Thanks! Danish oil and the carbon method ceramic kit. First time using both and really enjoyed it, especially relative to the work and fumes and smells of poly finishes
I write about courts, democracy, media, and the raccoon family living in a tree behind my house. Bluesky’s ONLY fantasy football guru. EIC @ballsandstrikes.org, more writing at jaywillis.net.
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Thanks! Danish oil and the carbon method ceramic kit. First time using both and really enjoyed it, especially relative to the work and fumes and smells of poly finishes
Missing the magic word but sure
DAD CHAT (non-gendered) TIME: Spent the long weekend refinishing this beat-to-hell rosewood dining bench. Doing the same to the matching table next week, stay tuned.
I am looking for two floral designs that will go on each arm. I also have a friend who is a (non-tattoo) artist who might design them for me, but I don’t know the rules about whether it’s cool to have tattoo artists do other people’s work
I guess as a follow-up: If you have someone whose work you like in Seattle, please tell me about them
you what now?
People who have tattoos, how did you find and/or decide upon a tattoo artist
don’t forget Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, my five-star adult son
You’re never gonna guess what this is in response to
I went out to a nice dinner with my wife and am catching up on DVR, so if we fuck this up in hilarious, spectacular fashion, please don’t tell me, just let me have this moment
CAL FOOTBALL UPDATE: Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, a player I had definitely heard of before this morning, has instantly turned me into a full Yelling “He’s Got Him” At The TV Guy every time he throws it deep
I have absolutely politely stayed silent when someone asks if I know a Guy and I don’t think they’re compatible. Letting people into the Guy network is like pickup basketball—new people are welcome to join, but you’re responsible for the conduct of whomever you bring, so act accordingly.
I know a Guy who is also an “I know a guy” Guy and I love my Guys with all my heart. They do great work, they save me time and headache, they’re cool and nice and play with my kids when they come by. I pay them extra or early when I can, and give their numbers to anyone who needs a Guy. Priceless.
[JD Vance squirming on the bench, arching his back beneath the weight of one plate, as William Henry Harrison slaps him on the side of the head and tells him to push harder]
We are going to bring back “bitchmade” for this man alone
If anything happens to Trump, this juiceless try-hard will instantly be the softest president in American history. I am aware of the qualifications of the contenders for this title, and stand by my analysis.
Every once in a while I remember that Chuck Schumer bases his political messaging on how he thinks the Baileys, an imaginary family that lives on Long Island, will react to it
Got offered this extremely specific list of professions to choose from when filling out a credit card application
you can just text me you know
Emil Bove might have been confirmed as a judge, but he is absolutely not beating the allegations (sweaty, servile bootlicker incapable of having an independent thought)
The only reason for Emil Bove to be still showing up for Trump administration photo opps (in this photo from Trump’s D.C. takeover, peeking out at top right) is that Emil Bove understands himself to be part of the Trump administration on an ongoing basis www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/u...
Ok, other side of the country, Washington coast. Still.
What beaches/oceans are we looking at here
Hold up?????
Looks like I missed a real shit week, so here’s an update on how my dog’s time at the beach went
SET TO RECORD
SCOTUSblog needed six months to go from “we will maintain our independent coverage of the Supreme Court” to preparing to monetizing the Trump family separation flack’s podcast to offer CLE credit
me again
You should not be capable of looking at yourself in the mirror after doing shit like this. The sight of your own face should be unbearable. No profession more shameful.
Imagine arresting firefighters during peak wildfire season here and thinking that you’re the good guys
If I send out a call for pitches this is about half of what I get in response
Trying to do a dictatorship and accidentally screwing around and creating the Dad Corps is an amazing feat
Making them wear high-visibility vests over camo is such a good joke you couldn’t write it
me
The lesson for Democrats of the last four years is that if you don't use power when you have it, your opponents will happily use it instead
Every time he tries to do the Hey It’s Me The Straight Talkin’ Politician Express bit, he immediately comes across as a dumb, vapid phony. Dan Quayle had more juice than this loser.
