Posts by ShadowDragon8685

Re: Weigh the coins

He's a fool to himself, then. It's a Federal crime to deface U.S. currency; that includes melting them down to recover their metal content.

Re: A single typo may have tipped US election Trump's way

Unfortunately, an awful lot of people were.

For some reason, scandal stuck to Hillary, even when it shouldn't have; the emails server thing was a non-thing that should have been dismissed half-way in.

Meanwhile, scandal refused to stick to Trump, even when recorded proof of him saying horrifically sexist things, advocating outright war crimes on national TV, and more, were out there.

Well, I hope everyone's happy. You were so afraid of "crooked Hillary" that you let Donald J. Drumpf become president. You were played like a fiddle, and now we've elected a maniac with a literal narcissistic personality disorder to the White House, all to the tune of "ehhh, the emails, I don't trust her."

Re: @Caffeine Addict

AC, I laughed. I laughed HARD... But still, switch to decaf, man.

Re: I Have a Question: Why Is It That In The U.S. of A. is Volkswagen ...

Because since VW is not a US car manufacturer that contributes MEGABUX to the US economy, US regulators don't have any political axes hanging over their heads if they threaten to/actually bring the axe down on VW.

Now, if it were Ford, GM or Chrysler that got caught fiddling the numbers...

Anyway, to everyone complaining that the EU should be directly sanctioning VW and the other car companies who were engaged in numbers-fiddling, there's a bloody good reason they aren't.

They can't.

They don't have that kind of enforcement jurisdiction, because the EU is at present a military and economic alliance, not an overarching federal government with law enforcement powers over the entirety of the member nations.

The EU has as much jurisdiction to sanction Volkswagen as the United States Department of Education has to sanction Boko Haram, and probably similar levels of ability to do so.

What they DO have is a complicated series of treaties stating that member nations must, in their own way, introduce individual-country legislation that is, effectively, the regulations the EU has decided upon, but worded up and such to meet their own individual needs, and the ability to levy sanctions upon those nations for failure to do so, or failure to enforce.

Basically, your problem is that you're asking why the EU isn't a federal government, when at every turn anyone who suggests making it more like a federal government gets shot down by all the "Muh sovreignity!" folks.

Re: The strangest thing about the whole story

Thank you for that link. It would be very nice if we could just have that read aloud on a loop on the news this morning.

Re: This is pretty disgusting.

I agree, as it happens. As I said, in fact.

Shooting is a fine and fun pasttime. Because the one ethnicity I think everybody can agree deserves to get pumped full of lead is target papers.

Seriously, they're all arseholes, each and every one of them.

Re: Call Girl Principle

That was, by far, my favorite episode of TNG. It's a shame Scotty didn't stick around on the Big E-D; not necessarily as a main cast member, but as someone you could occasionally see in Ten Forward, regaling people with tales of the old days.

You wouldn't even have to work at all to justify his presence on the Enterprise: he's an alumnus of the first two ships to bear the name! Besides, you can always call him a civilian expert on 100-year-old technology, and it's not as if running into Mirandas, D-7s, and other shit leftover from the Kirk years is rare.

Re: Pseudo scientific load of cobblers

Did it occur to you 16 years ago that they were looking for a sociopath to employ?

Just as a follow-up, this came across CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/30/us/california-police-shooting-video/index.html

"Cop shoots black man who doesn't have a gun" - incindiary, and in the current political climate, explosive.

But watch the video, the jackass pulls a vaping device with a silver, cylindrical tip out of his pocket, aims it at an officer like it's a firearm, takes a shooting stance - yeah. I'd have shot him myself. I don't think anyone reasonable can watch that video and NOT reach the same conclusion. He was brandishing an object which resembles a weapon upon first glance in the manner of a weapon, and it was treated as though it were a weapon.

[edit] Upon further review, I think I need to recant the use of the word "Jackass." Jackass implies an irresponsible stupid.

After reviewing the article, wherein it's said by the man's mother that he was not mentally ill, but was mourning a friend, I think it's very clear that what he did was commit suicide-by-cop.

I'm going to upgrade "jackass" to "incandescent asshole," because now he's set off protests in his hometown and pushed the guilt of killing him off onto another man, instead of manning up and taking it himself and doing his own self; not to mention that other, less sensible people are going to blame the officer who fired.

Re: Witnessed something similar

Bet that boss was shitting himself when he realized that they were making a technical glitch and the signal "you're persona non grata GTFO" the same thing and could potentially be losing valuable employees who thought they'd been sacked.

Speaking of which, I wonder what the origin of the phrase "sacked" is?

