Category: reason

As more restaurants, bars, and fast-casual eateries switch to digital-only payment methods, the D.C. City Council is considering a bill that would make it illegal to not take cash.

“By denying the ability to use cash as a payment, businesses are effectively telling lower-income and younger patrons that they are not welcome,” Councilmember David Grosso explained in a statement introducing his Cashless Retailers Prohibition Act.

Grosso’s bill, which has already attracted the support of five of D.C.’s 13 city councilmembers, would make it an “unfair trade practice” to refuse cash. Current D.C. code makes violating fair trade practices a Class 2 infraction, with fines ranging from $1,000 to $8,000 depending on the number of offences.

If a business is fined for refusing to accept cash, it won’t be able to pay the fine in cash. It won’t even be able to use a credit card. The District’s Office of Administrative Hearings—which handles most fines issued by city departments—requires that violators pay via check or money order. Fortunately, D.C. still lets you settle parking and traffic tickets with greenbacks, no doubt so as not to exclude the poor and unbanked.

Washington is not the first city to consider a crackdown on cashlessness. Chicago Alderman Edward Burke introduced a bill in 2017 that would have forced businesses to accept cash, claiming—like Grosso—that refusing cash is anti-poor and displays “an elitist attitude that doesn’t really reflect what Chicago is about.”

The assumption here seems to be that restaurants are eager to turn away otherwise paying customers out of some deep animus toward the poor. A better explanation is that businesses that have gone card-only don’t see many cash transactions to begin with.

In a Monday article, the Washington Post named a number of businesses that have gone cashless in the District, including the salad chain Sweetgreens, the “posh” Barcelona Wine Bar on 14th street, and the frozen yogurt shop Menchies.

I can’t imagine many unbanked patrons will feel excluded from the Barcelona Wine Bar because they can’t pay cash for their $14.50-a-person squid ink fideos dish.

And there are good reasons for businesses to ditch cash, says John Gordon of Pacific Management Consulting Group, a restaurant consulting firm. Paper money comes with a lot of unseen costs.

“Cash has to be handled. It has to be stored in a [point of sale] system. It has to be counted at least every shift. At the end of the day it has to counted and tallied into a sales report,” Gordon told Reason last October, when Chicago was considering its no-cash ban. Gordon noted that businesses also had to spring for the costs of armored trucks to pick up all that cash, and that they run the risks of cash payments being miscounted or stolen.

Grosso has dismissed these safety concerns, saying businesses should just buy lockboxes or put up signs saying that, while they do accept cash, they don’t have that much cash on hand.

Grosso’s bill would also make it illegal to “charge different prices to customers depending on their payment method.” In other words, it would ban businesses from giving cash discounts. The legislation thus achieves the remarkable feat of screwing over both businesses that refuse cash payments and those that actively encourage them.

The Post‘s story suggests that attempts to ban no-cash businesses have more to do fights between the ATM lobby (eager to preserve cash payments) and credit card companies like Visa (who have aggressively encouraged businesses to adopt cashless payment methods) than any genuine concern for poor diners.

But whether or not there’s an ulterior motive to Grosso’s bill, his rules would substitute the judgement of a few city councilmembers for that of businesses who are far more in tune with their customers’ payment preferences. These businesses, not the government, should be the ones making minute decisions about their work.

When it comes to crossing the border illegally, first-time offenders can currently be charged with a misdemeanor and sentenced to six months in prison. But the Zero Tolerance for Illegal Entry Act, introduced today by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), would make the offense a felony, punishable by up to a year and day behind bars.

“What this bill does is it sets up a huge disincentive,” Black tells the Washington Examiner. “There is already a process set up and they should be using what the process is.” Black is currently running for governor.

Black’s bill could cost taxpayers billions of dollars. In the 2017 fiscal year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended more than 415,000 people crossing the Southwest border illegally, according to the agency’s website. The Bureau of Prisons says incarcerating the average federal inmate in 2017 cost more than $36,000.

Using those figures, it would cost more than $14.9 billion for the government to imprison every immigrant caught crossing the border illegally for one year. Even if Black’s legislation cuts the number of people apprehended in half, taxpayers would still be left footing a hefty bill.

