Better, the Senate just passed its border/foreign aid bill that includes another $60 billion for Ukraine.
That’s $114 billion for their war efforts this year. Do you think bankrupt international pariah Russia has anywhere near that much to spend, or the high tech weaponry to purchase that Ukraine has access to? (Hint- the entire Russian gdp in ‘22 was barely $2.2 trillion) Only North Korea is selling Russia weapons and ammo…what a sad position to be in. 😂

But sure, @bobknight33 , I’m sure you’re right, Russia is just about to turn the tides of war and start winning. Maybe their friend, MAGA, will block that funding for Trump and Putin, then they’ll only have $54 billion.

1) in the 50’s, the time period MAGA wants to return to, colleges were often free with higher admission standards. Do you advocate free college for anyone qualified?

2) there’s a shock

3) that goes for abortions too, if you really want it you’ll find a way, but the “ways” left are all dangerous.

4) you said he was successful despite the fact that he left high school to support his family before…but ok, now he graduated public high school, and is the smartest man you know. Telling.
My mother graduated Rice university Suma Cum Laude then returned for a masters in English. Dad graduated in the top 1% of his class from Stanford with a chemistry major, then started a highly successful international high tech insulation company making insulation for nuclear power plants in the 70’s. (Your dad may have worked for my dad. Is his name Frank F?)

5) Neither could have succeeded as they did if they had to pay today’s rates for college, or if each had hundreds of thousands in debt to pay back. Both scored 1590 on their SAT. Neither got scholarships or loans (Rice was free, dad’s parents and part time jobs paid for Stanford). Neither “fucked around”.

6) Colleges charge more because people will pay it, because a degree is an absolute necessity to be successful in the business world (unless you inherit tens of millions). If you drop the amount people can borrow for school, they’ll just accept intellectually poorer students (like you) that CAN pay. Supply and demand….that doesn’t mean you discount your in high demand product because your preferred customer can’t afford it so long as someone can. Duh.

Wow do you have reality 100% backwards.
Hunter never worked for the American people, so could not sell out American people like every one of Trump’s children did. He did not get paid billions, he’s never had billions…unlike Jared that was paid 2 billion for Trump’s protection of the crown prince and weapons sales.

Hillary, how did she sell out America? Benghazi? Emails? You got anything that hasn’t been debunked by Republican committees a dozen times? I thought not. Clinton delusion syndrome.

Joe…sell out America? Lol. Give examples, not stupid internet memes claiming Hunter is one of the super rich and powerful along with public train riding Joe.

Trump force one riding crushing debt Trump, no he never would sell out for money. (Spent $60k of donations on Melania’s dress buyer, and another on Newsom’s ex shouting nonsense for 2 minutes, but not a dime on fighting election fraud or supporting Republican candidates he raised it for…permanently barred from charities because of fraud, fraudulent businesses, fraudulent school bilking millions from the poor…the list goes on forever, everything he does includes fraud.)

Trump sold out America for 4 years straight, taking Russia, China, even N Koreans side over America almost every time. Handing over Afghanistan, Crimea, Ukraine, etc. to our enemies.
Trump sold out America over the election, trying dozens of verified vote fraud schemes and he still lost the election badly, then he sold out America again by trying a violent coup to turn us into a banana republic dictatorship.

Trump stole top secret nuclear documents for personal gain, whether to sell, barter for protection, or use to blackmail America, he stole them for personal gain and to harm America, no other reason to have nuclear secrets….none at all. That’s treason plain and simple.

Your delusion has removed you from reality. Trump and family sold America over and over and over and over and over…you can’t point to a single instance from Hunter, Clinton, or Biden selling America for personal gain, I can point to 6 verified undeniable times Trump sold us out for millions and even billions in personal/familial gains from China, Russia, Saidi Arabia, Russian Ukrainians, even the Taliban….

Trump is an asshole who gets things done for himself, and you are a cultist that thinks that’s the same as working for America. He destroyed faith in every government agency he put his people in, destroyed our international standing, destroyed our economy, destroyed our employment numbers, cost >$500 million for his coup, 1 million dead Americans for his denial of the pandemic, and has divided the nation to the point that almost 1/2 the nation wants civil war….and they think that’s patriotic.

Again, just to name 3, Trump sold us out to China for $36 million for Ivanka and however many millions were in his secret Chinese bank accounts they used to bribe him (how’s that amazing trade deal coming?), to Russia for untold funding including hundred million loans he hasn’t paid back (yep, Rusher), to the Saudis for a $2 billion no show contract with Jared so we would sell them billions in high tech weapons.
You can’t list a single sell out from those you listed. Not one. 😂

All 3 living in your head for free….you even make up interesting back stories for them to keep them there. You love them so much you’ve given up your sanity to keep them in your head. 🤦‍♂️

Trump only still gets attention because he’s still attempting to destroy America actively, now with a civil war over his criminal actions, solely to save himself from prosecution, not for America one whit, he doesn’t care one whit how badly he’s damaged America either.

