You’ve said the same about people in their homes, even about George Floyd if I’m not mistaken, he wasn’t running, straw man.

I do see his issue as a problem. I don’t think it’s an excuse to break the law in multiple dangerous or malicious ways like he did. I think, like most other countries have, we should pay people their normal wages to stay home quarantined so we might stop being the worst at COVID response on the planet and avoid this kind of situation altogether.
You seem to think we should pretend the pandemic is a fraud and go back to life like it was pre 2020....problem solved. Your words say as much. Sorry, that’s not realistic. That “plan” kills millions at best and destroys the economy in the process.

Btw, we've been over this a dozen times, I’ve never taken a dime of government assistance, and my wife and I live on $30k a year. Just because i don't need government assistance doesn't mean I don't see the need for others, just like even though I'm "retired" I can still understand the need for a paycheck, but needing money is not an excuse to break the law or heroin dealers and bank robbers would be good guys who just need to make money.

Yes, the government doesn’t care, that’s why it just passed another COVID relief bill that again gives the vast majority of the money to corporations and state government, not citizens (likely with the same lack of protections that let Kushner and a few Trumps take millions from the first relief bill). For once, Trump at least publicly tried to do the right thing (credit where it’s due) by insisting on larger payments like Democrats wanted all along and Republicans killed the idea.

I love that it is done frame-by-frame the same. Comparison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryJuJuW_1Zo

I also love that it's a fantastic example of why hand drawn animation looks better than CGI for realistic-ish humans. I don't think it's possible to make a CGI version of Cheetaras sequence look better than the original hand drawn.

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

No. It would take years for the undergrowth to become a significant fuel source again. That is the least of the issues with using goats as a realistic method of fuel management. It might be suitable for creating firebreaks on private land but it's useless in the wilderness.

No Bob. That's wrong....not surprising because Russia doesn't teach American politics, but that's not how it works.

Your simple illustration from a simple mind is incorrect. Impeachment isn't the same as a bill, if it was McConnell would just refuse to act like he has on almost every bill, killing it in political limbo. He simply cannot do that, because it's not a bill, it's a constitutional duty.

Yes, at this point the articles are legitimate, and the Senate's slimy trail began long ago. The trial can't start until the legitimate articles are submitted to the Senate.

A realistic illustration for a simple mind....this is like having a grand jury indictment that has yet to be put on the courts calendar because the judge is the defendant's best friend and business partner but refuses to recuse himself. The indictment is legitimate, but the trial hasn't yet started because the only prosecutor and the jury pool has stated publicly that they're all working for the defendant and will just exonerate him without a real trial, no evidence, and no testimony.
The Senate has to have a real trial to enforce it....but has already ensured any faux trial is nothing but a politically motivated rubber stamp where jeopardy is never attached.

Funny you ignored the bit about charity fraud and other high crimes, which he undeniably committed and admitted under oath so you have to call him a perjuror to deny it, stealing from veterans and children to pay for his campaign and inauguration, lying to Mueller which you applauded, and making hundreds of millions by renting resort rooms to foreign governments at inflated rates that aren't even used (which is pure bribery). That's impeachable, cause for removal, and should end in prison, he outright stole millions through fraud and admitted it last year in court. I suppose you must agree since you didn't contradict any of that.....and you can't, because he's admitted it all.

...Maybe? It would absolutely annihilate at something like chess, or Go. I have a hard time imaging a good use case for having it actually run a video game, but I'm guessing few people working on early traditional computers could've envisioned any of the delightful diversions we now take as a given. Probably when I'm 80 kids will be playing quantum Minecraft in a layered omniverse of worlds, where removing a block in one world has consequences in nearby dimensions, with chaos theory realistically modeled and incorporated.

Some complex tasks a QC would absolutely rock at however. Feed it a long list of employees, hours of availability, and coverage requirements, and it should spit out a 100% optimum schedule immediately. Air traffic controllers (particularly at large hub airports) would likely find it helpful in coordinating flight plans. Logistics for manufacturing, shipping, etc. The downside is that encryption will likely be utterly fucked for a while, as a quantum computer with a sufficient number of qubits could try all possible options at once. So it'll be interesting, but we're still 10+ years from any sort of commercial products, and they'll be like the computers of the 60s: huge and expensive, big iron for custom purposes. Or at least that's my semi-informed guess, I ain't no technoprophet.

Someone who really wants to get involved in bleeding-edge tech would do well to dive into this field. Writing the algorithms needed to run a task on a QC requires a completely different mindset than programming a traditional computer. I don't think people with years of experience with current programming methodologies would adapt well. At best they'd be nearly starting from scratch, at worst they'd have to work to un-learn what they already know.

I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Trump didn't care that everyone assumed he was hiding his taxes because he was committing tax fraud. That means the truth is worse.

What's worse than a felony in Trump's world?

People realizing he's bankrupt.

Why does Russia have such a hold over him?

Well, we know he's borrowed huge sums from Russian oligarchs, we don't know how much, because he won't open up his finances, but it's a pretty safe bet those loans are all that's keeping him afloat.

