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July 30, 2015

SuperMegaSpeed Reviews

Ms. Marvel #16 - Adrian Alphona is back. I miss Takeshi Miyazawa but wasn't as disappointed by the return of Alphona as i thought i would be. He actually does have a good style for this book. The defense pwners set-up by Loki were sufficiently weird, for example, and i do like his comical facial expressions and poses. I did kind of read this thinking maybe i could drop the book, since it's all set up for an event that isn't directly about Ms. Marvel and which she won't have any control over. But then i got to the last page and i was like, yeah, i want to see the interaction between Kamala and Carol Danvers.

Daredevil #16 - Really great. Loved Kingpin's art collection. Also thought the verbal sparring between Daredevil and Kingpin was good. I am still kind of holding out hope that there's a twist coming with Shroud. His whole deal used to be that he's a good guy that pretends to be a bad guy. So it would be nice if he wasn't just crazily obsessed in this story and it was all a ruse. But we'll see what happens. It would have been nice to get some kind of information on Julia Carpenter in this issue. I have no idea what her current status is, but my immediate thoughts while reading this were "She's a Spider-Woman! Why can't she defend herself?!".


By fnord12 | July 30, 2015, 9:40 AM | Comics | Comments (4) | Link



July 29, 2015

How Speedball's powers work

From 1990's Marvel Super Heroes #3. I really posted this because of the awesome/terrifying Mark Gruenwald Seal of Approval.


By fnord12 | July 29, 2015, 10:02 AM | Comics | Comments (1) | Link



July 28, 2015

Yeah, that's sort of the problem

Hillary Clinton, on refusing to answer whether or not she supports the Keystone XL pipeline:

If it is undecided when I become president, I will answer your question.

It's not just on this issue, which i admit is as much about the symbolism as the actual issue. But it's the same with TPP. And it's the same with most of her vague positions, which sometimes sound good but don't have any detail or commitment behind them. She really does seem to be running on the basis that we don't have any choice in electing her, so she doesn't have to take a stand on anything.

Of course, there is an alternative.


By fnord12 | July 28, 2015, 3:05 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link



July 23, 2015

Recap 68

The All New, All Different Motley Crew


By min | July 23, 2015, 12:20 PM | D&D| Link



July 22, 2015

Silver Jetskiier

Wheeee!

This contest required getting a high score in the notoriously difficult Silver Surfer NES game.


By fnord12 | July 22, 2015, 11:55 AM | Comics & Video Games | Comments (1) | Link



July 19, 2015

Shit Happens NOW!

Paul O'Brien discusses Secret Wars at the halfway point.

The most alarming thing to me is that he thinks it is going to be like Age of Apocalypse, where Marvel's regular continuity will return when it's all over, with maybe a few characters from other publishing lines dropped in, like Miles Morales and Old Man Logan (?!). "Alarming" in the sense that i've already sort of let go. 'Just when i thought i was out', etc..


By fnord12 | July 19, 2015, 4:48 PM | Comics | Comments (8) | Link



July 17, 2015

What the hell, people?

I've been gone an entire week and you haven't made Bernie Sanders president yet? What have you people been doing?


By fnord12 | July 17, 2015, 1:18 PM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (2) | Link



July 11, 2015

Game Paused


By fnord12 | July 11, 2015, 1:11 AM | My stupid life & Video Games| Link



July 10, 2015

Panda: I Have a Thyroid Condition

The researchers found that pandas get by on shoots and leaves because they expend extremely small amounts of energy.

A typical adult panda burns up about 38% of the calories used by other, similarly sized animals.

The scientists found the bears' slow-moving ways were linked to low levels of thyroid hormones.

...

"We found that their low metabolism is correlated with very low levels of thyroid hormones, which was linked to a genetic mutation in the thyroid hormone synthesis pathway that is unique to the panda."

These hormone levels were the equivalent to those found in hibernating black bears.

Link

In my head, it's the lack of sufficient food energy that makes them so sloth-like, but they're not clever enough to try eating something more suitable to their digestive system. How fast could you move if you were half-starved? If they move, they'll die!


By min | July 10, 2015, 1:47 PM | Science| Link



Frog Robot

I want the frog robot!