In addition to changing the penalty for entering the U.S. illegally, Black’s legislation would take away federal funding from sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with federal border agents and redirect the money to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Cramped airline seats might be uncomfortable, but the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has decided they’re not unsafe. Therefore, the agency concludes, they’re no business of the federal government.

Following a petition from a consumer advocacy group called Flyers Rights, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled last July that the FAA must justify its reasoning for not regulating the size of seats. In its response, the agency said “no evidence…demonstrates that current seat dimensions (width and pitch) hamper the speed of passenger evacuation.”

“The FAA has no evidence that a typical passenger, even a larger one, will take more than a couple of seconds to get out of his or her seat,” the agency reports. Under FAA rules, planes must be capable of being evacuated within 90 seconds.

Flyers Rights is considering an appeal.

Opponents argue that the evacuation models employed by the airlines fail to consider atypical passengers, such as children, women in heels, and senior citizens. But regardless of seat size, these people will always take longer to evacuate a plane; making them more comfortable in the air will do little to save their lives in case of an emergency. Seats might be smaller than they were 40 years ago, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone unable to exit a plane because he gets stuck.

In fact, in the time that seats have shrunk, airplanes have gotten cheaper and safer. Airline casualties dropped 92 percent from 1972 to 2015 as the number of passengers carried by planes rose from a meager 310 million in 1970 to 3.2 billion in 2014. Meanwhile, ticket prices dropped drastically.

But it is true that airlines have been reducing the size of seats as part of an effort to get more passengers from place to place. According to Fortune, the average pitch (which is used to determine legroom) of airline seats has dropped from 35 inches to 31 inches, and the average width has fallen from 18 inches to about 16.5 inches since the 1970s.

In their original petition, Flyers Rights also insisted that passengers suffer from “soreness, stiffness, [and] other joint and muscle problems” because of the unergonomic seats offered by airline companies. They also noted the possibility of deep vein thrombosis, which can occur in people sitting for too long. Indeed, there are health risks to sitting for too long in one place, but those problems can equally strike a passenger on a Greyhound bus or riding a cross-country Amtrak train. Deep vein thrombosis, the DC Circuit Court recognized, “rarely occurs and, regardless, is not caused by seat size or spacing.”

Coercing airlines to increase seat sizes might make passengers more comfortable, but airline companies would be forced to cut corners elsewhere to make up for the lost costs, perhaps by charging more for check-in baggage or even reversing the downward trend in ticket prices. Increasing costs could reduce access to travel for lower-income individuals.

And if you want a larger seat, you can have one. Market forces have already pushed Delta Airlines to introduce larger economy seats than its competitors. Competition is often the best form of regulation, and reducing barriers to entry into the airline industry would inject more producers into the marketplace, forcing producers to innovate or go bankrupt.

Few things are worse than being cramped between two oversized strangers on a 14-hour flight, dueling on two fronts for armrests and knee space. Believe me, I know: I fly from North Carolina to India five times a year. But I’d rather fly in a small seat to see my family than not be able to visit them at all.

President Donald Trump’s new nominee to serve on the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, is “supremely qualified” for the job, says Case Western Reserve University law professor and Volokh Conspiracy blogger Jonathan H. Adler.

In most ways, he continues, Kavanaugh is a good pick from a libertarian perspective. He’s been a widely respected judge on the D.C. Circuit for a dozen years, he’s an “originalist” when it comes to the Constitution (meaning he believes the text and meaning of laws when they are passed are central to their application), and he’s a principled critic of the administrative state (rule by agency bureaucrats rather than by Congress).

So what’s not to like if you’re libertarian? Adler, who also writes for National Review, says that Kavanaugh is a cipher on issues surrounding the rights of criminal defendants. And when it comes to the procedural rights of enemy combatants, to national security measures, and to certain aspects of executive power, the 53-year-old D.C. native may be more deferential than most libertarians would want.

In a wide-ranging conversation about the shifting balance of power on the Supreme Court, confirmation-hearing hypocrisy from Democrats and Republicans, and fact-free attacks on the Federalist Society as a secretive king-making group, Adler talks about the future of abortion and same-sex marriage and the likely outcome of Kavanaugh’s nomination.

Subscribe, rate, and review our podcast at iTunes. Listen at SoundCloud below:

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

Don’t miss a single Reason Podcast! (Archive here.)

