We should redenominate the dollar. When you do this, you essentially create a "new dollar" or a "Dollar 2.0." You could make 1 new penny equal exactly to 1 old dollar. No currency is actually rendered worthless and no new inflation occurs. Just a relabeling to make things more convenient. Really this is the kind of thing we should do as a matter of course every century or so.
This is MAGA-type thinking you're demonstrating. Democrats massively fucked up the 2024 election. It is important that those lessons be studied, learned from, and not repeated. Yes, Trump is worse, but that's completely irrelevant to the conversation at hand. We have another Trump term precisely because of the mistakes the DNC made during the election. Failing to listen to those mistakes doesn't help Democrats, and it doesn't help the country. Failing to learn from the mistakes of 2016 and 2020 are how we ended up with 2024 after all.
Do not for a second think Trump or some other MAGA candidate cannot win in 2028. Regardless of how bad Trump governs, even ignoring the potential for election shenanigans, it is entirely possible that Trump will win again in 2028. And every person that sticks their fingers in their ears and ignores all criticism of elected Democrats makes that event all the more likely.
Democrats ran on "we're not Trump" in 2016, 2020, and 2024. That strategy lost them both 2016 and 2024, and it would have lost them 2020 if not for covid.
Yet here you are, still trying the same tired "we're not Trump" strategy. You're clearly insane, as you keep trying the same thing again and again, expecting a different result.
We need to abandon the Democratic Party at this point. Democrats are not capable of winning national elections. The Democratic Party is not run by serious people who actually intend on winning power and wielding it wisely. Those still telling folks to vote for Democrats are not politically serious people. The only future can be found in parties like the Working Families Party. Centrists will simply need to hold their nose, quit dividing the left, and vote for progressive candidates. Remember, a vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Republican. Democrats can't win national elections. In a two party system, we can't afford to throw our votes away on parties that are doomed to lose.
The birth rate is going to crater, because no one wants to bring children into a fascist shithole.
Imagine Yosemite National Park.....with an HOA!
In February, he said the government could “monetize the US balance sheet for the American people.”
One way to do this would be to revalue America’s gold reserves.
The US still prices its gold reserves at $42.22 an ounce.
If revalued to the market price of around $2,900, it could create nearly $900 billion in new equity overnight.
This would give the government a new pool of capital without borrowing more money or printing dollars.
Other assets, including federal land, real estate, infrastructure, and even confiscated cryptocurrency, could also be used.
The logic is clear: the US owns trillions in untapped assets but still runs massive deficits.
They want to put federal land up as collateral for loans. Instead of just issuing debt in the government's name, they want to get lower interest rates by putting up US land as collateral. And when they manage the government right into default, the bankers will take possession of all national parks and federal land. That's what 'monetize' means. It means put up as collateral.
I suppose it is big enough for that...
You should see my Hello Kitty bandsaw.
My preferred mode of play is what I call "Iron Kerbal." Career mode. No reloads. No respawning. No reverting flights. I can manage everything except an Eve landing and return without reloads. Or, late game, I can manage an Eve landing and recovery if I have enough resources to just keep throwing crews at the planet.
My top two are Kerbal Space Program, at 2007 hours, and Satisfactory at 1,787 hours. And yeah, Satisfactory has its time exaggerated, as often you just got to let the factory run.
My play time on Kerbal Space Program 2?
17 minutes.
Seems likely. The most rigid materially known, (or at least theorized) is nuclear pasta.. Nuclear pasta only forms inside neutron stars, stellar objects that are the last stage of matter before matter gives up entirely and collapses into a black hole.
I find your lack of critical thinking disturbing.
...Says the talking sex doll masquerading as a reporter.
It would work, but only in the impossible world where you have a perfectly rigid unbreakable stick. But such an object cannot exist in this universe.
Pick up a solid rigid object near you. Anything will do, a coffee cup, a comb, a water bottle, anything. Pick it up from the top and lift it vertically. Observe it.
It seems as though the whole object moves instantaneously, does it not? It seems that the bottom of the object starts moving at the exact same instant as the top. But it is actually not the case. Every material has a certain elasticity to it. Everything deforms slightly under the tiniest of forces. Even a solid titanium rod deforms a little bit from the weight of a feather placed upon it. And this lack of perfect rigidity means that there is a very, very slight delay from when you start lifting the top of the object to when the bottom of it starts moving.
