Ranxerox

9 hours ago, archer said:

<snip>

Parties, PAC's, and individuals are required to donate to specific candidates rather than go out and spend their money independently.

 

Any donations to a candidate are re-directed to the government until the government funding of the candidate is repaid. Any excess above that is retained for the candidate to spend on his own campaign in this election. Any donation money which isn't spent during this election is given to the government, no carryover to the next election cycle: use it or lose it.

<snip>

Any law that seeks to seriously limit how people. PACs, individual or corporations choose to use their money for political speech is going to run afoul will Citizen United v FEC and be dead on arrival as soon as it is challenged in court.

Also, your idea of re-directing campaign contributions to the government will almost certainly be challenged as an illegal taking of property not covered in the government's normal taxation powers.

23 minutes ago, death tribble said:

I do not believe that they will kill off Harley Quinn, Peacemaker, Captain Boomerang or Rick Flag in the forthcoming movie. I read an earlier story with the Squad where the Weasel killed the Thinker and that I am expecting in this. Nathan Fillion's character and Polka Dot Man are begging to be casualties. The rest could be expendable, Michael Rooker plays characters that get killed so expect him to die.

But as the enemy will be Starro, this could be interesting with the Squad fighting each other.

I don't really like Peacemaker (I have the issues of Vigilante when he turned up first in DC) but with Jon Cena playing him, they'll want a separate film for him or to use him in a sequel.

 

King Shark is an immortal and he is being played by Sylvester Stallone, so I think he is pretty safe also. 

33 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

I've come across enough online porn to believe this would actually do it for some people.

 

Oh, yes.  You just came across it.  Minding your own business, searching for home repair videos, and there is was.  Absolutely. 😇

29 minutes ago, DreadDomain said:

Having watched and loved it, I would agree with this. Now what is a "reasonable run time" and how much of a problem it is, is debatable.

Four hours for a theatrical release is too much but what is reasonable? Three hours like End Game? 3h25 like Return of the King?

 

I suspect that constrained by a theatrical release (which the Snyder Cut wasn't), it could have easily been edited down by 30 minutes. By a full hour? Not sure.

I think that they could have gotten down to 3 and half hours like Titanic.  Ditch the Martian Manhunter scenes which while cool Easter eggs didn't add much to the movie at hand, and Knightmare, which since we already know Darkseid is on his way is not really necessary.

At 3½ IMO Zack Snyder's JL would have been positively enough received to have saved the franchise.  The question is would that have been a good thing.  There is something to be said for all the DC movies existing in a common multiverse, but not necessarily the same universe.  Personally, I don't want to see Captain Marvel's body crucified next to the gate to Darkseid's fortress.  BOP Harley Quinn does not need to be the same one as the Suicide Squad movies even though they are played by the same actress.  

Yes, having seen Snyder's JL, I would kind of like to see it's sequel.  However, in the name of prying the DCCU away from his grimdark view of reality, I think I might be willing to forego the experience 

7 hours ago, Dr.Device said:

I just received my second Moderna injection. Soon I will be invincible!

I assumed that you already were.

1 hour ago, Spence said:

 

I had resigned myself to never ever listening to another Podcast because literally everyone of the ones I had tried were utter garbage.  So called reviews that consisted of inane babble and never seems to actually talk about the advertised subject.   For game review casts the most detailed "review" was usually "Uuuuh IT HARD.  ME NO LIKE.  Reading is hard".

 

If you haven't already, you might want to check out the Casually Comics channel on Youtube.

14 hours ago, zslane said:

I think it is a bit disingenuous for people to call the theatrical version of the movie "Joss-tice League", as if Whedon was the visionary mastermind behind what we got. The real culprits were WB execs who couldn't keep their meddling fingers out of the pie, even when Snyder was in charge. Whedon was merely the knife with which they butchered what Snyder had begun. Geoff Johns gleefully engineered Snyder's removal and convinced Whedon to take the reins for a nice, fat paycheck. Whedon was never going to have the time or resources to make what anyone would truly call "his Justice League". His greatest failure, in my view, was in agreeing to the job in the first place, and putting himself in a position to take all the blame for what ended up on screen.