Subscribe at iTunes (and rate and review us while you’re there!).

Subscribe to it via FeedPress.

Subscribe to it via Google Play Music.

Follow us at SoundCloud.

Subscribe at YouTube.

Like us on Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter.

President Donald Trump granted clemency today to two Oregon cattle ranchers whose case became a flashpoint in Western ranchers’ bitter dispute with the federal government over land management.

The White House announced it is granting full pardons to Dwight Hammond, 76, and his son, 49-year-old Steven Hammond. The Hammonds were convicted in 2012 of committing arson on federal lands after two intentional brush fires spread from their ranch to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property.

“The Hammonds are devoted family men, respected contributors to their local community, and have widespread support from their neighbors, local law enforcement, and farmers and ranchers across the West,” the White House said in a statement. “Justice is overdue for Dwight and Steven Hammond, both of whom are entirely deserving of these Grants of Executive Clemency.”

According to the Hammonds, one brush fire was to clear Juniper trees from their property. The other was a “back burn” to protect their winter feed from nearby wildfires. Prosecutors claimed that the first burn was actually done to cover up an illegal deer slaughter. In any case, neither burn had been approved. In the latter fire, a county-wide burn ban was in effect, and there were firefighters in the hills above who were put at risk.

A jury acquitted the Hammonds of some charges, but they were found guilty of two counts of arson. The Hammonds then found themselves facing sentencing under the expansive provisions of the federal Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which carried a five-year mandatory minimum sentence.

The judge in the Hammonds’ case originally sentenced the two to prison terms far below the minimum, but federal prosecutors appealed the sentence. As Reason‘s Jacob Sullum wrote, the case illustrates the injustices wrought by mandatory minimums:

On the face of it, those sentences were illegal, because the Hammonds had been convicted of violating 18 USC 844(f)(1), which prescribes a five-year mandatory minimum prison term for anyone who “maliciously damages or destroys, or attempts to damage or destroy, by means of fire or an explosive,” any federal property. Hogan thought it was unlikely that Congress, which enacted that mandatory minimum in 1996 as part of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, intended it to cover the accidental burning of federal land “out in the wilderness.” Such a sentence “would shock the conscience,” he said, and violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments” because it would be “grossly disproportionate to the severity of the offenses.”

Even the federal prosecutor who asked for the mandatory minimum conceded that “perhaps the best argument…the defendants have in this case is the proportionality of what they did to what their sentence is.” He admitted that the mismatch was “troubling.” The government nevertheless challenged the sentences that Hogan deemed appropriate, arguing that the law gave him no choice but to impose the mandatory minimum. In 2014 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit agreed, saying “a minimum sentence mandated by statute is not a suggestion that courts have discretion to disregard.”

The Hammonds were ordered back to prison in 2015. (They had already served their original sentences.) This caught the attention of Ammon Bundy, son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, and his coterie of disaffected ranchers and militiamen.

Although the Hammonds had little interest in the Bundy brand of activism, Ammon Bundy and his followers organized a protest in rural Burns, Oregon, in support of the Hammonds. A small group of them then took over the headquarters of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, eventually leading to the fatal police shooting of one of the occupiers.

As J.D. Tuccille wrote for Reason at the time, the entire incident was only a small peek at the long-festering resentment between western ranchers and the federal government:

Agree or not, westerners believe that they have more reason than other Americans to be angry at political leaders in Washington, D.C. The abuse of the Hammonds, with its roots in the almost colonial relationship between the federal government and the West, is a peek at why. And the goofballs occupying a cabin in Oregon, silly as they may be, are only the tip of an iceberg of discontent.

As for Ammon and Cliven Bundy, the federal case against them collapsed because of “flagrant procecutor misconduct” by U.S. Attorneys.

President Donald Trump said today that he has not talked about abortion with Judge Brett Kavanaugh, his nominee for the Supreme Court.

As Trump departed for a trip to Europe, a reporter asked if he had broached the topic in his interviews with Kavanaugh, who has served for more than a decade on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “I haven’t. I really haven’t,” Trump responded.

In the days leading to Trump’s Supreme Court announcement, many predicted the landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized first-trimester abortion at the federal level would be overturned. Though retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, he often sided with the Court’s liberal wing on hot-button social issues like abortion. And as a candidate, Trump pledged to nominate “pro-life” justices to the Court.