For small objects that you can manipulate with your hands, this delay is imperceptible to your senses. But if you observed an object being lifted with very precise scientific equipment, you could actually measure this delay. Motion can only transfer through objects at a finite speed. Specifically, it can only move at the speed of sound through the material. Your perfectly rigid object would have an infinite speed of sound within it. So yes, it would instantly transfer that motion. But with any real material, the delay wouldn't just be noticeable, but comically large.
Imagine this stick were made of steel. The speed of sound in steel is about 5120 m/s. The distance to the Moon is about 400,000 km. Converting and dividing shows that it would actually take about 22 hours for a pulse like that to travel through a steel pole that long. (Ignoring how the steel pole would be supported.)
So in fact, you are both right and wrong. You are correct for the object you describe. A perfectly rigid object would be usable as a tool of FTL communication. But such an object simply cannot exist in this universe.
Can you promote a pawn to a pawn going in the opposite direction, a lateral promotion?
Doomscrolling will doom us all. Fatalism is fatal. Rage against the dying of the light. Start building community, or start building bombs. Those are your choices.
The president is also openly corrupt, by orders of magnitude more. That crypto scheme for one is just a blatantly obvious bribery mechanism. Sure, the justices serve for life. But if a president is willing to directly violate explicit court orders, he could easily decide not to leave office as well. He could issue an executive order saying, "in my opinion, the two-term limit doesn't apply because <bullshit reasons.> And then when the court rules against him, just ignore their ruling. A lawless president is a president for life.
Ultimately, philosophically, I don't see why a president that openly defies the law should enjoy the protections of the law. Want to be lawless? Then you can be an outlaw. Those who live by the sword should die by the sword.
Maybe not in terms of criminal accountability. But again, the court has ruled against Trump numerous times. The idea they blindly support everything he does is pure fiction. In his first term, they ruled against him many times.
There is much speculation on whether President Trump will simply refuse to comply with judicial orders. There's the famous line of Andrew Jackson, "The court has made their ruling, let them enforce it." JD Vance recently tweeted that he does not believe Musk's rogue DOGE agency should be subject to judicial review. The writer behind a lot of the philosophy of Trump and Vance, Curtis Yarvin, advocates that the president should simply ignore court orders and do what he wills. Many have lamented that if this were the case, that there is nothing the Supreme Court could do. That they would simply be powerless, and that the only hope would be that the military would step in.
But I can think of an option for such a scenario that I haven't heard discussed anywhere. If a president openly defies a direct order by a Supreme Court, could the court then call upon the ancient common law tradition of a Writ of Outlawry?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlaw
In common parlance, we use the term "outlaw" to refer to someone that is simply a criminal or on the run from the law. But traditionally it was something a lot more specific. Back in ancient days where it was much more difficult to track down fugitives, courts would declare those who refused to subject themselves to the court's process as "outlaws." They literally were declared as outside the protection from the law. It was then legal for literally anyone to do whatever they wanted to that person, and they would face no legal penalties whatsoever. An outlaw could literally be killed, and their killer would face no penalties. The philosophy was that if someone was going to refuse to subject themselves to the law, then they did not deserve the protection of the law.
Could this be the answer to Jackson's quip? Ultimately the Supreme Court determines the working of the justice system. If a court rules that no lower court can hold someone accountable for crimes against someone, then anyone could harm that person with impunity.
Could this be a final and ultimate option for the Supreme Court to hold a rogue president accountable? Give the president plenty of chances and fair warning. But if the president simply refuses to abide by the court's rulings, then the court could activate this ancient tradition and declare them an outlaw. It would then be completely legal for anyone to do whatever they wanted to the president, including the Secret Service agents that surround him at all times. Could the Supreme Court rein in a lawless president by simply declaring that president outside of the law's protection?
With all the chaos in Washington right now, I'm low key worried about Musk and his goons managing to fuck up the FDIC. If that happens, we're looking at simultaneous bank runs on every bank in the country.
Is it possible for a US citizen, without actually traveling to a foreign country, to open up a bank account in Canada or Europe somewhere and transfer some funds there? I'm not quite at the point of "liquidate everything and get it out of the country." But having a hedge in the form of an emergency fund in a Canadian or European bank account is very tempting right now.
Is this sort of thing possible? Can you open up a foreign bank account remotely? Or is this the kind of thing you can only do by physically traveling to a foreign country, walking into a bank branch, and opening an account there? And can you open up a bank account in a country without having any citizenship or residency there?
