TheBailey
soapy mop
No bio...
User ID: 3254
My issue here isn't about voter registration, though; it's about updating the name on your Driver's License.
Nothing in the Alabama v. Taylor court opinion that I could see relied on the fact that Taylor's issue happened to be the voter registration department and not the department of motor vehicles; the issue was the State refusing to accept a common law name change as valid per se.
court says that your common law name should be honored, but that doesn't mean that the state has to give you an id or anything else if you don't bring the prerequisite documents … So I could see potentially that the court upholds that "we agree that's your name, but you still need docs proving it to get an id or vote"
If the requirement to “bring the prerequisite documents” — when the requested documents expand way beyond what's actually required to show common use — was already deemed illegal in the latter case (to vote), since that policy infringed on established law, why would it be different for the former (to get an id)?
TheBailey
soapy mop
4mo ago
Spending $50 on a court-ordered name change is probably the simplest way to proceed.
Sadly, I already took this “coward's way out” cutting a check to the local probate court rather than raising the matter the hard way, and am now far too satisfied with my legal name to fuck with it any further; someone else with a similar impulse will need to tackle this.
(I wonder if we'll see the ACLU stepping up on this matter only after someone is actually refused a court order for name change... which they generally only do for sex offenders and other criminals whose “crimes involv[ed] moral turpitude”...)
Alabama Code § 32-6-13 states:
The Director of Public Safety, with the approval of the Governor, shall establish and promulgate reasonable rules and regulations not in conflict with the laws of this state concerning … the enforcement of the provisions of [Alabama Code Chapter 6, Article 1: Drivers’ Licenses] [which includes Alabama Code § 32-6-4, on issuing driver's licenses].
The Alabama supreme court has held time and time again, most recently in State of Alabama v. Catherine Taylor, et. al., that one consequence of Alabama Code § 1-3-1 is the complete efficacy and legitimacy of so-called “common law” name changes (name changes done neither by a court action nor by any specific statutory process) in the eyes of the State:
The order entered by the trial court permanently restrained the State from refusing to allow plaintiffs … from registering to vote “under the names by which they have chosen to be known and have used subsequent to this proceeding.” … We hold that the trial court did not err.
… “Where it is not done for a fraudulent purpose and in the absence of statutory restriction, one may lawfully change his name without resort to legal proceedings, and for all purposes the name thus assumed will constitute his legal name just as much as if he had borne it from birth.”
We are not aware of any statutory restriction which requires that married women not be permitted to register to vote, if otherwise qualified, under the names by which they have chosen to be known and have used; provided, of course, it is not done for a fraudulent purpose.
… in view of the fact that the common law regarding "names" has not been altered by the legislature as far as we know, we adopt the common law of England in resolving this dispute.
… While the State suggests that allowing married women to register in their maiden surnames will create confusion, we believe that the legitimate interests of the State in preventing fraud in the election process can be satisfied without undue cost or harm.
However, the Alabama DMV has this policy currently in force for changing the name printed on Alabama ID cards:
If you have changed your name, you must…present valid name change documents (e.g., marriage certificate, divorce decree, court order or legal name change document), along with proof that your name has been changed with the Social Security Administration.
Now, being required to not just “present valid name change documents”, but have a federal agency pre-approve them, seems to be a central case (I'd argue even more central than voter rolls that no-one even sees) of requiring a person to “resort to legal proceedings” to make “the name thus assumed…constitute his legal name…for [this] purpose”, which would make it a “rule [or] regulation…in conflict with the laws of this state” and thus an illegal requirement for the Director of Public Safety to impose on petitioners seeking to update their ID card to reflect a common law name change.
This is not just a procedural nitpick, but in practice actually a blocker for any person attempting the process, because even if you could somehow generate (and were willing to generate) a paper trail for your common law name change that'd pass ALEA/DMV muster as substantiating the change, the SSA will reject it anyway.
Before I go knocking on the door of the ACLU, or spending a million dollars on a private lawyer to sue the DMV to avoid spending $50 on a court-ordered name change: does this argument seem sound?
TheBailey
soapy mop
4mo ago
Surely that's more to do with the cultural coercion affecting his “brides”? cf. Elon Musk's quasi-harem, the sheer exploitativeness and power asymmetry seems to disqualify it from really counting as a mutually constructed "romantic" relationship...
TheBailey
soapy mop
4mo ago
Sure, a hospital, and maybe my doctor, is going to put on this big show of paranoia when it comes to disclosing my PII to each other.
But if I have definitely "legally" given them "consent" to give my PII and PHI to 3rd-parties that I'm not even able to learn the names of, what reason do I have to think that those 3rd-parties will take similar "precautions"? The only thing those 3rd-parties have to do is make sure they don't literally have my legal name in the same CSV file as any specific diagnoses when they get hacked, and I'll be none the wiser.
