Dying U.S. comics industry getting thrashed by Manga

  There is a reason why manga is crushing it while U.S. comics are dying. It's more diverse. If you like gay characters, manga has that for you. If you like soap opera slice of life drama, manga has that for you. If you like straight relationships and heroes punching bad guys, manga has that too. What manga generally does NOT do is race/gender/sexual preference swap long time established characters. There was never any attempt to "change the fan base", unlike U.S. comics where everyone is now gay or swapped out, the latest example being Moon Knight.
The objective of manga publishers is to sell books, and they do that well. The objective of big comics in the U.S. is to push an obnoxious, woke agenda that is unwanted by people who actually buy comics.
Someone on JDA's show made a point that comics should be trying to interest kids into reading comics. Manga has been doing that for years, while the U.S. industry post comics code authority has made most books inappropriate for kids. While liberals will disagree, I don't think some pink haired twink drooling over Superman's ass is appropriate for children.
I'd say close to 100% of the 40+ comic audience started reading them as kids. Instead of trying to REPLACE the current comic audience with zoomer twots, it should work on keeping that audience and ADDING kids to the mix.

Maine shooting - lack of mental health care

Maine shooting

This is a result of bi-partisanship in the 80's. I've never seen bi-partisinship be anything other than a screwjob from the politicians on both sides to you, and this was no exception. During the 80's many of the mental health institutions were becoming dilapidated and were in need of either extensive repairs or replacement. The "solution" both federal and state politicians came up with was smirkily referred to as "mainstreaming". Instead of increasing funding for mental health it was instead cut. The politicians closed down most of the mental health institutions and released the patients onto the street. Not coincidentally the homeless population exploded as the crazies failed to adapt to a life they were not prepared for and wound up on the street. The situation now is that with most of the nuthouses closed down it is almost impossible to get in patient mental health care, and even then it is short term, as was the case with the Maine shooter.

"Card recently reported experiencing mental health issues, including hearing voices, and threatened to shoot up a military base in Saco, the law enforcement bulletin said. He was also reported to have been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks over this past summer, according to the bulletin."

So they only gave this nutter 2 weeks after he threatened to shoot up a military base. The ball was dropped. But the ball got dropped in the 80's when the politicians closed almost all the mental health facilities.
Gun control is the cheap band aid the politicians used to replace the nuthouses with. It has failed over and over and over and over again, but neither side to this day wants to pony up the money to build mental health facilities and house the nutters, not even the violent ones. Endless billions for Ukraine, the same for Israel, but not one penny spent to house violent nutters. They just want to take YOUR guns away so you can't protect yourself.
I give a huge FUCK YOU to both parties, but a bigger one to the democrats for not only assisting in creating the situation, but for pushing gun control too.

Wellness check, no 4th 4 U

I was reading about welfare/wellness checks conducted by the police. Some of these have resulted in death. Police conduct those on people if someone calls them stating they think that person has mental health issues. The cops don't need a warrant to force entry into your home for a wellness check. This is do gooderism gone horribly wrong.
A cop is neither a psychiatrist or psychologist, and is in no way fit to determine anyone's mental health. Anyone can call a wellness check on anyone. So it could be a relative who is legitimately concerned, but it could just as easily be some asshole out to get you hassled by the cops. When a cop shows up you have no right to silence. If you refuse to talk to the cop they can drag you by force to a psych hospital. If you resist they will beat or kill you. From what I read the smartest thing is to go outside, close your door behind you and tell the cop you are fine. See, if you let the cop in, they can and will use that excuse to snoop around looking for anything illegal. Even if you meet them outside, a particularly nasty cop can still insist on entry to your domicile.
Now if someone does legitimately have mental problems, or is just really upset because they got some bad news, the last person they want to see is a cop. Unless you are actively being mugged no one likes forced encounters with the police.

Naturally someone who is upset or mentally unstable will get more so after encountering a cop. And naturally the cop will escalate that situation till it becomes violent. Police should not be allowed to force contact with people who are not crime suspects just because some nervous ninny relative or spiteful asshole makes a phone call. During a wellness check you have no rights, you can only tell the cop you are ok in a polite, calm tone of voice and hope he goes away.

