Ranxerox

12 hours ago, Tjack said:

  
Business wise, I wonder what Marvel’s going to do?  He so nailed the character in at least three movies I for one can’t imagine anybody else taking the role, but BP was a big moneymaker and a sequel is already in the pipeline

9 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

They could pass the mantle to someone else. I don't see anyone else ever playing T'Challa in the MCU. He was as much the character as Robert Downey Jr. was Tony Stark. Seems like the only play they have.

 

They could also just drop the character from the MCU, but I don't think letting Wakanda die with the actor is a good idea, as there were too many other great Wakandan characters, and it'd be a step back from what they accomplished for representing black actors on screen.

I don't know.  From a story stand point, it is pretty straight forward.  Shuri is next in line to be the Black Panther and has worn that mantle in the comic books.  Moreover, I think that Letitia Wright has it in her to carry a big budget film.  However, without Chadwick Boseman there to do the handover and the shadow of his too young death hanging over picture, I don't see people emotionally accepting the film.

In order to make it work, they would need to the film about loss, pain, grief and ultimately rebuilding from there.  Are people willing to go to a super hero film where they won't just be expected to just get a little misty-eyed, but instead will be called upon to actually cry and cry a lot?

8 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

Way too young to leave us. Pretty shocking news. He'll be missed. The world is losing out on all of the great work he had ahead of him.

 

Yeah, last night I was struck by the death of the man, but now I am thinking of the death of the actor.  This is a man who played both Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall and did a great job on both of them.  In the future he might have played Mohammed Ali and Frederick Douglas, and I am certain that given the opportunity he would done a great job with those roles too.  That is a mind blowing amount of talent.

I am at a loss of words.  

23 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

This retaliatory behavior is a big part of this larger problem, PD essentially acting as a crime syndicate.  If we want to talk about olive branches and trust, things like this are absolute cancer to trust.

Could you add some context for this post?  I have no idea what a ring video is or how it relates to anything at all.

29 minutes ago, death tribble said:

6 Million cases in America

10 minutes ago, Cancer said:

That's one in 5.5 Americans.

Move the decimal place one over to the right.  Still a really large number.

Well, I was hoping for Tammy Duckworth, and my wife wanted Valdez Demings.  Susan Rice and Karen Bass would also have been fine choices.  The Republicans have attacks lined up against Rice and Bass, but I don't think that you should let your opponents choose who can and cannot be your VP pick.

7 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

So, are Texas and Florida exempt from paying the National Guard?

 

Is this the California being punished by being denied assistance for the wildfires only in reverse?

 

I'm asking for people outside the echo chamber here - have you heard of any incidents like this from other Presidents?  Denying/providing federal resources purely for the sake of voting?  Is this a 'normal' thing, or is it literally as abnormal as I thought?

 

 

I'm not even going to suggest the denial of the coronavirus was a political machination as a 'blue state' issue until we have corroboration, just those two that come straight from the horse's mouth.

Not sure what you are talking about.  Trump threatened to pull federal aid in fighting wild fires back in November, but like so many things with Trump nothing came of it.  Has he done something more recently?

Yesterday, I discovered the Republican Voters Against Trump channel on Youtube.  I binged watched it and found it a balm for my soul.

Prior to Trump, I believed that, while Democrats and Republicans argued about many things, they actually agreed on far more than they disagreed.  That while there might be Republican values and Democratic values, there were American values which were greater than both.  Then came Trump.  Trump has no American values or values at all that aren't self serving.  Even after Trump's election, I held out hope for common shared American values.  Maybe they had been just voting against Hillary, who had after all been demonized by right leaning media for decades, or maybe they had simply fallen for Trump's con.  In time they would see through it and turn on him.  Then about two years into Trump's presidency, I learned that Trump enjoyed a same party approval rating of over 80%.  More of his own party approved of his performance than any president in the history of polling at that point in their first term.

This was quietly devastating for me.  By this point Trump had shown his true colors so many times, that it seemed inconceivable that by the majority of Republicans would not have seen who he really was.  Yet they loved him.  Damn, the man was out screwing porn stars when his youngest son was 4 months old.  That didn't matter.  Or it did matter in a positive direction.  The average Republican male must be wishing that he had super model wife and was able to screw porn stars on the side as well.  And what was the average Republican woman thinking?  That if they had a billionaire husband who kept them in a gold plated penthouse, he could screw as many other women as he wanted?  I don't know.  Still, they clearly loved Trump.  Perhaps they had been waiting their entire lives for a president that would show them by example that they could be selfish ***holes and that was all right.  I still haven't come to terms with the Trump presidency and the Cult of Trump.

Back to Republican Voters Against Trump.  I don't think that I would agree many of their specific political views, but I recognize in them what I used to consider common American values.  In them I see fellow American citizens and worthy political opposition.  After the removal of Trump and his congressional enabler (something they wish is for as badly as I do) it is voters like these that could potentially restore the Republican party to something worth having around.  It is good to know that they are out there.

2 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

 

You're probably right and we're 39 days plus incubation period away from finding out.

I hope not.  Thirty-nine days is plenty of time for them to change their minds .  Fingers crossed.

14 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

Looks like Texas is starting to turn the corner.  Not the smoothest run by a long shot because people here seem mask adverse, but it looks like we're going to be out of the pandemic zone pretty soon.

Very glad to hear that.  However, if you reopen your schools, you will turn back the other way.

40 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

Man were the political folks wrong on this.  Top ten states are California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia, Illinois, Arizona, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Louisiana.   

New York City has enough cases to be its own entry. So how many of these states are blue. I know NC, GA, FLA,  and Texas aren't.

