Really, we want to complain about a website that cost a Billion? This is the United States Government, full of waste, fraud, no-bid contracts, and shit spread out out over every state so that ever senator and congressman has his slice of the taxpayer slush fund.

Witness the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, an aircraft nobody needs, trying to fill too many roles, and was supposed to save our armed services money by having one plane replace many planes.

Except it's billions over budget, still doesn't work (and might never work), and is expected to cost more than a Trillion dollars before all is said and done.

Meanwhile the aircraft is being usurped by drones, which are cheaper, easier to deploy, and may fill all the roles we'd ever need this crazy ass jet for. And we're trying so hard to make it stealthy, meanwhile as pointed out in a slashot article a few weeks back, long wave radar will find the plane just fine.

And yet the Pentagon continues to shovel more money into the project because -- guess what, there's no "plan B". This is the people we depend upon to strategize for us in times of war, and they have absolutley no fall-back plan. Brilliant.

Just put those sniffers in every HSBC branch. Or better yet, put those sniffers in the HSBC corporate boardroom. The "money laundering" they want to stop is happening at the upper levels of management, and yet, not a single banker will *ever* go to jail for laundering.

Instead, the bank will pay some measly fine which won't even be 10% of what they made doing the crime. Crime absolutely pays and pays big, assuming you're already a multi-billion-dollar corporation that can buy politicians, buy law enforcement, and has "closely held religious beliefs" about flagrantly ignoring law and morals.

How much taxpayer money is wasted going after clueless individuals? All they are going to stop are the mules. The real criminals sit in luxurious office suites and shuffle billions of dollars around with a few keystrokes.

Have we become a country so corrupt that we now have to record *everything* in order to have even a modicum of justice? You can't get Comcast to not perform mail fraud unless you have a recording of them saying they won't do it, they only way to NOT have a police officer beat you to death for "resisting arrest" is to record it.

Funny that if I personally were to turn the tables on Comcast and send them a bill for services I didn't perform, they'd have the authorities on me in an instant, and try and have me sent to jail.

But there's no way to arrest Comcast for doing the exact same thing, even though they are legally a "person" and can even claim religious rights. Comcast is a sociopathic person who flagrantly disregards the law because they can get away with it.

The "L" is hidden from view. That's what makes it so stealthy, or steathy, as the case may be.

Walking, talking sexbots would absolutely change the world, possibly eliminate most crime, might solve the problem of overpopulation, and as theorized in the manga/anime Chobits, might force real women to have to compete for male attention.

I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

.... Awwww, do I even need a reason?
If I sprain my ankle, while I'm robbing your place.
If I hurt my knuckles, when I punch you in the face!
I'm gonna sue, sue, yes I'm gonna sue!
Sue, sue, yeah, that's what I'm gonna do!
I'm gonna sue, sue, yes I'm gonna sue!
Sue, sue, I might even sue you! Ugh!

And pretty soon we'll all be driving Trumpchis -- tell us something we don't know. China will the dominant economy before the decade is out, and will be the economic powerhouse of 2020 to 2030, after which they will implode.

Of course, most Americans won't be around at all to see that happen, as the USA will become a dangerous 3rd world shithole by 2030.

Back in the day, a lot of manufacturers sold different types of VHS recorders, some with more "features" than others. It turned out that all the "buttons" were there behind the plastic faceplate, and it was just the faceplate itself that determined which were the cheap/feature-less models and which were the more expensive models.

And of course, simply prying off the plastic revealed the extra features.

So, back in the day, would that be a DMCA violation? Would that be theft? Would the IP police be busting down my door and holding a gun to my head for removing a piece of plastic???

'Cause that's what we're headed towards, boys and girls.

Quick, get Samuel L. Jackson on the phone.
I smell a blockbuster movie in the works!

Is the TSA agent going to give the Ebola patient a pat-down? After all, he might have a bomb in his underwear.

And Congress *ONLY*.
Consider the following; Until very recently Congress were the only individuals exempt from insider trading laws. Congress is exempt from TSA searches when boarding a plane, Congress is exempt from *not* being paid during government shutdowns.

Congress takes care of itself, NOT the people on the United States. Therefore, Congress will pass a law making itself exempt from CIA/NSA spying and the rest of the country be damned.

Trust me on this one, if there's one thing Congress is consistent about, with 100% bipartisan support, it's about making sure they are elite, untouchable, and completely corrupt.

What Ridley Scott brought to the table was an art-director's viewpoint. I believe it was his call that the world be dystopian rather than utopian. Syd Mead was brought in to realize that vision from Ridley's sketches.

Blade Runner was a magical coming-together of quite a few artists while they were at the height of their careers, Scott, Mead, Ford, Hauer hell, even Vangellis never was better. Blade Runner was Scott's attempt to bring back Film Noir in a sci-fi setting -- something that seems common now, but was a radical breakthrough then.

It's a tough act to follow. And as much as I like Ridley's visual style, his latest films have suffered badly from too much money lavished on sets and effects, and not enough on script and acting.

I can also say that, having read "Man in High Castle", that's not an easy book to put to film. It's a huge, complicated story that's not easy to follow. I just hope that they put the work into making the story work, and not gloss over it just to work in explosions and effects.

I had heard that Ridley was interested in Joe Haldeman's "The Forever War" -- not *that's* a movie I want to see. That book blew my mind, and I really, really, really want a good movie of that.

Is the Elio -- 84MPG with no hybrid nonsense!
http://www.eliomotors.com/

Yes, for 6 months the world would have been thrown into chaos. Millions might have even died. But we would have emerged from it stronger and more united as a planet. Imagine just in the USA.

Would Ted Cruz have shut down the government to protest Obamacare after having lived through an event like that? Do you think the Republicans would be global warming deniers if they had gone through an event where the sun struck back at earth and nearly destroyed us?

Suddenly american politics wouldn't be about immigration and shouts of "benghazi" it would be about trying to put the pieces back together and rebuilding our infrastructure rather than spending trillions on a fighter plane that can't fly.

I wish the disaster had happened, because it would focus us on the things that are important, rather than stupid wedge issues meant to keep the serfs arguing with each other rather than realizing their masters are incompetent.