19 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Republicans used to be much better at this sort of thing than Democrats. Recent Republicans look more like the legal and political equivalent of the Keystone Cops.

Yes, but this is a dangerous attitude to take when those Keystone Cops barely failed on 1/6/2021.  And I mean barely.  

And nearly all the people who were in charge of the insurrection attempt are still free.  Many are still in power, such as House Speaker Mike Johnson.

58 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

 

It's up to us voters then. Vote and get out the vote.

I just hope that’s all it takes. 

15 minutes ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

And now the Supreme Court is going to hear Trump's "presidential immunity" appeal. Doing so gives it legitimacy. They should have shut that @#$% down immediately. I apologize for the frustration in my posts, but I get sick and tired of stupidity and ignorance seemingly always winning....

It's corruption, not stupidity or ignorance.

Which is not better.

54 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

 

It doesn't have to be factual to make good adventure.

Which is what I said.  But it ought to be factual if it's being posted on youtube as factual.

On 2/27/2024 at 12:13 PM, tkdguy said:

Some ideas for a pulp or fantasy adventure

 

 

Everything in this video is both annoying and completely fictional.  Some decent ideas for pulp though.

Apple orders TV series based on Neuromancer by William Gibson

Meanwhile, people are finally starting to report on possible methods of overthrowing this fall's elections. One method goes like this:
 

1. Speaker Johnson refuses to swear in some number of Democratic winners of House elections on 3 Jan 2025, citing 'election irregularities'
2. Republicans therefore maintain control of the House
3. On 6 Jan 2025, the skewed House refuses to certify some number of electoral votes, citing 'election irregularities'
4. As a result neither candidate reaches 270 electoral votes and the Presidency defaults to a vote in... the House of Representatives
5. Trump wins.

Logically, therefore, we can expect some 'election irregularities' on Nov 6. This could be anything--complicit state SoSes making stuff up, Fox News making stuff up, actual attempts to sabotage or corrupt an election, or plain old terrorism with guns and bombs.

Other coup methods are also outlined, such as the House Speaker taking over as "acting president" in the event of a contested election outcome, or any number of Constitutional legal challenges that would go straight to the SCOTUS.

The article does mention a handful of potential solutions, but ultimately Americans are going to have to be ready. At minimum people need to get the word out so we all know what to watch for. Should the worst occur, it might take a general strike to get the usurpers to step down. Winning is the only way Trump stays out of jail. He will cheat. Again.

My favorite part of that entire s___show is that the original suit was brought by IVF customers whose embryos were destroyed by some trespasser.  They wanted to throw the book at the parties responsible so they used all the personhood language to try and equate the crime to murder.  Now they have effectively murdered IVF in the state of Alabama; people can't even get their embryos shipped to another state because no one will take the risk of transporting such a fragile "person".

13 minutes ago, Bazza said:

Disney Officially Puts Uncle Scrooge Into The Marvel Multiverse

It was inevitable that the executives would self-insert at some point.

4 hours ago, Asperion said:

 

The issue of Reagan's mental state did come up during his Presidency. However, any time there was a challenge,  he was open about it. Then after leaving the Presidency,  he came clean and let everyone know his true mental condition and became a leader for mental treatment around the U.S. This lasted until he was no longer able to perform any action just before he passed away. 

Given his record we'd have been better off if he'd been vegetative for the duration of his administration.

28 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

He's better than you might think.  I did see some clips of him on, IIRC, the 100 best NFL players of all time, and he's far more relaxed on those.  But I'd rather give him an hour-long analytical show, say on NFL Network, with the right host.  Pre- and post-game shows tend to be too superficial and fluffy.

That, I might watch.  To be fair though, the current crews are such that if Romo or Olsen aren't calling the game, I'd rather watch it on Nickelodeon.

Belichick strikes me as the antithesis of what you would want in a commentator.  Maybe if you dosed him with sodium pentothal before each game?

Indiana Jones

John McClane

John Rambo

John Connor

John Matrix

John Wick

John Constantine

Jonathan Harker

Johnny Utah

Johnny Mnemonic

Johnny Silverhand

LL doesn't drop much loot everyone, don't bother killing him.

I think there are estate-disposition services that can help with that.  Bit of a glorified garage sale but often there is just too much stuff to expect a single person or family to be able to clean up, inventory, assess, and sell/trash.

2 hours ago, Cancer said:

A little close to home, that one is.

Same.  That's why I posted it.