The list is a bit different if you look at total cases per capita, which is a more useful number in determining your own risk as resident of the state.  In deaths per capita, the top ten states are Louisiana, Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Mississippi, Rhode Island, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and the District of Colombia. Of those ten only New Jersey, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia are blue. As pointed out Florida is a swing state.  The other six states generally vote Republican.

7 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

 

The whole case feels like a politically motivated activity.  Missouri has one of the strongest, if not THE strongest, Castle Doctrines in the United States and in normal times the couple probably could have shot the people breaking into their property without getting in trouble.

The people didn't break into their property.  They broke into the property of the gated community in which they lived, but not into their personal property.

1 hour ago, Tom Cowan said:

hmm

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/the-cdc-changed-its-advice-about-kids-and-coronavirus-right-before-recommending-schools-reopen-181605702.html

To avoid talk of the GOP convention that might be overly political for this thread, jump to 1:13 video to get into the school reopening part.

So, I just put in for a week of time off right after the election.  You know, just in case, our democracy depends on 2 to 4 million people showing up in Washington DC and demanding that the vote be honestly reported and it's result honored.  

I'm a middle age, middle class, white guy and my student activist 30+ years behind me.  It is bizarre that I would even have to consider the need for such a thing, much less that I have requested time off over 3 months in advance to cover the thing.

So hopefully in November, my wife and I will take a short fall vacation and laugh about the silly  reason for the time off request.  Otherwise, if anybody want to carpool to DC, I have an entire country to cross, I can probably arrange my route to pick you up.

9 hours ago, Old Man said:

Assassin disguised as FedEx driver guns down family of federal judge assigned to Epstein case

 

Guess they couldn't be bothered to make it look like a suicide this time?

Different they.  E[stein's (alleged) killing would have been to stop him from giving names.  The case the judge has been assigned is about money.  Different parties, different goals, different methods.

3 minutes ago, Old Man said:

It’s possible that the Russians are actually the current regime. Many inexplicable actions suddenly make sense when viewed through the lens of “What would Putin want?” 

True, but I would still rather not make it official.

22 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Please? Anyone?

Are you sure?  Russia and China seems to be the obvious takers on this offer.

5 hours ago, pinecone said:

Didn't it happen at the first millenium? (1000 a.d.)?

Actually, it would have been about 70 AD.  That was when the Second Temple fell which was one of the big end of day prophesies (Matthew 24:2), and was still early enough that some of the people people Jesus spoke to after his resurrection would have been alive to see his return as promised (Matthew 16:28).

On 7/14/2020 at 10:14 PM, csyphrett said:

Has anything happened about the guy who got killed by the sheriffs department in Los Angeles? 

CES

3 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific.  There were two within 2 days.

I'm pretty sure csyphrett was referring to Andres Guardado.  Here is the Wikipedia article on the killing.  It is seems to be fairly up to date.

Link

Trump's Enthusiasm Gap

10 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

 

It's possible that Oklahoma just lost about 1/2 of it's state and local tax base with this decision.  As a potential precedent this could be very messy for whichever party wins the 2020 elections.

 

Well, no. Only Native Americans living on Native land get the tax break, and as of last count only about 9% of Oklahoma residents are Native American.  Some of that 9% doubtlessly live in the western part of the state and thus would go on paying Oklahoma state income tax.  Also, Native Americans as a group are economically disadvantaged and thus don't have all that much income to tax.  So, I would be very surprised if Oklahoma lost even 5% of it's tax base. 

On 7/9/2020 at 10:58 PM, ScottishFox said:

And, in the 2020 is Year of Endless Chaos category, The Supreme Court just gave half of Oklahoma back to the Muskogee nation.  That includes Tulsa and a very large part of Oklahoma.  Nearly two thousand convicted criminals will potentially be released as they were illegally (now) convicted by the State of Oklahoma on land they did not have jurisdiction on.

 

Everything in Orange goes bye-bye and is no longer Oklahoma because the treaty wasn't terminated properly.  Gorsuch was in favor of the 5-4 ruling.  Another proof he's going by  what he believes the law says and not what Trump wants.

Supreme Court Oklahoma Decision Explained

6 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

The biblical story the Christian right uses to defend Trump

Apropos of nothing, King Cyrus is not mentioned a single time in the New Testament.

15 hours ago, assault said:

Puh-leaze. You don't play football in Murka.

 

This is so not true.  We play it, and our women's team is the world's best.

We just don't watch it.

6 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

 

From what I've learned so far on this guy.  It seems he entered the freeway through an exit ramp (weird).  It's also possible the police failed to close an on-ramp and aren't admitting it.  He doesn't seem to have the kind of history that would make him *want* to run down protesters.

 

My guess is he was simply speeding at 1:40am in the morning and then ran into a very strange situation.  Three out of four lanes were blocked off by cars.  Two of the cars were black and all of them had their lights off.  So he probably doesn't see them until he's kind of close and tries to swerve into the only un-blocked lane.  As he does that he probably doesn't see the protesters (all dressed in dark clothes) until he's right on top of them and then swerves to miss as many as possible.  In the video you can hear his tires squealing and see the brake lights glow on the road behind the car for quite awhile.

 

Additionally, it doesn't seem he fled the scene.  He pulled over just passed the area of impact and the protesters attacked his car so he drove further down the road and waited for the police who then took him into custody.

 

I'm not finding collaboration that he did not flee the scene or that protesters attacked his car.  Everything that I have read has state troopers claiming to have pulled him over and describing him as “reserved and sullen”.  Maybe the video from the Ian Miles Cheong tweet substantiates the claim, but you posted a screen shot instead of a link.  I don't have a Twitter account, and I am not going to get one just so I can go far enough back in Cheong's Twitter feed to see the 24 second video.