EdamAnchorman

If there is a blue wave, do we trust the Ds to actually fix the gerrymandering problem in that they'll make it as fair as possible or will they "fix" it meaning they'll just gerrymander it back to slanting more blue? I'm thinking of the recent case in the Ohio state legislature where the people overwhelmingly voted for a resolution to force a fair redrawing of the districts, but the shithole Rs refused to do it on the back of some sneaky language they put in that allowed them to loosely define a "fair" redrawing any way they wanted. Not saying they wouldn't have done this anyway, but it seems they were empowered by the Ds previously gerrymandering the fuck out of the state to lean blue. My point is, that for this issue to really be fixed, it seems that one party is going to have to stand up and be the adult in the room (which is what the majority of Americans want, it seems), and I just don't see either party doing that right now, thinking it will hurt them at the ballot box in the short term. Nobody's willing to give an inch.

And there should be a 100% inheritance tax above $1 million (although this would be so easy to get around).

https://fortune.com/2023/04/27/new-york-mta-twitter-service-alerts-elon-musk/amp/

OK but maybe we should also try to remember the (tens, hundreds? of) other guys that the USSR shot into space but didn't make it back alive.

I've come to think that "Make America Great Again" is code for "Make it OK to Be Openly Racist in America Again". But that doesn't fit so nicely on a lil' red hat.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/24/1171641969/fox-news-fires-tucker-carlson-in-stunning-move-a-week-after-787-million-settleme

First of all, there's a lot you can do within the current tech just playing with chemistry to make them safer (LiFePO4), with trade-offs of course. I agree that practically all recent "major" battery tech advances, e.g., solid state, are vaporware at this point. Second, I don't wanna sound like a free-market douchebag, but if the safety profile of current tech poses a significant enough risk as EVs become more prevalent, the market will hopefully incentivize more radical innovation.

To be fair, the whole "EV fire" thing is pretty much FUD. Regular gas cars catch fire at a higher rate. That being said, an ICE fire is easier to put out than a Li-ion battery fire for sure, but safety (and fire-fighting technology) will catch up as EV battery technology advances. We're only using super-flammable chemistry now because that gives us the best energy density / cost ratio and safety was kind of the sacrificial lamb there. Tesla is already using LiFePO4 batteries which are much less flammable, but they are less energy-dense (heavier per kWh) and lose a bit more range in colder weather.

Thanks for taking me out of context. I was talking about getting a new business off the ground / creating new jobs. You probably knew that but couldn't pass up an opportunity to troll. I have a feeling that you might be confusing capitalism with imperialism with the whole mass genocide, theft of personal property... stuff wrt what I said. IMO, the incentives for job and wealth creation for everyone are the most effective in capitalism with respect to creating new and innovative companies. From my experience, smaller, new companies are much more pro-worker. Problems begin to arise when that company grows to a point where it cannot sustain enough growth through innovation and market expansion, and then it has to rely on squeezing the workers and doing more shady things like "cheating" on or evading corporate taxes, or going to foreign countries and taking their land / labor. That's when I believe capitalism fails the working class, and I don't have a solution of what to do after that. Now, aside from changing the mindset of an entire population, I don't see how one could create the same incentives for new companies to be created and accelerate faster in any other system that's out there right now, but I'll admit I am not nearly as knowledgeable on this subject as some of you and I'm more than willing to be educated. I'll also admit that what I said above assumes that the model for an economy should be infinite growth, which I think is something that will have to change in the not-too-distant future. On a personal note, I'm much more socialistic in my beliefs than you probably think. I work for a giant company and despise it almost every hour of every working day. I have had a front row seat in witnessing my employer do so many truly shitty, immoral things. However, I'm a realist and not about to go live on a commune, so I decided to take my employer for as much money as possible from the inside, and have encouraged many colleagues to do the same. I employ the golden rule, I treat my employer as well / poorly as it treats me. I'm lucky in that I'm somewhat of a specialist which puts me in a position to take my employer for $$$ while pretty much doing as much or as little work as I choose (although my work ethic and morals won't allow me to totally fleece my employer).

By and large, the homeless you see are not homeless solely for lack of a home. The overwhelming majority are homeless because of addiction, mental health issues, or both. Give them a house without fixing the underlying issues, and it's likely that they'll lose the house and end up back on the street. Some portion could probably make it off the street with sufficient social / medical programs and support, and perhaps family support. Note that on average, the USA sucks ass at those things; ergo, this is what you get. America is just ideologically ill-equipped to deal with the underlying causes of homelessness.

No, unfortunately.

Nah those types of people have always/will always exist. We are just more privy to their stupidity cuz they're prob orders of magnitude more likely to post their stupidity on stupid social media.

= micropenis

I'm starting to think that capitalism is great for getting things going, but once a publicly-traded company grows to a certain size, capitalism will always dictate that they continue growing. For bigger companies, this almost always comes at the expense of the employees. Cutting benefits, "doing more with less", mergers, just-in-time supply chains, etc. When I started working for my employer (Johnson & Johnson) 11 years ago, my division (Consumer Products: slow-growing, steady) was seen as a ballast of sorts. When the pharma and med. device divisions were more volatile, we provided a ballast for the company. We still had a pension plan (lol) and great benefits. The most recent CEO took over and within a year, froze the pension plan, reduced health care benefits for retirees, and spun off my division to become a separate company (because they shopped us around and we were too big for someone to buy). Rumor is that he's going to do the same to med. device, just leaving J&J to be a pharma company, where the stock price can go up much faster (nevermind that J&J actually started as the Consumer business, gauze, Band-Aid, etc.). It's disgusting. Although I'm lol-ing hard that J&J has to keep the (multi-billion dollar) talc litigation liability, even though they shed us, and that their Texas two-step bankruptcy maneuver has just been shot down in appellate court.

covfefe I'm no lawyer, but Georgia seems like it would be easier to prosecute compared to Jan. 6th. "We just need to find.... 18,000 votes." Oh okay fuckhead, brb gonna go check the lost and found at the polling stations across the state.

Nice! I'm a small rain fan (not near a foamer), even built some tanker cars out of Lego (posted in the Lego thread here years ago). Plus, I'm a chemical engineer so rail cars are at the intersection on those two things. Always found them interesting.

Is that a rail tanker car???

If you haven't tried it yet, try the bowl of arugula with a splash of olive oil & vinegar, and some freshly-cracked black pepper and salt.

It's all over the New York news that the NYC cops are bracing for demonstrations WHEN Trump is arrested. Of course he is complaining, but if you don't wanna be arrested, then:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/american-company-accused-of-violating-sanctions-doing-business-with-russian-arms-industry Hey, gotta make that bank, tho.

This is an explosion of sour cherries and I love it.

She's Finnished But honestly, who cares?

Vesperi by Marco Baldini

Agree, but knowing how these big companies work, they've probably borrowed / mortgaged against their projected sales which included this $1b chunk so to them they might realize a loss greater than the production cost if they cannot sell them at what they projected (which makes me lol).