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Darren's Replies
According to what source? Because I can't find anything indicating he's passed.
And something else occurred to me about all this. Trump's orders for staff reduction are very specific in stating that <i>workers in safety roles are exempt.</i> So given this, just how are people in critical positions getting let go?
I've seen these articles about nuclear safety workers that have been "accidentally" laid off, and I've also seen some about the USDA "accidentally" laying off workers investigating food safety and bird flu. Again, given these safety roles are supposed to be exempt, why is this happening?
I can't prove anything, but I <i>strongly</i> suspect this is very similar to the Air Force recently removing references to the Tuskegee Airmen and the WAAC's from its curriculum (before being ordered to put those things back): malicious compliance -- i.e. when Trump issues an order, "resistance" types in government who oppose him deliberately misinterpret it, or interpret it overly literally in order to create incidents exactly like these, and thereby undermine the administration with chaos and negative press.
And I think you're an fearmongering leftist idiot trying to create an enormous crisis where there isn't one <i>at all.</i>
Try actually looking into this, instead of just mindlessly regurgitating superficial talking points from a media that has proven, again and again over the last eight years, that it is unremittingly hostile to Trump, and always puts the worst possible spin on anything he does. Try reading the whole articles, and not just the headlines, and you'll see some important facts buried in there with all the alarmism.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/17/trump-musk-nuclear-weapons-workers-nnsa/78968238007/
<blockquote>A spokesman for the Department of Energy... told USA TODAY less than 50 workers had their jobs terminated. About 325 NNSA workers initially received notices late last week that they had been laid off...</blockquote>
This is <i>not</i> the crisis you're making out.
<blockquote>The Associated Press reported about 30% of the cuts were at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. Some of the fired NNSA employees worked on areas that aren't priorities to the Trump administration such as energy efficiency and climate change... but others dealt with nuclear issues, <b>though not directly with the agency's weapons programs.</b></blockquote>
(emphasis added)
<blockquote>An Energy Department spokesman said the terminated NNSA employees "were probationary employees and held primarily administrative and clerical roles."</blockquote>
So what we have here is a a bunch of <i>probationary</i> employees (i.e. with little time on the job), who work mostly <i>in administrative and clerical roles</i> got laid off, and the needed ones were quickly rehired.
Big. Fucking. Whoop.
This idea you are tried to spread, that the administration recklessly fired a bunch of skilled, experienced, nuclear technicians that it's dangerous to be without is a fucking FANTASY. It's not true. It's what I said earlier: a <i>nothingburger.</i>
YAWN.
This is one of those non-problems that you lefties love to point to and scream about, and it's all a storm in a teacup. Even if that article is 100% accurate -- and the media has so destroyed its own credibility that I am not prepared to accept anything they publish uncritically any longer -- but even if it is. So what? The employees got rehired. Problem solved.
It's pretty standard practice in the business world, when trimming away fraud, waste and inefficiency, to trim and just keep trimming, until you've trimmed a little too much away, and then you <i>add back</i> what you need, so that what you finally end up with is a lean, efficient, streamlined workforce carrying no extra fat.
This is no different than an interview I saw on a Canadian news show after one of Musk's Starship rockets blue up. The guest, was a Canadian astronaut. The news presenter showed a clip of the rocket failing, and clearly was trying to make the point that this was terrible news for Musk, and clearly showed his company SpaceX was flailing, didn't it? Looks like these people don't know what they're doing; their rockets blow up. The astronaut looked at her with a noticeable "WTF" expression on his face and gently corrected her. No, this was absolutely ordinary, business as usual type stuff in the world of rocket development, and <i>always has been.</i> You test rockets, and during testing, you have lots of failures, and you sift through the wreckage after every one to find what went wrong, and you fix it. Next time that part of the rocket works reliably and you find the next problem. And in fact Musk has explicitly declared SpaceX embraces the "move fast and break things" mentality, which is a Silicon Valley mindset that encourages rapid experimentation and learning from failure.
So what you are pointing to triumphantly as some "gotcha!" example, is actually a big fat nothingburger.
