Assorted Miscellaneous, et cetera.

• Saw the Book Three Korra premiere. Found it underwhelming, considering the past two seasons. Except where Asami and Korra found out the other was not as concerned about Mako. And where we got to see Fire Lord Zuko's most excellent ride, and where he and the twins commiserated a bit about past attempts to kill the Avatar.
  
  Otherwise, though, I couldn't really accept that both Tenzin and Korra are so phenomenally bad at trying to recruit. For one thing, Tenzin seems unable to figure out that he has the ability to remake the Air Nomad culture into whatever he wants it to be, and to use that to his advantage. Korra, while never particularly good at PR, would never take the same approach Tenzin did after seeing how poorly it worked. Or because it was Tenzin's approach. So the characterization seemed off. And even more so with what Korra does for the Earth Queen. Korra had been down this road before - more specifically, last season and to some degree, the season before that with how Amon positioned himself in relation to benders. At this point, she should be immediately suspicious of these kinds of favors or fetch quests. I'm hoping we get some interplay between Team Avatar and Team Villain Benders where it's not one-dimensional evil.


• jenett has a great icon that reads "Virgo Hufflepuff - Details Managed", and that makes me wonder what sort of phrasings would be used for each of the main HP houses and the primary Western zodiacal sun signs. I don't know enough about the actual sun signs to even hazard a guess, but I would also expect that it's been done somewhere and my searching skills aren't quite up to par enough to find it.


• I'm still continuing the series of deconstructing (or at least trying) the Dragonriders of Pern at The Slacktiverse. I'm just about finished with Dragonflight, which will mean new opportunities to jump in at the beginning of a book when we move on to Dragonquest. There's a lot more wrong going on there than I noticed when I was younger.


• I got to see Catching Fire on a second run tonight. I can't say that I'm wild about the decisions on what content to exclude from the adaptation, because it took away a lot of the development and uncertainty that the novel presented, making it more of a "wha?" when it turned out that Plutarch was with the rebellion. Although I personally always saw Plutarch as a tall black man, so yeah. They also cut out the watching of footage portion, probably so as to not have to hire in more actors, but that part also means neither Katniss nor Peeta got to see the previous Quarter Quell, where they find out that sober Haymitch is freaking scary. The adaptation decision seems to have been that the audience would know no more than Katniss is supposed to, if that. It made the movie much more straightforward than the book was. I'm not sure what they will do with Mockingjay, since it's the most straightforward of the three.


• Oh, so close! Still, I suppose it's progress to have required extra time against Belgium. Next time, Gadget, next time.

Special Comment: (At least five justices of) The Supreme Court Hates You

And here's my evidence:

• The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that establishing a fixed buffer zone to protect women's health clinics, their patients, staff, and doctors from acts of terror is subordinate to the right of terrorists to commit acts of terror. Theoretically, it's about the right of protesters to protest something they find objectionable, but to argue that requires someone to ignore the storied history of violence against reproductive and women's health centers, the intimidation and harassment that women receive when trying to access their constitutionally protected services, and the intense campaign state legislators and government are waging against women. If there wasn't that history, and it was all just about the right of someone to stand and yell, then the argument that things were being taken too far would have more weight. The tendency of those particular protesters to act beyond shouting and standing should give some different considerations to decisions about free speech rights and how they are exercised.
  
  Based on this ruling, I'm sure the Court would have no problem at all if I camped the entrance they used to enter their building, being conspicuous not to block their way in, but setting myself up so that I can hurl invective at them as soon as I see them until the door closes, and I can bring as many people as I want to line the sidewalk and the path to the entrance to do the same, every hour of every day of the year.


• The Supreme Court also determined that corporations with few owners are allowed to impose their religious beliefs on their employees, regardless of the religious beliefs of the employees or the number of employees that in the company. This "corporations are people" bullshit is really perverting the law and the Constitution. Corporate entities should not be entitled to religious protections, unless they incorporate as religious entities under the codes and laws that govern them. Persons running corporations are certainly allowed to express their personal religious beliefs, and even, if they are so determined, to try and write those beliefs into the corporate policy. But they should not be permitted to contravene the law and claim that the corporation shouldn't have to obey because of their personal religious beliefs, unless they truly are religious entities.
  
  The majority claims they're ruling is very limited in score and only pertains to this particular mandate, but the precedent established is likely to be cited in later cases. Because it will only be a matter of time before someone objects to all contraception, or to other procedures, or to hiring women.


• The Court also ruled that persons reimbursed by a government agency but hired privately do not have to pay agency fees to the union that bargains for their wages and benefits. Because the plaintiffs objected on free speech grounds, saying that they shouldn't have to support a union they don't want, regardless of what benefits they accrue from the collective bargaining. The simplest solution would have been to say, "Fine. If you don't want to pay them, you don't get the benefit of their work. Negotiate your own contacts and wages." Which would be bad, because the sector, before collective bargaining, was low wage and no benefits.