That Blake’s 7 fandom was materially better before the show aired in the States. They had gone through the painful sorting out of characters and characteristics and relationships and were developing these really interesting themes of psychological trauma and manipulation that they were beginning to explore - it was really interesting and the themes were fascinating. Them the show aired in the States, they went wild over Avon and all the stories and themes starting revolving around him. I don’t mind him as a character; I do mind his character taking over all of fandom. It’s sort of like if all the Harry Potter stories suddenly and inexplicably became Ron-centric; it’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s weird and people who liked other characters got left out in the cold, and some of us still resent that.

As an aside, when Blake’s 7 fandom split up, that too was fascinating. As was usual in those days, there was a pro-slash contingent and an anti-slash contingent. When B7 fandom split up, all of the pro-slash fans went into Robin of Sherwood fandom, and all the anti-slash fans went into The Professionals fandom. The problem being that RoS was almost exclusively gen and Pros was almost exclusively slash. It was very weird.

What else? That the second season of War of the Worlds should’ve been an entirely different series: the people who loved season 1 were never going to like season 2; and people who had tuned in and disliked the series during season 1 weren’t going to Even try season 2.

That Krycek became such a big character on The X-Files due to one woman who saw his potential and kept talking about it to her friends, many of whom were popular/prolific fannish authors and artists. She convinced some of them (there was incredulity and resistance at first) but it gathered steam, Chris Carter was flummoxed but rolled with it, and here we are.

That the main follow-on series for Highlander: the Series should’ve been The Methos Chronicles and that one’s not even up for debate.

That the final episode of Miami Vice is a masterpiece, particularly with the echoes and parallels to the first episode - and that the show itself took a major downturn the moment they decided to kill off their comic relief characters. That having God in the final episode of Quantum Leap (the original) being played by an actor who was also in the first episode of the series made it much more interesting. That if you were ever interested in Space: 1999, the “Message from Moonbase Alpha” short has some really interesting implications.

That Space Rangers and Moon Over Miami were cut off entirely too early. That Quark is funny as hell for a science fiction fan of my generation, even if it’s extremely dated now. Similarly, The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was hella fun and should’ve lasted much longer (though Michael Praed’s Shatner-esque line deliveries were exceptionally annoying at times!). That the Sonny Steel grave arc is majorly under-represented in Wiseguy fiction.

Almost certainly others, but those are the ones that came to mind.

So the solution is to introduce more violence?

You might check out episodes of Lux Radio Theatre. It ran for about 20 years, and every week they performed an hour-long adaptation of either a Broadway play or a popular movie; as much as possible, they tried to use the original cast as well. There’s a whole bunch of them on the internet, at the Internet Archive and other sites. I downloaded a whole bunch of them back in the day; I used to listen to them during my commute home.

Their official goal is to round up 3000 people per day - which is why they’re going after anyone they can, because “the worst of the worst” have all slipped through their fingers for years and are hard to find so they have to make up those numbers somewhere.

But - they don’t have the capacity to process 3000 people per day and, even if they could, no country is going to accept that many people in a lump, even they are citizens of that country. This was always going to end up with massive amounts of people warehoused somewhere.

Of course, with the need to constantly and massively expand detention facilities (the goal is an extra 3000 people every day!), those detention facilities are going to be hastily built, under-staffed, and under-resourced: not enough beds, blankets, food, clothing, sanitation facilities, medical support, etc. Which is exactly how the Nazis ended up with the conditions in their concentration camps - remember, the camps in Germany were labor camps with extremely poor conditions.

The next step will be companies who can’t hire enough minimum wage people or who want to skip health and safety laws, to hire workers from the camps. This government will accept, because they’ll get kickbacks from the companies and an official-if-cheap wage “paid” to the government to help offset the costs of the camps.

The inmates will be housed in poor conditions: minimal shelter (don’t expect air conditioning or even heating), thin mattresses (if any), thin blankets, minimally nutritional food, no medicine and minimal medical support - pretty much WWII concentration camp conditions. With 3000 people per day, it can’t be any different.