My workplace offers as a benefit genetic cancer screening. I thought this would be a neat thing to check out, since I'm really unsure how much of the skin and breast cancer in my extended family is just due to their shitty lifestyle. But the screening company's privacy policy did not inspire confidence, so I sent them this e-mail:
How do I opt out of “Health Information Exchange” sharing?
How can I know when my information is used for “Research”?
How can I get copies of the IRB approval?
If the final research paper is paywalled, are the involved patients entitled to a free copy of it? 😁
I see that you share patient health information with an undeclared list of Service Providers, Medical Providers, Public Health Authorities, Other Parties, Business Partners, Affiliates, Subsidiaries, Advertising Partners, and various "API and SDK providers".
Assuming you maintain records of this sharing, how could I request a complete account of it, including:
- Exactly what information was shared;
- The legal name and address of the 3rd party the information was shared with;
- The date the information was shared;
- The specific purposes for which the information was shared;
- Any specific constraints on when the 3rd party must delete the information;
- A complete list of “4th parties” the 3rd party is authorized to share my information to, including legal name and address?
The reply I got back did not address most of my questions, and only claimed that
- they don't actually traffick information to HIEs at this time (that was just boilerplate from the privacy policy they blindly copy-pasted from a legal document repository);
- all their studies are done internally at this time; and
- "[Our company] does not sell or share any information ... with any advertising partners. We will be updating our Privacy Policy to ensure it accurately reflects our commitment to protecting your data and maintaining our trust."
(This was 3 months ago, but their posted privacy policy still explicitly states, "We may disclose your Personal Information with advertising partners.")
TheBailey
soapy mop
4mo ago
If a healthcare facility or employee abuses your personal information in ANY.WAY. the government will absolutely anally violate anyone involved with several rusty implements.
"Abuse" is a matter of opinion; HIPAA means they can disclose it only with the patient's "consent".
Have you ever found a single healthcare provider whose notice of privacy practices contained no clauses which were written to include consent to share health information with an open-ended, undisclosed set of 3rd parties? Please share, if you have.
https://www.uabmedicine.org/legal/notice-of-health-information-practices/
We may use and disclose your medical information to tell you about or recommend possible treatment options or alternatives that may be of interest to you.
… We may use and disclose medical information to tell you about health-related benefits or services that may be of interest to you.
… There are some services provided in UAB Health System through contracts with business associates. Examples include a copy service we use when making copies of your health record, consultants, accountants, lawyers, medical transcriptionists, and third-party billing companies. When these services are contracted, we may disclose your health information to our business associate so that they can perform the job we’ve asked them to do. To protect your health information, however, we require the business associate to appropriately safeguard your information.
TheBailey
soapy mop
4mo ago
Hmm, the situation in 1998 was thus:
Anonymous testing is currently available in all but 11 states.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/188098
Currently, 40 states have publicly funded anonymous testing sites for HIV, …
… anonymous testing contributes at a population level to early HIV testing and medical care. Thus, … public health departments should maintain and in some instances enhance the broad availability of anonymous testing options.
but I can't find any such up-to-date surveys.
I'm annoyed just how much focus there is on "accessibility"; the impression I get from the articles I had to slog through even to find these was that if it isn't taxpayer-subsidized with a $0 copay it may as well not exist...
Yep, that's my worry exactly. If a professional knows your legal name, or could easily learn it, then any so-called ““““confidentiality””” seems to just become a marketing gimmick meaning they probably won't publish you as a case study, post about it on social media, or talk about you on-the-record with medical professionals not working at the same provider.
TheBailey
soapy mop
4mo ago
Just because a particular form of polyamory happens to historically predate the modern polyamory movement, and be less toxic than most other examples of the category, doesn't seem to be a knockdown argument for excluding it from the category.
By analogy: we don't stop counting plumbing as “infrastructure” or “technology” just because the Romans had it, or because it doesn't lend itself easily to infinitely scrolling AI-generated feeds.
TheBailey
soapy mop
4mo ago
Is it just, like, straight-up illegal to get anonymous STD testing in Alabama?
https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-22/title-1/chapter-11a/article-1/section-22-11a-14/
Any physician who diagnoses … a case of sexually transmitted disease as designated by the State Board of Health, … shall report … to the state or county health officer … the patient’s full name, date of birth, … address, telephone number, … stage of disease, … and the date of onset.
Or is there some workaround where a physician or clinic can “give you the tools for diagnosis” without being the one to diagnose you?
TheBailey
soapy mop
5mo ago
Equifax doesn‘t have my current residential address on file, which has caused me to be denied for a credit card application. (They also, weirdly, have my current legal name on file as a “former name”, despite all banks I'm with having my current legal name on file; this has not proven an issue for lenders, however.)
