There’s also the claim that it was sent too early, so regardless of what the error was, these were going to be the demands all along. They were just moving much slower in the discussion prior to the letter being sent. A wise attempt to boil the frog, and then somebody moved the pot over a rocket engine.
It looks stupid on the surface, but I’m concerned it’ll be used as a fake justification to drop nukes on China.
I love your optimism here, but it’s naive to believe that after everything that the president has done to date that is blatantly illegal and he has no authority to do that he will not somehow coopt the National Guard under some bullshit 200 year old law that was never meant to give him this power. Or fuck laws - he has shown his entire career a complete disregard for them and thinks he is completely unbound by the law - and he just does it anyways. Republicans in congress have proven over the last 3 months that they’ll happily cede the power their constituents entrusted them with to their dictator. What makes you think he won’t make the governors bend to his will? Republican first, then by force for the rest.
I think the one thing you’re missing is the American lies. The dehumanization of the opposition. The propaganda. I don’t think that the whole country will fall for it like they did with Bush, and it’s not like we have a MORE charismatic leader to sell it this time. But AI generated content and bots selling the lies are unfortunately going to convince a lot of people, we’re already seeing it. With a leader that is trying to litigate what higher institutions teach and destroying the public education system, the longer that this wears on, the dumber and dumber the electorate becomes. Military leaders not kissing the leader’s ring are already being removed from their posts to be replaced with sycophants.
I hope you’re right that there would be rebellion from within the military, and without. Otherwise, we have no friends left and every country on the planet has is justified in rising to the challenge to crush our new axis powers.
It won’t hit all at once for a lot of different reasons. Retailers’ back stock is not subject to tariff because it has already been imported. Raw material lead times for products assembled in the US will be longer than products imported ready for store shelves. Apple recently made the news for importing planefuls of iPhones the weekend before the tariff was applied. Smaller businesses won’t be able to do stuff like that, but big corporations will have likely done similar things to soften/slow price increases. And, until additional duties go into effect worldwide, lots of companies had already diversified their manufacturing out of China for US-bound products because of the already existing tariffs from Trump’s first term.
But once the companies have to pay the higher price, so will we all.
Little did they know that they threw a layer of radium on your ceiling. Oops!
Definitely, at least with this Dell laptop circa 2007 - I didn’t want to cause a fire and iirc, the battery was already trashed at its EOL. Pulling the battery at least let me power on the laptop without any risk from having the battery inserted.
I’m moving soon and was packing up my office closet. Found my old college laptop and figured I better make sure nothing was stored on it before I tossed it. Pulled the removable battery (‼️⁉️) out and plugged in the power adapter. I couldn’t believe that it started Windows XP off of spinning rust faster than any modern device I own. They really don’t make them like they used to.
Nothing is original these days. Smh
For me it’s Starbucks and Chipotle - they both discontinued the best thing on their menu, chorizo. I’ve had other things I liked at both restaurants, but I’m not going to waste my money with either for what they’ve done.
I remember being amazed when I hit 100 hours in Final Fantasy VII, thinking that a game could never match it. Then I put 12,000 hours into World of Warcraft over about 12 years, so I guess I lacked imagination. I don’t think in the rest of my life I will ever be able to beat that with a single game.
The tests I’ve read about in recent times have not netted a loss in pay - simply a reduction in hours but an increase in productivity because workers are well rested and happier with their work life balance.
Again - what you’re describing already exists, it’s called a part time job. If it comes with a loss in pay, then how improved is your work life balance when you have to go get a second job to supplement your income as a result of transitioning to a 32 hour work week? And how much more productive are you going to be if it means you’re now working a 6 or 7 day work week?
It’s not exactly a new phenomenon. Kill Bill did it 20 years ago. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Twilight Breaking Dawn did it 12 years ago. The Hobbit was inexplicably split in 3. Mockingjay was a 2 parter. IT released as chapter 1 and chapter 2. Add to your list Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning which just did the same thing this year.
I much prefer a multipart film over a rushed mess. Dune is a great candidate, given that it is adapting almost 1000 pages.
The perception of lost productivity, whether true or false, would be the opposition. I’m sure with a lot of specific jobs, productivity is highly maximized even at 40 hours. And in customer service positions, you might still need coverage 16 hours a day 7 days a week. So ultimately if your whole team of 12 works 8 fewer hours a week each, they’ll need to hire 3 more people to cover the lost time. If nobody’s weekly pay amount changed, now suddenly your labor costs have risen 25%.
What you’re describing is “part time” and companies LOVE part timers. Lower pay, no benefits. What people actually want is full time, but full time means 4 day work weeks. Around Europe there have been tests where everyone maintains their salary but works 4 days instead of 5. The workers are better rested and more productive so even despite less time worked per week, the net work output does not decrease.
I thought this whole “object behind paper against a mirror” thing was just a meme at first because the result is very intuitive and not at all shocking… But then I guess people genuinely didn’t get it? People really can be so stupid.
This is a hilarious and true answer to the question.
She’s not - Yvonne is accounting and business, I’ve never heard of her as being remotely involved with the HR department.
To be fair, Instagram is chalk full of uncredited content thievery. It can be hard to tell the difference.
I certainly agree with you here - all of the fascists of history were HIGHLY effective leaders that actually got shit done. The people lived with it because they did what they said they would do. Instead, this disfunctional band of morons can’t seem to get a single thing done without a cavalcade of unforced errors and fuck ups.
Oops, we deported the wrong guy. Oops, we fired the folks managing our nuclear arsenal. Oops, we fired ATC during a preexisting ATC shortage. Oops, we sent a letter to Harvard earlier than we meant to, and forced our own hand. Oops, tariffs tanked the world economy, they’re paused! No wait, they’re back on now! Paused again! Well, we’ll make an exception for semiconductors though. Except we never said that? No exception! And now oops, someone caught us exfiltrating all government secrets and data to Russia.
This is the source of my own hope. They’re so incompetent and so stupid, execute every plan so poorly… that I find it hard to believe that the American people can ignore it for much longer. Even his racist, Nazi base can’t ignore him ruining their lives too.