49 minutes ago, death tribble said:

This does not affect me but it is local. WW2 bomb found

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-68365634

"Excuse me, sir?  You dropped this"

Xi Gua Lao (a kind of watermelon jello)

Upside down cake

37 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

If we triple everyone's wages, we triple labour costs.  Delivery of services requires labour.  Manufacturing and shipping of products requires labour.  How do we triple wages, but only see a 50% increase in costs?

Because labor is only a fraction of total costs.  A pretty small fraction, I might add.

Quote

How much gets absorbed by other workers?  I recall minimum wage rising way back when I worked at a McDs.  Everyone not already making minimum wage got a raise.  Many 2-year employees lost two years of increments and were now paid the same as new starts.

It's not as though the 2-year employees got a pay cut.  I personally don't resent my coworkers for getting raises, I'm not competing with them in a zero sum game.

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

 

And, sure, it's not entirely true that raising the minimum wage will cause prices to rise.  Raising prices will cost some business, so it's not the first choice.  One can look for other cost savings...streamline operations, perhaps.  That's why the salads went *poof*...and the Filet o Fish is only available at Lent.  (ESPECIALLY with McNuggets.  They're both fried, but you can't use the same oil, so you need 2 fry vats.  McNuggets are popular enough.)  Cut down serving size...that's tricky for McD's, but I've known companies that did.  My most commonly used coffee roaster dropped bag weight from 12 ounces to 11 ounces.  Shift around perks...that roaster does free shipping at $50.  Well, maybe raise it to $60 or $70.  Before the pandemic, a local supermarket pretty often did $5 off your next $75 purchase...ok, well, not a lot but every little bit helps.  They ran that for 3-4 weeks, and fairly often.  Now?  Nowhere near as often.

This is just typical ensh*ttification, it has nothing to do with any minimum wage increases.

Quote

 

You're not considering that this will reflect throughout the supply chain.  The food costs will also go up 20-30%.  Power will go up...probably less, as I doubt labor is a large driver of power costs...but it'll still go up.  Say, 5%?  And so on, and so on.  And remember...there'll be increases at each step of the supply chain.  The farmers will need to charge more, because their expenses go up.  That means the intermediate producers like the bakers, they'll be paying more...and paying more in wages.  This doesn't have an impact in isolation.

I get that it seems like this all would happen, but in practice, it doesn't.

Quote

 

So the actual increase is likely significantly higher than 50%.  Nor would your take-home increase nearly as much;  if nothing else, your taxes would jump greatly:

https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brackets

 

If (single) you went from $30,000 to $100,000 taxable, at $30K nothing's higher than 12%.  At $100K, the bulk is taxed at 22%.  Your deductions won't change...but they'll remain fixed, whereas your gross income jumps a LOT.  (I transitioned from working for the state, to being a contractor, before I retired...so I got the state pension AND my salary as the contractor, which was similar.  In essence, what I was getting in retirement funds from the state, were all getting taxed at the higher level.)

Having paid taxes for decades I do understand progressive tax brackets, but I appreciate the refresher.  So tripling my income increases my effective tax rate by 10%, and that's... bad?  My take home pay only actually increases from $27K to $81.6K so I should... give it back, or something?

Quote

 

The point I'm making:  these forces don't just work in isolation.  Attempting to raise the minimum wage so *sharply* is basically printing money...it's massively inflationary.   

Historically, minimum wage increases don't cause inflation.  I get why people might think they do, but they just... don't.  Almost tripling the minimum wage in one go might, I suppose, as I don't think anyone's ever tried it.

1 hour ago, slikmar said:

I am in the "they are trying to ride the coattails of the Marvel Cinematic Universe successes". I mean, even the "failures" for Marvel would at least be considered ok to other studios, I would think. Of course, not learning the lesson that the reason for Marvels success was due to directors, writers,  and for the most part, actors who actually understood the original medium and enjoyed it, is another matter. I have said before, and I know not all agree, but even the bad MCU movies are better then most the stuff put out by any other studio.

Interestingly, the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies and the Spider-Verse animated movies are also Sony movies, and are all pretty good--most of them are really good.  That raises Sony's average quite a bit.  Even the first Venom was okay.  At this point it looks like the issue is the writers for Morbius and Mme. Web, not Sony's overall handling of the license.

3 hours ago, slikmar said:

This movie, especially the ending, always felt like a remake of Thunderball(?)

No, I don't think there was any SA in TSWLM at all.

I'll tell you what, though, the constant callbacks to prior Bond films make it really hard to keep them straight in your head.  Seems like every single one of these films has a train, a boat, a tropical resort full of scantily clad women, an underwater sequence, a shark, and a helicopter chase.