#Section III

[thecountofs]

My Time In ONI: Full Metal Brat

After the Insurrection arc, you'll get to meet The 1st Infrastructure and Bookkeeping Field Team, and their 'Tertiary Negotiations' Specialist: Nate-B111 (or 'Nova')

[horsechestnut]

Anyway, if you're a fan of Bruce and Steph having a father/daughter relationship you should probably go read about Oliver and Mia.

[special-encounters]

Royal Wedding

You were sent a letter a few weeks ago; Sonia was to be married today. As a state event there was a very short guest list of those not heads of state. As it turns out she had found herself a match after all, though he was a bit an of obscure and older man. As Sonia's friend, she requested your presence in the capital city to witness the event. In terms of fashion she requested that you wear something that would be good for a painting as said tradition had not fallen out of favor in Novoselic; you were also not obligated to bring a guest though the option was there.

@hopes-memorial (Haruka Nohara)

[office-of-naval-intelligence]

This Waypoint post has been flagged by Office of Naval Intelligence Section III.

The author has been declared criminally insane.

Data scrubbers activating…

The Office of Naval Intelligence doesn’t want you to know this, but if you pick up a Spartan and shake him, it will make the same noise as an empty can of spray paint.

[mateushonrado]

Every Star Trek film to date

Status Post #11093: This excludes feature-length episodes or multi-part episodes edited into films for home media releases.

[contemplatingoutlander]

"The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office." (Article III, Section 1) [emphasis added]

Alexander Hamilton would be outraged to know that the current Supreme Court justices assume the Constitution gives them lifetime appointments — regardless of their behavior. He wouldn’t understand how any justice could overlook Article III, Section I that states that judges and justices “shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour.”

In the above commentary, Jack Jordan makes an excellent case that the Founders' intentions regarding the tenure of federal justices and judges has been grossly misinterpreted--and by justices who claim to be "originalists." Below are some excerpts:

A favorite falsehood by fake originalists (including those on SCOTUS) is that federal judges have “life tenure” or “lifetime appointments” (essentially the right to employment for life). Nothing explicitly or implicitly in our Constitution supports that myth. Often, so-called originalists who assert such falsehoods are lying to us about our Constitution.  [...] Our Constitution (Article III) strongly and clearly emphasized that all federal “Judges,” i.e., “of the supreme [court] and [all] inferior Courts shall” (and may) “hold their Offices” only “during good Behaviour.” This particular principle was discussed repeatedly and in multiple respects during the debates over whether the people should ratify our Constitution. Such discussions are evidence of what the people actually did ratify. Such discussions are evidence of what the people (including Federalists and Antifederalists) understood our Constitution meant. Some of the most obvious and emphatic statements were by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 78. Hamilton emphasized that some state “constitutions” already “established GOOD BEHAVIOR as the tenure of their judicial offices” and our Constitution “would have been inexcusably defective, if it had [failed to include] this important feature of good government.” “The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy” was carefully (and repeatedly) chosen to be “one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.” [color/ emphasis added]

______________ Alexander Hamilton image was AI generated by Shutterstock.

[See more excerpts below the cut.]

[...] Hamilton also emphasized that judges are “servant[s]” or “representative[s]” of “the people.” We the People used our Constitution (Article III) to impose the “standard of good behavior” on judges as an “excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of [all our] representative[s]” and “to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws” by all our public servants. [...] Repeatedly, Hamilton and James Madison emphasized similar principles. Ours is “a republic, where every magistrate ought to be personally responsible for his behavior in office.”  The Federalist No. 70 (Hamilton).  Having “courts composed of judges holding their offices” only “during good behavior” is a “powerful means” for ensuring “the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided.”  The Federalist No. 9 (Hamilton).  “The tenure by which the judges are to hold their places, is, as it unquestionably ought to be, that of good behavior.”  The Federalist No. 39 (James Madison).  Only “judges” who “behave properly, will be secured in their places for life.”  The Federalist No. 79 (Hamilton). In The Federalist No. 81 (Hamilton) also addressed a particular form of bad judicial behavior that is remarkably common among some SCOTUS justices: “judges” committing “deliberate usurpations” of “authority” that was not delegated to them by our Constitution. Hamilton also emphasized “the important constitutional check which the power of instituting impeachments” (by the House of Representatives) “and of determining upon them” (in a trial by the Senate) “would give to” Congress as “the means of punishing [the] presumption” of judges usurping powers that the Constitution did not give judges or courts (or to Congress, which creates all federal courts below SCOTUS). [color/ emphasis added]

So the Founders expected federal judges and justices who were not showing "good behavior" to be removed.

This also suggests that they would have expected the Supreme Court to develop a code of ethics that had actual teeth, in addition to the institutional check against bad judicial behavior that they put in place by allowing Congress to impeach corrupt justices.

