The euphemistically dubbed "Accountable Capitalism Act" would place all businesses with more than $1 billion in revenue under complete and total federal control. The feds would dictate to these businesses the composition of their boards, the details of internal corporate governance, compensation practices, personnel policies, and much more. Control of these businesses would shift from those who actually built them to politicians and bureaucrats who would no doubt use them for entirely philanthropic, non-self-serving ends (gag).Fascism is a state where government exerts tight and minute control over business. The business is still owned and operated by private citizens, but the government tells them what they may and may not do.
Historical example: Hitler telling Ferdinand Porsche to develop a peoples' car, something inexpensive and easily maintained and reasonably durable.
Fictional example: Presdient Warren telling Apple to develop an iPhone which costs under $400 and can run Android apps.
....and Warren's idiotic, fascist idea would result in there being no corporation in the US which ever made more than $999,999,999.99 worth of revenue. If you want to utterly wreck heavy industry in the United States, that is an excellent way to start out.
The companies which flubbed it and ended up under federal control like this would, of course, rapidly decline beneath the $1 billion threshold, because the costs of compliance with this fascist horseshit would bankrupt them.
Lunacy!
* * *
Meanwhile, government shutdown, day 23 and people are starting to look at each other and salivate, imagining each other as tasty dishes:
Or, no--wait, that's not it.
Administration getting more done without the bureaucrats in the way.
And although the media and the Democrats BIRM are doing their best to sell the idea that Trump can't win this, it looks like Trump is winning it.
Particularly since some Democrats are partying it up in Puerto Rico. "Democrats have refused to budge from their position...with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even telling Trump in a situation room meeting last week that even if Trump reopened the government they would not negotiate."
So why reopen government? Particularly considering that 75% of the government is funded (thanks to a continuing resolution)? As far as I'm concerned, just permanently shut down the 25% that's furloughed. Seems as if we don't need it.
* * *
Meanwhile, check this out:
It is increasingly obvious that there is a pony in the heap of Mueller Trump-Russia dung, and the pony is a corrupt FBI and CIA covering up their unlawful conduct. Even the best efforts by the wrongdoers' media mouthpieces are not sufficient to keep us from seeing that.And it's not just FBI and CIA but DNC that is involved with this.
The FBI is the Secret Police.
* * *
Biology is a science, and if you claim to be someone who believes that science is the do-all-be-all of human achievement you cannot just ignore the parts you don't like.
Women cannot serve in combat as effectively as men do.
There are plenty of things men do that women can also do. But there are certain roles where they are just not going to perform as well as men.
And giving female candidates a pass on performance standards is a bad, bad idea.
* * *
*Snerk*. So, Marvel's latest-and-greatest feat is a transgendered mutant superhero. I'm guessing that Shade's mutant superpower is the ability to have a perfect (comic book) female physique with slightly masculine features. I think this comment pretty well nailed it:
So, if the drag queen looked like the women that are currently drawn by Marvel, he'd be too butch and the creative team would be homophobic. If the drag queen was drawn as an actual woman, it'd be homophobic for not clearly being a man in drag.He's not wrong; American comic artists have real trouble making their female characters look feminine.
This comment is 100% true: "Aaaaaaaaand that is why Shonen Jump is so profitable."
* * *
Google discovered something they can charge more for. Audio Chromecast dongle is $15; expect them to release a new one in a few months that costs four times as much.
* * *
I've got $5 which says this woman wants "common sense gun control", too. Dumbass advocates for the assassination of a sitting President, gets investigated by the Secret Service (which investigates every last incident where someone talks about killing any President) and is outraged that she can't call for Trump's assassination without being investigated. "So what you're saying is that I don't have freedom of speech? I can't say what I want to?"
Oh, you can say it, sure. But the Secret Service is going to investigate you to see how much of a threat you are to the President's life.
My favorite example is the kid who wrote a letter to whichever President it was, talking about how he wished the President would be killed, and signed it "love, Billy". Yes there was an investigation. No, there were no arrests.
I do have to say that the woman did the 100% correct thing, however, in saying that she wouldn't answer questions without her lawyer present. Because of how the federal law enforcement apparatus does things, this is the only safe way to interact with it. Ask Martha Stewart how she fared, trying to go it without legal representation.
* * *
In case you forgot, she hadn't committed any crime, but ended up in jail for "lying to federal agents" after giving the FBI two different versions of the same story.
* * *
Bill De Blasio is a bloody communist. When a government official starts saying that "the wrong people" are to blame for anything, that's time for his ass to be de-elected.
* * *
Google fired a guy for writing a memo that the NPCs didn't like, and in the aftermath it seems Google did quite a bit of evil while trying to suppress the issue.
* * *
How dare you remember muslims celebrating the attacks on 9/11/01? Nominally American muslims cheered the attacks, and they cheer for other examples of islamic terrorism.
Okay? The extremist muslim cuts peoples' heads off for not being muslim. The moderate muslim cheers when the extremist cuts off their heads.
* * *
I feel this way about all the magnetic field fearmongering. Look: if Earth's magnetic field collapses (as part of a reversal) the long-term consequences will be miniscule. We won't all die in a wash of hard radiation; the atmosphere will protect us. It takes millions of years for the solar wind to blow away a planet's atmosphere, and a polar reversal won't take that long.
The planet won't suddenly go topsy-turvy. There won't be tidal waves and earthquakes and dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria.
The real danger of the field collapsing is short term. It would cause the power grid to collapse; the collapse of a magnetic field that big would induce a hell of a lot of DC into the wires, and stuff would go "poit" and BANG a lot. It'd be months, if not years, before the entire electrical infrastructure was restored. But not "decades" or "centuries".
* * *
Annoyance 1: mandatory meeting on Saturday.
Annoyance 2: it's at 8 AM, meaning I need to get up at 6 to get there on time.
Annoyance 3: it's two hours, meaning I'll be driving three hours to attend a two-hour meeting.
...way to piss up my frigging day off.
* * *
Last night I had a gander at Amazon Prime's anime selection, and there were so many titles (2200-odd) that the app locked up after about half an hour's browsing. A whole bunch of stuff I'd like to look at.
When I realized that the Amazon app was hosed, I bopped over to Hulu. Hulu's got less of a selection, so I was able to scan through it all, but what caught my eye was Watamote, so I watched the first ep of it.
I find that I identify with Tomoko; I just get the character, and understand exactly where she comes from. I enjoyed the ep and looks forward to seeing more.
Meanwhile, over on Amazon I found Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer. I've got that in dubbed format, but want to see the sub, so I put it on the favorites list for later viewing.
Also saw that there's a Hanasaku Iroha movie.
...went looking because I'm a handful of eps away from being done with The Disastrous Life of Saiki K and want to have something else to watch on my lunch breaks.
* * *
Well, it's Monday.
They say it's going to snow Friday and Saturday, total accumulation to be about 4-8 inches over both days. The little blower can deal with that much, I think. (Heck, it dealt with the Blizzard of 2011, didn't it?)
...right when my wife is driving home from work Friday, and when I have to drive to-and-fro on Saturday. Argh etc. I won't be able to blow down the driveway before Saturday afternoon, thanks to that stupid meeting.
Why's everything got to be so damned complicated?