then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

I don’t know why, but this made me really sad. Remember when we, the “New World, with all its power and might” fought for “rescue and liberation”? Really makes you want to stand up and fight for who we were and can still be again.

Correct. For criminal acts. As Mitt Romney said, “Corporations are people, my friend.” (Yes, I know corporate personhood makes no sense, but this is the messed up world we live in.)

Can’t pardon a lawsuit. Lawsuits are civil; pardons are for criminal cases. Those staffers could be bankrupted, which would be hilarious.

Honestly, of all the things he’s doing, not releasing the results of his physical are the least worrisome. Anyone with eyes and a brain can see he’s not healthy.

I see both points. You’re totally right that for a company, it’s just the result that matters. However, to Bradley’s, since he’s specifically talking about art direction, the journey is important in so much as getting a passable result. I’ve only dabbled with 2D and 3D art, but converting to 3D requires an understanding of the geometries of things and how they look from different angles. Some things look cool from one angle and really bad from another. Doing the real work allows you to figure that out and abandon a design before too much work is put in or modify it so it works better.

When it comes to software, though, I’m kinda on the fence. I like to use AI for small bits of code and knocking out boilerplate so that I can focus on making the “real” part of the code good. I hope the real, creative, and hard parts of a project aren’t being LLM’d away, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s a mandate from some MBA.

As far as I can tell, it boils down to some combination of three reasons: they’re bigots; they’re stupid; or they’re selfish. Bigotry is self-explanatory. If they actually believed that he would do good things and help the country, then they’re clearly stupid. If they didn’t care how his actions hurt others but thought they’d help them financially, then they’re selfish. Now, if they’re selfish and not wealthy (wealthy being not like two houses and a couple millions in savings but rather own a couple yachts and an island) then they’re also stupid on top of being selfish.

The United States has a good deal of cultural rot. As a culture, we’re sick and have been for decades (and that’s not even getting into the nation’s original sin of slavery/racism). Carter rightly pointed it out in his “malaise speech.” A large number of Americans are simply incapable of thinking about others outside themselves. We are incapable of taking on large projects for the collective good. And because of that, we defunded education for decades leading to the stupid, selfish population of today.

Zog yes? Zog no?

How stupid does he think we are?

Before or after destroying the Department of Education? The entire reason behind this is that uneducated people don’t know their rights or how the government works, so the GOP can run roughshod over our rights.

Because he conceded that it’s not within his power to dismantle a government department that was made via a law. In other words, he blinked on infringing on that core Article I power. That said, I don’t think it’s a huge win, and he will try again. But at least we are finding the frontiers of Republicans’ stomach for authoritarian behavior. It’s not great, but it’s something.

Don’t forget to say “pwease” and “tank you”! At this point, I’m shocked but not surprised that the Democrats are just rolling over.

In some cases, sure I’ll grant it can be unfair for newly transitioned women, i.e. on hormones for less than a year. After that, any potential advantage is for a large part nullified (which is overly simplistic as a timeline but whatever). Also, let’s be real honest on just how many people this affects. The amount is so staggeringly small that even if we put aside that there is only a temporary advantage, there’s really not much of a problem, just a handful of individuals.

But, and this is vitally important to understand, sports are not a core, vital governmental interest and thus do not need to be legislated. To be very plain, games are not important to the functioning of society. Individual leagues can come up with their own policies if they feel it so necessary to exclude the small number of trans women who want to participate.

The entire “debate” just shows we are not a serious society. God forbid trans women want to exist and pursue their interests.

As for Gavin Newsome, this really shows he’s trying a bit too hard to start a presidential run with a theory of “let’s be Republican Lite.” That worked so well the last time.

Hiding behind “but they committed a crime!” is going to be used to justify all kinds of horrors.

Yep. Anything they don’t like will be criminalized. Then when there is an inevitable protest because of some overreach, the government will react by going to the media and vilifying the protests for supporting “hardened criminals.” It’s so transparent.

It just goes to show that legality and morality, while sometimes overlapping, are not the same.

I’ve been doing some thinking about this recently, and I think it comes from two places. One is the easily spotted malice toward workers and stepping on them (à la Elon). The other for managers and the like who are not straight up sociopaths is that a lot of these people have no meaning in their lives and have never really done anything they really believe in (or bleed for that matter). So, they try to derive meaning from their relatively boring, unimportant job, and try to get others into it like they are. They’re starved for camaraderie by the very job they’ve invested their entire lives in. It’s sad really.

I agree. Make them uncomfortable. Make them see how reviled they are.

Hell, they probably used this as a time to do some quick stock buybacks on the cheap.

Traitor.

And so begins the new isolation of the United States, the end of Pax Americana, and the end of American empire and hegemony. Hopefully, Europe can take over as the leaders of the free world and setters of norms.

Or ever again.

It will take severe work for anyone to trust the US ever again. It was hard enough after Trump the first time, but now American contrition will take much longer and require more. I’m talking like impeaching and removing a broad swath of this administration, rejoining international organizations (like the WHO, etc.), and joining others we hadn’t been in before (like the ICC).

American leadership is trashed for a generation at least, possibly forever.

This is a start, but there needs to be more and for longer. This first one is just to get our feet wet and get people into resisting. The second blackout should last a week. Amazon Blackout 2 should be 1-3 months, with Amazon Blackout 3 being of indefinite length. Same for Walmart.

You’re right, but it’s a start to get more people involved and comfortable with taking action. One day is easy and manageable for anyone, but longer periods seem scary. Starting with just one day gives people a foot in the door to try more acts of resistance. When the next call comes for a longer period, it will be easier to get people on board because how much worse is seven days from one?

So, you’re right. One day won’t save us. One day won’t solve the problem. This is not the end, but a beginning, just a first step.