Basically, is it possible for a US citizen, whose only nationality or immigration status is American, to open up an account in Canada or Europe without physically leaving the borders of the US?
Sorry if this is a silly or stupid question. I don't have a lot of experience with international banking.
Let's change the law to bring back the old Germanic tradition of judicial trial by combat. But make it specific to consumer and labor rights disputes. Got a beef with a company? Forget binding arbitration. You can now challenge the CEO to a one-on-one sword fight. The battle will be decided....by the blade! Legally speaking, we'll just assume the fight is in God's hands, and whatever the consumer rights or labor dispute in question, the side that survives is the automatic winner.
And yes, I realize that by proposing this, I'll probably be the first one voted into the Sea. That's fine. I'm willing to take one for the team.
Why are we'all in such a rush, anyway? If you need to talk to someone right away, we got video conferencing. If you, in an emergency, really need to move somewhere fast, there's helicopters. I say we just consign the whole 'car' idea to the dustbin of history, and just convert everything over to canals. If some insist on speed, we can consider adding a train system. But the only means of private mechanized transport must be by watercraft! That should be enough.
Let's make elections TRULY interesting. Our current system strictly prevents any vote totals from being released until the last polls have closed at the end of election day. I say we do the exact opposite. Let's publish vote totals for every election LIVE!
When you vote early or send in an absentee ballot, it may be counted early, but currently those results are held secret until the last polls close on election day. Instead, let's have states and counties publish online live running totals of votes as they come in! Also we can invest in more rapid ballot-counting equipment so that election day results can be published minute-by-minute. Election day will be a mad dash with both sides competing live against each other, against a ticking clock with live vote totals that anyone can see. In close races, both sides will be running around with their hair on fire trying to find a few more votes. You might even see elaborate vote strategies; for example one side might deliberately reserve a chunk of voters until the 11th hour, just to make their opponents overconfident.
Elections are far too boring. Let's publish live running vote totals and turn them into a spectator sport! Embrace the madness. Embrace the beautiful chaos. Turn election day into something people can watch like a sporting event. Let's publish election results as they come in!
The Planet of the Apes film franchise has single-handedly shaped entire fields of biological research. As long as it remains in the public consciousness, no biologist or geneticist will ever experiment with trying to engineer chimps and other apes to be more intelligent. Any research proposal remotely related to the topic will be immediately shot down by someone simply stating, "do you want Planet of the Apes? Because this is how you get Planet of the Apes!"
Forget grand corruption. I want to see some small-time thievery from our presidents. If we're going to have a criminal president, I want them to be less "mobster," and more "meth addict."
Become president. Procede to start a four-year personal petty crime wave. Break into people's homes to just to steal their televisions. Break into construction sites to steal copper wiring. Habitually steal catalytic converters from cars parked in the Pentagon parking lot. Offer the proceeds of your crimes to a local charity, in cash, just to break into their office at night and steal it back.
Oh, and after each crime, issue a formal pardon to yourself, completely absolving yourself of criminal liability. Also, don't forget the best part. As you embark on this wave of petty crime, you'll have Secret Service protection! So even if someone does catch you, in broad daylight, laying on a dolly under their truck, stealing their cat with a sawzall, they won't be able to even get near you! The Secret Service will prevent anyone from being able to physically stop you! Hell, you can break into people's houses at night, just to rough up the place!
We'll cover all our bases and hire people of all faiths. We'll have tens of thousands of people praying to boost our science output. It's sure to work!
Your campaign slogans will be things like: Whelp, we invented crocks. I think we're done here. The fact we built ChatGPT proves we need to be sent back to the Stone Age. We've had a good run. Time to quit while we're ahead. Time to see if nuclear winter cancels out global warming.
When campaigning, promise that you will only do one thing in office. Upon taking the oath of office, you will immediately demand the nuclear football and order the launch of the entire US nuclear arsenal, all at once, in a completely unprovoked first strike against every other nuclear power and against every national capital on the planet.
In debates, your answers will be simple and direct: What will I do about our falling education standards? I'll start a nuclear war! What will I do to ease America's tax burden? I'll start a nuclear war! How will I improve racial justice in the country? I'll start a nuclear war!
St James’s Hospital advised Paige Behan to go instead to Holles Street
Bonus points if you can get a bunch of friends together and assemble a whole fleet of them.