Using a multimaterial 3-D printer, a group of scientists led by Robert Wood at Harvard University created a froglike robot from both rigid and soft materials. [Nicholas W. Bartlett et al, A 3-D-printed, functionally graded soft robot powered by combustion]

The robot's body is stiff near the core control center, making it durable enough to be combustion-powered, while the bot's flexible outer edges help it stick the landing.

It could make friends with the dog robot bob's getting me.


By min | July 10, 2015, 9:19 AM | Science | Comments (1) | Link



14% Isn't High Enough

Ugh. Chuck Schumer.

I don't think there could ever be an argument that convinces me multinationals should get taxed at a lower rate than individuals earning less than $40,000/year, so Rob Portman should shut the fuck up.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D.-N.Y., and Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, have just proposed a plan that would give those corporations something they've always wanted: a so-called "territorial" tax system in the U.S.

A territorial tax system would only tax U.S.-based multinationals on their profits earned within the United States -- which sounds like it makes sense, except that it's incredibly easy for big corporations to use financial trickery to sell to a big market like the U.S. but say their profits were earned in another country. Another country that always happens to have a much lower tax rate than here. For instance, in 2010 U.S.-based multinationals claimed that so much of their profits were earned in Bermuda that these profits were 1578 percent the size of Bermuda's economy.

According to the current law, though, U.S.-based corporations are taxed on those profits at U.S. rates if they ever bring these profits back home. So they just leave them overseas -- right now they have about $2.1 trillion stashed in other countries.

The Schumer-Portman plan would impose a tax on corporate profits purportedly earned in other countries whether they came back to the U.S. or not. But it would do so at a far lower rate than the current standard corporate tax rate of 35 percent -- President Obama has proposed 14 percent, and while Schumer and Portman haven't come up with a specific number, Portman says 14 percent is much too high.

The obvious consequence if the Schumer-Portman scheme becomes law is that businesses based solely within the U.S. would be at a permanent disadvantage. Multinationals could earn profits in the U.S., get their armies of lawyers and accountants to make these profits appear to have been "earned" in the Cayman Islands, and get taxed at the overseas profit rate. Meanwhile, purely domestic companies would either have to pay the higher domestic rate, or turn into multinationals themselves.

There is a much simpler, fairer, more efficient way to run the tax system for international corporations, called "formulary apportionment." With formulary apportionment, it wouldn't matter how many subsidiaries and departments corporations had scattered all over the globe, and which "earned" their profits where. Instead, a formula (based on a combination of a corporation's sales, payroll and capital stock) would determine what proportion of the corporation "belonged" to each country. Then the corporation's overall profits would be allocated according to that proportion, and the corporation would pay that country's tax rate on that proportion.

Link


By min | July 10, 2015, 9:12 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link



July 8, 2015

Government By the People Act

If we're forbidden by the Supreme Court from limiting money coming from the 0.01 percent, what about amplifying money from the bottom 99.99 percent?

That's the basis for the Government by the People Act, introduced last year by Rep. John Sarbanes, a Democrat from Maryland's 3rd District. (If the name sounds familiar, that's probably because his father, Paul, was a five-term senator from Maryland.)

Sarbanes has quietly garnered 160 co-sponsors for the bill and support from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and a companion bill in the Senate introduced by Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has 19 co-sponsors.

The bill has three main parts:

  • Everyone gets $25 to donate to candidates

All voters receive $25 per year to give to political campaigns, provided in the form of a refundable tax credit equal to half of donations up to $50. (For instance, if you donate $30 to a candidate, you get $15 of that back; to get the full $25 you have to donate $50.)

  • 6 to 1 matching funds (at least) for small donors

Donations up to $150 to qualifying House and Senate candidates are matched 6 to 1 with public money. In other words, if your next door neighbor is running for Congress and you give her $50, she'll get another $300, making $350 total.

And donations are matched 9 to 1 for candidates who completely renounce big money and take only donations of $150 or less. So if your neighbor is willing to do that, your $50 donation would turn into $500 total for her. (Moreover, if you use your $25 tax credit, that $500 she received would only cost you $25 total.)

  • Help for candidates facing an onslaught of SuperPAC money, dark money, etc.

Candidates would be eligible for enhanced matching funds in the last 60 days before an election, with incentives so they would only access the funds if it's a particularly high-cost race.

Link


By min | July 8, 2015, 1:34 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link



July 7, 2015

Breakdown of comic sales

The Beat has a nice infographic breaking down North American comic sales by format and venue.


