

2 Supreme Court justices failed to recuse themselves from cases involving their publisher after receiving exorbitant amounts in book advances and royalties
Sometimes you don't even have to wait a full day for the next one.

[LittleFuzzy]

Was going to quip something not very funny. Erased it because, obvious. Lesson #1 from Trump, if you have no shame, if you just stay put regardless of all your corruption, if you can handle everyone KNOWING you're a piece of fucking shit, you can get away with a hell of a lot. I don't see Thomas going anywhere unless he resigns. Just like Trump - obvious criminal in the White House and he could not be removed and he would never ever quit. All along it was the integrity that held back conservatives, or at least the pretense of it. You get caught doing your bad shit, you quit like an honorable man. Get rid of that and they can do whatever the hell they feel like.

Thomas isn't going anywhere. He's certainly not going to resign though he absolutely should. It's the job of Roberts and the other justices to convince him to resign and they're never going to. Roberts' inability to convince him to resign when he so manifestly ought to frankly should be cause to Roberts to resign as it demonstrates he can't properly fulfill the tasks of the Chief Justice (something also demonstrated by the leaked Alito abortion draft and the failed investigation into it) But that's not gonna happen either. In fact, it appears like the primary thrust on all this from the Court (both sides) is anger about their finances, side-hustles, and chances at graft being looked into at all.

[Aimless]

Clarence Thomas' wife Ginni was paid nearly $100,000 for 'consulting' by a nonprofit that ended up filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court
The corruption never stops.

Because they knew what they were doing was corrupt.

This is old news bro I already posted about it ten years ago (see the previous page).

Someone should really interview Thomas's sister and her kids. I think it's very important to get their view on Thomas being addicted to a weird Nazi's welfare given that he falsely accused her of being a welfare queen and indicated that her kids would be no better

[Aimless]

Sam Alito pre-emptively publicized his own upcoming L through an op-ed in the WSJ, in the hopes of defusing another ProPublica piece on SCOTUS corruption:

https://twitter.com/LeahLitman/statu...96619537391617

[LittleFuzzy]

Sam Alito pre-emptively publicized his own upcoming L through an op-ed in the WSJ, in the hopes of defusing another ProPublica piece on SCOTUS corruption:

https://twitter.com/LeahLitman/statu...96619537391617

I'm sympathetic to the claim that it would be really really hard for the justices to determine if any friends or patrons have an interest in a particular matter or in an entity which does (short of them actually trying to use influence which the justice isn't about to disclose either). Unfortunately for him, the resolution to this is to not accept gifts or other patronage which apparently doesn't begin to occur to the learned judge. I guess there is some truth to the whining about DC being a morass.

[Aimless]

Folks, you're not gonna believe this, but

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/09/u...sociation.html

[LittleFuzzy]

But he's just a poor boy, nobody loved him. He's just a poor boy, from a poor family. . .

[Loki]

Everyone is entitled to a group of billionaire friends. I believe it says so in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[Aimless]

Sorry to have to do this to you, Fuzzy:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-supreme-court

[LittleFuzzy]

Sorry to have to do this to you, Fuzzy:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-supreme-court

Saw it myself the other day in the NYT. Working for Thomas is great. It not only gives you the networking contacts, he conducts seminars on how to use networking for self-enrichment.

I also saw the article about Sotomayor's Court-paid aides negotiating with event coordinators on how to push her book sales. Every one of the bastards are pulling this shit which is one reason Roberts couldn't rein it in if he wanted to. It's gonna HAVE to go through Congress and neither party will touch it in a meaningful way for fear of what it may mean if it costs their side a justice (or more than one, the way this is going)

[Hazir]

Starts to look a bit like the USA is ripe for the taking.

[Dreadnaught]

Roberts couldn't rein it in if he wanted to.

I mean he does annually say that judge salaries are too low...