Actually, it's a lesson in how to rescue one. Your side was on track to have us stop being the constitutional republic we've always been before the end of this century, and to turn into an oligarchy -- a kakistocracy really -- run by arrogant, entitled, unaccountable, transnational elitist snobs.
Dear God, how can you look at the record of the last administration and not realize what a horror show it was? And really, it was just the culmination of a trend that has been going for a long, long time now. Both the Democrats and the Republican establishment have been part of the problem for decades -- they've formed a ruling class that has undertaken wars it has not won, presided over a declining economy and skyrocketing debt, made life more expensive, taxed people to the gills, and talked down to the American people at every turn.
What we finally have is a populist, nationalist leader who, for all his faults, is at least attempting to turn us on a different course before we go over the cliff, and who is also attempting to cut away truly eye-watering levels of corruption that we are seeing brought to light.
What's the rush? I'll tell you what the rush is. The rush is to overwhelm both the political opposition, and the American legacy media (but there I go repeating myself). The rush is the need to come on hard and fast, and hit the Democrats with so <i>many</i> different things that they are knocked back on their heels, and have no idea where to focus their energy. Trump's opponents love to take anything he's done, put it in the headlines, then analyze it, spin it, distort it, attack it, try to turn public opinion against Trump on it -- that's easy to do when it's just one thing. How do they do that to a dozen? Two dozen? What should the NYT run on page one, Trump's nominee for SecDef, his promise to eliminate the Dept. of Education, or him laying of so many government workers? What do the Democrats in congress stand up and demagogue, his securing the border, Elon Musk and DOGE, or the pardon of the J6 defendants? What do Joe Scarborough and Rachel Maddow and all the other talking heads on cable complain about, Trump's proposed tariffs, Tom Homan and the ICE raids to round up and deport illegal aliens, or suspending all foreign aid until it can be reviewed on a case-by-case basis?
The rush is to discombobulate the opposition so they don't know what to do next. It's a political shock and awe campaign. And it's <i>working.</i>
In what way has democracy been dismantled? Are the next elections cancelled? Has the legislative branch been eliminated, or reduced to a mere rubber stamp that automatically approves whatever edicts Trump hands down? Do you no longer have representatives in your city or town council, and your state legislature? Has the governor in your state been renamed proconsul, and do his duties now consist of carrying out Trump's will? Yes, please do enlighten me as to what, specifically, has been done to dismantle democracy in the United States (not that our government ever was a democracy; it's a constitutional republic).
Because if you mean the work of DOGE, the attacks on the various agencies, the laying off of government workers, etc., I've got news for you: that's not <b>demo</b>cracy he's attacking, that's <b>bureau</b>cracy. And Trump was <i>right</i> to take an axe to it. It's gotten out of control, the amount of fraud waste and abuse that this out of control bureaucracy has been perpetrating, and which is coming to light, is simply mind-numbing. Moreover, the bureaucrats who run this swamp have come to regard themselves as beholden to no one.
Sorry, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's stupid. There's <i>nothing</i> wrong with going back to the original folklore. Quite the contrast, I'm glad he did. It's about damn time someone did. We've had more than enough of the other kind of vampire: the romantic, seductive, or tragic antihero vampire, or vampires as effete metrosexuals. In the original folklore, vampires were terrifying and utterly malevolent fiends. It's refreshing to see someone finally portray them that way again.
As for the complaint that this "isn't Nosferatu." Nonsense. It's just another way of depicting Count Orlok, and Robert Eggers is perfectly at liberty to do it. Just because a character becomes iconic portrayed a certain way doesn't mean that all subsequent versions of the character <i>have</i> to be depicted that way. Not all depictions of Frankenstein's monster <i>have</i> to look like Boris Karloff's version. Dracula doesn't always <i>have</i> be dressed in white tie and tails, with a red-lined opera cape, just because that's what Bela Lugosi's version looked like. By the same token, Orlok is under no requirement always to look like Max Schreck.
F.W. Murnau plagiarized the story anyway, so I think it's pretty rich to demand rigid adherence to his variant.