Equifax has completely refused to add my current residential address to my record. In reply to my sending them (after they requested this over the phone) legible, color, double-sided, current copies of both my Driver License and Social Security card, they sent me a letter requesting the same documents again; when I called them to ask what was up, they stated vaguely that they were “unable to validate” the documents I sent, and the representative I spoke with claimed to be unable to see any specific reason for this failure.
I contacted the CFPB, who (despite the shutdown) claimed to have forwarded my dispute to Equifax. I never heard anything back on that channel.
I contacted my state Attorney General's office, who contacted Equifax on my behalf, and eventually forwarded me the letter they got in reply from Equifax, which demanded the same documents (social security card plus driver’s license), asking me to let them have a crack at it:
… in order for this Office to take any action, it will be necessary for you to forward to me the requested documents (see enclosed [letter from Equifax]). This information will assist in the circumstances of your complaint.
I'm going to send this attached letter to the AG office; is there anything else I should add?
TheBailey
soapy mop
7mo ago
While I thought "hey, wait a second, this idea of women raising children without fathers is not new. We're up to 40% of children born out of wedlock, disproportionately among the poor and non-white. Why aren't you talking about that?"
That's a serious enough complaint I think it overcomes the threshold for being “just whataboutism”. My day-to-day quality of life is impacted (for the worse) infinitely more by the class of people who grew up fatherless by some “natural” process of death or human attraction than it is by the class of people who grew up “technically fatherless” by the fact of surrogacy.
I would be interested to see folk like @Corvos from this thread argue against the practice by anything other than sympathetic analogy to other things that trigger a disgust impulse.
I don't see the relevance of your comment (adoption of existing children that would have gone unwanted / uncared-for) to this thread (surrogacy, commissioning a child that would not have come into this world “naturally”).
Are you trying to argue that the “muh trad”-posters in this thread are only secretly jealous of the rich gay jews commissioning the existence of children — that their sentiments here actually stem from class envy and their waxing on “playing Taboo”[colloquialism] around the word naturalism is just a front?
Some people can’t have children. That’s just the way it is. ‘Solving’ it with prostitution and (from the child’s perspective) kidnapping is supremely selfish and from my perspective absolutely unacceptable in a society with any pretensions to morality.
I know at least one woman (white, American) who "had" a child via gestational surrogacy--she is now both divorced and living about 4,800 miles (7,725 km) apart from her daughter. Life's a bitch.
TheBailey
soapy mop
7mo ago
In the United States, are there any general guiding principles for when/whether criminal trials get to be secret vs televised vs open-to-the-public-but-no-recording-allowed, or is it generally just up to the whims of the judge and happenstance of the tradition of the local court?
TheBailey
soapy mop
7mo ago
If you use your DRIP to auto-buy the same shares, you pay no tax initially
Are you sure about that?
https://www.investopedia.com/investing/perks-of-dividend-reinvestment-plans/
Even though investors do not receive a cash dividend from DRIPs, they are nevertheless subject to taxes, due to the fact that there was an actual cash dividend--albeit one that was reinvested. Consequently, it’s considered to be income and is therefore taxable. And as with any stock, capital gains from shares held in a DRIP are not calculated and taxed until the stock is finally sold, usually several years down the road.
TheBailey
soapy mop
7mo ago
“Bull case”? Do you mean the case for why-it-would-be-a-good-thing for the market, or just generally a good thing?
I had an issue with my (now former) HSA provider, National Benefit Services, debiting my account weeks before the payment (never) arrived; they refused to send me any documentation such as an image of the check or the name of the party that actually did cash it, if any; when I eventually filed a case with the CFPB they closed it with this weird, vague-ass message:
We reviewed your complaint and weren't able to forward it to the company for a response either because the company is not on our complaint system, or because we do not currently handle complaints about this product or issue.
like, “either we totally can't help you, or you misfiled your complaint (we had many near matches to that account category, hope you picked the right one!), or that company isn't on a freaking WHITELIST of companies we will consider chastising” is just so damn useless…
TheBailey
soapy mop
7mo ago
No question too simple or too silly.
When I have any security set up with DRIP (dividend reinvestment plan), my cost basis on these new fractional shares is showing up as $0.00.
This seems like a visible, tangible difference from how it'd be if I'd “coincidentally bought shares” just afterwards (with the dividends) manually — which would, at least as far as the new shares are concerned, seem to be a better situation since if/when I sell those new shares I'd be realizing less gain.
So… does DRIP actually affect the basis of the shares that issued the dividend? Do I get some adjustment to its basis when the dividends are DRIP'd to compensate me for this zero-basis on the new shares?
TheBailey
soapy mop
8mo ago
Could I get some copy-editing / a vibe check on this letter to my representative in a ~200kPop city?
[Greeting with correct title]
I'm a resident of [City name] [correct district]; I'm very grateful that the City Council is taking the auto noise problem seriously, but I have some concerns about the bill that's being introduced to address it.