By fnord12 | July 7, 2015, 9:32 AM | Comics| Link



July 6, 2015

How Sanders would "get things done"

It may not seem like it, but i've been fighting my own inclination to turn this blog into an "All Sanders, All The Time" site. But i do want to make an exception for these two articles since they aren't focused on the horse race stuff. These show how Sanders fights for his policies in a practical way, and both are interesting because they show how he's navigated the difficult legislative environment.

Sometimes it's asked how Sanders would get laws through Congress if he were president. Considering the obstruction that President Obama has faced, and the fact that Hillary Clinton is just as hated by the Republicans, i don't think that she has a greater claim than Sanders on being able to get things done. And as Min pointed out, Sanders sees keeping an active base of supporters engaged beyond election day is a big part of his strategy.

Sanders has also shown more willingness to do things through executive orders. Obama has done some great things through executive action recently (EPA regulation of carbon, the Dreamer exemption, overtime pay) but he could have done those things six years ago. I would anticipate a lot of Day One action from Sanders.

But we also have the examples below showing how he's made practical compromises while still working towards a progressive agenda. The fact that he's been in Congress (House, then Senate) since 1990 means he knows the process and has a lot of relationships. That in itself is not a panacea in a polarized environment. But coupled with his plan to use engaged supporters to pressure Congress and support primary challenges when necessary, i see it as being a more practical argument than vague promises to end the partisan divide in Washington.

Here are the articles:

Bernie Sanders' community health clinics.

Veterans Affairs.

There's also the fact that it's not helpful to "get things done" if the things you are trying to get done are terrible. Some of the things Bill Clinton got done were: welfare "reform" (i.e. cutting it), NAFTA, the Three Strikes Rule, DOMA, DMCA, and financial deregulation. The Democrats were obviously in a different place in the 1990s, and Hillary isn't Bill. But we are in a different place now, and i think we need someone not associated with all of that. Not to mention the fact that Hillary has only come around on some of those issues recently, and some not at all.

Ok, i meant for this to be a positive Bernie post and it devolved into an anti-Clinton rant. Sorry. Bernie wouldn't like me for that; he's staying positive. But i almost never see a policy objection to Bernie (among people that would vote in the Dem primary, obviously). I either see "electability" or "how would he get things done". And i think rank and file Democrats that are concerning themselves with these types of issues are outsmarting themselves, or they're cowed by conventional wisdom from pundits which is often wrong. You should vote for who you believe in.


By fnord12 | July 6, 2015, 10:52 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (4) | Link



July 5, 2015

Re-meme-ber John Kerry

I got tired of hearing about Bernie Sanders and George McGovern, so i made my first ever (and probably last) meme.

Bernie Sanders is not George McGovern

By fnord12 | July 5, 2015, 11:45 AM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (1) | Link



July 4, 2015

Thomas Paine, socialist

I'm not one that thinks citing the Founding Fathers "proves" anything, but i thought it was interesting to see that Thomas Paine was an advocate for the redistribution of wealth. This is from an article on Bill Moyer's site about Bernie Sanders:

It was the American Revolution's patriot and pamphleteer, Thomas Paine -- a hero today to folks left and right, including tea partiers -- who launched the social-democratic tradition in the 1790s. In his pamphlets, Rights of Man and Agrarian Justice, Paine outlined plans for combating poverty that would become what we today call Social Security.

As Paine put it in the latter work, since God has provided the earth and the land upon it as a collective endowment for humanity, those who have come to possess the land as private property owe the dispossessed an annual rent for it. Specifically, Paine delineated a limited redistribution of income by way of a tax on landed wealth and property. The funds collected were to provide both grants for young people to get started in life and pensions for the elderly.

Let's call this my July 4th post. Happy Independence Day!


By fnord12 | July 4, 2015, 2:26 PM | Liberal Outrage| Link



July 2, 2015

Squirrel Invasion

Min thought it would be deer, but it seems like squirrels are the next species trying to get into our home.

Unintentional soundtrack:

Little Shirtwaist Fire - Rasputina
What You Laid On Me - Ann Peebles
Pandora's Lullaby - Alphaville


By fnord12 | July 2, 2015, 11:53 AM | My stupid life | Comments (3) | Link



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