Slight correction: A costitutional amendment requires 2/3 majorities in both houses of congress, and ratification by 3/4 of state legislatures.

Technically people do owe taxes on revenue from illegal activity. You certainly could put a tax on something that’s illegal, I just don’t think it would bring in much revenue I’d you’re still prosecuting people for that same thing you are taxing.

The really frustrating part is that cheap generic stuff skyrocketed too. Walmart embraced inflation enthusiastically, and their knockoff mountain dew went from $0.62 to $1.70. Supply chain issues I’m sure…

I used to get that stuff 10 bottles at a time, and it was one of the few things that made it worth going there. Now I just get whatever is on sale at the local employee owned grocery chain. The price difference is negligible, almost everything else is cheaper, and I get to support some place that isn’t evil.

Christie isn’t going to win the primary, but he’s providing a valuable service. His willingness to go in front of a MAGA dominated Republican audience and not just call out Trump but to even confront the audience itself, is exactly the kind of thing we need more of. Most other Republican figures who oppose Trump either do so quietly or on their way out.

This is somewhat helpful in the short term because there are plenty of Trump supporters who aren’t fully committed fascists, they’re just right leaning and living in a Fox News / talk radio media bubble, to the extent that they are even paying attention at all. Those people won’t be reached from outside their bubble, but someone on the inside talking some sense might just be able to get through to them.

That alone will do little to stop Trump. But if Trump loses again, and brings enough baggage to harm the party again, then there will be a lot of influential people looking to course correct and the conversations will be shaped by their perceptions of the situation. If the MAGA wing of the party is going to be beaten, it will be a long term struggle, and the fight will have to happen within the Republican party. Having people who are still on the inside saying “maybe we shouldn’t nominate criminals who attack democracy and the rule of law, and put loyalty to MAGA over the good of both the country and the party” is a good thing.

Unfortunately, the people who need to hear this message will never read this.

They rejected the map for having districts which are not contiguous, which violates the state constitution. That would be a pretty straightforward issue, if it weren’t for the fact that the state constitution also requires districts to follow local civic boundaries, and unfortunately, those boundaries produce areas that are not contiguous.

Theoretically, that means the US Supreme Court should not have a say in this since the decision is one based purely on the state constitution, not any federal issues. It would take a considerable leap of logic for the US Supreme Court to justify intervening in the case.

But what’s really frustrating is that this map should be rejected for partisan gerrymandering. It’s obvious, it’s what we all actually care about, and the republicans have admitted they drew the map specifically to get the biggest possible advantage, which they justify by pointing out that “it’s not illegal.” Of course, by not illegal, they mean the US Supreme Court has refused to rule that gerrymandering is unconstitutional because it was deemed to be a political question. So, even though it is effectively no different than passing a law that makes votes for one party get counted twice, courts can only intervene to protect the basic functioning of democracy when there is a technicality like this, or if it’s specifically along race lines, since that would violate the voting rights act.

It’s already one of several planets that are identical to earth and have a history that parallels our own. The idea that planets in different solar systems would form as perfect copies of each other, and that they would both independently evolve humans, and those humans would form identical cultures that diverge only enough to create a 20th century Rome, that’s a level of ridiculous implausibility that seems more like something you’d find in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

By comparison, the fact that they also developed modern English seems like a far more logical possibility, given that they are starting with copies of the same cultures and presumably the same linguistic roots more or less. And the word play itself might actually have been intentional, making it the least implausible part of the whole thing.

There’s a huge difference between pulling out after two decades of boots on the ground, suffering casualties and spending trillions vs two years of sending your hand-me-down equipment to an ally who will do all the fighting, at a cost of 0.1% of your budget.

That’s some excellent analysis, thorough and compelling.

It’s just mind-blowing that we could be on the verge of handing over a victory to Putin. We’d be sacrificing our credibility on the world stage, demonstrating to everyone that America is unreliable and can be beaten by anyone with patience. The world would become more dangerous, more conflicts will flare up, and we’ll have far less control over our own fate.

And for what? So a few politicians can go back to their gerrymandered safe districts and say that they stuck it to Biden?

I can’t see trump taking a plea deal while he’s still running for president. He’s going to try to delay as long as he can, get elected, and then use his position as president to weasel out of any charges, even if it means pardoning himself. And since he’s that number 1 target, the one that they want bad enough to give lenient plea deals to others in exchange for testimony, I find it hard to believe that he’d be offered a plea that doesn’t send him to prison. So why admit to being guilty when he can keep telling his followers that it’s a witch hunt and generate more support?

