IheartIheartTesla

Really? No one was keeping track of the Inflation Reduction Act and its almost imminent passage in the Senate?

After the primaries, we may have some quiet time before the election season heats up. Good news regarding the IRA, with its odds of being passed going up significantly. Kansas and its reaction to Dobbs was great to see, and the Democrats look in (somewhat) good shape to retain the Senate (although the House is still a lost cause). Discuss

Sanders has been whaling on this bill for 2 days straight, saying it doesnt go far enough, but I suppose no one expects him to let the perfect be the enemy of good (I presume). Expect a lot of amendments from him though. Leaving aside Sinema all this looks to be standard political theater. Fingers crossed something happens.

I think this is more suited for this thread than US politics (since the issue would never have arisen without the war), but in one of the rate bipartisan votes, the US Senate approved 95-1 NATO membership for Sweden and Finland. The one dissent was from Josh Hawley, running to the beat of his own drum apparently.

I dont speak Sinema, is this a good faith negotiation or a slow-walk to run out the clock because ...reasons? From my perspective the climate provisions are the most important and I dont give a sh*t if corporations continue to make extra profits, if thats the price that has to be paid. One's an existential threat and the other is just money (also, the increased drought funding seemed to come with not too hefty a price tag, it seemed)

Peter Meijer lost his primary to Gibbs, and had some choice words for Democrats in an online essay. Cant say I blame him, being rejected by his party for doing the right thing is one thing, but for the Democrats to pour money into this campaign was hot garbage. They should have pushed for more Meijer's in Congress, not less (not to mention the principle of the whole thing) Since Michigan is an open primary, literally all you had to do is ask Democrats to vote for Gibbs, and they would do it for free. However, I guess they were swimming in money and had plenty of it to burn.

Everyone else I voted for lost, but not Ms Tudor. May she reign forever (or less than 3 months, whichever comes first)

Kansas primary voting numbers are through the roof. Typically it barely hits 30$, but the SoS seems to think it could tap out at 50%. As to what that means for the abortion measure, no idea. I read somewhere that it ranks higher (near second) as an important driver for Democrats, but if you look at it on a state-by-state case, not sure where Kansas falls.

One of the other candidates with a more milquetoast name (Ryan Kelley, a more whitebread name does not exist in the galaxy) was arrested for allegedly being part of the Capitol riots, and yet another (Soldano) has gone full in with the Big Lie about 2020. Dixon has waffled a fair bit on the 2020 election, so I feel good about my choice in not having voted for someone actively involved in sedition or conspiracy theories. She's only guilty of being a hypocrite (and well, a GoP candidate)

Both. Locally, this district (I mean state house and senate) is strongly Republican so whoever gets the nomination will probably (sadly) win. So for state house I voted for a pro-choice Republican and for state Senate I voted against the incompetent Republican who is currently my state house representative, if that makes sense.. The other candidates may be equally terrible, but she was a known garbage candidate so I chose one of the others at random. For US House, I left it blank because I want Dan Kildee to win in an R+1 district, and I didnt know enough about the clowns running against him to make a judgement there. For governor, since local politics dont matter I chose the most cuckoo Republican candidate out there, which is probably Tudor Dixon based solely on the fact that Trump endorsed her.

Just voted in the Michigan primary - all strategic votes for Republican candidates since there wasnt much point in me voting for any D's (most uncontested, or it wouldnt matter too much who I voted for).

Is this new superhero pet movie in the DC-verse? Or even the Lego Batman movie? Maybe they should stick to non live-action comedy movies that are DC adjacent.

Its going to be a ....runaway bestseller.

You know what else I've noticed creeping into conservative thought processes? Some sort of war on EVs, with the claim being that they'll burden the electric grid so much society will break down. Particularly at a time blackouts are a concern because of heat waves. Its all garbage of course, the adoption of EVs is nowhere near stressing the grid at all. I've seen numerous unconnected posts on social media making the same point through meme form that I can almost guarantee this is some form of Turning Points astroturfing with some as yet undecipherable nefarious motive.

I understand all that, I was just mentioning that I was also strategically interjecting myself in the Republican race by promoting the moderate, the exact opposite of what the Democrats were doing.. If MI-3 is a tossup, you'd probably get more traction from Republicans staying home or not voting for Meijer for his heresy, rather than some nebulous appeal to 'persuadable voters'

Yes, its a terrible idea. I might actually do the opposite, which is to support a Republican moderate for the Michigan state House in the upcoming primary, mostly because this district is solidly Republican and whoever wins the primary will most likely win the general. She happens to be pro-choice, or I would never even have considered the possibility.

I got exhausted reading about all the MCU movies coming out. For someone who hasnt been to a theater in a while (I think it must be nearing 3 years now), its a bit of a slog too waiting for them to drop on Disney+, by which time its lost its cultural potency and the world has moved on. Individually, disregarding this phase nonsense, I think I'd like She-Hulk (because I've never read or watched anything about her), Black Panther 2 (dont think they can mess this up too much) and maybe Ant Man 3 (I like Paul Rudd and some of the comic stylings of the first two movies).

Lets hope Spiner's set of Blu-Rays is ...ahem...fully functional. (Also, lets collectively shed a tear for the other Star Trek thread started by yours truly, now languishing on Page 2, unloved and untouched. And move on. Probably)

I dont want to belong to any club that will have me as its member - Groucho Marx (I dont usually quote commies, but when I do, its always the funny ones)

Yes, most of the particles (with mass) generated in nuclear reactions travel much slower than the speed of light and non-relativistic calculations are perfectly appropriate there (one of the exceptions to this would be neutrinos for instance coming off the fusion in the sun, but their mass is 0 or close enough). Much of the work in Los Alamos was dedicated towards the engineering aspects of creating a sustainable nuclear reaction (of course, with a lot of input from scientists), but I would say conceptually (big picture wise) the groundwork was laid in the years prior to the war. Presumably the reason the Nazis didnt pursue a bomb seriously was because Heisenberg did a calculation regarding how much fissile material would be required, and it was 3 orders of magnitude off (if memory serves me correct). Whether he did that deliberately or not is up for debate. (Edit: This story may not be actually true, but there has been quite a bit of discussion around whether or not H knew what the critical mass would be) Thematically this biopic may share similarities with the Turing one, in that in both cases we have a brilliant mind who achieved great success leading a collaborative effort followed by post-war hounding by an ungrateful government. Wonder if Nolan will draw on prior work.

The President in India has a purely ceremonial role, that's true. However, my impression was that the Sri Lankan President had a much bigger role - wikipedia says SL moved from a more British/Westminster style to one more similar to France (which has both a President and a PM). It may be somewhere in between France and England, IMO.

Discuss the extent of D losses in the upcoming November elections. Although, I did read somewhere that Beto wasnt doing as badly as expected in Texas. Small mercies I guess.

Declare an emergency, release funds for increased renewable energy production, tout its benefits while lawsuits wind their way through the courts and galvanize public opinion in favor of the declaration. I mean, this is pretty boilerplate political practice.

To paraphrase the West Wing "Let Biden be Biden". Or maybe that isnt such a great idea after all.

Mostly symbolic, but it will allow for broad executive authority to ramp up clean energy production, and mess around with oil drilling or transportation of fossil fuels (some of this may exacerbate oil prices though). Regardless of that, the news came out that he was mulling it and then decided against announcing it this week, which just sounds weird. This Bloomberg Law article has a bit more: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/white-house-mulls-emergency-declaration-to-fight-climate-change-1