<blockquote>Secondly, Sargent's first year (the
show's sixth) is actually stronger than York's last.</blockquote>
Yeah, well, no surprise there. In fact it could hardly be otherwise. Dick York's back pain was so bad by that point he could barely work. Some episodes had to be written so that he was in bed or on the couch for all his screen time in those episodes, and he had to be written out of some episodes entirely with the disclaimer "Darrin's away on business."
Dick York was <i>much</i> better Darrin than Dick Sargent was. And I know Elizabeth Montgomery personally liked Sargent much better (York developed a serious crush on her and that made things awkward), but I don't think she had anything remotely like the on screen chemistry she had with York.
No, I was in Ireland at the time. A month later, I was in Munich, Germany, and on German television, there were all manner of documentaries and shows commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing -- not even a German achievement (well, not <i>directly</i> at least, Wernher von Braun and other German rocket scientists were heavily involved in the program), but one with incredible historical significance for all mankind, so no wonder they wanted to celebrate it. I called my mother back in the U.S. and asked idly if there was much on U.S. television marking the anniversary, and she said (in a rather exasperated tone of voice) "no, it's all O.J. Simpson. O.J., O.J., O.J., morning noon and night. That's all that's on television right now."
That was the first I heard of the whole thing.
<blockquote>Which party is it again that is banning books?</blockquote>
Neither. Removing age-inappropriate materials from <i>elementary school libraries</i> is not a ban. The books are still out there for everyone else's consumption. If they're your thing, knock yourself out; no one's stopping you from buying them. But some of these books don't belong in a school library anymore than video copies of "Debbie Does Dallas." Stop lying.
And please, the left is <i>all about</i> ideological conformity today. They <i>demand</i> it. Those who don't adopt the mandatory set of beliefs that all moral people <i>must</i> share get cancelled. Don't believe biological males belong in women's sports or women's prisons? <b>Cancelled!</b> Don't think we should deport illegal aliens? <b>Cancelled!</b> Want "drag queen story hour" kept out of your third-grader's school? <b>Cancelled!</b> Did you vote for Trump? <b>Cancelled!</b>
And spare me the nonsense about "artists" hating conformity. The entertainment industry is worse than any of them. That's why Disney fired Gina Carano for wrongthink. It's why actor Eric McCormack tweeted (about people in Hollywood attending a Trump fundraiser) "Hey, @THR, kindly report on everyone attending this event, so the rest of us can be clear about who we don’t wanna work with. Thx." It's why James Woods' agent dropped him when he began posting conservative comments on Twitter -- and there's no denying it was because of politics, because the agent wrote ""It's the 4th of July and I'm feeling patriotic. I don't want to represent you anymore..." It's why Bryan "Breaking Bad" Cranston publicly announced he ended a <i>decades-long</i> friendship because the friend voted for Trump. It's why tons of actors -- Stacey Dash, Antonio Sabato Jr., Morgan Brittany, et al. stopped getting work after they came out as conservatives.
So don't even <i>try</i> to tell me that "progressives" in entertainment don't cancel people.
Probably not, but there's no way it would have jumped that gap in the freeway either. Even if a <i>bus</i> could make a jump like that, that wasn't a proper ramp for that sort of jump -- it was an interstate highway overpass with a section missing from the middle. The ends of the overpass on either side of the gap were actually pretty horizontal. The instant the bus' front wheels left the pavement, the front end would have started dropping, and probably the whole thing would have gone underneath the other end, no matter how fast the bus was going. To jump something, a vehicle has to go <i>up</i> a ramp to send the vehicle off (provided it has enough velocity) at a steep enough upward angle that it hasn't fallen too far back down before it reaches the other side. This would have been just like driving off a cliff.
But it's a movie, so you're supposed to suspend disbelief and not let yourself think much about the reality of the situation.
Well, he is one of most intelligent men alive today. It's child's play for someone with such an intellect to analyze data -- in this case the behavior of certain individuals based on their past actions -- and make accurate predictions.
It's even worse. A couple of days ago, Newsom went on CNN and said the residents who were burned out, were not going to be permitted to rebuild their homes the way they want.
https://x.com/RobSchneider/status/1888372653389713744
What he meant was a host of government "experts" and a bunch of new regulations were going to be sicced on the former homeowners.