Everything that he's done only lends proof to the hypothesis. He bends over backwards for Russia or any tin pot dictator who can do him a 'favour' and he uses every bit of power he can muster to throw business toward his failing empire.

Trump was never a good businessman. His father cheated the tax code to gift him New York real-estate that would be worth 12 Billion today if Trump had simply held on and maintained the properties. Decades of wheeling and dealing later, he himself claimed he was worth about 2 Billion, and most realistic estimates placed his wealth well below a Billion. And that's in spite of his fraud, chicanery, stiffing contractors and investors, and general malfeasance.

He's always been an idiot. He's been blacklisted for decades by every American bank. They won't touch him, they won't look at his business plans and they won't even think of giving him any kind of loan.

How any American can look at him and think he has the slightest clue what he's doing, or think he actually cares about anyone other than himself is beyond me.

Great argument about temperatures. Now have one about nation-state economies and government systems.

Its less like what can we do about asteroids, more like what can we realistically do to help the people in Ukraine or Hong-Kong.

Greta is a marketing tool. Her science and tears may be genuine, she may not realize it, but she is a marketing tool in the hands of adults around her.

It's an extreme solution certainly, but not without merit. I doubt there'd ever be a willing acceptance of such a plan though, so a slightly more realistic solution would need to be moderated some. How's this for dystopian-but-not-quite-genocidal:
Worldwide lottery, a small percentage (total of 500M - 1B maybe) wins the right to live in what will be the new model of the world: something like what we have now, but with drastically reduced usage of non-renewable resources (until they can be replaced completely) and a target of zero negative impact on the environment as a whole. Still some version of democratic (generally at least), freedom of whatnot and such, open travel to the degree that sustainable transportation options allow, all the (again, sustainable) mod cons. I suppose different countries / regions could still run things according to their preferences, as long as the net-zero goal remains.
The other lottery entrants, the non-winners, don't need to die, hooray! They will however live on something akin to reservations, as serfs, without the right to further reproduce. These poor bastards, in exchange for not being outright murdered to save civilization, are to be consolidated into agricultural communes to do whatever they can to regrow the world's flora and fauna until they all eventually die. Their goal is not net-zero, but as far into the positive as possible. It would all be overseen according to some grand scheme(s) to be as beneficial for the overall future of humanity and life on Earth in general as possible.

Probably also unworkable, but preferable to megamurder?

it was bleh. a bit crass humor.
yogurt was hilarious.
but i liked zima blue the most. very philosophical and struct a cord with me.

but this lucky13 has one of the most realistic cgi of any episode..or i think of any cgi i've ever watched.

These pallets are often covered with layers of moving-wrap (thick saran wrap) - are these ostriches fitted with a knife blade?

I wonder how much weight is inside these demo boxes? If they are empty, it's not that realistic of a demo, but if they have some weight inside, then it's very impressive!

Your video, BUILDING 3 HYPER-REALISTIC DIORAMAS THAT ARE SO AMAZING, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Kind of an idiot (excuse me, simplistic) view of taxation - assuming the only purpose of taxes is to ensure that every citizen lives as well as every other one. It also ignores the reality that there is a good deal of self-interest and self-dealing in government agencies. Perhaps a more realistic view is to tax at rates that optimize productive economic activity within the system.

I'm sure they will gain more overall customers because they are owned by Proctor & Gamble. As I mentioned originally, there will be plenty of women and white knights who jump at the chance to support a company who decided to tag along onto the #metoo movement.

To me, that is part of the reason why I dislike this commercial so much. Not just because of it's huge and sweeping generalizations (practically every scene has one), but because their ad department had to know that an edgy commercial would do the same thing for them as it did for Nike. Does anyone think that the majority of actual corporate level people at Gillette/P&G give two fucks about #metoo? I know I don't.

It's just an ad targeted at a huge group of people that are easy to take potshots at currently. I find it little different than attack ads run by fucktards that want to condemn all Muslims for the act of terrorists or fundamentalist jihadists. The most screwed up thing about that analogy is that, realistically, there are largish groups of Islamic people that actually will cheer and throw celebrations when there is a terrorist attack. Yet you would be hard put to find large swaths of men out in the streets cheering on the effects of so called Toxic Masculinity.

Yes, we as men need to speak out. We need to support the evolution of mankind away from barbarism. But we don't need to succumb to propaganda that tries to purport that a man seeing a pretty lady walk past shouldn't attempt to say hi or introduce himself to her because that is bad. This ad, with one of the sweeping generalizations I mentioned earlier, would have you think that it is HORRIBLE for a man to do that and that a 'responsible' man would body check that guy. Because men should never try to meet women, only remain passive and allow the woman to come to them. I say fuck that, it is wrong to catcall women, but there is nothing wrong with going up and saying hi. This ad (and some other internet videos) would have you think it's the equivalent of throwing the lady down in the middle of a crowded walkway and having your way with her.

The ad could have been better, there were moments like the Terry Crews scene that I agree with, but they took the easy way out and just slammed men in general.