ROTFLMFAHS!!! Projection is absolutely the MO of the right, and of yourself. You’re trying to blame Covid on Biden, and accept zero blame for dismantling the office created to avoid exactly pandemics like this, no blame for not quarantining and letting it in the country after knowing how deadly it was, no blame for denying it’s existence, it’s danger, it’s virulence, it’s mortality rates, or for actively opposing any and all public health measures to minimize it…but now want to blame Biden for the outbreaks among morons that listen to antivaxing right wingers rather than Biden’s public health professionals.
You know there were hundreds of Republican plots to fraudulently vote or intentionally deny valid votes in the last election, yet with no evidence you still claim there was fraud on both sides (and imply there was far more from the left but still can’t show a single example), and despite all evidence to the contrary you still claim Democrats stole the election through fraud.
That’s called projection, Bob, blaming others for disasters and crimes you are actively causing. Derp.

Liar. There’s no way in hell you are even 100IQ. You have no reasoning or problem solving skills at all, zero verbal/English skills whatsoever, and you do not think like an an engineer, never methodically going step by step without glossing over the important bits and ignoring pertinent details….but we know you’re a proud liar already, one that applauds perjury. Test again. I think the mindset you’ve fostered in yourself for decades now has lowered it significantly if it was honestly ever above 100. I retested around 4 years ago for fun, scored one point higher than in school.

I’ve known engineers that weren’t all that intelligent….just not extremely successful ones. Dad owned an international high tech insulation company with dozens of engineers on the payroll. The less competent end up being maintenance techs and cleanup crews rather than R&D techs, designers, and inventors. Somebody has to load and drive the hazardous materials truck to the disposal site, somebody has to do maintenance on machines, somebody has to check dates on inventory to be certain chemicals don’t oxidize, etc, they don’t give those jobs to the best engineers.

What lockdowns? Biden just reportedly had the best job creation year in the nation’s history. Over 500000 jobs per month since he took office (and rapidly rising wages), how many jobs were lost under Trump? Estimates range from 10,000,000-18,000,000. Holy shit, you think that’s bad for Biden?!! Mental defectives with 75 IQ can see how wrong you are….but you can’t.

The tax cuts came in 2017, growth didn’t come until 2021, jobs didn’t come until 2021. It’s utterly ridiculous to try to claim the tax handouts for the wealthy had a thing to do with the economy getting better, especially since they expired for non billionaires before the upturn. I thought you just claimed to be intelligent. 🤦‍♂️

-3.5% Bob. Trump’s last year was -3.5% GDP growth. NEGATIVE.
Overall Trump managed 2.33, 3, 2.16, -3.49 =4% / 4years = 1% GDPY under Trump, who didn’t start in a major recession but left one. Lol! What’s that IQ again, buddy? Obama GDP > Trump GDP

It’s likely, because they never had a real majority thanks to 2 DINOs, so didn’t perform great, so many Trump era disastrous policies and appointees are still in place, and there’s no chance that’s going to change this term thanks to Democrats not actually having a majority. Sadly, too many morons won’t look at why there’s so little progress and just won’t vote, ensuring things won’t change and Republican obstructionism will rule the day. The party “in charge” always loses the midterm. What makes you think I don’t see that. I do not underestimate the stupidity of the American voter.

Lol. I notice you didn’t list any failures, and actually admitted some you listed last time are nonsense (now admitting “Biden economy is doing great” VS earlier claims “failed economy”). LMFAHS!
You get one talking head on CNN agreeing with you and one pro-Republican poll and suddenly you think everyone wants Trump back. You are so silly. When the polls don’t support you, you say they’re worthless, when they do, they’re gospel.
If Garland was doing his job and prosecuting senators and representatives, Democratic numbers would jump by double digits. It’s lack of action that’s losing them support. It’s certainly why I’m dissatisfied….but to assume that means most would vote Republican because they’re dissatisfied with Democrats performance is asinine, par for the course from you.

PE of 360 Bob. Anything over 25 is overpriced, over 100 is a bubble. Duh….again, you just claimed to be intelligent, but have repeatedly proven that false already. They made under 1 million cars last year out of around 75 million. Ford sold almost as many of one model, F150’s as Tesla sold of all models, and would have sold more if they had the chips to make more. They’re doing well, but are still a little minnow in a big pond, and if they lose their battery monopoly they’re toast. They aren’t the only, or even the best choice for electric cars anymore. If you think they won’t have competition, you’ve proven a lack of intelligence once again.

Summer time when you lost over 1/4 of your value overnight must have been scary. It won’t be the last time.