And then the inevitable diseases will rip through the camps, and a bunch of people will die, and the rest will be weaker - no medical care, and minimal food and shelter. But there’ll be another 3000 and another, so the losses won’t be entirely noticable - except in an ever-expanding graveyard. Instead of going to all the trouble of digging and then filling in graves, wouldn’t it be easier just to burn the corpses? It would certainly limit accountability for the losses!

Oh - but what should we do with those who can’t work - the young, the old, the disabled or infirm …

Whatever you spend it on, may I make a suggestion, if you have a little extra money yourself? Spend the gift card money, yes: buy something you’ll enjoy, share that joy with the people who got it for you, let them see how happy they’ve made you.

Then take the card that the giftcard came in, put in $75 cash, and put it in a special place. Do that every time someone gives you money or a giftcard. As I’ve gotten older, a lot of the people in my life have died, gotten ill, or moved away. Sometimes, when I’m feeling sad or depressed, I’ll go to my little drawer of cards and pull one out at random. I’ll re-read the message, and think about the person and the love that we shared at that time, and I’ll take the money and do something special for myself, to cheer myself up a bit.

Then sometime in the next few days, I’ll get the same amount of cash from the bank, put it in the envelope, and replace it in my stash: the caring we felt for each other at that time was true (regardless of how things eventually turned out), so the cards give me a little emotional boost and the cash lets me do something for myself that I’d normally not spend money on. It helps me feel better, even if only for a little time.

[I’ll also be honest and say that sometimes I’ve run out of money, and something will twinge and I’ll remember I have this little stash of cash, and having that has helped me get through some slightly tough times. But I always put the money back in the cards when I can afford it.]

… Does Alberta realize that doing business in a landlocked country can be difficult? Almost all their imports and exports will have to go through either Canada or the US.

Same problem with affordable housing units :(

Probably get more if you also search for Trump followed by either a period or a comma; perhaps also a colon or semicolon.

Cool, now to continue to enshittify the Post Office, limit ballot drop-off locations, and post ICE next to the ballot boxes to “protect the election process”.

I make homemade raspberry jam. It’s Certo’s freezer jam recipe, and it’s so easy: mash the fruit, add the sugar, stir. Add fresh lemon to the pectin, add to the fruit, stir. Leave on counter for 24 hours, put in containers and put in either fridge or freezer.

Honestly, that’s it, and it seems everyone loves raspberry jam. Or if other fruit is more within your budget, Certo has several other freezer jam recipes.

Not necessarily, there was a shitload of rain up that way last week.

all in the name of replacing human workers for maximum profits.

The whole point of AI is to let the wealthy access the benefits of talent, without letting the talented access the benefits of wealth.

after the fight.

I’m also going to recommend Unified Remote Full, which lets you control your computer from your phone. Like if you’re downstairs and want to quick-check something on your PC upstairs, you can just open it up and poke around for what you need.

My only complaints are that it doesn’t handle pop-up windows well, and sometimes when I use it in conjunction with Local Send, I can’t complete the transfer. Edit - oh, and switching between left and right mouse buttons is a pain.

Under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan government seized assets from some American oil companies after the country nationalized oil fields in 2007.

Pathetic.

Some of the Epstein files released. Bondi already said earlier today that they wouldn’t make the deadline for all the files.

Ice ice baby …

So … Half a dozen eggs?

And this is why 22 states and DC have refused to turn over their voter rolls. And now four states [Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas and Wyoming] have agreed without the Memorandum Of Understanding, while two more [Colorado and Wisconsin] have rejected it. Eleven more states have expressed an interest: Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

The DoJ says that they need the info to “verify that only eligible people are voting” - except that the Constitution explicitly says that running elections is up to the states, and DoJ has already said they’re going to share those lists with Homeland Security.

And “Homeland Security” runs ICE, which has the ability to kidnap people out of their homes and off the streets, decide that you’re not a citizen if you don’t have proof with you [and claim that your valid papers are “fake” if they want to], then throw you into a “camp” before sending you to a foreign country you have no connection to.

Why is it always suspected trans women? Paxton probably uses ED pills, which are gender-affirming care, we can start there.