they did our boy Tom Bombadil wrong
This is part of what Colbert wants to fix. His proposed film will cover the largely-omitted chapters 3-8 of The Fellowship of the Ring, including the barrow wights and Tom Bombadil.
In a sense, this is pure Gramsci: take anything literally or colloquially sacred, and shit on it. Not actually - this would spur resistance and a sense of martyrdom. Better to shit on it by undercutting it, replacing it, tainting it, corrupting it and who better to serve that mission than a "victim" of the current leader of the right? LotR franchise already set this up by their rather extensive wrecking of The Hobbit, of course.
Addiction is neurological, not chemical. Addiction is the consequence of the rewards centre of the brain becoming dependent on stimulation and that can be from anything.
Do try to make an effort.
Doesn't have to be a credit card. A class III user digital certificate requires a verification firm be certain of a person's identity through multiple proofs. If an age verification service issued such a certificate, but anonymised the name the certificate was issued to to the user's selected screen name, you now have a digital ID that proves your age and optionally can be used for encryption purposes to ensure your account is only reachable from devices you authorise.
The Pixel 10 Fold looks pretty cool, but it takes me back to, geez, late '80s / early '90s?, when Casio came out with a folding "B.O.S.S" data bank, a precursor of the PDA. I still have it floating around somewhere, and I'd have used it for much longer, except the ribbon cable between the screen half, and the keyboard half split, at some point, from the frequent flexing. How do you feel the Pixel's gonna hold up?
No idea. It's fine so far, but I've only had it for a few months. Honestly, I'm pretty brutal on devices. Odds are high that I'll break it in some other way before the flexing causes a problem.
So you're asserting the applicability of amendments is constrained by time/technology?
So...freedom of speech doesn't apply to the internet?
Freedom of assembly doesn't apply if it's posted on facebook?
Freedom of religion doesn't apply to amplified preaching?
What a radical concept?
Of course, with equivalent mental gymnastics one could point out that when the 2nd amendment was written, muzzle loading arms were the state of the art...and militia members were allowed to keep these state of the art weapons at home. They were even allowed to put cannons on their private vehicles and build warships themselves, by that same token US citizens today should be able to own the most lethal weapons technologically available, right?
If going to prohibit guns being owned by people who shoot other people
If he's 17-45, male, and is or has declared intention to be a US citizen, he's a member of the unorganized militia, smart-pants.
Sort of sexist of you to insist that women can't carry guns in 2026, but you be you.
Per US code:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia areâ"
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
And those come with warnings, legal penalties on vendors who sell to known addicts or children, legal penalties for abusers, financial penalties to abusers, etc. There are cars which have their own breathalisers.
So, no, society has said that the responsibility is distributed. Which is correct.
That article - setting aside the usual specious bullshit of the Brennan center - is about PRIVATE militias vs STATE militias, and about them being regulated. And yes, obviously the state has a significant interest in the limiting of private armies within its boundaries.
"The right to keep and bear arms" by such a (state) militia SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.
This certainly means that militia members should be able to keep (ie own) and bear (ie wield) arms, yes?
Therefore, all US men 17-45 who are or who are in the process of becoming citizens should be able to keep and bear arms without restriction.*
It's sort of a weird take for you to be so blatantly sexist in 2026 but you be you.
*https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia areâ"
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
It is possible to verify age to the same degree (or better) than any "age verification service" without any sort of privacy invasion.
A six digit UID is not one that could be remotely considered "old".
*goes off grumbling and looks for anyone he can shout at to get off his lawn.
It is legitimate for any service that constitutes a "common carrier" to be free of consequences for what it carries. But Meta do not claim to be a "common carrier", and that changes the nature of the playing field substantially. As soon as a service can inspect messages and moderate, it is no longer eligible to claim that it is not responsible for what it carries.
Your counter-argument holds some merit, but runs into two problems.
First, society deems any service that monitors to be liable. That may well be unreasonable at the volumes involved, but that's irrelevant. Meta chose to monitor, knowing that this made it liable in the eyes of society. There are, of course, good reasons for that - mostly, society is sick and twisted, and criminality is encouraged as a "good thing" and "sticking it to the man". This is a very good reason to monitor. But Meta chose to have an obscenely large customer base (it didn't need to), Meta chose to monitor (it is quite capable of parking itself in a country where this isn't an obligation), and Meta chose to make the service addictive (which is a good way of encouraging criminals onto the scene, as addicts are easy prey).
Second, Meta has known there's been a problem for a very long time (depression and suicides by human moderators is a serious problem Meta has been facing for many years at this point). Meta elected to sweep the problem under the rug and create the illusion of doing something by using AI. If a serivce knows there's a problem but does nothing, and in particular a very cheap form of nothing, then one must consider the possibility said service is not solving said problem because there's more money to be made by having the abusers there than by removing them.
Can one block every criminal action? Probably not, which means that that's the wrong problem to solve. Intelligent, rational, people do not try to solve actually impossible problems. Rather, they change the problems into ones that are quite easy. This is very standard lateral thinking and anyone over the age of 10 who has not been trained in lateral thinking should sue their school for incompetence.
There IS a compelling military argument: there are precisely 2 places on the moon that have a) 24/7 solar power, b) more-or-less constant line of sight to earth (as well as ideal positioning for surveilling the entire side of the ecliptic) as well as c) potential reserves of water ice locally.
The advantages of polar locations are many and abundant; I believe the S pole is significantly more likely to have water ice and large quantities, meaning "first" to build a base is going to have a major advantage.
And with the genuine pressure from the Chinese, the US space program needs to quit fucking around.
This will be as critical for the next century or two (or more) as Gibraltar was for the last several.
3500 Calories = 1 Food Pound