Kavanaugh’s nomination has sparked a panic among Democrats worried that he will oppose Roe. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) expressed that concern in a New York Times op-ed last week, and he has now said he’ll fight the judge’s nomination “with everything I have.”

Other liberal senators, including such potential presidential candidates as Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), Cory Booker (D–N.J.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.), have also alluded to Roe v. Wade in explaining their opposition to Kavanaugh.

It’s not yet clear how Kavanaugh will vote on abortion cases, though it seems likely that he leans anti-Roe. Of particular note is a dissent he wrote last year in a case that involved an illegal immigrant trying to obtain an abortion. Citing Supreme Court precedent, he argued “the Government has permissible interests in favoring fetal life, protecting the best interests of a minor, and refraining from facilitating abortion.”

But in the same dissent, he recognized that both Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe, are “precedents we must follow.” Along those same lines, he told Schumer during a 2006 confirmation hearing that he “would follow Roe v. Wade faithfully and fully,” according to The Hill.

Republicans seem to like him, but it’s far from a given that Kavanaugh will be confirmed. The GOP holds a slim 51–49 majority in the Senate, meaning that if every Democrat votes against him, Republicans can only afford one defection. And if Sen. John McCain (R–Ariz.), who’s being treated for brain cancer in Arizona, can’t make it to D.C. for the vote, Republicans might need their entire caucus to support him.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) created a list of “Drug Slang Code Words” last year, and it recently modified the list to keep up with the evolving street lingo. If the updated section for cannabis slang is any indication, the agency is trying to connect with the kids while going through a mid-life crisis.

A few of the terms, like “terpenes” and “MMJ” (short for medical marijuana), are not actually slang terms. Other names on the list, like “shoe,” appear to be completely made up. Worse, “Devil’s Lettuce” is italicized in the report, revealing that the relatively old term was only added in this year.

Meanwhile, “blunts,” “good,” and “gas” were apparently not important enough to make the cut. Either that or no one at the DEA listens to Post Malone.

Either way, here is the complete list of current cannabis slang, as collected by the hipsters at the DEA:

420

A-Bomb (marijuana mixed with heroin)

Acapulco Gold

Acapulco Red

Ace

African Black

African Bush

Airplan

Alfalfa

Alfombra

Alice B Toklas

All-Star

Almohada

Angola

Animal Cookies (hydroponic)

Arizona

Ashes

Aunt Mary

AZ

Baby

Bale

Bambalachacha

Barbara Jean

Bareta

Bash

Bazooka (marijuana mixed with cocaine paste)

BC Budd

Bernie

Bhang

Big Pillows

Biggy

Bionic (marijuana mixed with PCP)

Black Bart

Black Gold

Black Maria

Blondie

Blue Cheese

Blue Crush

Blue Dream

Blue Jeans

Blue Sage

Blueberry

Bobo Bush

Boo

Boom

Branches

Broccoli

Bud

Budda

Burritos Verdes

Bush

Cabbage

Café

Cajita

Cali

Camara

Canadian Black

Catnip

Cheeba

Chernobyl

Cheese

Chicago Black

Chicago Green

Chippie

Chistosa

Christmas Tree

Chronic

Churro

Cigars

Citrol

Cola

Colorado Cocktail

Cookie (hydroponic)

Cotorritos

Crazy Weed

Creeper Bud

Crippy

Crying Weed

Culican

Dank

Devils’s Lettuce

Dew

Diesel

Dimba

Dinkie Dow

Diosa Verde

Dirt Grass

Ditch Weed

Dizz

Djamba

Dody

Dojo

Domestic

Donna Juana

Doobie

Downtown Brown

Drag Weed

Dro (hydroponic)

Droski (hydroponic)

Dry High

Elefante Pata

Endo

Escoba

Fattie

Fine Stuff

Fire

Flower

Flower Tops

Fluffy

Fuzzy Lady

Gallina

Gallito

Garden

Garifa

Gauge

Gangster

Ganja

Gash

Gato

Ghana

Gigi (hydroponic)

Giggle Smoke

Giggle Weed

Girl Scout Cookies (hydroponic)