Inflation, Damage Control, and the Big Lie

 Inflation has gotten ugly, and it looks like it is only going to get worse.
A friend, who drives an 18 wheeler for a living, says that in some places diesel is up to $6.00 gallon.
The democrats are trying to deny responsibility for any of this by telling the big lie which the press and big tech is dutifully parroting. They are claiming that Biden has absolutely no responsibility for rising gas prices or inflation.
The best lies are filled with half truths and there are a lot of those in the democrats talking points. Their claim that Biden did not ban domestic oil production is true. BUT Biden did ban fracking on public lands. Fracking is the only reason the U.S. regained energy independence. So no fracking, it's back to dependence on foreign oil. The second partially true claim is that oil companies can do fracking but are refusing to do so. Well this is kind of true, but what they leave out is this is due to a court challenge. So the oil companies challenged Biden's executive order and got a lower federal court to rule in their favor. But oil prospecting and drilling is an incredibly expensive operation. It is unlikely the oil companies will resume fracking on any federal lands until the appeals process is over. They are not going to risk setting up all that equipment only to be told they have to pull it all out again a year later.
Trying to claim Biden had nothing at all to do with any of this just isn't true. The other big claim is that it is all Putin's fault. This is fucking outrageous and only the dumbest people would buy into that, but some people are pretty fucking stupid. See, like an old Colombo detective show, the timeline just doesn't match. Putin invaded Ukraine in Feb 2022. Gas prices rose and inflation soon followed when Biden assumed office on January 20, 2021.
To sum it up, the democrats are blaming everything on greedy oil companies and Putin. But in both cases the timeline does not support them. Oil companies were ALWAYS greedy, so it is implausible that they suddenly decided all by themselves to pinch off domestic oil production just as Biden and the democrats took over.
There is a third, and overlooked piece of evidence that the democrats are lying. The green new deal. The green new deal is the Mein Kampf of the democrat party. It spells out exactly what they want to do. One of the main parts of it is to get America off of oil. Not as a long term goal, but as in NOW, ignoring the negative consequences.
Almost everything in the U.S. is delivered by truck. Electric trucks don't work. The batteries take a long time to recharge and they don't go as far as the diesel trucks.

Even if they forced people to buy electric cars, the diesel prices won't drop and food prices won't either. Welcome to inflation eternus.
This is why I despise the "greater good" philosophy the democrats operate under. They would literally force me and every other working schmuck into abject poverty if they thought it would benefit their idea of what the greater good is. To some of the most radical, like AOC, the extinction of humanity may serve the greater good of the planet. While that may actually be true, I don't want to volunteer to die or live in poverty for her agenda. Do you?

Trust the Science

  Why should I believe the government or "trust the science"? The king of science, Dr. Fauci, at first told people they didn't need to wear masks. When he later stated people do need to wear masks he got accused of being confused, but there was never any confusion. Fauci ALWAYS believed masks were effective and should be worn. His first statement was a deliberate lie, told for the "greater good" in order to preserve the mask supply for people in the medical field.
   Some people are OK with that. They are collectivists and are perfectly happy to cough their lives out on a ventilator for "the greater public good". Good for them if they want to be heroes of humanity, but as an individualist, I want to opt out. Fauci could have told the truth. He could have told people there weren't enough masks, and that people under 60 with no co-morbidities were at a very low risk of dying from covid. He could have told America's most vulnerable, the elderly, to mask up and avoid contact with other people as much as possible.
   Once mask production ramped up he then could have told people that the mask shortage was over and that it would be a good idea for everyone to wear one.
   So the next time I'm told "trust the science", if part of that means lying to me and putting me at risk for the "greater public good", fuck you and fuck off.

Alec Baldwin and gun safety

 Regarding Alec Baldwin's accidental killing of Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie Rust.    
Would it really be that tough to conduct a one day gun safety course designed for actors?
  Unlike everyone else, actors actually do have to point firearms at other people for gunfight scenes. So actors should be taught to not only check their guns to see whether they are loaded or not, but should be taught to recognize what type of ammo is in the gun. They need to be able to recognize blanks compared to live ammo. They should be taught to check the barrel for obstructions. Actors should also learn the minimum safe distance to be from someone when shooting blanks at them.
  It appears that firing his gun wasn't in the script when Baldwin shot Hutchins. He was either confused or horsing around. Either way actors also need to be taught never to point their guns at people when it is not in the scene. The same goes for firing their gun, whether it's pointed at anyone or not.
  I understand there is supposed to be an armorer to take care of all that, but this creates a single point of failure, which we have seen here and on the set of The Crow, where Brandon Lee was killed.

Cancel Culture - cancel yourselves, and fuck off.

There is a new, and shitty trend, pushed by big tech and the SJW left. It is to deplatform, or "cancel" people with opinions they disagree with. This is censorship, and it sucks. The proponents smirkely try to rename it "consequence culture" as if censorship of opinions they don't like is now a good thing. Censorship has always been a giant, stinking turd, bending it into a circle and putting confectionery sugar on it does not make it a donut.

Big tech, which got exemption from lawsuits by claiming it was a "neutral platform" is now acting like a publisher. They "fact check" and censor posts, sometimes even booting posters whose opinion they don't agree with off their platform. The "fact checks" are often political and not accurate. When the Hunter Biden laptop story came out anyone who mentioned that immediately got deplatformed on the basis of "disinformation", so no more Facebook or Twitter 4 U! The worm must have turned, because with the FBI looking into the laptop, it's not so easy to claim the laptop and emails were not Hunter Biden's anymore. 

Another big no no was mentioning the possibility that COVID-19 came out of a Chinese drug lab. DISINFORMATION!!! So big tech was again deplatforming people, even though coincidentally there was indeed a drug lab in Wuhan, where the virus was known to have originated from. Whoopsie, looks like big techs so called "fact checkers" may have been wrong again.
Removing the voices of dissent is wrong and dangerous. It puts forward a myopic world view controlled by the billionaires of big tech and a rag tag group of SJW loudmouths. Liberals like Noam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz never supported censorship. They know that stifling speech is bad for the country.