Tag: SCOTUS

A small piece of good news amidst a monstrous heap of evil shit

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics, Teaching3 Comments

The Supreme Court ruled last week that it was legal to bribe them and today ruled that the President can legally order them killed, so I’m investigating just how the fuck I can get out of this miserable fucking shithole that we’re pretending is a functioning country. I’m going to do the paperwork today to get my passport renewed; my wife and son need theirs for the first time, and I’m going to have to talk my dad into getting his as well.

I think I can apply for German citizenship via descent from German nationals, and it has not escaped my notice that fleeing to Germany to avoid the Nazis is … somewhat ironic.

Anyway, the good news is that I unofficially passed my Praxis test; the score was 182/200, which is a quite comfortable margin. Higher than both of my practice tests, too; I was especially pleased to discover that several of the questions I specifically made sure to review had analogues on the official test, so I absolutely picked up some points during the studying process.

Oh, and in the process of showing off my drivers’ license to my online proctor I discovered that it was expiring in four days, and I went and got it renewed at the DMV in less than 20 minutes this afternoon.

The bad news — because of course there’s more bad news — is that despite the entire test being multiple choice, my official score report won’t be available until August 9, because ETS is the scum of the Earth. There is literally no reason this should take more than a couple of hours. It’s fucking 2024. This means that it’s unlikely that I’ll have the licensure in hand by the time school starts. Will that matter? Maybe, maybe not; the class I’m getting the licensure to teach in the first place hasn’t been confirmed yet, so all of this may have been for nothing. Right now I’m not stressing about it.

Oh, and check this fuckshit out:

Now: those two supplementary monitors are disconnected from the computer, because it won’t let you start the testing software if it detects that you have more than one monitor running. Was that good enough for my proctor? No! I had to point them away from me and cover them with towels. The disconnected monitors, which were not capable of receiving a signal from my computer. I also had to show the camera my glasses and confirm that I wasn’t wearing earrings, because … I guess I might have been wearing Google Glass and had secret spy earrings or some shit.

Don’t miss the whiteboard there; you aren’t allowed to use paper while taking the fucking test. I blatantly violated two of these assholes’ rules; one, I made no attempt whatsoever to disconnect every device in the house other than my computer from the internet, because give me a fucking break, and two, I discovered in the fine print of the rules I was agreeing to in order to take the test the requirement that if I was in a room with a door, that the door must not only be closed (fine) but that the computer I was testing on be placed in such a way that the closed door was visible to the proctor at all times.

Which would require wholesale rearranging of my office, and again, was not a requirement that anyone told me about prior to five minutes before taking the test. I was fully prepared to lie about this one if necessary, and had he given me any bullshit about it, I’d have removed the fucking door from the hinges. Christ, I fucking hate ETS. Like, the Supreme Court ruled today that the President is a king and I still think I hate ETS more than I hate them.

That said, it’s legal for Biden to order Roberts, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Thomas and Alito executed and Trump sent to Guantanamo Bay now, and I think he should strongly consider it.

Monthly Reads is still coming later today, if (yeah, right) you’re waiting for it.

Assess the new look

On By Luther M. SilerIn life, PoliticsLeave a comment

I have had two problems with my lifestyle lately. One, I’m spending way too much time sitting in front of the computer– which remains vastly preferable to the alternative, but still an issue. Two, I am bald and for some reason bald this year has been cold in a way that it simply hasn’t in previous years.

Enter the skullcap, which fits nicely (more of a problem than you might believe; it’s nearly impossible to find hats that fit) and which I intend to wear around the house and outdoors on these sorts of days, and the fact that I am back in glasses, sort of, which will sit by the computer and be worn nowhere else, as they are blue light blockers and are supposed to cut down on eyestrain. I have close friends who will be mildly berated if they don’t work.

(This is not true. I have been describing myself as reasonably financially comfortable for a few years now, and my definition of “comfortable” is “can spend $20 pretty much whenever I like.” These glasses were $20. I won’t even bother returning them if I decide they don’t work.)

I sort of like the look of the skullcap (feel free to yell at me if you disagree) but I’m not in love with the Harry Potter style of the glasses. Then again, this picture will be the only time anyone who isn’t married to or genetically related to me sees them, so I don’t much care what they look like. I’ve gotta say, it’s weird having glasses back on my face again.

(Figures eyes are already hurty enough for the day, takes them off, figuring it won’t get worse)

(Questions own logic)

(Does it anyway)

Blah blah blah blah election panic-cakes. Amy Coney Barrett’s successful nomination makes it all the more critical that we take the Senate and then pack the hell out of the Supreme Court, hopefully impeaching Brett Kavanaugh along the way. My position all along has been that Coney’s nomination was legitimate– there wasn’t a “no election years!” rule when Merrick Garland was nominated and there isn’t one now– but that she should nonetheless be opposed with, well, every arrow in our quiver, Ms. Pelosi, and with every procedural trick and lowdown dirty bit of nonsense our parliamentarians can come up with.

Welp.

There are a number of dark and depressing paths my brain could wander down at the moment; I’m doing my best to cling to what little optimism I can find. If the election is won by a large enough margin we don’t have to worry about the electoral college or the Supreme Court stealing it, and if the presidency is won by that large of a margin it should take the Senate with it. We’ll worry about that first, then move on to the other stuff.

The degree to which the last two Supreme Court nominees are poster children for overpromoted white mediocrity is pretty impressive, by the way. I actually brought up Coney Barrett last time around as an example of a nominee they could have picked who wasn’t a drunken, belligerent rapist and would still be a stenographer for whatever the Republicans wanted, but I still feel like there still has to be someone out there who has maybe been a judge for longer than I spent in high school, or, like, actually been a lawyer, maybe. But whatever. It’s fine, she’s white, that’s good enough for them, yeah? Sure.

Vaffanculo, asshole

On By Luther M. SilerIn Politics11 Comments

I may have something more coherent to say tomorrow about Scalia’s hopefully painful and ignoble death.  For now, I am suspending all ordinary rules of courtesy upon the death of a truly awful person-thing.

That evil piece of shit is dead.  Let us dance.