enforcement of existing consumer protection and anti-monopoly laws would do wonders(or tax, wage and hour, vehicle and many others). We actually have some pretty decent laws, they have either been deliberately underfunded, avoided per lobby or overruled by appointed activist judges.

Pretty much the only way out is fire and force it seems, as history shows.

Just imagining Clippy in front of a cracked mirror, “jessss a little more rouge and you can’t have too much mascara…”

I can’t think of anyone I would rather give unalterable biometric information to than a group of egomaniacal sadists who have shown utter disregard for the privacy of everyone as well as the legal code.

Omniscient, omnipotent Business Leaders: “what? There is a catch?!?”

The natural extension of a non-open internet ala Reddit and charging developers for API pulls.

Who are owned by private equity for sovereign wealth funds pushing for nothing but returns. Hence they don’t care if they sign on the line with Goebbels or enshittify their product into uselessness.

There are like 100 for the whole country. No one gets audited, statistically speaking. It’s why you’ve never learned anything about taxes from your parents or friends. They don’t know either. People pay people at HR block who don’t know about taxes either to file. No one gets in trouble because the only people who know tax laws work for the very wealthy. Or at the IRS where there are about 100 of them to 300m of us.

That is clearly two rapscallion puppies dressed in an adult dog costume.

All good if you liked it.

I didn’t like the look of the characters much in cgi(though of course Snowy has to be to make it work on most levels), found some of the action scenes unenjoyably overwrought like the early action chase scene downhill that just refuses to end like a Bond opener but without at least the reality of the stunts or explosions, I also hated the airplane scene with Haddock and overall his treatment being minimized to comic relief.

Stop twisting the knife, God. Tintin was so crushing, like JarJar for Lucas.

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I see you too have studied judo.

It’s like no law is upholded unless you have lawyers.

That’s the entire idea of what has been lobbied and constructed over generations. The wealthy have access to infinite appeals, have their crimes categorized as “white collar” so they might do a few years for stealing millions or billions if they happen to suffer the miscarriage of justice actually finding them guilty, while poor saps stealing corn nuts from the grocer get far longer sentences. The system is working for exactly whom wrote it’s laws, no strange coincidence historically in any global setting.

Reading about the consternation in the US about what would happen had trump been given a sentence after having been found guilty during the run-up to the election was a good primer on how warped things are. Many could only express concern for how Trump’s life should be able to go on as normal regardless of a “justice” system if guilty and elected. The simple answer, long forgotten since kindergarten, is that there have to be consequences for actions. It’s been laid incredibly bare there no longer are. The US either starts to take them back ala South Koreas’s new administration or fully embrace failed, corrupt state membership.

From this morning https://www.wired.com/story/using-a-vpn-may-subject-you-to-nsa-spying/

What’s app was cool as shit, until, just like Michael Bolton, something shitty in the world happened.

I installed it for an upcoming trip with loathing just because I know I may stay in places and not be able to connect with a hotel or host if I don’t use whatsapp. The EU better get their shit together since they were trying to lead on digital privacy…

Sorry to be one level down but I open the door with my shoe if there is no paper towel and I have to use hands, because I know someone had fecal matter on their hands and touched the doorknob. My action of the shoe makes it worse but protects me? I also throw paper towels on the floor if they have the can back by the sink in a larger bathroom. If I can “shoot a hoop” or open a can with a foot opener I’ll get it in there but if logistics force me to choose between having fecal matter free hands and the owner having to pay someone to clear up paper towels I’ll do the former. When I worked in restaurants I always dragged towel cans/garbage toward the door for this purpose. How do health inspections (I guess they just never happen) not catch this stuff?

Water conservation. 80% of water use in CA is agricultural, i.e., Big Ag. Consumers are told to take 60 second ahowers, while water intensive crops like alfalfa are grown on land with senior water rights sold to foreign interests like Saudi and UAE who aren’t stupid and have money. The state has a water crisis because it won’t involve the heaviest abusers in the solution.

Because someone has to coordinate to let Saudi royal families safely exit nationally closed airspace after 9/11 when 15/19 plane hijackers were from Saudi Arabia!

Can you imagine what might have happened to them if not? Luckily we then started having those same agencies spew stories about WMD that didn’t exist in Iraq so we could fight a proxy war in Iraq.

The US is China’s bitch, Israel’s bitch, Saudi Arabia’s bitch…

It’s also just generally a good barometer of a good idea. If people can’t independently evaluate an idea and come to a similar conclusion on their own, it just means that you simply apply coercion and then you get to be right! It’s excellent as a management practice which I’ll note all the big 4 claim to offer…

That’s the beauty of it, now that the oil-ligarchy has defunded alternate energy and removed tax incentives, the companies responded by reversing 2 decades of development and finally getting hybrids and evs common in us automakers.

Now that electric is off the menu, and protectionism is back on, it means the places those cars are being made and made well–like china–americans simply won’t even know about them or be able to buy them as they’ll be tariffed out of existence.

Triple win for the oil-ligarchy