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I did mention before that I wasnt particularly interested in this movie, but the backlash to it from conservative Chads has been hilarious and I am now rooting for its success. Apparently Dean Cain crawled out of the woodwork with some word salad complaints about 'wokeness' too, and social media abounds with rage filled nonsense about how Corenswet isn't alpha enough (I think one ludicrous complaint was about how he was crossing his legs during an interview). Of course i enjoy trolling these clowns who may or may not share a laefe Venn space with Snyder fanbois.

But not as incredible as Pod.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg9jrxvjpjo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjkgg0kk3lo

I would be interested to know where I could find this. But I'm more interested in the reasoning.

Notwithstanding the fact that this proposal comes from seven of the brightest economists of this century, and that some of them have surely given this some kind of thought, this op-ed was very explicitly about France, which not only had a functioning wealth tax from 1989 to 2018, but this op-ed was clearly written to support a specific bill, that therefore explained how it was to be implemented. But don't worry my dear billionaire-loving friend, the French Senate heroically voted down the proposal, using even worse arguments than yours. There will never be a shortage of folks using ridiculous arguments to defend obscene wealth, regardless of what happens to everyone else. So let us keep not even trying, that way we will avoid lots of "difficult" questions.

Interstellar comets! If you have joined the comet catchers project; I'd point out that there is a toggle switch at the bottom of the window that may capture movement.

Arsenal buying Madueke is hilarious. We are Chelsea’s best customers.

Not sure this is a great long term plan, but for the next 2-3 years I'd probably do exactly the same thing. If they get another title out of it then it was absolutely the right idea. Plus they got all those fucking picks.

It would be, although if that’s two of three MFs then they could be very open defensively again. They could be a very end-to-end team again.

HOLYSHITTHEREISANEWMARSVOLTAALBUMAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRHHGGGGHHH. Shut up and take my money.

Low bar.

#BetterThanElon

OKC signed Jalen WIlliams to a max extension. Along with SGA and Holmgren, Oklahoma City has now spent upwards of $822 million on extensions the last two weeks. I didn't even know the actual city Oklahoma City has $822 million.

I think it sounds incredible. You guys are nuts! Imagine Kvothe remember his completely chaste weekend with an escaped Princess of some sort. He'd definitely describe her facial features and ample bosom at length, probably a solid paragraph about her dress. This is a bawdy tale, so he'll perhaps hold her hand briefly before rushing out to the fray, leading to a 15-page fight scene featuring at least six carefully described decapitations or disembowelments. And the dialogue! Boy howdy! You think The Devils had quips? Sanderson's Kvothe will have quips. Not Kote back in the framing scenes, though. He's really, really sad, and readers know that because of the first line of the novel: "Kote looked at his reflection in the bottle he was cleaning, and the sad look in his reflection made him sadly feel a sad sort of sadness."

Hey, at least the guy sets up trust funds for the moms and kids that increase with inflation. No missed child support payments. Leadership.

Trump Administration Sues Over Chickens Being Insufficiently Fucked https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3ltkuwjj63r2u?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

So I'm currently away on holiday with the family. Just coming to the end of a lovely week. It's always a special time, the one week a year when me 'n Chops get to share a room again. Anyway, we're each lying on our beds, chewing the fat and laughing and whatnot, and he just casually drops the fact that, for the first time since Christmas, there is no blood in his pee. Not for a week now. Then he started babbling about Doctor Who. I'm like, "WHAAAAAAAT? JUST REWIND THE FUCK BACK THERE, CHOPS ME OLD SON." So, yeah, every single time since Christmas, he's had blood in his pee. About a week ago, he passed a couple of big clots, and then .... Nothing. His urine has been clear ever since. Hopefully this means things are continuing to trend in the right direction.

Just saw Superman, I loved it. Lex was a standout, James Gunn found a way to make him scary. Mr. Terrific was a really fun character as well.

Lovely idea in theory. In practice and practicality, there are too many questions, particularly in systems with territorial taxes with highly mobile individuals. The best and most administrable wealth tax is a well-functioning estate and gift tax, which is less subject to the mobility trap. Wealth taxes raise difficult questions of timing (when measured? annually? what if wealth decreases?), and amount (how are liabilities taken into account, how do you value assets, what about contingent liabilities/forward commitments), as well as liquidity concerns. It absolutely does not attack all forms of tax avoidance. That's entirely laughable.