Good luck. In 5 years I expect they’ll be near worthless once more stable, more energy dense batteries are developed. I’m happy making more money from a diverse portfolio that’s not insanely overvalued.

Let's stick with the one I know better...California.
Damn right I would like every state to have a >$76BILLION budget surplus, (we could use an extra $4.5 Trillion per year in America) an economy that's the 5th largest in the world, a producer of up to 1/3 of the food America can eat, centers for high tech advancement, free health care for the poor....

In what way is Texas beating California....not in freedom, not economy, not health, not infrastructure....pretty much just in fake unconstitutional religious Puritanism as the law and the percentage of illegal immigrants. In California illegal immigrants make up 5.6% of our population, in Texas where they spend billions to fight it it's 5.7%.

First, all the Texans who fled the state have to move home. I'm one...and you'll have to kidnap me at gunpoint to get me back in that third world state. Fuck that oven roasted shithole.

Lastly, abortion is not murder legally, by the definitions of the words, rationally, historically, morally, religiously, or in any way. To be alive you must first be born, you cannot murder that which was never alive. Until the cord is cut, it's a growth inside the mother entirely supported by her body....a tumor. You can't murder a tumor, if you think you can, go protest the nearest cancer center and leave pregnant women alone.

True, but the argument itself suggests the rogue government would have a military we need to protect ourselves from with said rifles.

The public might have access to nearly equivalent rifles, but not the funds to buy those in great numbers. How many people do you know with a .50 caliber and the skills to use it?
Then there's all the weaponry you can't have. Grenades. Mortars. Armored armed vehicles. Drones. Navy guns. Missiles. I R scanning and other optical tech. Training. There's a lot more to the military than rifles.

With high tech warfare, guerrilla tactics should be far less effective than Vietnam, and Americans don't seem up to suicide bombing as a main tactic. It could sting them, but I don't think it could last like Red Dawn.

Once again, I'm pro gun, I have guns, I just think it's ludicrous to think they could fight the military. I'd be lucky to get a second shot off.

Your video, 4 High Tech Firefighting Tools And Goats, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

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NONE!!!! *facepalm
The president has multiple intelligence agencies that give him totally unbiased, non fluff, non sycophantic information, the best information possible in the world using the most expensive high tech equipment and professional intelligence gatherers. He ignores these to listen to a pure political propaganda machine that makes watchers less informed that watching nothing at all, one that's owned by a foreign entity....one who's programming is clearly designed to direct one single person's actions.

Only an unpatriotic moron would even suggest that's ok. You aren't saying that's ok, are you?

Also, when 99% of your actions are infantile and ill advised and designed to benefit you personally while harming millions who can least afford it, 90% negative would be news being overly generous, (50% negative would still make Fox propaganda....and they aren't near 50% negative no matter what some biased blogs from 2017 might claim), if those numbers were correct they would still need to find that hidden >9%.
Fox "reporting" was 99.99999% negative against Obama, and worse for Clinton....they are not news, they are biased opinion masquerading as a news channel and should be removed from the air like Trump threatened to do to media that lies (of course by "lies" he meant negative stories about him, not falsehoods).

Respect. I live in Canada. So my perspective is probably warped or highly misinformed and ignorant of the USA's gun control, 2nd amendment argument. But my thought is, what's wrong with not being able to own anything that exists? Assault weapons shouldn't be made available to the public, it should be restricted to the military. Period. It's just incredible how these mass murdering weapons were even allowed to be owned in the first place. Even if the argument is that it's enshrined in the 2nd amendment, then the political discussion should be about changing/more narrowly define the amendment. How old is the 2nd amendment? How applicable is it to modern needs?

Even only allowing regulated shooting ranges to have these assault weapons just for on-site shooting is good thing. It allows gun lovers to hold them in hand, try them for target practice, have some fun but not allow anyone to take them out of the shooting range. Take the private ownership part out of the equation.

I love fighter jets, tanks, rockets & lots of high tech military stuff. Not crazy about guns, but I do appreciate their beauty. Still, I don't need to own them to appreciates them.

Society (not just the USA) really need to away from the assault weapon-ownership mentality... yes, that means asking gun owners to give up that particular rights. But there's virtue in doing it for the society...

Just can't believe the cowardice of those "nothing we can do about it" Republicans like Rubio. It's part of a big, sick symptom of government under the choke-hold of the NRA, Big Business, Big Banks, lobbyists instead of the constituents. Just feel sad for the People.

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I agree for the most part, but with batteries, now becoming reasonable in size and price, it's not so hard to be totally off grid. Micro hydro can also be efficient power storage if properly designed with a dual reservoir system.
Granted, that seems to work best in small scale setups so far, but there is an island .....(https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/09/17/349223674/tiny-spanish-island-nears-its-goal-100-percent-renewable-energy)
...currently (since 2014) using this tech to be nearly 100% green.

