Never bet against the stupidity of the American voter.

With voter suppression on the rise, vote invalidation based on as little as an untrained clerk's opinion of a signature or a middle name vs initial on the application and targeting minorities at >4 times the rate of whites, poll closures and inconsistent hours/services (longer hours and more early voting in affluent areas), and voting machines reportedly changing straight party democratic ticket votes to include votes for republican candidates (Cruz) in Texas at least, the results are far from a foregone conclusion.

The only thing conclusive to me is that this election will be suspect and considered illegitimate by whoever loses.
Russia is sure getting it's money's worth. We couldn't be more divided without taking up arms against each other... oh....wait....we are taking up arms against each other based on political affiliation already.

VOTE....and remind Republicans that Trump just gave them 5 extra days, until the 11th, to vote while anyone not registered Republican must vote on or before the 6th. ;-)

I didn't dislike the new Ghostbusters. Of course it couldn't surpass the original, but I felt the SNL casts were fun to watch on the big screen and they had fun making it. I wanted to turn my brain off and see something fun with my wife next to me and it delivered enough. Is it better than a free SNL episode on TV? No. But is it worth a ticket? Yes, to support these actresses & production, IMO. God knows we need more "fun rides" movies than the "another-month-another-Marvel/DC-superheroes-punch-fest" routine we've settled into for a couple of years now.

I don't mind the SJW aspects of any Hollywood production. I rarely get bothered by SJW-undertones, bad accents, historical/source material accuracy if the movie/TV is good/fun/meaningful. When I spot them, I can mentally compartmentalize and say "OK, moving on..." and focus on the plot, acting, theme and the storytelling. What I am bothered by, is when a production went way over-board to be stereotypical and predictable. Is Ocean 8 overselling SJW? I don't feel it. At least, I don't go look for it to criticize for the sake of it.

However, from the trailer, it doesn't have that Ocean 11 signature slickness to it, though. Love Sandra Bullock to death as I am, she's no replacement to Clooney in terms of magnetism here. And Cate & Anne being overly typical Cate & Anne... that I am sick of. But it is a crime-genre movie that I can get my wife to the theater to watch together because of the cast, this the original O11 & Godfather type of movies can't.

I don't think you can copyright the title of a work, just the work itself.

It's funny to see what these guys think is difficult. Tempo and time signature changes are really common in metal (especially thrash) and almost any metal player has to get used to them right from the start. The rhythm playing for this song would be about intermediate difficulty, but the solos are ridiculous because, well... Marty Friedman.

"the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."-
Treaty of Tripoli- ratified by the United States Senate unanimously without debate on June 7, 1797, taking effect June 10, 1797, with the signature of the second U.S. President, John Adams.

Republicans have completely forgotten this basic tenet of American government and the ideals of the founders.

I think Republicans have a disconnect on the word "Build" when they talk about Building an Economy. You build from the ground up. You don't build an attic, then put up walls, then floors, and finish with a solid foundation. It starts with that solid foundation. In an economy like ours that rely on people spending, you need people to be able to spend. That means the people at the low end that do more spending than those on the top (per dollar earned anyhow), need to be the ones having disposable income. If they spend 100% or more of their income on living essentials, they can't spend to move the economy. When they finally do spend, then the retailer can hire more people (at least until automation starts taking over low end jobs, which is frighteningly soon), which means more people with income to spend, which feeds into the cycle. Eventually transportation starts picking up, which feeds more money into the economy. Eventually production has to keep up. By punishing those at the bottom, is shooting oneself in the foot. Half the people who work for Walmart qualify for food stamps, though Walmart makes enough to pay everyone a living wage, give them benefits, and still be profitable, but the people conservatives (Christians yet, who Jesus said to help the needy and the poor, and how the rich were going to hell) are mad at, are the poor people working there, rather than the rich owners/operators for not paying living wages. So conservatives seek to punish those workers by taking away something that allows them to spend money on things that actually move the economy forward. 3 people buying a $25k Chevy will do far more for the economy than that rich ass hole who just put $70lk on a Mercedes or Lexus. Their collection of TVs, video game systems and the like, do far more for the economy than that rich guy's super high def, ultra large screen TV. It's such a fucked up world in conservative land... I'm still at a loss how I used to be a part of it.

