rjshae

Timber! Japan launches world’s first wooden satellite into space

Most of those efforts took place in red states, so it wasn't as concerning as it might have been. Still, the optics were pretty bad. As for forcing people to stand in line for 6 hours to vote, that seems like a form of a poll tax which violates the 24th amendment. But I'm not sure how well that argument would play out in the court system.

I'm not convinced the fear-mongering strategy failed; it just wasn't enough. Lower income people got clobbered in the pocketbook by inflation, and no amount of good economic news was going to counter that. The Fed took a year before changing the rate to counter inflation, and as consequence it nearly got out of hand. I think that's why DJT is President. Yes, the entire world went through inflation, but Americans tend to be insular and think locally. Back before the 2020 election I thought some of DJTs policies were inflationary (E.g. massive aid package; tariffs), yet somehow he's escaped blame. That's partly because of poor messaging by the Biden administration, something they've shown over and over they're not good at. The Democrats painted themselves into a corner on the border issue, and they have nobody but themselves to blame. My concern now is with DJT planning to use the military against targets in the US. That's the path to becoming a banana republic.

Fabrik?

I think Biden would just have lost by a larger margin. His polls were scraping bottom at 38.5% approval rating; they flipped back in 2021 (with the withdrawal from Afghanistan) and have never recovered. There was nobody else to step into his place other than Harris, and she and Biden controlled the campaign budget. If there had been more time, maybe Harris could have built more of a coalition. She gave it a good run, given the limited time available.

Well, the Democrats are now 0-2 running female candidates for Presidents. My conjecture is it will take a special female candidate to win the office for the first time (assuming there will be any future fair elections). To me, Harris lacks charisma and doesn't have a good speaking voice. I thought at the time that Biden made a non-optimal choice for VP, and now here's the consequence. As for the election whiner, well life is funny even when it's not. It was a "titanic" victory.

Word is the Russians were behind it, along with a number of disinformation videos.

My sympathies for all the US election workers and the stuff and nonsense they have to put up these days for just doing their patriotic duty.

Yes, if it happens it is more likely to occur in red states. Georgia, Kentucky, and Nebraska have bills in the works to ban the practice of floridating the water supply. They should provide useful political experiments.

The Table 87 Pizza actually had decent reviews from the cooks. I've been looking for a place that has them so I can give it a try. The vacuum sealing makes sense.

Meanwhile, prepare to have more cavities and rotten teeth for your kids: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says Donald Trump would seek to remove fluoride from water if elected

Election ad spending in the US is $10 billion this year. Yep, we spent more than DJT's net worth on this circus. Fun times.

I think mostly what you'll see is a lot of stupid, a lot of hate, and a lot of stupid hate, not necessarily in that order. DJT just says many remarkably dumb things, which somehow makes him popular. He'll probably earn himself a couple more impeachments, and plenty of court cases. I'm not clear how all this is making America great; mostly it seems to have the opposite effect.

If the Democrats had turned on full support for Muslims and Gaza, they would lose more independent votes than they would gain. It's definitely a headache for them.

Well I suppose it has the psychological effect of implying further escallation if Iran inflicts a massive retaliation. Seriously, I'm not sure how wars ever end in that region. Maybe they don't.

Well that article doesn't actually say. I would be a little surprised that Israeli didn't use this opportunity to go after Iran's underground nuclear weapon program.

America is has been involved in many wars over the last century, so there's a segment of the population that is very familiar; I'd say more so than most nations. What we haven't experienced is what war does to the civilian population.

Two weeks of campaign stupidity remain.

Possibly he's referring to radiological weapons. That wouldn't take long to assemble, and might be used as a weapon of last resort.

I went to see The Wild Robot with a family member. It's mostly family fare with a traditional Disney-like anthromorphization of the characters. As an adult I found it only mildly entertaining; it isn't in the same class as Wall-E for example.

I persevered through two seasons of The Ark and I have to say it is one of the dumbest-written sci-fi series I've ever seen. It's like the writers have absolutely no understanding of physics, or science in general. But I suppose it's entertaining in its own way. Mostly eye candy space opera stuff with plenty of plot twists. One of these days we'll see an actual good movie or drama series about a generation ship and its crew.

It's unclear that it was an assassination attempt. Just a guy exercising his 2nd amendment rights, perhaps.