Categories
Immigration Legal, Laws, and Regs Whatever

US vs Abbott US Response

Aerial view of river and buoys showing them past the Mexico/US border
Court document showing the buoy placement relative to the Mexico/US border

And in my current favorite legal case, US vs Abbott, the federal government has responded to the reply Texas filed against the demand for a preliminary injunction.

This damn case is such a no brainer. The majority of the buoys are in Mexican territory and must be removed. Mexico has asked the federal government to remove them. This has become a real point of contention between the countries, and causing real harm. End of story.
As for the ‘navigable’ crap, as the filing notes, though portions of the Rio Grande may not be navigable now, they can be made to be navigable. And that’s the true definition of ‘navigable’ according to the laws of our land, though we know that Thomas wants to undermine this understanding.

In addition, there’s all sorts of foreign treaties between us and Mexico related to the river.

Lastly, as the federal government notes, an ‘invasion’ is not individuals seeking to immigrant. An ‘invasion’ according to Congress and US laws is an organized armed attack. And the US government is tasked with protecting the US border, also end of story.

Unless this judge is the worst in the country, and I don’t have reason to believe he is, the damn buoys will finally be removed.

And guess what, kiddos: We’re going to have to pay for it.

Court Document

Categories
Immigration Legal, Laws, and Regs

US vs Abbott: Survey

Aerial view of river and buoys showing them past the Mexico/US border
Court document showing the buoy placement relative to the Mexico/US border

My concerns about the US vs Abbott case may have been unfounded.

The US and Mexico did a joint survey of the buoys placed by Abbott. They found that 787 feet of the buoys are actually in Mexico’s side of the Rio Grande. Yup, that’s right:

Abbott invaded Mexico.

Playing with definitions of ‘navigable’ or not, Abbott violated Mexico’s sovereign territory.

Unless the idiot wants to say that Mexico is now part of Texas, he’s going to have to move those damn things. And it’s time for the Judge to stop the Amicus nonsense and make the decision he should have made days ago.

Result of survey.

 

Categories
Immigration Legal, Laws, and Regs

US vs Abbott

Image of buoy system and line marking US and Mexico boundaries in Rio Grande River
Exhibit from court documents showing buoys and line marking US/Mexico boundaries

Taking a breather from indictments, I grow increasingly alarmed at what’s happening with a court case, US vs Abbott.

The federal government sued Abbott and Texas because his putting those barbaric buoys in the Rio Grande violated the Rivers and Harbors Act.

Slam dunk, you’d think.

But the amicus briefs filed and the response from Texas has been to challenge the very concept of the term ‘navigable’, and reflects Thomas opinion in the Sacketts vs EPA WOTUS case decided by SCOTUS not too long ago.

They are literally using this case to launch an attack on the very concept of federal oversight of rivers and bodies of water, such as the Rio Grande that extend beyond state lines. An attack that, if it goes to SCOTUS, will gut whatever clean water protections we have left in this country.

This is all flying under the radar. I sure wish there were some friendlier faces paying attention to this.

Court case docket at Free Law

Categories
Social Media

So-So Social Media

Image of mastodon

Last edit:

Threads is crap. Uninstalled.

Edit:

I did decide to try Threads, primarily because I have a (very inactive) Instagram account, and because some folks who aren’t on Mastodon are on Instagram/Threads. I figured better than Twitter, but still wish I could find folks on Mastodon more easily.

At that, you can search on hashtags on Mastodon, but Threads doesn’t even have this capability yet. A bit underwhelmed with it.

Earlier:

I’ve been exploring the world of social media, which, for me, means spending more time on Mastodon.

I won’t be trying out Bluesky or Threads, or any of the other social media sites controlled by scary-looking men. I had that with Twitter, and I’ve moved on.

I am still contemplating whether to start my own Mastodon server. My hosting company, Linode, now has a one-button click Mastodon server setup among their marketplace apps. This includes setting up a basic email server, which is necessary for Mastodon. Literally all you have to do is point, click, pay and do a tiny bit of tweaking and you’re ready to rock.

I don’t have an email server setup for Burningbird, primarily because maintaining a safe and spam-free email server just isn’t a fun use of my time.

Still, I am tempted to try the new Linode Mastodon solution. I’m happy on mastodon.social, but I’m feeling stubbornly independent.

 

Categories
Photography

The rose is pretty. The photo is pretty. I don’t need 34 pretty photos of the same pretty rose.

Subtle antique peach rose, barely starting to unfurl, against a back drop of dark green/blue leaves.

I finished recovering posts for Burningbird and now it’s on to my second major task:

Cleaning out my photo collection.

As the title notes, the subject may be pretty, and the photo may be pretty, but I don’t really need 34 almost identical photos of the same rose.

I started out with over 100,000 photos from over the years. I’ve managed to cull out the absolute worst photos and now I’m at a little more than 47,000 photos. My goal is to delete 350 or more photos a day.

I hit a different album every day so I don’t get too overwhelmed by too many of the same type of photos. I set my mind to expect to see nothing but bad photos—making it mentally easy to delete. It’s only when I just can’t let a photo go that I know this one I’ll keep. If it doesn’t hurt to delete the photo…why keep it?

We all like photos for different reasons. For me, I have to feel something from it. If I’m not emotionally invested in the photo, it’s not a keeper. So, every fuzzy, motion-blurred photo from my one and only cross-country train trip I kept. Yet another pretty rose photo? Piffle.

I want that rose photo to say something to me. It doesn’t have to speak to others, but it has to speak to me.

Oh, I’m not silly stupid. I have a back up of the original 100,000…just in case. But I suspect I can really get my photos down to 5000 or less and not lose anything worth saving. It’s hard, though.

After all, it’s a pretty rose. And they’re pretty photos. And too many say, “Hi.”