It gets to what @enoch was talking about above. There are some really good business owners, then there are the winny bitches who say they can't pay living wages... One of the jobs I worked at, complained in a letter to all of us that if Obama won (first time around) he'd have to fire over 350 people if he put his tax plans in place. Come that February, Obama isn't even in office yet, and he fires 350+ people. Then tells the rest of us that the company couldn't afford to give us raises... of course the company at the same time, went out and purchases a private jet for him, and then he purchased a second mansion in the local, Jack Nicklaus, signature golf course gated community... and he already owned the second largest mansion there. But oh, the conservatives are so support him over his employees, and think poorly of his employees for needing help living day to day, and praise him for his business acumen. The problem with conservatives is they LOVE greed. Love it. They worship it more than they do the Christ they say they serve. They just don't want their money going to help others, they give plenty at their church, they give time at the soup kitchen, but God forbid that their taxes help those working for the asshole business owners who chose greed over their employees. Pay your employees living wages, and no, you won't have it on easy street like Enoch's nephew, but I can guarantee you that his son is the far better human... and that's not to say the nephew doesn't give, he very well may, but he chose to take that money for himself than to pay his employees well. It doesn't matter if he gives tons of it away, it was ill gotten, how much could it have helped his employees had he let them keep more of their labor? Sadly, that nephew seems to be the vast majority of businesses in the US.

It's like he's dropping half or a third of every word between complex words as they enter his brain and he confuses them with each other, almost like when you drop syllables in espanol. Except he's dropping syllables on words that he imagines are the words he's looking for.

Ex. Esigdesigejucation: Escort signature designated digested judiciary education. He drops syllables on each word he confuses in his thought process.

I'm going to implement "esigdesigejucation" in my daily life.

https://www.tesla.com/blog/upgrading-autopilot-seeing-world-radar
even cooler, as of a recent update the Tesla can actually bounce radar underneath and around the car ahead to the one in front of it (albeit probably at a lower resolution)
"Taking this one step further, a Tesla will also be able to bounce the radar signal under a vehicle in front - using the radar pulse signature and photon time of flight to distinguish the signal - and still brake even when trailing a car that is opaque to both vision and radar."

Prometheus was almost great, but there were too many "that's fucking stupid" elements. The entire crew was shit, not a single one was likable. At least with the space truckers in Alien, they were all sorts of assholes, but they were likable assholes. In Prom, they were just unpleasant people, doing unpleasant things, while generally being bad people - I hate them all still.

One thing Prometheus had going for it was visuals - Ridley Scott knows how to film a good looking film, I don't really think anyone can argue that. I really hope the story won't get fucked over this time, and I hope it won't just be a retread either. The reason Aliens was so great, is that it did something new with the franchise; prometheus tried and failed to do that well.

Alien 3 was not actually so shit, I think. It made some damn near unforgivable choices in killing off Newt and Hicks off screen, but aside from that I actually liked it. Close to a retread of Alien, but still a twist on it.

A4 was just shit with some good bits in - the many twisted clones of ripley, the Auton, and the aliens in water was all fun things. The rest is garbage.

I'm cautiously optimistic about Covenant, more classic horror, I wager, but with Scott's signature visuals.. we'll see!

I'd love to see a lot of bands playing their signature songs.
Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This
R.E.M - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Yeah, I just did my first mail in voting this year and I don't think I'll go back to voting in person.

But one thing that worries me is lots of ballots are voided if your signature doesn't match the one on file. You have no way of telling what signature they have on file, and you will never be notified if your vote was invalidated. Plus signature records are often taken from horrible pixilated signature pads from the DMV. I'm sure they could solve these problems with a little effort.