A Russian Gerbera drone flew into Lithuanian airspace and then crashed near the border. US sources are saying that Russia has lost 100,000 KIA since January. That seems to be tracking with the possible 200,000-300,000 casualties since January. This easily makes this year the deadliest of the war so far for the Russians. The UK and France are collaborating on building a new production line for SCALP/Storm Shadow. Germany has also developed a plan to buy at least two Patriot batteries from the USA for delivery to Ukraine. The UK is also signing a deal to send 5,000 Thales short-range air-defence missiles to Ukraine. The United States has approved its first new aid packages to Ukraine since Trump took office, and will speed up delivery of the last packages agreed under Biden. Trump is reportedly furious that Putin apparently hit Kyiv in response to Trump's statements, and is now considering other measures, including possibly agreeing to send capabilities that even Biden didn't approve (what that means is unclear, as some of the more obvious platforms are clearly not happening, like F-35, which would be a gamechanger but would also require specialist resources to maintain that Ukraine does not have, and the training programme is quite long and involved compared to F-16). A meeting today between Rubio and Lavrov in Kuala Lumpur ended frostily, without any significant agreements or statements. Ukraine's new AI-powered strike drones have destroyed multiple Buk air defence systems in Donetsk. These drones are using AI to allow autonomous operation in heavy EW areas without being limited by fibre-optic range. The Russian forces in Sumy don't seem to have AA cover. Ukrainian MiG-29s have been hammering the Russian positions around Oleksiivka for several days. Russian Shahed production is such that it may be able to sortie around 1,000 drones in a single attack by mid-autumn.

They were already playing Kulusevski central most of the time last year. He’s miles better there. Kulusevski 10 and Morgan Gibbs-White 8 maybe? That’d be a pretty good attack.

I think the USA has a higher risk of becoming a real dictatorship, as opposed to an "authoritarian democracy" or "semi-dictatorship" or whatever one wants to call the certain type of governance that many countries have ended up with during the past 10-15 years (India, Turkey, Hungary, etc). The reason is that a thing that characterizes these countries but not the USA is that they are dependent on international goodwill. Orban, PIS, Erdogan, Modi etc knew that if they went too far in suppressing dissent, there was a high risk that the US-led international community would enact severe sanctions upon them, wrecking their economies, and maybe even do more than that. The Trump administration does not need to fear that. Other countries cannot, and for that matter would not want to, try to punish the USA to the same extent. USA is too strong economically and militarily. Compare to China, who everyone does business with regardless of its political system. But there are many ways this could go. I am far from sure that Trump actually wants to be a dictator for example, although there are scenarios where he could feel himself getting pushed into that choice. That said, he and his people are also incompetent, and might muck it up regardless. But the situation is dangerous for real in my opinion. From what I have read Yoon's attempted military coup had a real chance of succeeding. Anyway, he is an interesting character. A pretty similar type of personality and politician to Trump. The coup attempt came as his government had been turned into a lame duck by opposition victories, and they had started a police investigation of his wife for corruption charges. He also seems to have gotten stuck in a bunker mentality, reportedly spending his time reading and listening to radical political commentators who were claiming that the opposition was secretly controlled by North Korea and was planning to destroy the country.

That... looks bad. Really bad. edit: though being directed by MJ Bassett raises my hopes for it a bit, since she directed Solomon Kane, which is a fun take on a similar type of story. This on the other hand looks awesome.

Since I was talking about a wealth tax the other day... https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/07/07/avec-l-impot-sur-les-ultrariches-la-france-peut-montrer-la-voie-au-reste-du-monde-le-plaidoyer-de-sept-prix-nobel-d-economie-pour-la-taxe-zucman_6619619_3232.html "With a Tax on the Ultra-Rich, France Can Set an Example for the World": A Call from Seven Nobel Laureates in Support of the Zucman Tax As public finances deteriorate and extreme wealth reaches unprecedented levels, introducing a minimum tax on billionaires’ wealth should be a top priority, argue several Nobel Prize-winning economists in an op-ed published in Le Monde. This statement was signed by: Daron Acemoglu (MIT), Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2024 George Akerlof (Georgetown University), Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001 Abhijit Banerjee (MIT), Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2019 Esther Duflo (Collège de France and MIT), Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2019 Simon Johnson (MIT), Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2024 Paul Krugman (CUNY), Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2008 Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University), Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001 These individuals have never been wealthier, yet their contributions to the public good remain disproportionately low. From Bernard Arnault to Elon Musk, billionaires often pay effective tax rates lower than those of average citizens. Groundbreaking research—conducted in collaboration with tax authorities across multiple countries—demonstrates that the ultra-wealthy pay between 0% and 0.6% of their wealth in personal income tax. In the United States, the figure is around 0.6%; in France, it drops to just 0.1%. Even when factoring in all other mandatory levies—corporate taxes, social contributions, consumption taxes, and so on—their total tax burden, as a percentage of income, is often lower than that of middle-class or upper-middle-class earners. How did we get here? In essence, because the very wealthy are able to structure their assets in ways that allow them to avoid income tax—the very foundation of a fair tax system. In Europe, this frequently involves family holding companies where dividends can accumulate shielded from tax authorities. In the U.S., such structures have been outlawed since the 1930s, which partly explains why large fortunes are more heavily taxed there—although loopholes still exist. Crucially, this situation is not the result of natural forces or historical inevitability. It stems from human decisions and political choices—and that means it can be changed. Imposing a greater obligation on billionaires to contribute fairly is not only necessary—it is entirely achievable. One of the most promising solutions is the introduction of a minimum tax on the ultra-rich, calculated as a percentage of their total wealth. This approach is effective because it tackles all forms of tax avoidance, regardless of their structure. It is targeted, as it primarily affects those wealthy individuals who currently exploit loopholes. And it is essential—because it is difficult to ask other social groups to make sacrifices while the wealthiest continue to sidestep their responsibilities.