Pattern Ghost

I take it as evidence you shouldn't plot by reader voting.

I think that while his position wasn't as strong as an abolitionist's, he didn't like the practice and wanted to curb it, but acknowledged that it was legal at the time. And he was a politician operating in a cut throat (or shoot head in his case) environment, so not exactly an angel, either. He did support not expanding the number of slave states, and at the end the day that was the "states rights" issue driving the war.

The important part is ". . . and not to be extended beyond the limits of the States where it is established . . ." The other important part is the date. Was it pre-war? Maybe . . . and this is a crazy idea . . . maybe that whole banning slavery in newer states thing was a first step designed to eventually eliminate slavery while avoiding a civil war. If that was a post-war quote, it might be more damning. The innertubes put the date at 1860 for that quote. The war started in 1861.

Except for the dead one whose bloodied costume was shown in BvS. This is DKR Batman.

I think when talking about Lincoln, people need to remember two things: The era he was operating in, and the fact that he was assassinated before he could attempt correct many of the problems he's accused of not doing anything about or exacerbating.

I concur. The wife and I had to watch the 2014 Godzilla in two sittings because it was less interesting than watching paint dry. ------------------------------------------- POST DIVIDER ------------------------------------------------------------------- OK, I couldn't find lions digging in fire ant mounds, but as for the second: 😁

I can only dream of the day he gets convicted of something.

The spacing timing isn't that critical. One week won't make a difference in the end result.

We can. But neither side is willing to take effective measures. It's not like we don't know what needs to be done, either. It's that both parties want to divert from the real root causes to make it about a political tent pole issue. There are already very accurate profiles of mass shooters available. For most of what we think of as "mass shootings," meaning public places like schools, stores, or workplaces (and people have been "going postal" since I was a kid), etc., the shooters fall into several profiles, and also show common characteristics. With modern surveillance and analytics, many of these can be discovered early, and intervention can take place. In many shootings, the first part happened, but the government agencies involved failed to act or to act effectively to prevent the violence. So, spend the money wasted on political rhetoric and start with building a predictive analysis program, and empower authorities to intercede if necessary (while respecting due process). The other big category is criminal on criminal, mostly gang, violence. Again, we have proven models that work for reducing gang on gang violence, but programs need funding, and need follow through. Root causes of racial imbalances also need to be addressed.

We've had that since we've had news.

I was told they were going to go in below my ribs, and it would be easy-peasy, without much collateral damage. But b/c of the size of my diaphragm, they had to go between my ribs, with a much larger incision. Even then, I felt fine at first, didn't have enough pain for narcotic painkillers, so didn't fill my prescriptions. Then massive spike pain on day 7 sent me to the ER. After three or so days of using painkillers to be able to sleep, it subsided. I guess by then nerves were starting to heal more, and firing off. They took out a benign tumor. Of course, if they hadn't, that tumor would have pinched my aorta shut eventually as it grew, so I don't know if I'd call it "benign" so much as "not cancer." The thing wasn't even causing any symptoms, just quietly sitting there. It was found on a chest X-ray taken when I went in because I had a fever a week after my gallbladder removal. I'm lucky they spotted it, or I'd have just woken up dead one morning and nobody would have known why.

L. Marcus has the largest road apple collection in the world.

I hope he gets better soon. Extended hospital stays are no fun.

Halfway through my recovery, I can safely say that thoracic surgery was not as fun as I was led to believe it to be.

Sorry, I didn't realize I'd soaked up that much radiation from all of the medical imaging I've gone through this year.

King Kong would be OK if they cut out 99% of the boat trip BS.

I thought that Jackson made a fair and decent attempt to distill LOTR into movie format. Overall, the good outweighed any negatives for me. On the other hand, what he did to the Hobbit was nothing less than an abomination.

And in the case of movie theaters, the movie is the medium and the theater is the "device" that carries it. IOW, the movie theaters can go bye-bye and we can all still watch movies. Just think of all the things that cell phones have replaced for most people and can only be found as mostly niche items these days. I have the smallest TVs in my extended family, and at 55" for my apartment living room, I don't have any need to deal with the myriad of inconveniences of a theater trip. 70"+ HD TVs are common and affordable these days. I don't think theaters are going to suddenly go *poof* any time soon, but I think due to COVID and several studios breaking the old relationships between studios and theaters, we're going to see a large reduction. I think the next phase for theaters will likely be what we see in desktop PCs today: Less of a commodity and more of an enthusiast niche item. (Ironically, COVID has also boosted the desktop PC market greatly this last year, but prior to the home office needs, people were shifting heavily to phones and tablets as a primary device.) What form that will take, who knows? Maybe the remaining theaters will shift to a more premium experience, with more focus on unique offerings such as the smaller (but still impressive) IMAX formats, better seating, etc. I think change is definitely coming to the industry.

I know! I often reminisce about how silly those people are while browsing for 8 track tapes at my local music store.

This is a question for a lawyer.

At four hours, they may as well have added a few extra hours and made a mini-series for HBO Max.

Well, they could bring Graviton back in a souped-up form. He was still growing in power at the time he was blasted into orbit, so it'd be pretty easy to bring him back by saying his power grew to the point that being spaced isn't such a big deal. They could show an ominous gravitonium cocoon, then have him pop out at an opportune moment.

In Graviton's case, "used up" means "dead." Of course, there are many ways around that in genre.

It'll be another series that gets finished posthumously.

As a neutral bystander . . . let's not let the nerd fights get bloody here. We're all friends here with common interests.