It’s like using literally to add emphasis to something that you are saying figuratively. It’s not objectively “wrong” to do it, but the practice is adding uncertainty where there didn’t need to be any, and thus slightly diminishes our ability to communicate clearly.

It does depend on how you count it.

For Combs, I was only counting Weyoun as one character, even if he’s playing multiple copies of him.* And I’m only counting TV and movies, not video games. This also means that Tallman doesn’t get to have her Romulan appearance counted twice because the trading card game turned it into a different character.

For Tallman, I’m not counting any work as a double,** but I am counting her unnamed Starfleet officers that each had the misfortune of being played by a stuntwoman, and therefore tended to die. She gets one redshirt role each in TNG, Generations, DS9 and Voyager. She also plays one of the trilithium thieves from die hard in space, one of the aliens that knocked up a warbird’s engines, an immortalish prisoner in the gamma quadrant, a Bajoran nurse, and one of the space succubi that tried to beat Harry Kim with a large phallic object and drain him of his genetic material.

So, by that count, Tallman has 9 roles while Combs has 8.

* Obviously this is a matter of preference and interpretation, and the more you think about it the more you start to open Pandora’s box. Are clones with the same look and personality all the same character? What about clones that are wildly different? What about parallel universe versions? Is a doppelganger added to the count? Or a time travel duplicate? What about body swaps or possessions, do they count as being a different character? What about a character who is playing another character in an in universe fiction? What about versions that appear in dreams or simulations?

** If we’re going to nitpick, I’d argue that stunt doubles are intended to be seen as the character by the audience, so it’s not unreasonable to count them that way, even if I’m not.

Didn’t know Geordi was from the Zathras clan.

No one’s fault but your own for being 5 centuries early.

Fun fact: Patricia Tallman has played more characters on Star Trek than Jeffrey Combs.

Going down to the planet, introducing yourself to the pre-warp civilization, making no effort to hide the fact that you are aliens from another world, planning your shore leave and preparing to fuck as many of them as you can? Not a prime directive violation.

Rescuing one of your kids who accidently breaks one of their rules and is immediately condemned to death, and asserting that as a member of your crew he is subject to your punishments and not theirs? Prime directive violation.

Taking one of the locals up to space to see the thing they consider to be a god, and openly defying the very foundations of their civilization’s system of law and order? Not a prime directive violation.

Just realized I forgot the time that his wife got turned into a 10 year old. A 10 year old who got mad at him for being uncomfortable with physical affection at a time when she is going through something crazy and wants to feel comforted. Forget the Kobayashi Maru, that right there is the real no-win scenario.

Now if only I could go back to forgetting that episode.

The more mundane, day to day stuff is where there’s a big difference.

(Young) Obi-Wan gets super powers and a highly respected position in society that allows him to operate independently on a day to day basis.

O’Brian gets dragged out of bed in the middle of the night because a hypochondriac feels a tingle, and after extensive diagnostics show nothing is wrong, he’s ordered to take the transporter apart piece by piece and put it back together again.

During a disaster where he is the most experienced person left on the bridge, he has to take orders from Troi (who needs him to explain everything to her)

Has arachnaphobia, gets stationed somewhere that’s overrun by giant spiders, just has to deal with it.

Let’s not forget that Miles fought in a war against the Cardassians, which caused some serious psychological scars that don’t seem to be getting addressed. Those same events broke his commanding officer, and Miles is the only one who really understands why.

Then he goes on to take a quiet post at a space station in the middle of nowhere, only for it to become the frontline of an even bigger war.

Especially crazy since everyone’s already wearing badges that double as communicators and tracking devices.

Let’s not forget that time when primitive 20th century freezer jockeys were thawed out on the Enterprise D and a sleazy 80s business man was able to do pretty much whatever he wanted with the computer. When Picard yells at him, he replies that if there were things he shouldn’t be allowed to do, why didn’t they set the computer to not allow it? And Picard replies that people shouldn’t have to be told they aren’t allowed to do certain things, they should be able behave without the computer forcing it.

So, the reason they have such a huge security issue is that they run everything on the honor system. Though I suppose this was right after Worf took over security, so I guess that makes sense.