Jess-o-lantern

What a sick world.

The children who were born when the following songs were #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 are old enough to vote in this year's elections:

Beyoncé, "Irreplaceable"
Avril Lavigne, "Girlfirend"
Rihanna, "Umbrella"
Plain White T's, "Hey There Delilah"
Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, "Crank That (Soulja Boy)"

Tomorrow. D.C. The National Mall. Sunup to sundown.

Take out your phone, go to the clock app, and find the stopwatch. Click start. Now watch the seconds as they climb. Three seconds come and go in a blink. At the thirtysecond mark, your mind starts to wander. One minute passes, and you begin to think that this is taking a long time. Two . . . three . . . . The clock ticks on. Then, finally, you make it to four minutes. Hit stop. Now imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating. You want to breathe; you have to breathe. But you are strapped to a gurney with a mask on your face pumping your lungs with nitrogen gas. Your mind knows that the gas will kill you. But your body keeps telling you to breathe. That is what awaits Anthony Boyd tonight. For two to four minutes, Boyd will remain conscious while the State of Alabama kills him in this way. When the gas starts flowing, he will immediately convulse. He will gasp for air. And

he will thrash violently against the restraints holding him in place as he experiences this intense psychological torment until he finally loses consciousness. Just short of twenty minutes later, Boyd will be declared dead. Boyd asks for the barest form of mercy: to die by firing squad, which would kill him in seconds, rather than by a torturous suffocation lasting up to four minutes. The Constitution would grant him that grace. My colleagues do not. This Court thus turns its back on Boyd and on the Eighth Amendment’s guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. Because the Court should have instead granted a stay of execution and Boyd’s petition for certiorari, I respectfully dissent.

#SCOTUS denies a stay of execution to Alabama death-row prisoner Anthony Boyd, over *quite* a dissent from the three Democratic appointees, written by Justice Sotomayor, about the problems with nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution:

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25p...

oh that? that's just my slime. i secrete it whenever i feel safe

Tall tree lit from the side by late afternoon sun in mid-autumn. The outer leaves are turning orange. The tree is in a residential neighborhood, along a sidewalk between a row of parked cars and a block of garden apartments.

I like this tree in my neighborhood

Sometimes I think people don’t realize how nuts some of our neighbors become when they’re behind a wheel.

Register to Vote/Check Registration | National Voter Registration Day If you’re looking to register to vote or check/update your voter registration, you’re in the right place! Not sure if you need to update your registration? Here’s a list of reasons to check your statu...

Wishing y’all an excellent national voter registration day! Use the #NVRD landing page to get to your state’s lookup portal + confirm that you’re registered at your current address.

And for all my Virginians… early voting starts this Friday

nationalvoterregistrationday.org/register-to-...

Okay that WAS really fun

Man of taste!!

For me it’s pickles.

The number of psychos I’ve had itemize the ills of Atlanta to me

I’m telling all the homies to tune in!

I thought the first few were so lovely.

Sunny view of the Potomac River from a train window.

You really get to enjoy a lot of farmland, marsh, and river views on Amtrak in Virginia.

The guy that invented the umbrella was gonna call it the brella but he hesitated.

If you hold it sideways and squint the original logo kinda looks like the Cracker Barrel guy

Tacomus

@lawstylist.bsky.social

Of course this is also a great time to support your local NPR affiliate.

Time to Grow The 51st Help us hire Christina and Martin Full-Time!

I think I'm going to take a break from WaPo for a while and subscribe to @51st.news instead. Here's where to go to support them, in case you were on the fence too: givebutter.com/SsQ8CG

Lmao watch out for dumbbell chungus over here

All my years of half heartedly going to the gym, I never saw a guy who actually threw the free weights down on the ground after a set. Today I did, and he’s definitely glancing around to see if the rest of us notice each time.

Thanks to the @jamellebouie.net karaoke thread, I woke up in the mood to listen to Can’t Buy a Thrill. We used to know how to let the moog breathe in this country. Somehow, we’ve forgotten all about that.

No sorry, too busy admiring

Conductor on my @wmata.com train just pointed out a rainbow over the PA and I think that’s nice

checking in on my authenticator app this morning. I don’t need to authenticate anything, I just wanna see what zany numbers that thing is cookin up

I need you to dream bigger