Unfortunately, the Founders didn't expect that in the future one party in Congress (the Republicans) would be so corrupt that there is no way they would ever impeach the equally corrupt right-wing "politicians in robes" on the current Supreme Court.

Still, anytime a justice asserts that they have tenure for life in an interview, the interviewer might want to remind them about that "good behavior" stipulation in Article III, and ask them how they are making sure they are fulfilling that requirement for their continued tenure.

[malspinningyarns]

Not that I’m complaining, but why is Shakespeare trending?

It’s not April (Shakespeare birth and death day).

It’s not the Ides of March.

It’s not Midsummer.

It’s not the Twelfth Night of Christmas.

It’s not Saint Crispin’s Day.

It is the 400th Anniversary of the First Folio, but that’s been going on all year.

As far as I’m aware, there’s not a major production everyone is talking about, either filmed or on stage.

We haven’t found another medieval king in a car park recently.

Fellow Stratfordians, what’s up?

[astarionancuntnin]

listen, I've been making an astarion playlist on spotify and I came to the conclusion that if he lived in our current timeline he would be the BIGGEST marina and the diamonds listener ESPECIALLY electra heart era

[horizon-verizon]

Within the walls of the Red Keep, there were whispers about the king and queen as well. The royal marriage was troubled from the first. Both bride and groom were children; Aegon III was now eleven, Jaehaera only eight. Once wed, they had very little contact with one another save on formal occasions, and even that was rare, as the little queen was loath to leave her chambers. “Both of them are broken,” Grand Maester Munkun declared in a letter to the Conclave. The girl had witnessed the murder of her twin brother at the hands of Blood and Cheese. The king had lost all four of his own brothers, then watched his uncle feed his mother to a dragon. “These are not normal children,” Munkun wrote. “They have no joy in them; they neither laugh nor play. The girl wets her bed at night and weeps inconsolably when she is corrected. Her own ladies say that she is eight, going on four. Had I not laced her milk with sweetsleep before the wedding, I am convinced the child would have collapsed during the ceremony.” As for the king, the new Grand Maester went on, “Aegon shows little interest in his wife, or any other girl. He does not ride or hunt or joust, but neither does he enjoy sedentary pursuits such as reading, dancing, or singing. Though his wits seem sound enough, he never initiates a conversation, and when spoken to his answers are so curt one would think the very act of talking was painful to him. He has no friends save for the bastard boy Gaemon Palehair, and seldom sleeps through the night. During the hour of the wolf he can oft be found standing by a window, gazing up at the stars, but when I presented him with Archmaester Lyman’s Kingdoms of the Sky, he showed no interest. Aegon seldom smiles and never laughs, but neither does he display any outward signs of anger or fear, save in regards to dragons, the very mention of which sends him into a rare rage. Orwyle was wont to call His Grace calm and self-possessed; I say the boy is dead inside. He walks the halls of the Red Keep like a ghost. Brothers, I must be frank. I fear for our king, and for the kingdom.”

Fire and Blood, by George R.R. Martin, pg 599-600

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

Jigen’s lighter (and lack thereof) in Lupin Zero episode 4

[realpersonfacts]

pentiment is like what if they made a video game with themes

[thecountofs]

Halo: My Time In ONI

Section III's: Infrastructure Inspections and Bookkeeping Field Team ensures the UNSC's various watersheds don't leak.

[dirtbra1n]

hanzawa masato doesn’t like sundays.

the shrine won’t be performing any exorcisms today. to be more specific, the miko that greets him feels his forehead with a warm hand and decides that he’s in good health.

he doesn’t want her to know how little he values her judgment, so he bows to offer a prayer instead.

—

he’d woken up this morning without having had any dreams. he went out of his way, on a morning that was over-bright and unsettlingly still, to make a trip to the shrine. because he hadn’t had any dreams. for all intents and purposes, a full night’s rest.

a monument to the places his mind has been lately, that this was cause for alarm.

barring that, lack of dreams notwithstanding, masato woke up just before the sun rose. the statements made about darkness before dawn are wrong, but his house is old and construction in the neighborhood leaves it eclipsed by increasingly taller buildings that are increasingly growing occupied by increasingly unneighborly neighbors.

the statements made about darkness before dawn are wrong, but when masato wakes up his room is dark and somewhere between too cold and not cold enough.

he doesn’t think it’s particularly scientific—knows this, truthfully—but he’s become familiar with the following pattern:

open your eyes first thing in the morning; you don’t want to be alive. throw the sheets from your legs and feel as the warmth is leached from your body. roll onto one side and feel as your ribs resist the desire to cave in. check the time and feel as the numbers rattle hollowly, meaninglessly, in your brain.

your name is hanzawa masato. you don’t feel tethered to any of the unkind physicality happening to “you”.

you want to die more than anything.

and then he stands, finally, and moves to go about his routine, and if he wasn’t put through an especially brutal wringer overnight, he’ll forget his ideation and go about things the way he always does.

if he was put through that wringer, he can forget. he’ll make himself forget. he’ll learn how to make himself forget.

