Just that whatever level of fame he achieved, his talent and performances warranted more, IMHO, and between being choosy on projects, the occasional commercial dud, having a few of his greatest performances before he was a major name, and finding success in supporting roles while having “classic Hollywood” looks, there was just a disconnect. I have enjoyed his work much more than I have Tom Cruise’s, for instance.

Critic Roger Ebert wrote: "If there is an award for the most unsung leading man of his generation, Val Kilmer should get it.

Not entirely surprising I guess, but still a sad one. Somehow stayed just a touch under the radar despite some of the most iconic roles of the 80s and 90s.

Yup. Anyone other than an equity partner is literally a little money machine made of meat. A third-year will bill 2000+ hours (and most can bill maaaaybe 80% of their working hours) at $800-$1200 per hour and take home maybe $300k in salary and bonus.

Can’t be fiftieth in education if no one does the rankings!

I mean, it’s definitely certainly 100% true that when Russia breaks the ceasefire it will be Zelenskyy’s fault, personally, so the US will have no choice.

It’s true. Agent Orange and Couchfucker told me so.

For a while at least, attorneys at treasury were not allowed to use PACER because it charges nominal amounts per page to fund the Judicial branch. PACER is the one and only tool for researching and filing records in ongoing federal cases, which is to say, every single case that these lawyers would be working on.

It’s kinda bullshit that there is a fee at all, but it is what it is and has been standard operating procedure for 20+ years, and they just flip a switch and wait for the howling to begin, because they have no idea what is important and don’t care. This is just Xitter all over again, except now it’s the government of the largest economy and military in the world.

The first term justices were all from the pre-existing Federalist Society list. It was full of overly partisan, reliable conservative activist judges, but they were generally people who’d arrived at their positions through arguments that, while arising from shitty first assumptions, one could cogently follow and even appreciate some of the mental gymnastics. They were either nominally qualified or on their way to being so. Alito (aka Great Value Scalia) has arguably been worse than the Trump Three; in retrospect I would have happily taken our chances with Harriet Miers.

I guarantee that Trump’s list for this term is much, much worse. Frankly I would assume Aileen Cannon is at the top of it.

There was a time when Clarence’s mindlessly textualist dissents were basically a drinking game for Law Students. Take a shot every time he mentions that something didn’t exist in 1789! He was also famous for never, ever asking questions in oral arguments. Then of course there are the famous complaints about salary. Dude simply does not give a fuck, but that kind of committed disdain for the institution ended up serving him well as the GOP sank down to meet him.

Many times you miss them worse than a person.

I know they’re “just” pets, but I can get that. You’re their whole life, they don’t really comprehend life and death the way people do, and if their simple, uncomplicated love (maybe) sets a ceiling on how much they give back to your wellbeing, it also sets a much higher floor.

That sucks so much. I’m sorry. I always say that as hard as it is, the only alternative to losing them is never having them, which is of course completely unacceptable. Grieve, heal, and when you can stand it, give another that same good life you gave your dumbbell.

Tacoma’s gotten big, and the new Ranger too, but Ford has the (slightly homely) Maverick and Hyundai has the Santa Cruz, which is basically an Aussie-style Ute. The Ridgeline is getting bigger too, but I think its guts are still a unibody SUV/minivan frame that should be pretty easy to live with.

You’re not wrong, but due to many reasons, most of them cultural and political, most of them CAN still do normal truck things, assuming you don’t need a long-bed, don’t mind your very expensive toy losing its value as it gets beat up, and can fix or tolerate various frills failing over time. I am starting to see well-worn work trucks that were almost certainly bought used but would have been considered luxurious when new. There’s at least a modicum of utility there that the chassis and motor can still have a second life as a truck after a few years as a grocery-hauler. There’s also still one dealer near me that stocks row upon row of white Silverados with steel wheels and vinyl interiors.

The Cybertruck is very bad at truck things regardless of how you feel about its resale value, and at this point it’s just a way for assholes with too much money to make their entire car a MAGA bumper sticker.

Surely “personal liberty” will include respect for bodily autonomy of all people, and support for free markets will be deeply understanding of the pressures that cause migration and empathetic to the migrants.

RIGHT?

Yay, we all have the personal liberty to choose oppressive employment conditions over literal starving, as the low cost of considering humans disposable and the increased profits from untempered collusion and/or monopoly abuse means that only oppressive employers will have any leverage in the “free” market! YAY!!!

She’s got to course-correct after having the unmitigated gall(!) to suggest women might want to consider having their finances and careers in order before getting married and having kids.

Part of the problem is that we are on US Constitution 2.27 (version 1 was a buggy mess and quickly re-written). Unfortunately, the v2 underlying engine was only built to be compliant with the “Democratic Republic 1787” set of standards. It was almost immediately patched in the 2.10 release to be compliant with the DR1789 revision, but required a major rework to be compliant with DR1865 and another for DR1920. subsequent point releases have generally been performance tweaks and bugfixes.

However, now it turns out that bad actors have exploited unpublished vulnerabilities that were open secrets within the dev community, and those bad actors are now largely in control of the production instance. The Steering Committee is supposed to bring on new members in 7 quarters, but it remains to be seen if the userbase will care enough make the right recommendations.

The whole issue here is that the American constitution is high level framework written in the legal jargon of three different centuries. It’s only viable if either (1) no one really cares about how the Federal government handles itself (1789-ca1850ish), or (2) there is a a tacit agreement that legal precedent and custom are actually important to get on with the business of governing (1865-2025).

The 14th amendment is extremely clear, with the sole exception of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Unfortunately, that one’s only “very” clear, and requires some very basic understanding of the legislative history and customary usage in a legal context. It basically means literally everyone present in the country with the exception of those with diplomatic immunity, invading armies, and (at that time) members of Native American tribes. There was no real regulation of in-migration when it was signed, but the debates were very clear that even “undesireable” people who could not be trusted to assimilate would be citizens merely by being born here, and no one challenged the point.

If you don’t understand anything about the history, though, or if you want to willfully ignore it because you have an idiotic textualism approach that would make Antonin Scalia cringe, then you open that back up for litigation. Then there’s the issue of Trump declaring everything an emergency and pretending that some dudes who want to cook some french fries or a single mom hoping her kids won’t get shot by a cartel are somehow equivalent to an invading army. It’s facially absurd, but the constitution being what it is, if they challenge it, then the courts have to at least consider it.

With the ascendancy of originalism at the Supreme Court, and with the right wing deciding to push a “unitary executive” theory to its ad-absurdum conclusion, they might get what they want and largely dismantle the checks and balances in the system without an official “coup” at all. This would remove the predictability that allows a system to chug along and slowly but inexorably change with the times (hardly good enough for true justice, but it at least sets some sort of floor for awfulness), and it would also seriously weaken the guardrails to having free and fair elections at all.

Oooh, when do we get to deploy the E-Meters?

The Venn diagram circle of constituents who are complaining now is about 99% inside the one of constituents who will vote MAGA no matter what.

Can we start a rumor that Musk wants to shut down Boeing? He won’t last a month.