Re: We need:

You FUCKING MORON, do you really think that any kind of software limitations is going to be hard to get around? And if you hardwire such nonsense into domestically-made batteries, I'm sure the battery manufacturers of countries WITHOUT such restrictions will be more than happy for the business you're pushing their way!

You might as well put Phalanx CIWS emplacements with hypersensitive radars configured for automated anti-drone activation at the site of all major airports. That makes about as much sense, and would actually be efficacious at the task of keeping the airports free of these wildly unsubstantiated mythical drones.

Well, that's how they did Scarface Capone. I doubt the FCC is gonna find the balls to do sommat about this, though. They can't even muster the testicular/ovarian fortitude required to execute their remit to regulate communications on private enterprise these days; the Republithugs have, through budgetary cuts, rendered them pretty much unable to go after anyone with Lawyers, much like the IRS.

Re: Now I'm boggin' for a cuppa

I just read the titles of all of his Fully Charged videos and I couldn't find it. Was it taken down?

Wow, some anonymous coward downvoted me for that? And couldn't even be arsed to say what in the world they could possibly find objectionable about it, too?

Re: "Wasted" votes on third party candidates

DougS, it's an unfortunate fact of reality in this country that a great deal of voters are Party Voters.

There are Republicans who would vote Republican if Martin Shkreli was on the ticket with, I dunno, Kim Kardashian as running mate.

And there are Democrats who would vote Democrat if the ticket were Guy Fieri/John Oliver.

When you account for these voters who vote strictly on the party lines, between Republithugs and Dipshitcrats that's a majority of the voters already accounted for. Why do they do this? Because "This party best represents my interests" is simple and easy to understand.

So, getting a majority vote without it being [R] or [D] is already basically impossible. That's why I was fervently hoping that Trump would lose the nomination, throw a hissy, run as a third-party, and split the Republican voting base, thereby basically rolling the red carpet out for the Democrats. Not because I LIKE the Democrats, mind you, there's so much they do - or rather, so much they DON'T do - that pisses me off - but because they're not as bad as the alternative.

And in this case, the alternative is LITERALLY following Adolf Hitler's roadmap to power. So, let's see your options.

1: And if everybody who says "I hate Trump, but I don't like Hillary enough to vote for her" votes third-party or abstains, they're effectively casting half a vote for Trump, because their vote is NOT going into Hillary's pile. Let me be clear: don't get this twisted. I don't want Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. I think she's a fucking sell-out who sold the American people out to Big Insurance 22 years ago and has as much business in the oval office as a four-foot-tall wooden dildo.

But Donald fucking Trump is such a terrifying trainwreck disaster - the man has literally advocated WAR CRIMES on national television - that frankly at this point, anything short of violence would be justified to keep him out of the oval office. Voting for a candidate you don't LIKE is a small price to pay to keep a maniac out.

2: That could, in theory, happen. It would require every single undecided vote - including those who normally vote along party lines but will break ranks over one or two issues, or who will break ranks only in local elections - to unanimously back the third party. Who's it gonna be, huh? Gary Johnson?

I would rather jam my wedding tackle into a lion's mouth and whip his jacksie with a towel-whip than vote for a libertardian like Gary Johnson. Granted, I'd rather stick my wedding tackle into a V8-powered blender with Jeremy Clarkson on the accelerator than vote for Donald Trump, so I'd do it if it were literally the only other option, but it is not. As usual, the Libertardian party will gather a paltry sum of votes and fail entirely to have any meaningful effect in our ridiculous system.

3: In theory, this is possible, and has the potential to be a good outcome in the long run. But in the short run, it would start a REVOLUTION. Pissed-off Trumptards angry that they got cheated, pissed-off Democrats angry that they got cheated AND pissed-off third-party voters, would all have something to unite about they got all got shafted and the President was not elected by the people, from any of the options the actual people voted for.

Frankly, this country's democratic processes are broken. They could damn well be better, yes. But the only things that are going to cause any improvement will entail bloodshed, and I do not wish to see that happen. Would I prefer a system where you could vote for someone other than one of the big two and have a meaningful chance that your interests will be represented in government, abso-fucking-loutely I would. Hell, before this Brexit clusterfuck, I was actually suggesting, only in half-jest, ringing up 10 Downing Street and asking if we could kindly have a take-backsies on that whole "American Revolution" thing and join the UK.

Unfortunately, the system is broken, and there's no way to fix it that won't be blocked by those in power. Neither party would actually agree to any constitutional amendments that would weaken the two-party system, because in the long run it is in their cynical best interests to maintain the system; even if their party's power wanes, it will wax again sooner or later, whilstletting the Libtertards, Greenies, Constitutional fucktards, and all the etcs have their seat at the table would whittle both of them down to the point they might actually have to compromise with others to get things done. You know, like civilized human beings, and they can't have that.