—

he doesn’t intend to die, is the problem. that simplicity would be a blessing.

the shadows cast before him were inky, stretched long. the trains rattle near-silently on the tracks, low rumbling swallowing the impact of his own footsteps. the footsteps of other people, though sparse, jab like sharpened stones into his ears.

days like these feel fake. days like these make his dreams feel real. days like these make masato feel a little less than alive.

he would feel stupid saying so out loud, but he’s starting to believe that no one’s as haunted by ghosts as ghosts themselves.

he doesn’t know what brought him to this conclusion.

(a lie, mostly. if he had to hazard a guess: an answer lying somewhere between his exhaustion and reluctance to fall asleep, his wishing to die but fear of death, the restless shifting—currently absent—river.)

the thing about all of this is that masato doesn’t actually believe in ghosts.

not real ones, anyway. if anything—anyone—is going to drift aimlessly through the halls, holding a lantern or candlestick or knife, reflection held in its edge tortured and gaunt, it’s going to be him. an offhanded, deeply involved joke at which to have a sadistic laugh.

he has his obligations, though. of course, the knife would be fake—the edge of it dull and without character, not reflecting much of anything, harmless.

he thinks tashiro would think it’s funny. after the shock and fear and flustered anger wore off, at least.

—

real or not, the house he grew up in—the house he lives in now, the house currently, on only this day once a week, occupied by only him—is haunted.

—

he hasn’t forgotten. if it matters. he’s never been very good at lying to himself, and this one was an awfully slow sort of deal. the sort of deal that is just as much a pain to forget as it is to remember.

there was very little tenderness. he couldn’t quite stretch his legs all the way out, couldn’t reach his arms out over his head. his fingers were cold and useless, deadened, slow. the air pushing in and flowing out of his lungs seemed to whistle through the puncture wound in his chest.

he wishes that he could learn; there was no tenderness, in truth. time moved slowly, if at all, abandoning him to sit stiff in the water, soaked to the bone. abandoning him to finish dying in isolation.

he woke up, a few hours ago now, sweaty and splayed out, drowning only in his sheets, and it was an awfully slow sort of deal, but it couldn’t make him forget.

masato’s never been very good at forgetting things, either.

try as he might to toss them out, two facts cling like hooks to his skin:

1.    hanzawa masato is a still-living human being, and

2.    he doesn’t want to die.

(if he had to hazard a second guess, like he was on some sick introspective game show, masato would say that all anyone ever wants is to live, but living’s hard, and it hurts. it never stops hurting.

he figures—reluctantly, he doesn’t want to spend as much time as he does mired in unwinnable existential debates—that if it’s going to hurt living and hurt dying, he might as well live.)

—

masato doesn’t know where that puncture wound in his chest even came from.

—

I’m at the shrine

Like… for fun?

spiritual enrichment

Of course. Silly question.

Mom says to buy yourself a charm.

which one

…Health?

she said love. I’m buying YOU a love charm

I DON’T NEED IT.

—

poorer, he walks home as evening settles. the clouds that had been crowding the edges of the sky have hung themselves low over the city; no moon.

masato navigates mostly by bleeding sunlight and does not grieve. though his eyes insist otherwise, there is no river.

he carries three charms. good health for his mother, love for his older brother, evil warding for himself. he doesn’t know what compelled him to buy the third.

worn through by the prickly feeling at his skin, he turns his head stiffly to check—there is still no river.

at present, there isn’t anything worth his grief. one pocket lighter, the other heavier, but as insistent as his older brother was that he not buy the damned love charm, it’s not like masato doesn’t know that he’ll just as stubbornly insist on paying him back.

tomorrow, though. they’re not back until tomorrow.

abandonment, maybe. if he was grieving. he both had a dream worse than usual this morning and he didn’t. he was alone in that house and he wasn’t. it’s haunted when he’s there and not when he isn’t, but his mom insists that he house-sit every fucking sunday like the house would be the one pleading “how could you leave me here alone?” and not him.

but it’s not grief, and he’s not pleading. because he won’t let weird dreams count, no one even died.

it’s a pedestrian street, glossy shimmering concrete. everyone but him is walking right where the water would be.

there is no river. his chest aches. he knows better than to entertain the idea.

[ultdete]

REVISED MY VERSES PAGE! It's still a major work in progress, but I got the basics down I think!

[frankentyner]

[nationallawreview]

It Ain’t Over ‘til It’s Over: IRS Reminds Taxpayers That Section 280E Applies to Marijuana Companies Until Rescheduling Becomes Law

This is a tax blog. Stay with me – it’s short. While marijuana advocates celebrate the potential rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III, the taxman has made clear that marijuana remains a Schedule I substance subject to Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code. For those who aren’t cannabis tax specialists, 280E provides that: No deduction or credit shall be allowed for any…