Dismissing projections as unrealistic without fully examining them may doom our economy and planet.
That's what happened with solar, people just claimed it's expensive and unreliable, which meant those they convinced didn't know how wrong that is, and didn't buy systems or support solar farms. I ignored them and did some light math, and found that even an expensive high tech system with batteries, professionally installed, would pay for itself in about 8 years, with a 20 year expected lifespan (and I live in Humboldt county, with the foggiest airport in America, not Arizona). I'm damn glad I didn't listen. Even a 2 year delay would have cost me 1/2 my rebates, making the system take an extra 2+ years to pay for itself by costing me thousands upon thousands of dollars (instead of saving me thousands per year).

Edit: Also, here in Humboldt we just switched to choice in electricity, we can choose regular pge power (mostly old school generation), a mixture of up to 75% (I think, maybe higher) renewable for cheaper, or 100% renewable for more. All 3 now bill transmission (including voltage/frequency regulation) separately, so it's easy to see what generation alone costs. It's clear so far that mostly renewable is the best bet economically, and I assume it will become more renewable as new technologies become available.....at least I hope so.

I guessed a high tech, super tough paint until near the end.

Excellent. But, I have a reaction to your (Green's?) text in the description.

1. Nostalgia is a motivator. But I think it tends to be a *strong* motivator only of individuals, not of collective societies. If Trump has nostalgia for fossil fuels (personally I think his motivations lie elsewhere), the good news is that that nostalgia won't be very contagious to American citizens. At least not for long.

People like Elon Musk / Tesla are making it clear that electric and renewables are the sexy high-tech future. That appeal to our vanity will be much more effective as a "carrot" motivation, as compared to a "stick" with carbon taxes etc.


2. This essentially boils down to an industrial version of Isolationism. Trump represents a bigger push in that direction by far compared to being motivated by nostalgia. BUT, I think that trying to explain that resistance in him and others purely through that anti-globalization lens misses some things.

Just as nostalgia is a better motivator for individuals than societies, altruism (if you believe it can exist) functions the same way. And that's 90% of what the Paris Accords are: altruism.

On paper, it makes sense for us as individuals in the US to acknowledge that we got a disproportionate level of advancement out of fossil fuel usage through our history. As individuals, we can see the undeniable truth in that. But ask us to act -- collectively -- on that and watch as our collective altruistic tendencies are drastically reduced compared to the sum of our individual altruistic tendencies.

That's not really evil, that's just human nature. But it is precisely the reason that I feel that encouraging people like Elon Musk is by far the superior way to lead us into the future. Tesla makes cars that are better than competing ICE vehicles for many/most use-cases. And not "better" in the sense that our individual sense of altruism gets triggered to reward our brain's pleasure center because we've prevented some Pacific islander's house from getting wiped out in a sea level rise by buying one. No, better in real, measurable criteria: less expensive to operate, better performance / top speed / acceleration, features ... potentially even panty-dropping sexiness. That shit can motivate us as a collective society much more reliably than altruism.

And that's why I think it is more important to encourage the Elon Musks of the future than it is to get TOO overly concerned about the Donald Trumps of the present. Although admittedly, there's certainly ways to try to do both.

I don't know that Carlin's voice would be the right one, but doing so wouldn't necessarily be an issue for the character of Blaine. Seems reasonable to have a computer simulation of a particular voice rather than a voice actor specifically acting out each line. I'd argue however that if we're going to resurrect someone to voice Blaine, let's go with Alan Rickman. Just the right blend of civilized / polite and deadly serious / menacing.

Edit:
I've been a fan of the books from sometime between 3 and 4, and love most of the story. The last three books lost me some, as they felt quite different in tone. Even Wizard and Glass felt a bit of a miss, though it was a solid story in its own right. I frequently avoid watching trailers for films I know I'll see, so as to avoid spoilers and being mislead if the trailer happened to be poorly made. I plan to see this movie, and originally came here for the comments exclusively; having read them, I chose to watch it. I get the impression that the actors treat the characters well, and they feel like good interpretations. McConaughey's Walter is hard to read with what little we see here, but I've generally liked him in other things.

My biggest worry is that visuals all seem too clean, and the more sci-fi direction bothers me some. To me Mid-World always seemed like a character itself. An ancient thing, being stretched thin, fighting to hold itself together and losing. High tech doesn't feel right there, like the extreme entropy would have rendered it all non-operative. There was some tech here and there in the books, but most of it was broken or breaking down.

Great idea, but you can buy a nerf vortex for $10, hollow it out, and put your gopro in it.
These guys have obviously practiced their throws to be able to keep it pointed in the right direction and not spin. They did far better than I thought they would.
*quality low tech advancement in high tech photography