Ranxerox

In honor of Martin Luther King Day--
 
I Dream A World
By Langston Hughes
 
I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!
 

Highly mutated COVID variant ‘Pirola’ JN.1 is spawning. Its descendants are climbing the charts, as the global death toll mounts

I had some significant issues with the Black Adam movie, but I loved the Justice Society. Vivid characters, great chemistry between them, impressive powers and action scenes. IMHO a movie based around them would have been much more interesting and entertaining than what we got.

In the distant future, assuming humanity gets a distant future, archeologists will simply assume that is a sculpture of a goddess. 

There was not anything to explain.  The idea that the super soldier formula slowed aging was never introduced into the MCU.

There was not anything to explain.  The idea that the super soldier formula slowed aging was never introduced into the MCU.

There was not anything to explain.  The idea that the super soldier formula slowed aging was never introduced into the MCU.

I found this meme on the Internet -- apparently it's been floating for a few years. No author attributed, but it's a pithy summation:
 
“Trump is the poor man’s idea of a rich man, the weak man’s idea of a strong man, and the stupid man’s idea of a smart man.” ~ Anonymous

Recently (like a month ago) finished Adam Oyebanji's Braking Day.  It was a random library sale purchase that cost me less than a dollar and the author was completely unfamiliar to me, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover it was quite good, easily one of the best hard-ish scifi novels I've read in a couple of decades now while also having compelling character development and good pacing throughout.  Set on a very plausible generation ship that's finally approaching its destination (as in, the current crop of five year-olds will hopefully be walking planetside as young adults), the writer did a very good job of unfolding the setting gradually without awkward exposition dumps.  There's relatively little technological hand-waving going on, the culture of the ship and the Sol system it left behind feels pretty natural.  Without spoiling anything there are no objective "bad guys" in the whole book, just very different opinions of what is and isn't tolerable.  That's made all the better by the fact that are more (a lot more) than just two viewpoints in opposition, and the nuances of how they clash and compromise is what puts this book above the norm in my experience.
 
My only disappointment is that the author is fairly new and doesn't seem to have done any other scifi (although his other book is a mystery novel that's gotten good reviews, and I'll be keeping an eye out for it).  Braking Day doesn't end on a cliffhanger by any means, but there are many questions about what the status quo going forward could develop into and it could easily grow into a series.  At the very least it would be nice to see how the colonization mission goes, although the main plot here doesn't focus on it - it's more of an impending pressure on everyone mostly lurking in the background.
 
Heartily recommend.  Do not be put off by the lead characters being quite young.  They're not children, the environment they've grown up in has made them serious and thoughtful, and this is not some vapid young adult book.  There's also nothing in the book I'd call "agenda grinding" in any direction, unless perhaps you're an actual artificial intelligence in which case some attitudes might be pretty offensive.
 
I've been re-reading Jack Vance's Demon Princes series since then, and it says something that as much as I enjoy reveling in his unique writing style Braking Day is still the best thing I've read this year.

Moms for Liberty founder Rachel Ziegler gets absolutely roasted by a former Florida student now at Harvard... and not for what you might think she'd be roasted for.
 
 

That is absolutely not what the Bible says.  Has she even read the book?

I have one that isn't an MCU role but it is MCU adjacent in that it would be with MCU directors the Russo brothers.  Apparently, back in 2019 they acquired the movie rights to Grimjack.  Keanu was pretty much born to play John Gaunt. 

Yes, he might be too jovial

The Face of Battle by John Keegan
This looks at military history and then at three specific battles, Agincourt, Waterloo and The Somme. It shows how big the battles were and how large were the forces involved. It also shows how warfare evolved in each case. The Somme covers the most as it is not a simple task to explain what happened and why. It is a fascinating read.

I would have gone with a fart in the bath tub, but a glass of carbonated water works too, I guess.

I would have gone with a fart in the bath tub, but a glass of carbonated water works too, I guess.

I would have gone with a fart in the bath tub, but a glass of carbonated water works too, I guess.

Harmon got it totally, utterly wrong if he thought Marvels needed less Ms. Marvel.  I shall elaborate within this spoiler tag:
 
 
IMO of course.

I would have gone with a fart in the bath tub, but a glass of carbonated water works too, I guess.

It is not uncommon for one half of a long-married elderly couple to pass away soon after the other. Johnny Cash dying a few weeks after Juen Carter may be the most famous example. If you are already deathly ill, a broken heart can be enough to push you over the edge. The thing is if you're ninety years old and in hospice already you might not mind and might even find the thought comforting -- and even hopeful. This would be especially true for a deeply religious person like Jimmy Carter, who is thoroughly convinced his beloved and his other loved ones are awaiting him on the other side of the veil.
 
The point is that Jimmy Carter is well aware that life on Earth is finite and seems to have accepted it will soon be his time.

If a typical movie portrayed a typical PC group over-analyzing micro decisions, we would likely have stopped producing movies a long time ago.

Why does he have to beat up the Hulk and kill half the universe? Zemo couldn't, but look what he did to the Avengers.
 
Green Goblin nearly triggered a multiversal invasion. Killmonger was about to start a racial world war. Why aren't those things big enough?

This is a chilling, terrifying echo to the American present from the American past.
 
 

As someone who works in a democratic institute, I appreciate the humour, but have concerns that this is entirely the kind of thing that anti-democratic folk build upon.  If you get convinced that you can trust no-one, that there is no value in voting and that those who seek public office should be barred from it, then you open the door to populists like Trump, who tell folk that he is the ONLY one you can trust and we can all see where that gets you.

It is an insidious tendency and undermines both our democracy and our democratic institutions.  Once it is mainstream that you can believe nothing then there is a chance that you will believe anything.
 
I work with politicians every day and I can tell you that they are human beings like the rest of us, the vast majority of those that I meet have honest intentions to make things better, even if their version of better does not match with mine.  I do see their public presentation be skewed by party political stress and the fact the media constantly looks to highlight those that speak differently from their party and forcing the tendency not to deviate from the party line in public discourse.  Intheir work I see nuance and humanity, I wish everyone could have the same insight and engagement.

Doc

The problem they have with Strange, and to a slightly lesser degree Stark, was that they need to show their ridiculous level of arrogance in addition to being more intelligent then the people he interacts with. So how do you show this, by making him do something that anyone with a modicum of common sense would know was stupid. It reminds me of a variant of Wolverine is a great fighter - Iron Fist level fighter, but the only way to show his healing factor and adamantium skeleton is for him to constantly get his butt kicked. If you actually showed how good a fighter he was, then his healing factor and toughness wouldn't come into play most of the time as he wouldn't get hit. For Strange and Stark, you have to show their arrogance by having them assuming that they know all the variables and therefore can use their superior intelligence to control the situation.