As great as John Oliver is, he spent more time there mocking them over petty things as opposed to really concentrating on the (admittedly real) flaws in their platforms.

OK, Stein's "music" is cringeworthy. And Johnson's "skirt" comment is creepy and ill advised, but clearly meant in a metaphorical way.

It kinda bothers me when people (not just Oliver) do it to Trump and Clinton also. Like Trump having "tiny hands", or bringing up cankles or pantsuits for Clinton.

All of those things can be funny, a few times. But bringing them up constantly makes it seem like we have nothing of actual substance to criticize them for -- which is clearly not the case.


He did bring up legitimate concerns for some of Stein and Johnson's signature platforms. In both cases, that criticism boiled down to "you can't actually do that", as in the president doesn't actually have the power to implement the policy that they want. That's fair ... BUT, pretty much every single politician ever makes campaign promises that they don't actually have the power to implement. You pretty much have to if you want to get elected.

That doesn't mean that setting those policies as goals can't have value. Obama wanted a much more thorough overhaul of healthcare and insurance, but he didn't have the power to make it happen unilaterally. So we ended up with a watered-down version of Obamacare after the Republicans in the legislature did everything they could to obstruct it. But still, even though it isn't exactly what Obama originally had in mind, there are plenty of people now with some health coverage who had none before. That's a tangible positive result.

Trump will never build his wall, even if he ends up in the White House (not likely). I offer no defense for this idiotic idea, but it is at least possible for massive public works projects to be used to create jobs, improve infrastructure, and have other tangible positive effects; like FDR's New Deal.

Hillary would face lots of obstruction if she attempts to implement her plan to let people attend public universities for free. Probably more than Obama did on Obamacare. But trying to do something to make post-secondary education more available to everyone is a good goal. Even if the cynic in me thinks she only produced this "plan" as a way to try to win support of Sanders voters.

Johnson couldn't eliminate income tax, or abolish all those departments he mentioned. But he could rein in a lot of spending that the Executive branch does have power over. That could be a good thing in many cases (I'd be happy to see the TSA eliminated and military spending drastically reduced), but there are also a lot of potential problems. See Kansas transformation to "Brownbackistan" as a result of Sam Brownback's drastic tax cuts.

And Stein couldn't forgive student loan debt for this "entire generation". But just like Clinton's proposal to make public universities free, there is potential value to be found in just trying to do something about the insane problems with our university system. Hillary is a savvy enough politician to know not to say too much about her plan, which would open it up to scrutiny and criticism. Stein stepped into that by revealing her political inexperience, but I tend to trust that she does actually want to do something as opposed to Hillary just saying what she needs to say to get more votes.

That guy is ONLY saved if a HUGE volcano goes off or a good-sized meteorite hits us...

Or, you know, nuclear war.

I fI was Bill Nye I would amend these bets with atmospheric readings of ash @ so many parts per million (at the point it really is WAY too high!). Or also amending it for debris consistent with a large meteorite hit (a few different choices in the ring to measure to see if it's a meteorite too); so if "x" per milllion is too high in the atmosphere, again the year is bunck (the decade may become bunck all depending the levels of both events).

But, the worst, nuclear fallout from what "may be" WWIII or a smaller "civil conflict", like Pakistan and India could top the meters pretty high with worldwide fallout if they drop a good ten or so (again this is based off the material used to create the bomb and once more it's parts per million in the atmosphere combined with, how much?)...

No matter what Bill Nye is right, and even if these type of "small-term" events slow it down momentarily, after the planet helps to clean to out of the atmosphere we have a big issue on hand because some of that stuff WILL stay and then Bill Nye can show you how in two years (and as we know, it could be much longer), or the time it truly takes to clean it out leaves us with an atmosphere that is now even worse...

