Adam Brazier

A noble lawyer, taking on a pro Bono case to rescue a young adult, long oppressed by a tyrannical father and now by LA Fitness' abusive cancellation policy

The inevitable movie will rival Erin Brockovich

I did one 21k-step (~105k bananas) day in LA, but agreed that NYC is more encouraging of walking. You can get to so many places on foot

You are traveling back to Australia the long way!

Those were all military conflicts between groupings that had actual armies

Might it not be that the decision to remove school mask mandates was made according to community Covid levels (school masking could be relatively irrelevant to community Covid levels and the graph might still look similar)?

I think Tapper and Thompson got pretty good access after the fact, from people who wouldn't have spoken to anyone at the time

The anti-immigrant part of British politics, which has been around basically my whole life but has varied in form and in its main targets, is unfortunate. Those of us who support immigration didn't do a great job, though; if we always dismiss concerns as racism, no minds are changed in our favour

I never understood it, although in addition to not being bothered by it, I also favour immigration from outside the EU so am not remotely typical of British sentiment (and I also left the UK, for the US, although primarily because I like the US).

I am not a political-book junky--I mostly read political reporting in shorter forms--but I think the subject matter is important, in this case

Yeah, got Woodward's book about Trump, too, years ago. People to whom insiders will talk seem important in putting together the history and I think there's interesting and important things to learn about the consequential decision-making of both Presidents (including about campaigning/running again)

I don't think it's impossible the UK rejoins, but immigration from EU countries was unpopular, the Euro is unpopular, EU governance organizations are unpopular, etc. Major EU economies mostly suck, too. If EU economies really improve and UK continues to stagnate, that would create a lot of pressure

I don't think there is an enforcement mechanism, but the fact it's a required commitment will dissuade some people and campaigning as "we have to say we will join the Euro, but we're lying!" won't be a great spectacle

I think it's _possible_ but I genuinely don't think it's inevitable. If EU economies continue to stagnate, even as the UK's does, too, I don't think _joining_ looks like a great bet even though leaving was painful, for example

But other than the regularly-underachieving Lib Dems, none of the national parties are going to favour rejoining (the SNP probably would, but they only run in Scotland, albeit doninantly)

53% to rejoin without an actual campaign for and against is maybe lower than I have expected, and maybe it would be a losing vote after campaigning, as the UK opt-out would probably be gone if we re-entered, and in principle we would have to commit to join the Euro, stuff people don't talk about now

For what it's worth, the 60 pages of Original Sin I have read so far (so, can't speak for the rest, yet, it may go bad from now on) is reporting on what Democrats and White House folks have said. For that, journalists who have the connections are probably going to get more information

*US immigration

On the immigration side, I think public social media posts have long been monitored, but hearing that people are asked to share their phone's contents seems new? Or maybe just not previously reported?

This is obviously aside from whether one wants to boycott due to unease at visiting a country, due to objecting to the actions of its leadership, anyhow. That is orthogonal, one could have assured visiting rights and still not want to go

It's certainly being _reported_ more now (people from countries long considered an overstay risk have always had a tough time of the sort we now see reported about European and Canadian visitors)

I have family and friends who have had a tough time at UD immigration more than 20-30 years ago, including one refused entry and another subject to an uncomfortable search of their person, but I don't know how much incidence has increased (I can certainly believe it has)

I think it's always been the case that you need to state your first night's location--I remember filling it out on visa waiver forms back in ye olde days and being told I could get refused entry otherwise--but maybe they have got stricter?

One small silver lining would be way less crowding at Disney World! But, alas, I am here and it's pretty rammed

More relevant to our scientific fields, it's all going to seriously impact international conference attendance if the venue is in the US. Seeing signs of that already

What the administration is doing is really destructive but they really do have us over a barrel if they can make it stick; this isn't "one simple trick with the endowment" territory

They would probably blow all the flexibly-spendable parts of the endowment in a year or so and the stuff the income from that would have been spent on--including stuff like student financial aid--will not only be lost but won't come back because the capital that supports it will be gone

So if anyone wants to teach, I would say to give it a go! It's a lot, though; anyone who thinks it's not a real job because there's no heavy machinery involved is deluding themselves

By the time I left school-teaching, it was pretty cool and I wasn't in a perpetual state of fear. Workload was still high in term-time but I was able to appreciate the good moments, which I hadn't even really noticed before because of the stress

My first year or two teaching were all-consuming. I was sick all the time with colds and coughs, and always scared I was about to screw up something important, workload was epic plus classroom management was several hard challenges a day I failed on as often as I succeeded

It did get easier, though

I don't know if they have much choice, really, if they want to remain a research institution. A protracted interruption of funding is going to make at least hundreds of people (a thousand or more, maybe?) unemployed fairly inevitably, and then presumably grad student terminations would follow

I use PowerPoint (am not a Mac user), and WSL2 is great (but isn't an extra paid product)