Grumpy Rootbeer

Just caught it in theaters yesterday. Looks great!

Yep. GitS isn't even the second or third best realization of that property in animation form. It's very pretty and has some iconic scenes, but it does basically nothing with a really great cast of characters. Perfect Blue on the other hand is, well, perfect.

Like, if you were born a hundred years before me, by the time you were my age you likely had gone from a world where you lived like it was the 18th century to one with flight, cars, electricity, and the radio. I got computer smaller and Internet faster.

It's always weird to me that people don't realize that we live a time of technological stagnation that hasn't really been seen since the industrial revolution. I mean, what has happened since the 90s that isn't just miniaturization, increased power, greater scale, of existing technologies?

Truly a strange moment in the history of liberal democracy when you have to fall back on "well, at least we have the Pope".

Since the Russian revolution at least

The current drift of German politics is not encouraging on that count. You have an ascendant far right all but embracing open Nazism and a liberal establishment that is aggressively flying cover for Israel and a center that is trying to split the difference between the two.

Love to run the government "like a business".

The writing was on the wall the second they started gleefully trawling Twitter and Facebook comments as though that counted as actual on the ground reporting. Was extremely clear to me circa 2010 that legacy media was throwing in the towel.

I have great news, only one in four of your neighbors voted for this.

the administration is laser-focused on making sure Americans don't get clean energy, so Saudi Arabia (Trump's paymaster) has someone to sell their oil to in 10 years when the rest of the world has moved on to solar+batteries

Way of Water in 3D in the theaters is so good.

Love to be the sort of person who realizes for the first time in 2025 that Trump is in the pocket of the Gulf Oil Barons

Trump = my health insurance premium is half my paycheck and my rent is the other half, but I still have a car payment, utilities, and groceries to pay for.

He read it when he was like 12 and hasn't revisited it since.

Did my cat post this?

Trump vs. US was the final straw imo. You cannot read that ruling and continue believing they have legitimacy. It is not only against the plain text of the constitution, it is anathema to the national ethos. It is offensively, insultingly un-American and they ceded legitimacy by committing that sin.

As someone who briefly played baseball (quite badly) as a kid, I also wonder this.

I like the idea that the world of Aliens is just so vast that things like this very easily go without notice. Oh, a new colony fair and everyone died? An ore hauler disappeared? Sure, whatever, happens all the time.

Extremely funny that they thought something hosted by Metaxas had any shot at mainstream appeal.

Also have some familiarity with Northern Oklahoma and agree that tulsa sits right on a cultural borderland

Very much agreed. I'm from the borderlands of the upper midwest and heartland by birth, education, and current residence and you can feel the difference going further north or further south. And Fargo, Sioux City, Omaha, and Wichita are very much the farthest west Midwestern cities.

I understand being horrified and disgusted by the misery caused by these USAID cuts, but I think a big lesson to be learned is that the capricious and cynical largesse of the American empire cannot be relied upon to help people.

Weird then that the farmers keep voting for subsidies over sales.

These people so thoroughly resent that there is a huge and thriving American cultural scene that wants nothing to do with them and that the best they can attract to their cause are has-beens, never-weres, and b and c tier acts.

Astonishing how many suburban tract home dwellers there are utterly terrified that they might be somehow obligated to live their life in a way that might involve direct close contact with another human being.

A green mantis on the lid of an outdoor trashcan

The same mantis, further down on the can

Nice mantis friend. I found one on my trashcan a week ago:

If for no other reason than that there's barely any left. The massive contraction of legacy media in the 2010s was somewhat offset by a blossoming of new media outlets, but they've been more than decimated in the last five years.

Gotta supercharge our downward spiral in the educational rankings!

Wouldn't be shocked for him to wind up here in Iowa. Our state GOP loves to import failed right wing ideas and policy makers from further south.