Gloria

Gold

Gold Leaf

Gold Star

Gong

Good Giggles

Gorilla

Gorilla Glue

Grand Daddy Purp

Grass

Grasshopper

Green

Green Crack

Green-Eyed Girl

Green Eyes

Green Goblin

Green Goddess

Green Mercedes Benz

Green Paint

Green Skunk

Greenhouse

Grenuda

Greta

Guardada

Gummy Bears

Gunga

Hairy Ones

Hash

Hawaiian

Hay

Hemp

Herb

Hierba

Holy Grail

Homegrown

Hooch

Hoja

Humo

Hydro

Indian Boy

Indian Hay

Jamaican Gold

Jamaican Red

Jane

Jive

Jolly Green

Jon-Jem

Joy Smoke

Juan Valdez

Juanita

Jungle Juice

Kaff

Kali

Kaya

KB

Kentucky Blue

KGB

Khalifa

Kiff

Killa

Kilter

King Louie

Kona Gold

Kumba

Kush

Laughing Grass

Laughing Weed

Leaf

Lechuga

Lemon-Lime

Leña

Liamba

Lime Pillows

Little Green Friends

Little Smoke

Llesca

Loaf

Lobo

Loco Weed

Loud

Love Nuggets

Love Weed

Lucas

M.J.

Machinery

Macoña

Mafafa

Magic Smoke

Manhattan Silver

Manteca

Maracachafa

Maria

Marimba

Mariquita

Mary Ann

Mary Jane

Mary Jones

Mary Warner

Mary Weaver

Matchbox

Matraca

Maui Wowie

Meg

Method

Mersh

Mexican Brown

Mexicali Haze

Mexican Green

Mexican Red

MMJ

Mochie (hydroponic)

Moña

Monte

Moocah

Mootie

Mora

Morisqueta

Mostaza

Mota

Mother

Mowing the Lawn

Muggie

My Brother

Narizona

Northern Lights

Nug

O-Boy

OG

O.J.

Owl

Paja

Palm

Paloma

Palomita

Panama Cut

Panama Gold

Panama Red

Pakalolo

Parsley

Pasto

Pasture

Peliroja

Pelosa

Phoenix

Pine

Pink Panther

Pintura

Plant

Platinum Cookies (hydroponic)

Platinum Jack

Pocket Rocket

Popcorn

Porro

Pot

Pretendo

Prop 215

Puff

Purple Haze

Purple OG

Queen Ann’s Lace

Red Hair

Ragweed

Railroad Weed

Rainy Day Woman

Rasta Weed

Red Cross

Red Dirt

Reefer

Reggie

Repollo

Righteous Bush

Root

Rope

Rosa Maria

Salt and Pepper

Santa Marta

Sasafras

Sativa

Shoes

Sinsemilla

Shmagma

Shora

Shrimp

Shwag

Skunk

Skywalker (hydroponic)

Smoke

Smoochy Woochy Poochy

Smoke Canada

Sour OG

Spliff

Stems

Sticky

Stink Weed

Sugar Weed

Sweet Lucy

Tahoe (hydroponic)

Tangy OG

Terp

Terpenes

Tex-Mex

Texas Tea

Tigitty

Tila

Tims

Top Shelf

Tosca

Train Wreck

Trees

Trinity OG

Tweeds

Valle

Wake and Bake

Weed

Weed Tea

Wet (marijuana dipped in PCP)

Wheat

White-Haired Lady

Wooz

Yellow Submarine

Yen Pop

Yerba

Yesca

Young Girls

Zacate

Zacatecas

Zambi

Zip

Zoom (marijuana mixed with PCP)

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is a movie about tools and technology, evolution and intelligence, finding God and, perhaps, becoming one. It is a cold and brilliant masterpiece about human potential and the mystery of consciousness.

The 1968 science fiction epic relies on a non-traditional narrative structure to trace the arc of human evolution—from the moment a pre-human first used a bone to crush an enemy to a futuristic space age, in which man has conquered the solar system and developed powerful artificial intelligence, which eventually decides to turn on its creators. The use of tools both to advance individual goals and aid the survival of the species, the movie seems to say, is what defines our species, what separates us from the animals. Technology—the struggle to create and control it—is what makes us human.

