copaganda

Nice :)

I genuinely enjoy messy fever dream movies.

Could a better movie be made to drive home the same point? Sure.
Do audiences want to see that movie? I highly doubt it (see: Don’t Look Up).

This is the terrifying part. Coppala presents dire warnings with historical precedent. They’ll go over the heads of a lot of people while many will make a choice to ignore them. People don’t want to be told their comfort system is broken and they need to break free of it to progress. The masses want status quo and to be sheep – as long as they have cheap gas and eggs. So even if the movie were less messy, the warnings still wouldn’t land any harder.

I think it’s fair to comment separately on the narrative of a movie and the production of a movie. I’m a regular (American) person, not a film maker. With Megalopolis, I’m far more interested in the narrative than if the movie was edited proficiently. To be fair, Coppola probably didn’t do us any favors by distracting us with the “fever dream” of it. But I also don’t think it’s fair to the artist to have to meet the audience where they are. There’s good debate to be had there.

Fiction writers have been sending us warnings for hundreds of years. It’ll never be enough to bring change. Coppola believes humans are capable of infinite progress and utopia. I think it’s evident that the whole of us aren’t intelligent or shit-giving enough to pick up on or act upon the warnings.

Who needs another big chain?

For the same reason we want locally owned hardware stores as well as Home Depot - the selection. The big chains can afford larger real estate and book sections as large as some book stores. Especially for technical and reference books. Sure, you could buy that stuff online but I’d rather shop in person. Sometimes I need something now and sometimes I don’t know what I need until I’m walking past it. I love the curation and personality of small stores but there’s still a reasonable argument for big chains. I would love to see some sort of beneficial collaboration between chains and indie shops across all industries.

I recently saw this mind bending time travel movie called Primer.

Kidding.

A few indie movies I really like are Ink (2009), Sidewalls (2011), and Cashback (2006). I’ve linked to some trailers but I hope people just jump feet first without knowing or presuming anything.

Ink is super low budget but it’s really one of my all time faves. It starts off sort of like film school assignment early 2000’s dystopian scifi fantasy and ends as tear jerker. The full movie is on YT here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIdqnPxfzj0

2022’s Vesper was fantastic but I assume a lot of people know this one.

Also, for those looking for some 90s nostalgia, I recently rewatched Singles (1992) for the first time since the nineties and it still holds up.

That’s number is staggeringly lower than I would have guessed.

No. It’s because it’s you. Blocked.

OP is really shilling for Bluesky.

Yeah. I was actually fifteen pounds lighter this time last year. It’s been a rough year. I cut out all bread, pasta, cheese, and beer, and walked an average of 15 miles a week.

So, not judges and not based on any law?

I’ve got about 10lbs on this guy. I’m obese. I know it. I’m ashamed of it. My body knows it and tries telling me every day I need to lose 30lbs.

It’s called freedom, libtards. We want the freedom to order a gallon of soda with our king size fries without the government telling us how to eat or food producers how to make their food. And we certainly don’t want the government to work on our behalf to lower the cost of insulin. We want a free market to shop around for the best price.

If you’re on Bluesky, maybe bombarding him with followers there would shift him in that direction https://bsky.app/profile/stephenking.bsky.social

Edit: For the record…
https://www.threads.net/@stephenking 268K followers
https://bsky.app/profile/stephenking.bsky.social 223.9K followers
https://x.com/StephenKing 7M Followers

Pft. Ain’t that the truth. Gotcha journalism has been around for over a hundred years and we still suck it up.

Strike a window = illegal.
Murder someone = legal.

I’m generalizing. But the larger issue is who the heck is reviewing these “policies” to determine if they’re legal (or smart)? Would it take bringing this to the Supreme Court to determine the legality?

The report said the shooting was within police policy because the officers reasonably feared that Amaya’s life was in danger when he stood in front of Ghaisar’s stopped vehicle and it began to roll forward.

I am not familiar with the case but this statement alone appears ridiculous. What’s reasonable here is that if a vehicle is approaching you, standing in front of it is stupid and killing the person operating it is even stupider. This isn’t self defense, this is attempted suicide (or attempted lawsuit). Police Policy should be: don’t be a dumbass.

I don’t know what this is supposed to mean. I’m making a correction to the claim that more than one person is doing this and saying it’s possible other companies could start manufacturing these parts.

