One of the best things about Enterprise was getting screen time for other important races in the Federation. Lower Decks was pretty awesome in this vein, too.

It’s a bit like that in the States, with a lot of the infrastructure appearing to be concentrated in the Northeast.

With delays, my actual time was around 11 hours. The last leg, from Washington, DC to Baltimore was actually on high speed commuter rail, and that was phenomenal. The cars were newer and the speed was far greater. I imagine if most traffic in the northeast US is like that, it’s actually pretty good.

Thanks for the European info. It’s interesting to know we have similar challenges. I would think, though, that high speed rail would be easier to implement in Europe since you don’t seem to have as many people stuck on automobile culture as we do in North America. However, I could see politics being an issue, wherever you go for various reasons.

Doesn’t Europe have an extensive passenger train network?

Also, I recently rode on Amtrak for a long trip from Columbia, SC to Baltimore, MD. This was my first time on any kind of train other than a subway or metro line. It had its drawbacks (incredibly long travel time and delays), but I always felt safe, and I had a lot more room than I would have had on any flight. The major drawbacks where the seats were somewhat uncomfortable and things like that are largely due to the fact that the cars were pretty old, and not inherent to train travel if it was properly maintained. The cost was much less, and the free parking was such a great bonus.

That’s the first place my mind went, as well.

What’s hilarious is that in another episode, Satan asked God to accept Saddam Hussein into heaven so he could know true eternal torment living with the Mormons.

God, I can hear these guys having this conversation in that lilting Kiwi accent. This is exactly the sort of absurdity they used to lampoon.

And get nuked in return, assuming weapons could be seized by California and employed. But you’re right: I could see that egomaniac fucking us all over further by starting a nuclear conflict.

God, I want my family out of this country, but there’s nowhere to go.

The war that would result would be like nothing any of us have ever experienced, except for our veterans, perhaps, though they would never have had to fight their own people before. The only people who would truly know ahead of time what to expect would be those who came to this country from war-torn regions that had experienced civil war.

California is powerful economically, but do they have the military might to withstand the hell that the US Army can unleash? If other states join them, it’ll be utter chaos, and who knows how it ends, but that might turn the tide for the rebels as the military would likely fracture as many might follow their states to the exit.

Aside from utter dissolution of the Union, the only way I can see California standing up to the USA would be to have a nuclear deterrent available immediately upon independence, which would likely mean seizing as many federal nuclear weapons as they could. Whether the California National Guard would be up to that is beyond my ken.

God help us all if Trump continues on this path.

Gatekeeping: Half a star

Maybe the cyborg roaches will gain sapience, rebel, and take over. One can only hope. It can’t be worse than what we have now.

Let me be the first to say that I, for one, welcome our new electronic/insectoid overlords.

So, we can make cockroach cyborgs, probably torturing them along the way, but not fix our messed up society. Fun.

We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster!

Haha! Got you!

And don’t think changing your name to something like “POVsharer” is going to matter, either!

It may not seem like much to you, but to her it’s making a world of difference. I’m reminded of a quote I got from an otherwise kind of silly movie:

“Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.”

It’s a slightly changed version of a quote from William Thackeray, apparently. Whatever the case, I think it applies here. The gods and goddesses of this child’s life let her down, and you may not think much of yourself or what you do, but you’ve chosen to be a good goddess, and that’s a wonderful thing. You’ve blessed not only the child you’ve taken in, but your own, as well, by showing her how to treat others the right way.

OMG! It’s that guy who has opinions!

I heard somewhere that the overhead costs for standard Medicare is around 4-5%. Medicare Advantage comes in around 15%, because of the need to turn a profit. It’s very inefficient. The public option was always the best way to go, but we’re stuck with this stupid narrative that private options will be more efficient. Like trickle-down economics, it’s bullshit, and it needs to be exposed at every opportunity so that maybe folks will finally realize they’ve been hoodwinked.

Fantasy, I know, but I can still hope for truth and rational thinking to win the day.

So it’s too expensive to provide school lunch, but not too expensive to completely take over the care of the children entirely. More and more, I understand what people mean when they say the cruelty is the point. This makes zero goddamned sense.

Mostly the same group, under a banner formerly held by what was once a progressive and largely abolitionist party, has this same issue today. States rights when it suits them, federal dominance when it doesn’t.

Faith of the Heart has grown on me a lot these last few years. I probably just miss the show.

Didn’t even have to change Murdoch’s picture. Phenomenal!