So it is perhaps a bit ironic that the best way to see 2001 is in a format that is now ancient, at least as far as cinema is concerned. For its 50th anniversary, the film is playing in limited engagements in a 70mm “unrestored” version overseen by Christopher Nolan, the director of Interstellar, Inception, and the Dark Knight trilogy.

Nolan is perhaps the most prominent proponent of the notion that movies should be made and viewed on film—actual physical film, not digital—and that they should rely on digital trickery as little as possible. He has dubbed his restoration of 2001 “unrestored” because it was made using an entirely analog process derived from the original photo negative. “This is a true photochemical film recreation. There are no digital tricks, remastered effects, or revisionist edits,” Nolan said when announcing its release. “This is the unrestored film—that recreates the cinematic event that audiences experienced fifty years ago.”

I caught a screening at AFI Silver in Maryland over the weekend. While I can’t speak to its faithfulness to the original presentation, I can say that the new print makes for a truly astonishing viewing experience. It is a testament to the enduring power of analog cinema. It is also a reminder of the ways advances in film technology can help keep old formats alive.

For the uninitiated, 70mm refers to the size of the film used to project the image; the bigger the film, the more information it holds. Even during the era in which analog projection was standard, most movies were projected on 35mm. A 70mm print thus displays twice as much visual information as standard film. That makes a particularly big difference on a motion picture like 2001, which was originally shot on Super Panavision 70, a large-format photography system designed in the 1950s to capture especially epic widescreen images.

Nolan’s print was made from an interpositive—an intermediate stage in the film development process—that was produced using the original camera negative and based on Kubrick’s personal notes. From there, the goal was to produce a clean print that otherwise changed as little as possible. “None of what we did was interpretive, we didn’t correct mistakes, we didn’t say ‘maybe he would have liked to do it this way,'” Nolan told the Los Angeles Times.

The historically minded formalism extends to other aspects of the presentation as well. The film begins with a musical overture that starts before the curtains open; there’s an intermission about an hour and a half in. The overture helps set the mood, preparing you for the film to come. The intermission, which creates a brief cliffhanger, gives the movie a chance to breath, giving you a chance to contemplate what you’ve seen. You can think of these details as the cinematic equivalent of a cocktail garnish; they don’t change the movie itself, but they frame the film, subtly altering the viewing experience.

The result is a chance not only to see a classic film on the big screen, in the company of others, but to see it as the director wanted you to see it, or as close as you are likely to get a half-century later. It’s a sort of cinematic time machine—a movie about the future, seen as it was in the past.

And what a sight it is. I have watched 2001 in any number of smaller formats over the years—on cable, on VHS, on DVD and Blu-ray—but on the big screen, in 70mm, it is an entirely new experience. It is bigger, of course, and more enveloping; tiny details that are difficult to see on even the largest television suddenly become visible. The immense and lonely blackness of space is immersive in a way that no home viewing experience could ever replicate.

But the difference is more than sheer scale. Unlike digital projection, which breaks up the picture into discrete bits of information, film provides an unbroken image that emphasizes texture and feel. It’s a tactile experience that creates a sense of intimacy with the work. Think of the difference between viewing a high-quality photo of a great painting and seeing the original in person at a museum. There’s no distance between you and the work. At times I found it genuinely overwhelming. And as I left the theater, I thought: This is truly the best way to see the movie.

I am not a Luddite or a technophobe, but occasionally I sound a little like one when it comes to film. I prefer to see a picture like 2001 in a premodern format designed for a different cinematic era, and I can occasionally be found grumbling about the prevalence of weightless computer-generated imagery and photography in modern blockbusters.

Analog cinema enthusiasts like myself often complain about the dominance of digital projection and small-screen viewings, which rob movies of their big-screen majesty. But I think we need to recognize that newer tech didn’t obliterate the glories of analog; if anything, it has helped keep it alive.

A throwback viewing experience like this one is only available because of the profusion of formats that have kept the film available over the years; I might never have been able to see it in the first place, much less view it so many times, if not for the multitude of subpar format options that made it accessible. The same goes for the movie’s millions of other fans. A 70mm screening is a premium experience, supported by decades of relatively crappy experiences with VHS and DVD.