My dog had a long day of being in the car (stressful) and running on the beach (euphoric, rapturous joy, her favorite thing in the world), so now she’s just meandering around the rental house testing different beds and then immediately passing out
Neighbors built a little astronaut helmet-style portal for the dog, so he can keep an eye on things
My dark horse is the Chicago econ freaks, they just wrap every positional group meeting talking about which ethnic group is least efficient to continue to allow to exist
permission to be (in this context and this context only) a prosecutor
Duke/Stanford/Yale who ya got
Yeah I was thinking this or On The Merritts (I hate myself)
What’s the best Jacory “Bill” Croskey-Merritt-based pun for my fantasy football team name this year
three dogshit memoirs before 40 and he can’t even rotate a single sandwich
[sweating profusely because no one is buying my dogshit book] time to hop on social media and trigger people
manziel-sideline-trick-play-catch-kyle-shanahan-illegal-formation-five-yard-penalty.gif
god this is beautiful
Easily my favorite touchdown tradition of the past decade or so is Marshawn Lynch (1) insisting that his teammates shake his hand in the end zone like they’re at a job interview and (2) getting annoyed at them if they did literally anything else to celebrate
"Jackson’s dissent is not a mere disagreement with a colleague’s judgment. She is demonstrating that what her colleagues are doing isn’t even judging; laws have little to no bearing on the outcome of their decisions, which are determined instead by Republican policy goals." 🎯
I appreciate this framing much more than other outlets. Others are framing it as if Justice Jackson is breaking some sort of important norm rather than rightly calling out her colleagues for their hypocrisy and making a mockery of the law and the norms/precedents the Court, itself, has established.
[tapping the sign]
throwing a “without question” into an assertion like this is generally a pretty good sign that you’re trying to get away with some bullshit
very easy to think up an excuse to continue your Vichy Twitter addiction (that's kind of what addiction is), but the benefits for a journalist are meager. it throttles links and *just isn't* remotely as influential as TikTok or YouTube
[posting a social media link to my sloppy essay full of obvious holes that I was too lazy to address] oh I’m sure you woke scolds will LOVE this
John Roberts is the most impactful Republican politician of the last three decades, and the most significant accomplishment of his career is warping the Constitution's promises to help his fellow Republicans win elections they would otherwise lose ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...
These people are so unaware of being personally influenced by constantly immersing themselves in a firehose blast of Nazi propaganda that she doesn't even list that as one of the considerations www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-have-to...
Notable that the pundits writing essays about staying on Twitter/X always frame it as some kind of principled stand, and never acknowledge the reality that, as a tool for driving traffic, X is dogshit. Twitter was never great for it, but post-Elon, it’s been worthless. You’re not “reaching” anyone!
As bad and indefensible as Shelby County is, the *practical* effect of the holding is just that state legislators don't have to wait for Republican administrations to pass vote suppression laws. Rucho will in the end be more destructive to American democracy and the "reasoning" is just as specious
some may say, but what about @fleerultra.bsky.social, and to them I say, whomst is that
Adam Serwer…congrats king
truly from the top rope here stuff by KBJ
one question to ask the editorial board is whether there is a minimum bar for what constitutes "american democracy." if most people in most states are gerrymandered out of effective political representation, is that democracy?
Maybe the biggest trend in freelance pitches I've gotten lately are pitches that are clearly written using ChatGPT, and from people with no online presence. It absolutely sucks, and now if I get a whiff of AI I just move the sender to a "never commission" list pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/d...
Roberts and the conservatives decided to greenlight partisan gerrymandering in Rucho because they decided that, on balance, partisan gerrymandering is better for their fellow Republicans than it is for Democrats. It's not more complicated than that ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...
Rucho still is one of the stupidest Supreme Court decisions of my lifetime, and it is impossible to watch Texas and California’s ruthless redistricting arms race without remembering John Roberts being like, “Well, how could we, humble jurists, ever KNOW know if gerrymanders go Too Far To Be Legal??”
just thinking about it makes me so angry. the worst kind of open race baiting in american politics since george wallace.
For the 2024 election, just *28 percent* of Republicans said they were confident in the integrity of the outcome. I do not think our political system is equipped for 3 in 4 voters from one of two major parties to view losses as proof of the other party's criminality. slate.com/news-and-pol...
Trump's attacks on mail-in voting are less about literally eradicating the practice by next fall than they are about constructing an alternative reality in which aggrieved Republicans attribute every loss to voter fraud, thus justifying their efforts to stamp it out by any means necessary
Verily I have blogged it slate.com/news-and-pol...
[confidently handing you grocery money in the form of greasy wadded-up bills stuffed inside a half-empty chips bag] that’s influence baby
some real ellipsis magic here, respect
Look, I call them how I see them. Balls and strikes, you might say ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...