 

The fact that the "Snyder Cut" is, by many accounts, merely different--but not necessarily better--is testament to the fact that the movie was flawed at its foundations, and that no amount of re-working was ever going to save it and make it great. It seems to me that any glowing praise for it is coming primarily from DC fanboys who are desperate for a win here. I would not be surprised if the Snyder Cut fades from memory and is forgotten in a few years as WB moves on to the next series of disconnected movies of inconsistent quality.

The original theatrical release had a Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 40% and an audience 71%, whereas Zack Snyder's version scores are 73% and 96% respectively.  I have read review of Zack Snyder's version that ultimately give it a thumbs down, but still call it better than the theatrical release.

Of course to call it better than the theatrical release is to damn with faint praise.  I prefer to praise it with faint damnation, and say that it isn't as good as Avengers: Endgame.  I found Snyder's version to be a good movie on it's own merits.  However, where A:E gained lots of power by referencing back to plot points made previous Marvel movies, both versions of Justice League are hampered WB rush to create something like The Avengers without laying down the groundwork.   As a result the movie has to do bunch of heavy lifting that should have been done by an Aquaman movie and a Flash movie and a Cyborg movie.  IMO, the Zack Snyder does a fairly good job with this lifting, and the DC universe would be in a much stronger position if it had been the film released back in 2017.  Nonetheless, it could have been much better. 

2 hours ago, tkdguy said:

I just found out one of my cousins has COVID. She's in the Philippines, which doesn't have the vaccine.

I hope she is doing alright.

21 hours ago, Ranxerox said:

 

The standard for negligence in this case would be failure to act as an ordinary, prudent energy provider would under the circumstances.  So if they can show that energy providers abiding by industry standards would have weather proofed their equipment given the same chance of facing serious cold, then in theory they have a case that they can win. 

 

Of course it is Texas, and they all but worship big oil there, so it is likely to be an uphill fight even if legal negligence did occur.

 

 

20 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

All but??

*Shrug*  Well, I know that they regularly give human sacrifices to the oil industry, but mostly they are people that they want to get rid of anyway.  So, does that qualify as actual religious devotion?  I'm not an expert on these things.

13 hours ago, Pariah said:

 

 

To be fair, there's also football.

Acts of ritualistic violence, stadiums full of chanting and cheering throngs, colorful ceremonial costumes, so yes, clearly religious ceremony.  Who am I to contradict untold numbers of future archeologist and anthropologist?   

37 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

I wonder if a class action lawsuit can be filed against the Texas power companies;  it's their fault their systems weren't prepared for an event like this.  Not just from the cost issues, but the overall costs associated with such a failure to maintain their system.

 

Fat chance, but one can dream.

The standard for negligence in this case would be failure to act as an ordinary, prudent energy provider would under the circumstances.  So if they can show that energy providers abiding by industry standards would have weather proofed their equipment given the same chance of facing serious cold, then in theory they have a case that they can win. 

Of course it is Texas, and they all but worship big oil there, so it is likely to be an uphill fight even if legal negligence did occur.

The Yazidis Finally Get To Bury Their Slain

7 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

Yes and no?  It's not like futures, or shorts, the money they put in is the maximum owed.  So if they lose it all, unless they were raiding their own investments/coffers...

I know, but if they got in after the stock was already on the way up they could lose most of what they invested after the bubble pops.  Not a real problem as long as they were only using money that they could afford to lose, but people aren't always sensible like that.

33 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

This is a relief to me.  I was wondering how many of these reddit investors were going to be left holding the bag when the game that they were playing with the hedge funds ended and prices returned to some semblance of sanity.

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

Marvel is putting the last member of the new Krakoan Age X-Men team to a vote. You have until February 2 to choose from:

 

• Armor
• Banshee
• Boom-Boom
• Cannonball
• Forge
• Marrow
• Polaris
• Strong Guy
• Sunspot
• Tempo

 

I think the rest of the team is:

 

Cyclops

Jean Grey

Vulcan

Havok

Rachel

Cable

One Other Omnipresent Mutant

 

Leaning toward Polaris myself, because I have a thing for green hair.

