Back in the USA mailbag

Alternate Floridas, shifting extremes, and FTC priority-setting

I am back in the land of the free and the home of iced coffee, which I am drinking plenty of because I am bad at jet lag.

A quick housekeeping note: we heard from a commenter who was upset because he felt he had been unfairly one-day-banned and wanted to know our moderation policy. The short answer is that we don’t have a super specific policy because we don’t have the bandwidth to enforce it with the level of consistency required of such a specific policy (though Milan, who moderates comments, has outlined his general philosophy here). Will that sometimes feel unfair? Perhaps! But none of us are children. If you do or say something inappropriate, you may experience negative consequences, and the fact that someone else may have gotten away with something similar is annoying but not entirely relevant. Everyone should do their best to be polite and constructive.

Now some good news on my radar: A new bill in the D.C. Council to crack down on fake tags and MPD’s new chief wants to address …