AIM FOR THE PARTIAL WIN BOYS AND GIRLS!!! I know you all want zombies (radioactive, Japanese spiritual based demons and shinigami here to try to kill us all until every boy and girl 15 years old or so become shounen trope mystical power holders made to save our world from the oncoming onslaught of Donald Trump and Putin phantasms and demons, truly horrific--college students may apply; grownups may gain insight into how to pull off the most powerful abilities that they must teach to the "chosen ones" to use it to defeat either Putin or The Trump (spiritual fighter, capable of killing people even with his TERRIBLE "slams", fighting power: 0, defense: every fanboy on Earth!)--or how to use "super tactics with the "main-group" who'll have stories written about them in their local High Scool Paper every week: in the American, Japanese, Russian, and European branches (needed for Putin, since he writes great stories explaining how each of us suck ass and even though we try it is ALWAYS Putin, riding in on a Velociraptor with a railgun that's able to drive those evil bastards out, especially when he gets off the horse and makes the wrestling techniques and signature move, crossing his arms in an "X" and slamming down over the side of his genitals (causing all watching to be confused and easily dismembered in twenty minutes... The glory of dawn continues in the next 4-6 hours before dawn...

SO... What exactly do you guys believe you should vote for? I say Vote Bill Nye and Vote often. Did you know that in both those "metaverses" Bill Nye becomes akin to Dr. Strange. Great because he protects ALL of us from this world with an extremely powerful spell--as he IS the only person here that knows just what in the hell is happening.

All hail the kid's scientist, through Sarah Palin on the "happiness tour bus" to Putin. He LOVES her. Especially listening to her talk. Ceaseless entertainment...!


I decided to list this as "sarcasm", BUT there is SO MUCH that isn't. Sometimes you have to hide the truth in reality...err...not reality...

Quite a lot of nations have old soviet Shilka's which do those supercomputer calculations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-UnealTR-Y
You get within 1.5 miles of this thing, and it chews up anything that isn't jinking.
There are also variants of this thing which have missiles, and they can even shoot down other missiles to protect itself.
For those it's better to fire helicopter missiles from a low angle. Or bomb them from up very high.

Helicopters are less vulnerable because often they can fire without revealing their position. Modern missiles can be fired from as around 8km away. And they'll fire them while hovering low enough that their radar signatures can't be distinguished from the ground and surroundings. And since they are always facing the enemy their heat signature from the engines is facing away as well. (unlike a warthog that will show it's engines to the enemy as it flies up and away after an attack). Most attack helicopters have some kind of armour as well. At least in the pilot and critical sections.
Oh yes, and something really cool - the new Apache Longbow's can fire missiles that go around terrain to hit their targets! Super cool

They absolutely have disadvantages, but any decent pilot will fly their aircraft to it's advantages

The bit about pop culture portraying New Yorkers as criminals, with the "stigma" leading some to intentionally lose their accents, that was pretty lame for an otherwise intelligent video. It gets presented as a researched fact when it sounds more like a ridiculous theory.

From my experience, current generations weaned on those movies shown in the clip would be more inclined to adopt that accent as just another affectation, tattoo, piercing, meme, avatar, email signature, sampling, bumper sticker.

And the bit about the accent losing favor after WWII, "as Americans were focused on their own identity, rather than maintaining ties to England". Sounds like something a college freshman would write at the last minute to fill out a 1000 word essay.

Even here in Canada both UPS and Purolator have "No signature needed" levels of service where it just gets left at your door.

If you look at your next Purolator "sorry we missed you" stickynote, you'll see where to pick it up, whether they'll try again, and if you like, they'll just leave it if you call them up.

I've personally run off someone trying to grab a package off my neighbour's doorstep. Turns out it was a laptop sent to my neighbour fraudulently. Fraudulently in that the guy trying to grab it used someone elses's credit card to buy it, had it shipped to my neighbour's address, then waited around for the courier. It just so happened I was coming home at exactly that time.