Indeed, without all those lesser, more convenient viewings, I doubt I would have fully appreciated the enormous difference that a 70mm print makes. It’s fitting, then, that a movie about man’s complicated relationship to technology is so profoundly enhanced by a presentation that emphasizes the film’s relationship to technology.

Where does Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh stand on the First Amendment? Free speech advocates are likely to be disappointed by the answer when they examine Kavanaugh’s vote in an important 2014 case.

That case is American Meat Institute v. Department of Agriculture. At issue was a federal regulation that forced the meat industry to include “country of origin” information on meat packaging. Under Supreme Court precedent, such regulations of “commercial speech” can only pass constitutional muster if they serve a substantial government interest. For example, as the Court declared in Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinarian Counsel of the Ohio Supreme Court (1985), “the States and the Federal Government are free to prevent the dissemination of commercial speech that is false, deceptive, or misleading.”

In American Meat Institute, a group of livestock producers, feedlot operators, and meat packers challenged the “country of origin” regulation on First Amendment grounds, arguing that it failed under Zauderer because it amounted to compelled speech that did not advance a permissible regulatory goal.

The federal government ultimately prevailed, with a divided en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejecting that First Amendment challenge. D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh concurred.

“I agree with the majority opinion that the First Amendment does not bar those longstanding and commonplace country-of-origin labeling requirements,” Kavanaugh wrote. To be sure, he conceded, “the Government cannot advance a traditional anti-deception, health, or safety interest in this case because a country-of-origin disclosure requirement obviously does not serve those interests.” But instead of stopping there, Kavanaugh then proceeded to find a different way for the government to win. “Country-of-origin labeling is justified,” he asserted, “by the Government’s historically rooted interest in supporting American manufacturers, farmers, and ranchers as they compete with foreign manufacturers, farmers, and ranchers.” Kavanaugh saw economic protectionism as the way to shield the law from the First Amendment.

For a different perspective on these issues, contrast Kavanaugh’s permissive concurrence with the sharp dissent filed by Judge Janice Rogers Brown. “If, as Jeremy Bentham once quipped, a fanciful argument may be dismissed as ‘nonsense upon stilts,'” she wrote, “the court’s analysis in this case can best be described as delirium on a pogo stick.”

In Brown’s view, American Meat Institute was a case of judicial abdication. “When we are dealing with fundamental First Amendment protections, as we are here, the burden is on the government, and it is the government that must assert substantial interests,” Brown wrote. Yet “not only has [the Department of Agriculture] failed to raise or support any protectionist motive, it has, in fact, consistently denied one.”

In other words, Kavanaugh had no business throwing the government a lifeline. As Brown explained, when the First Amendment is at stake, federal judges are supposed to thoroughly scrutinize the law at issue; they are not supposed to bend over backwards in an effort to uphold the restriction.

For free speech advocates, Brett Kavanaugh’s concurrence in American Meat Institute represents cause for concern.

Related: Brett Kavanaugh on Obamacare and Judicial Restraint

New York Giants defensive tackle A.J. Francis took to Twitter furiously after the “pieces of garbage” at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) caused his dead mother’s ashes to spill all over his clothes.

Francis, whose mother died unexpectedly late last month, posted a photo showing several articles of clothing covered in what appear to be ashes. A TSA “Notice of Baggage Inspection” lies on top of his clothes. He wasn’t happy:

Hey you pieces of shit at @TSA next time you assholes feel the need to go thru my mother’s ashes for no reason, make sure you close it back so her remains aren’t spilled on all my clothes… the least you pieces of garbage can do is your fucking job pic.twitter.com/GcJDMXvWfO

— FRAN¢ (@AJFrancis410) July 9, 2018

The TSA apologized in a pair of tweets, but it wasn’t enough for Francis:

Under all circumstances fuck yourself https://t.co/afrC9YuNWQ

— FRAN¢ (@AJFrancis410) July 9, 2018

Francis later noted that he has no issue with the TSA inspecting his luggage. It was the agency’s inability to ensure the ashes wouldn’t spill everywhere that he called “the most asinine & irresponsible shit I have ever seen.”

The TSA’s website suggests that passengers transporting cremated remains use containers “made of a lighter weight material” in order to “facilitate screening.” But regardless of the container type, the agency says that “Out of respect for the deceased, TSA officers will not open a container.” The agency also claims to “treat crematory remains with respect.”