Since the rest of the team is extremely white and mostly guys, I think Tempo would be their best choice.  Not sure why they want all three of the Summers boys on one team.

23 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

You're not making the case that Feige is good at portraying heroes very effectively here.  That's Iron Man's entire story arc, cleaning up the problems he created and whining about it.

 

And Thor lived for millennia, in that time his sister went berserk and nearly killed all Asgard once already, he is not unfamiliar with the concept of loss and war and death.

No, she didn't.  He didn't even know that he had a sister.  Her first attack on Asgard happened either before he was born or when he was very young.

Finally Revealed, Fox News Wrongful Death Settlement For The Killing Of Seth Rich

2 hours ago, archer said:

 

Now as far as the bear spray, pepper spray, tear gas, two way radios with earpieces, zip ties, and guns go: for many people that qualifies as a list of random items which people keep within arms reach of their computer rather than unusual gear.

 

I do research as a hobby. 

 

One of the things I've researched is survivalist and prepper culture (I've likely had conversations with at least some of the rioters.)

 

How about pipe bombs?  Does your average prepper have a couple of those laying around?

2 hours ago, archer said:

I don't think it was a deliberate coup attempt.

 

The people breaking into the Capitol building obviously had no idea what to do after they got inside or what they wanted. They took selfies, looted a little, and stood around gawking like tourists. They weren't breaking down doors and dragging out lawmakers to stand trial in a kangaroo court or anything like that.

 

Some of the people who stormed the Capitol came prepared to take hostages.  What the frell were they doing if not attempting a coup?

1 hour ago, Matt the Bruins said:

 

The opening scene and mid-credits scene were awesome, and pretty much worth the cost of subscribing to HBO Max for me this month. (Once I binge watch Doom Patrol and the first season of Westworld we'll see if I want to keep it around longer.)

I also got HBOMax to watch WW84, but after hearing about the download problems I opted to watch Doom Patrol instead.  I have only watched the first two episodes so far, but IMHO they were excellent.  If the show maintains this level of quality, it is going to wind up on my list of favorite TV shows.

2 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

 

I hope you use locally-sourced lumber and recycled metal.

Darn!  Now I have to get an entirely new set of price quotes.

2 hours ago, Hermit said:

Honestly, #$#$# like this makes me totally understand angry French peasants

 

Just now?  I have been getting price quotes for guillotine construction from carpenters, and was about to set up a KickStarter fund to pay for them.*

* - Just joking, Dan. 

16 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Catchy line for a song, but someone forgot to tell Jimmy Carter.

Whenever Mr Carter passes it will still be too early.

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think that Marvel does best when they take advantage of good writing and ideas rather than rewriting existing characters with a niche category.  It has to do with what your goal and ideas are: are we doing this because we think it will attract new readers by pandering, or because we have great ideas and great stories to tell? 

 

Thor's sales had been down for a while because it was bad writing and often bad art for years.  A fresh character always attracts lots of readers, for a while, but without the great writing and ideas they always fade away.  Overall Marvel's sales on all their titles, even their best-selling ones, are so low they'd have been straight up canceled in the 90s.

Please show me some numbers.  The numbers that I found (link) only go to 1997, and they show an industry that has had good years and bad years but generally sells about 80 million physical copies a year, but has really grown their TPB and digital copy business.  In overview the industry appears to be doing fine.

15 hours ago, Old Man said:

The city of L.A. just went on the strictest lockdown since March: all residents are required to stay in their homes except when conducting essential activities or essential employment.  All travel is otherwise banned.  All gatherings with people outside the household are banned.

 

On the one hand, it's awful.  On the other hand, what took them so long?

Well, the scary part is that in the continental United States our cases per capita is rate is the 16th lowest.  So there are 34 states doing worse than us*.

* - If the math doesn't seem to work out, it is because I am including DC as one of the places doing better than us.

Lot of good suggestions already.

Any collection of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass

Getz/Gilberto by, well, Stan Getz and João Gilberto