Adam Carolla called this a month ago.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1163143998779839
He said the transients parking Winnebagos in the area would be back before you know it, but the law-abiding taxpayers were going to be fighting red tape and trying to get permits to rebuild for the next couple of <i>years.</i> And sure enough, Newsom proved him right.
The fires only happened because the Democrats in charge in CA are incompetent, authoritarian micromanagers. They want to remake society, and to that end, <i>there is no area of your life</i> they don't want to manage: they want to tell you what kind of car you can drive, what kind of appliances you can have in your home, what kind of food you can eat, they even want to dictate what <i>pronouns</i> you have to use.
But the nuts-and-bolts work of running the government -- maintaining the roads, keeping the reservoirs full, funding the fire department, maintaining law and order, securing the border, clear cutting underbrush and doing controlled burns -- they simply are not interested. <i>They don't care.</i> That's not what they want to spend taxpayer money on. It's their actual job, and that's the <i>one</i> thing they have no interest in.
And it's a big deal, because if they had done those things, the fires would have been brought under control before so much damage was done, and might not even have gotten started in the first place.
But after you've been burned out of your home thanks to their nonfeasance, they'll swoop in with more micromanagement, to make rebuilding your home take three times as long and cost three times as much.
I did, back when I was in high school. I loved it. Though I laughed at the "passive violence" -- i.e. as a family friendly show, this action-packed series had battles where hundreds of rounds of ammunition would get fired, there would explosions, vehicles would crash into each other and into buildings -- and no one ever got killed.
But I watched this, then I stayed tuned for "Riptide," another Stephen J. Cannell series (which I honestly liked better, even if it never become as big a pop-culture hit).
https://x.com/stellaaaaaax/status/1881807976509722934/photo/1
https://x.com/bfwebster/status/1882590943297323455/photo/4
Stop it. Just stop it. It's embarrassingly stupid. Get out of your left wing bubble. The people telling you Musk is a Nazi <i>are lying to you.</i> They aren't just wrong. They aren't just innocently misinterpreting anything. They are straight up lying. This is Orwell's Ministry of Truth at work.
I find it interesting that the last three actors to play Bond all had really great first films in their respective series, and only mediocre or bad films after that (Die Another Day was <i>terrible</i>.) Of all the Bond actors, Connery had the best run by far; none of his Bond movies were bad, and even the worst were not bad. Lazenby only had the one. Moore's were hit and miss -- his first two were just okay, his third was outstanding, his fourth, Moonraker, I still enjoy (audiences at the time did too, as it was the highest grossing Bond film to that date) even though they basically just reused the plot of TSWLM and gave it a sci-fi twist to cash in on the science fiction craze Star Wars launched; it doesn't really belong in the Bond canon but... I still enjoy it. For Your Eyes Only was a great Bond film, and really brought things back down to earth where they belong, and honestly, Roger Moore should have called it quits with that one. I've read he wanted to, but Albert R. Broccoli talked him into making Octopussy, because he knew Connery was remaking Thunderball as NSNA, and he felt the "official" Bond would compete better with Moore than an unknown new guy. Moore's last film, A View to a Kill was not very good, IMHO, and an unfortunate swan song for him with the character.
No, assholes usually can't resist being assholes. Like the story of the frog and the scorpion, it's your nature.
It wasn't "an attempt to save face." Nothing I said was "stupid" -- that's <i>you</i> being an asshole. Again. There's nothing "stupid" about observing that the new FF movie might be set in the same universe, merely in the past, when you haven't read anything official that indicates otherwise, especially when we've seen <i>precisely</i> that sort of thing done before with X-Men: First Class.
There are polite, diplomatic ways to point out when someone might be wrong. You didn't use any of them.
You're just an asshole. That's all.
Spare me. You don't have the moral high ground. You cannot make a comment like that -- one that <i>any</i> rational person will almost certainly construe as disrespectful, and then claim <i>you're</i> the one being disrespected when someone does just that. Stop playing the victim.