The current version[link] of the proposed noise ordinance would limit “first offense” fines for all classes of auto noise to just $50. At the city council meeting, it was claimed that this would empower [XXPD] by bypassing the current state-wide “fix-it ticket” policy, which currently allows nuisance auto owners to indefinitely dodge accountability for intentional engine noise.
However, my neighborhood is currently plagued by stereo speaker noise, and it looks like the existing county-level noise ordinance[link] provides in [§XXX] and [§YYY] for fining the operators of loud car stereos up to $500 per day, without any kind of “first offense” limitation.
At the direction of [City]'s representatives with [the online portal for reporting all issues, including noise], I have already tried calling the police about the stereo noise issues in my neighborhood, several times; but the noise is still occurring every day.
If [XXPD] is already struggling to enforce the law less than a mile away from a “$500 maximum fine for loud stereo” sign, I'm very concerned about the current bill stripping away 90% of the deterrent potential for stereo speaker noise.
Unlike a loud muffler (which could plausibly be “broken”), there is no excuse for blasting loud stereo music in city limits. Buying, installing, and then cranking up the volume on those systems is a very intentional act, and I would be very surprised to hear that [XXPD] is obligated to issue “fix-it tickets” when no plausible mechanical problem exists — is that really the reason [XXPD] has not been prosecuting stereo noise?
If not, I'd ask that we find some way to empower enforcement efforts that doesn't involve surrendering 90% of our deterrent power for so-called “first-time” stereo noise offenders.
- The proposed bill as-written seems to drastically lower the maximum penalties; could it simply be re-written to make those prescriptions into minimums, instead — at least when it comes to speaker noise?
- If [City] still has a contract with Flock, could we get some audio LPR cameras on key intersections in the nuisance neighborhoods, particularly at the [intersection that affects me the most]?
Thank you for your time,
--
[name]
Residential Address: […]
Mailing Address: […]
TheBailey
soapy mop
10mo ago
Ironically, my only major complaint about this mouse is that it’s too light for my tastes. Next time I have shoe goo or something like it in the house, I’m going to crack mine open and see if it’s got anywhere good to put some heavy iron nuts in.
TheBailey
soapy mop
10mo ago
Agreed. In my city, all housing that's not directly inside a high-crime neighborhood is marketed as “luxury”. I cannot find non-“luxury”-advertised housing, except in high-crime neighborhoods. Preliminary checks on other cities show the same thing.
TheBailey
soapy mop
10mo ago
Current iterations as far as I can tell generally use “Oauth” … In practice, plaid doesn’t have your password generally (although maybe for some banks as your link discusses.)
I've never heard any reports of this. Are you saying you've seen some bank for which Plaid supports OAuth rather than merely doing screen-scraping? If so, what bank is that?
“Oauth” which again is a bit of a black box … what it can do with that token (is it read only?) is even read only bad enough? Etc. is up for debate.
It really shouldn't be “up for debate”.
If your bank supports OAuth as a protocol, but doesn't tell you exactly what authorizations you're granting the relying party when you approve a request, that's a massive failure of your bank, and arguably a violation of at least the spirit of the OAuth spec:
If the request is valid, the authorization server authenticates the resource owner and obtains an authorization decision (by asking the resource owner or by establishing approval via other means) … If the resource owner grants the access request, the authorization server issues an authorization code and delivers it to the client …
TheBailey
soapy mop
10mo ago
🧐 Even stranger, Oliver is *missing* from the PredictIt market, which includes many unlisted and non-candidates such as Biden and Buttigieg.
https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/7456/who-will-win-the-2024-presidential-election
TheBailey
soapy mop
10mo ago
Why is the Chase Oliver / Mike Ter Maat ticket listed as as Independent on Alabama ballots even in counties such as Madison, where Libertarian is explicitly on-ballot for other positions?
https://www.sos.alabama.gov/alabama-votes/2024-general-election-sample-ballots
Did they fail to secure some endorsement, or is there a more boring technical explanation?
TheBailey
soapy mop
10mo ago
Kensington Pro Fit — specifically the full-size version if you have big hands, specifically the wired version if you hate wireless, and specifically not the “ergonomic” version in any case. A no-nonsense, very solid desktop mouse. Had one for 11 years (about 9 of which included ~10h/wk FPS gaming) before the scroll wheel started bugging out, and I just bought the same model as replacement.
Nothing usable to report mousepad-wise, but have you considered nabbing a friction glove for use with drawing tablets, if it's your skin contact (rather than the bottom of the mouse itself) that's yoinking the pad around?
That the federal government does not have any statutory ban on putting common law adopted names on federal voter rolls should have no bearing on whether the state has any statutory restriction barring the department of motor vehicles from accepting certain (otherwise perfectly valid) name changes.
Are you saying you've found some state law that would warrant this refusal?
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