I think it’s a mistake to dismiss Trump supporters as stupid. For one thing, perhaps the most important thing, it puts us right into the trap that is allowing Trump to get so much power in the first place: it divides the electorate into “us versus them” camps. That’s most of why people are voting for Trump. Not so…

Re-reading your comment about “this is how it starts” reminds me of my honeymoon. We took a trip to Europe to tour World War II sites. We ended in Berlin, and one of the museums we toured was the Story of Berlin. Absolutely fascinating place, and very much dedicated to teaching people how this is how it starts.

I’m going grocery shopping tonight.  I think I’m going to make a side-trip to the liquor store.

It absolutely blows my mind that ANYONE supports this guy at this point.  I mean, he’s just getting worse and worse and worse and worse -- watching people continue to support him is like watching a good friend continue going home with an abusive spouse whose behavior is continuing to escalate.  What more can it take…

They teach this in Intro Taxation courses... which our “Stable Genius” obviously didn’t pass.

I just don’t think the Rank and file Republicans want to deal with him any more.

Had. During WWII, Port Cargill, in Savage, MN, built ships that were then floated down the Minnesota River and then down the Mississippi. And back during WWI, there were naval vessels built in Duluth-Superior. But that was a long time ago, and I’m not aware of any naval shipbuilding in Minnesota since then.

Well, I suppose if you had a big enough chunk.....

Oh, a lot of foreign agents are pumping money into him. That’s how investing works, and it really should be no surprise to anyone. They’ll invest on promises as long as the promises keep making them money as well — either because they can still either sell the stock the investment bought them, or because they can…

He’s as good a businessman as Trump is, which is to say, he’s a terrible businessman. Musk has been railroaded out of businesses before because of how bad he is. Both men are often surrounded by others who work to shield them from the consequences of their terrible business decisions. Trump has generally been…

Wouldn’t that have been the Falcon 1?

Precision duplication of human movements has been a thing robots can do for quite a long time now. It’s why the Da Vinci is allowed to do delicate things to people’s insides.

This doesn’t even appear to be an automaton.  Better terms would be “mechanical Turk” or “anthropomorphic waldo”.

I suppose the idea is that the stealth units can catch people violating traffic laws because they won’t realize it’s a cop they’re cutting off as they blow the red light. Which is dumb; it’s better to have obviously marked cop cars, since there’s research proving that the presence of marked cop cars are a traffic…

These all-black squad cars remind me of Hotblack Deziato’s sundiving spaceship from “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, about which Zaphod had this to say:

Some here in Minnesota do that too, but it only makes sense if you’re using it on the regular — specifically, they’re doing it because either they have so many cars they need multi-level storage in the first place (i.e. they can’t fit them all on one lot) or they want to be fancy to appeal to pricier customers. You’re…

That’s a good idea.  What would it take to transport the cars to those parking garages?  Do they have enough drivers/car transporters/etc?  Are the roads clear?  I’m sure the owners of the ramps would be happy to rent out the space (assuming their lawyers can draw up an agreement indemnifying them against any losses…

It’s easy to say “lack of prior planning”, but where do you build indoor storage for this many cars? That’s an awful lot of real estate to have to maintain and pay taxes on for fifty years in order to use for three days.

That’s mostly because a couple of generations ago, we downsized our rail infrastructure to a staggering degree rather than continuing to grow it alongside our population. Drive through middle America and every small town has an abandoned passenger railway station. Many mid-sized and larger cities have buried streetcar…

It is certainly something!  :-)  I gotta give Tesla props for scaling up their manufacturing very rapidly.  That’s been very impressive.  However, they have also demonstrated a tendency to overpromise and underdeliver, and that makes me want to see the proof before trusting in the pudding.