DL Open Thread: Sunday, December 4, 2022

Dominion Vs. Fox Case Heats Up In Delaware Superior Court.  For once, I’m a Dominionist:

Although the law leans in the media’s favor in defamation cases, Dominion has what independent observers have said is an unusually strong case. Day after day, Fox hosts and guests repeated untrue stories about Dominion’s ties to communist regimes and far-fetched theories about how its software enabled enemies of the former president to steal his votes.

“This is a very different kind of case,” said David A. Logan, dean of the Roger Williams School of Law, who has argued in favor of loosening some libel laws. “Rarely do cases turn on a weekslong pattern of inflammatory, provably false, but also oddly inconsistent statements.”

The judge, Eric M. Davis, has ruled in most instances in Dominion’s favor, allowing the voting company to expand the pool of potential evidence it can present to a jury to include text messages from the personal phones of Fox employees and the employment contracts of star hosts such as Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, along with those of Suzanne Scott, the chief executive of Fox News Media, and her top corporate managers.

Rethugs ‘Reconsider’ Their War Against Mail-In Ballots.  Not sure how much it will help as long as the ban on ballots with drool on them remains in effect:

For the past two years, Republican officials in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania have blasted mail voting, firing off lawsuits and bills aimed at crippling the balloting method that has become increasingly popular post-pandemic.

In the wake of a midterm cycle that proved disastrous for them, they’re wondering if their antipathy to the idea cost them the election.

But the about-face is particularly striking in Pennsylvania, where Republicans have adopted an especially uncompromising approach to mail-in voting.

“Republicans focus on Election Day turnout and Democrats started a month ahead of time,” said former Rep. Lou Barletta, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in the GOP primary this year. “If we want to win, if Republicans want to win, they got to get better at” mail voting.

Of course, they’ve done the same thing in Delaware. With equally-limited success.

England And Wales Now ‘Christian-Minority’ Countries.  The main reason: The use of critical thinking skills:

For James, a programme manager from Birmingham, it was more of a creeping realisation as he got older that certain aspects of Christian dogma were incompatible with critical thinking.

“I was raised as a Christian: church every Sunday, C of E [Church of England] school, taught to say grace before dinner.

“At some point in my late teens the stuff that provided comfort, such as the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient god, suddenly started to feel more like a fairytale you tell kids to help them sleep, and posed questions. And then I thought: ‘If God knows exactly what I’m going to do, and lets it happen, then I no longer have a free will’,” the 44-year-old says.

Although James describes himself as an atheist now and sees religion as “the old approach to controlling the masses and providing public health advice”, he enrolled his two daughters in a C of E primary school.

“I can see the value of spirituality and religion, and I wanted to give my children the opportunity to figure things out for themselves.”

The result? “When my seven-year-old daughter was told at school that God created everything, she asked her teacher: ‘Well, who created God?’ My children have both decided these teachings don’t stack up.”

Pantone’s Color Of The Year Sucks.  For one day a year, Pantone gets some pub for announcing said color.  This year, Viva Magenta, which might have been a shade of lipstick in vogue with undiscerning teenagers–in the 1990’s.  If someone can make the following breathless description of the color from Pantone understandable to me, please try:

Rooted in the primordial, PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta reconnects us to original matter. Invoking the forces of nature, PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta galvanizes our spirit, helping us to build our inner strength.

Ho-kay.  To me, it’s just pinkish red, but what do I know?

Would-Be Political Party Thinks That What The US Wants Is Coonsian ‘Bipartisanship’.  And that Delaware yearns for this. Which, based upon our elected officials at the highest levels, would be understandable.  And wrong.

What do you want to talk about?