For the proposition that "even critics of Clarence Thomas speak of him in the highest of terms," a law professor has cited a blog post in which I described "with despair" Thomas's "athletic prowess and strength" papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
![admires Thomas for “act[ing] by conviction, rather than fear.”103 Judge David Stras attributes his own judicial courage to the teachings of Justice Thomas: I have always strived, as Justice Thomas instructed me that day, to be my own judge, but his guidance has become a part of who I am. One of the most important traits he imparted to me is courage. As judges, we are asked to make tough decisions, but it is our job to ignore the noise and make the right call, not just sometimes or usually, but all the time, no matter how unpopular it may be.104 ... 108. See Jay Willis, Heartbreaking: Young Clarence Thomas Was Absolutely Jacked, BALLS & STRIKES (Feb. 9, 2023), https://ballsandstrikes.org/legal-culture/clarence-thomas-jacked-oh-no [https://perma.cc/6PED-YZG9] (describing, with despair, Justice Thomas’s athletic prowess and strength);](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bpna2qi2e44fafbhhtqjak3x/bafkreiayr3gm7ok7vijvfz5e7b2j5ozfb4jui3mig2utngp4u4kc76vdj4@jpeg "Click to view full size")
SUSAN DUFFY, SCOWLING, OUT OF BREATH: theyeah fackin good! Hey, do you know weah my charactah is sposed to be from
Acutally now that you say it, I did have to call the tennis club that fired me from the front desk in high school for juggling tennis balls to be like "hey uh I know you don't remember this, we're cool right"
so how many times have you actually been fired
Yeah I too basically got the "hey, seems like you're a good dude I'd have a beer with, have a good rest of your afternoon" treatment
Dang it, thank you. Corrected link here: tinyurl.com/UTB-People-S...
the classic White Boy Pass
you could honestly write a law review article on how virginia's demented overcriminalization of traffic charges has affected admission to professions
by the book, baby
"Future ACC powerhouse"
I remember people telling me "disclose everything or you're fucked for life," which, fine, but my university discipline for minor in possession had been expunged 3 years earlier. Officials at my undergrad were very kind but also baffled. "You can disclose if you want but we have no record of it"
got their asses
There's so little data about how C&F works, and the authors of this op-ed are tyring to fix that. If you're a lawyer, I encourage you to fill out their survey (2-3 min tops). Even if your C&F process was unremarkable, you can help people clear barriers that you didn't have to face: cryptpad.fr/form/
My own experience with the character and fitness exam: I was nervous until I got to my interview, which was conducted by a middle-aged white guy who mostly wanted to shoot the shit about college football. And even at the time I remember thinking, "Huh, this feels...not entirely on the up-and-up."
There was a real dolt of a conservative blogger who I hadn't heard anything about in a while and I wondered why, so I looked it up and he's now a spokesperson for a federal agency
I really want elected Democrats (and Dem candidates) to understand that the people whose votes they need absolutely *hate* the Supreme Court, and "the Court is bad and I will do whatever I can to fix it" is the free space on the Win Elections bingo card ballsandstrikes.substack.com/p/poll-oh-ma...
A reasonable theory, but the only other thing I remember about this post was that Peterson found it and got publicly upset about it at the time
This blog post was about the interview in which Jordan Peterson claimed to be on a beef-only diet, so I called up some doctors and one of them was so alarmed that she said his diet could not "sustain human life" www.gq.com/story/jordan...
Honestly, respect for this guy who dug up a 7-year-old blog post about Jordan Peterson this morning and somehow got sufficiently upset about it to track down my Gmail
I love to show up every day for my job, which is standing around holding the front of my tactical vest and getting told to choke to death by thousands of passers-by while 11 of my coworkers handcuff a roofer on his way to work. Every night I drive 80 minutes home, thinking about nothing at all.
NEWS: The raccoons are recruiting new species in their battle against me
Are YOU locked in on this Bengals-Commanders preseason MNF game and gloating about having picked up Jacory “Bill” Croskey-Merritt earlier this afternoon? Ha ha no me neither
Okay fine I’m blogging it
New: Lizelle Gonzalez is suing officials who wrongly charged her with murder for an abortion—and depositions with investigators show that, if given the chance, they would handle future cases the same way Police and sheriffs have so much power to ruin people’s lives by manipulating the legal process
"David Brooks made his name as an amateur cultural taxonomist, driving (or not!) around this great country, looking at whatever people were buying or wearing or doing or eating and then writing, 'Rich people like to have summer homes in Nantucket, but poor people like to drink energy drinks.'"
Maybe if you'd spent less time writing incoherent gibberish that all your peers mock behind your back, and more time learning to use Loctite like an adult, this wouldn't have happened to you
![I am hopeful these bobbleheads can be reassembled with crazy glue. If anyone has any suggestions, please email me. [and then a picture of more broken bobbleheads]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:bpna2qi2e44fafbhhtqjak3x/bafkreiebat7pmxclooujwuo2ki2gmsdevprzpinikrwgj2kbt53hjjgpfe@jpeg "Click to view full size")