If this became a trend it would probably just push the studios to be that much more focused on big franchises where the director is just doing a job for hire. And of course, their long term goal of being able to replace as many people as possible with AI, just as soon as the slop it churns out is good enough sell tickets.

Part of how you know that no one they send there is going to actually be a gang member or terrorist or anything like that. Those guys wouldn’t be going without a fight. And with no due process and no chance of ever getting out, it’s not like they have anything to lose.

On the other hand, if a future administration wants to get around that pardon, they can just snatch these people off the street and throw them on a plane to another country to be locked up in a hellish concentration camp. Then when lawyers point out that they were pardoned the government can just say “whoopsie” and ignore them.

You only see the things in his immediate vicinity because it’s a story not a financial report. If he’s vaccinating kids on the other side of the planet, we aren’t going to hear about it unless it’s relevant to the story.

And we’re all free to call out the thin-skinned, nazi shitstain whenever he acts like a pathetic, hypocritical child. The fact that it’s not illegal doesn’t mean it can’t be criticized.

Not that he’d be any safer from criticism if we were only allowed to mock people who break the law.

Turn off the nsfw filter on steam and find out.

In an order issued by a Texas federal court last week

Ah, say no more.

As I understand it, the funding is still mostly frozen, they just deny that what they are doing is violating the court orders.

And they are going to appeal birthright citizenship all the way to the Supreme Court, but how much that decision even matters will depend on just how much due process people get before being shipped off to gitmo.

Not sure what the latest is on the DoT situation. But the overall trend of taking over agencies, shutting down operations, firing people and accessing restricted data has mostly been happening fast enough that the courts can’t prevent it, they can only tell them to fix it after the fact.

I’m not trying to shit on the courts. It’s vital that they keep pushing back and keep applying the law. The problem is that they can only do so much if the executive branch won’t cooperate. They are dealing with an administration that is hostile to the very notion of the rule of law, and which is dismantling every mechanism that exists to keep them honest and accountable. Trying to apply the law to Trump has always been like nailing jelly to the wall. And that was before he was declared above the law by the Supreme Court, before the purging of anyone with a shred of ethics at the DoJ, and before declaring that he and his AG have the sole power to interpret law in the executive branch (which would of course include decisions about what it means to comply with a court order).

The difference between my proposed policy and the ones you are discussing is that I would suggest that there should be some amount of funding for it coming from the government. I wouldn’t object to parents being able to invest some additional money into the account, but I don’t think it solves the problem if parents are the only ones contributing. Kids already put a strain on finances, and most people aren’t going to invest money they need today in an account that won’t be touched for more than half a century. Lower income families in particular would get the most benefit from such a program and would be the least likely to use it unless it was funded by the government.

I wouldn’t even want to make this an optional program, I’d say the account should be created automatically and parents can gain access in order add money of their own or possibly to adjust the investments among a defined set of options. When a kid comes of age they would be able to claim the account, and they should be able to contribute to it with a withholding from their paycheck.

I’ve always thought that we should offer some kind of a credit to parents to invest in a retirement account for their kids. Nothing huge, but something that will get six decades of compound interest. Not only would that help all future generations to retire in an economically sustainable way, but it should also be a slow and steady boost to the economy.

Unfortunately, that would be unlikely to happen in the best of times. The people who would benefit most won’t be voters for years, and won’t actually reap the benefits until the politicians passing the law are all long dead. Given the dystopian nightmare timeline we’re in now, I’d say the odds of a program like that being created are slightly lower than the odds of us trying to fund social security by invading Ireland to find their leprechaun gold.

Microsoft said Windows 10 would be the last version I’d ever use. They didn’t know how right they were. I’ve been gradually switching to Linux, and will absolutely never use Windows 11 or any other version they put out.

It’s blatantly illegal and unconstitutional. The courts will order them to stop, and those court orders will be ignored.

An old friend of mine would often leave cups of coffee around his house that he had forgotten about. My favorite was when I found one in his freezer.

I forget if it’s Yojimbo or Sanjuro where one of the bad guys is basically just a guy with a revolver who looks down everyone else for using swords.

There’s a reason why they made westerns out of samurai movies.

Here’s to you Mrs. Robinson; She’s a slutty moron you should know.

God I love that episode. Just a fantastic performance and great writing. There’s so many layers to it, and in particular I just love how ominous and terrifying the vorlons become the more you think about what they’re doing here.

On the other hand, Star Trek made Piglet Jack the Ripper, and the thought of him in a top hat and mutton chops running around the hundred acre woods stabbing hookers is also quite enjoyable.

With the renewed interest from the show, it would make sense for Microsoft to get someone else working on a Fallout game since Bethesda isn’t going to do it any time soon. However, I would think that Obsidian would be the more natural choice. I would guess that MS would prefer to utilize one of the studios they own rather than license it out, but I could be wrong about that.

And even if they did license out development on a Fallout game, I would assume that they would be in a hurry to get something out there, which would make Larian far less appealing to them. I agree that they would probably make an amazing Fallout game, but another studio would probably make a decent enough game that costs less to develop and pays off sooner.

The problem is that we have so little media that is both trusted and trustworthy. That so many people don’t actively seek out reliable information and think critically about it. Many just find a source that confirms their bias and feeds their emotional state, while others just passively absorb from those around them and on social media. And once you’ve bought the lies and misinformation, anyone that tries to tell you the truth becomes suspicious, because you know they are wrong.

And because the never ending stream of bullshit is both a lucrative industry and a source of immense political power, there is a vested interest in keeping it highly polarized and partisan. They have to tie it to your identity and tell you that this is what your country stands for, so that you know that everyone who disagrees is an enemy.

Anti-vaxxers are nothing new, but they were never so openly embraced by a political party (to say nothing of those who have claimed that vaccines are suddenly against their religion, discovering a prohibition that no religion has ever had prior to 2020). They don’t care how many people will suffer or die because of their actions, as long as they can benefit from it politically. Sadly, this is a fairly consistent theme on the right.

I’ve just been hoping for the long shot that a plane carrying both of them will go down before the electoral college meets. If it also takes Musk, Johnson, Kennedy, and a bunch of others from his inner circle, so much the better.