So, what a lot of people get wrong about tariffs is that, if they’re used properly, they “incentivize” an increase of American businesses and jobs. By making it uncomfortably expensive for importers, businesses sprout and flourish locally to offset the costs. Alternatively, the government can literally hand out incentives.

If we could remove the bullshit-politics of it, we’d be having more productive conversations about whether the consumer should be paying for goods and services they directly or tangentially use (tariffs) or if the nation as a whole benefits by using tax payer dollars (congressionally approved federal spending) to lower costs.

This here is one of the distinct differences between Democrats and Republicans. The Republicans want to eliminate federal sending on practically everything not in the constitution and leave the rest up to the States and Wall Street investors. A lot of the conservatives I know resent having to pay for things they don’t use. Democrats believe a rising tide lifts all ships and there are certain services that benefit the entire population of a nation when funds are pooled; even from people who don’t directly use a service. These are fundamental differences that are worthy of debate.

The media today drives me mad. They’re lazy and feeding off each other. One outlet runs a headline and that’s the lede for all. Sure, Trump is an idiot and it’s entirely plausible that has no idea how tariffs work. The fact that he’s saying 50% or more in some cases is evidence of that. Or, what I have not seen discussed at all is how tariffs have been used and the repercussions/benefits of them. We’re all so fucked because no one wants to seem like they’re defending the guy. Giving him an inch gives him legitimacy. In the meantime, people are being misinformed and not learned about the larger picture - by the media.

Anyway, I hope people realize how incredible Biden has been as a president. We’re so obsessed with bullshit-politics that the man’s actual accomplishments go unnoticed without any appreciation. Maybe he’s just old or maybe he’s actually humble enough to not make a big deal about his administrative accomplishments. I forget how Presidents and normal news coverage used to be to make a comparison. One thing is for sure, anything positive of the Trump administration will be thanks to the Biden administration.

“People” = literally one guy who has the tools and skills to disassemble an SSD board. Sure, it does leave the door open to third parties doing this as a service. Kinda jumping the gun on this though.

First, I’m not mad at anyone.

I’m only offering you the raw data to illustrate that your initial point, as you wrote it, was incorrect. Biden did slightly better than Harris in the swing state total. Trump seemed irrelevant to your earlier point.

It seems your point should have simply been that more people voted for a Trump than Harris. And, as the numbers suggest, it’s plausible many of them had switched from Biden to Trump. So, if you want to “be mad” at anyone, it would be either Biden’s administration or Harris’ campaign.

Although, I feel it’s worth more of our time focusing on the last bit - how is it that people are so disconnected from reality that Trump was ever a consideration. How is it that practically everyone believes everything they hear or read and use it to enforce their narrative?

If I’m mad at anything, it’s boisterous claims being spread through social media without anyone caring enough to determine if the claim is true or not.

Those of you downvoting me, look at the vote totals for swing states in 2020 vs 2024.

Ok…
https://www.270towin.com/2020-election-results-live/
https://www.270towin.com/2024-election-results-live/

Pennsylvania 20/19
Biden* 3,458,229^ 50.0%
Harris 3,396,770 48.6%

Arizona 11
Biden* 1,672,143^ 49.4%
Harris 1,534,391 46.6%

Georgia 16
Biden* 2,474,601 49.5%
Harris 2,548,014^ 48.5%

Michigan 16/15
Biden* 2,804,040^ 50.6%
Harris 2,733,352 48.3%

Nevada 6
Biden* 703,486^ 50.1%
Harris 702,079 47.5%

North Carolina 15/16
Biden 2,684,292 48.7%
Harris 2,689,067^ 47.7%

Wisconsin 10
Biden* 1,630,503 49.6%
Harris 1,668,077^ 48.8%

• Biden won six of the swing states. Harris won zero.
• Compared to Trump, Biden won a higher percentage than Harris in all seven.
• Biden got more votes in four states. Harris got more votes in three.

Totals:
Biden 3,458,229 + 1,672,143 + 2,474,601 + 2,804,040 + 703,486 + 2,684,292 + 1,630,503 ‎ = 15,427,294

Harris 3,396,770 + 1,534,391 + 2,548,014 + 2,733,352 + 702,079 + 2,689,067 + 1,668,077 ‎ = 15,271,750

15,427,294 - 15,271,750 ‎ = 155,544 more votes for Biden.

“Honestly, most people almost never use the power button a Mac,” one executive remarked.

Ford: Most people never open their hood so we put the lever under the back seat.