In a similar vein is A Canticle for Liebowitz which is about an order of Monks whose goal is to preserve all technology and information after an apocalypse scenario. I think it may have been the inspiration for the Brotherhood of Steel.
It moves through time and shows how ignorance of technology can mix too easily with religious power.
~~DD/MM/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD are formatting conventions for expressing dates. The date itself is probably converted from some date object anyway, like the Unix Epoch, and can be expressed in any variety of formats.~~
~~Wednesday, June 11, 2025 is a date. dddd, mmm dd, yyyy or %A, %B %d, %Y is a format.~~
Edit: I’m pretty sure I misread the comment above.
Why wasn’t he arrested and charged for this before being sent to El Salvador? If he is this heinous of a criminal, why was he the alternate for the seat on the flight down to El Salvador?
Let’s argue for argument’s sake that he is the kind of person the DOJ claims he is. Does this mean he is guilty before being given a chance to defend himself? Shouldn’t he be afforded an opportunity to hear the charges and offer a defense? Granted, immigrants without citizenship can be deported for any criminal activity, but this guy had a court order preventing that. So why couldn’t the DOJ arrest and charge him before sending him to a death prison? Wouldn’t it be in the interest of the nation to maybe find out more about his network before disappearing him, especially since they claim he smuggled thousands of people?
This is some kafkaesque, fascist, dumbass bullshit.
Serial killers need patterns, process, and specific situations tailored to their individual neuroses. They are driven or compelled to kill to create or recreate certain events. That’s one thing that separates them from mass murderers or spree killers.
This guy was just in it for money. Mass murderer, yes, but there have been mafia hitmen with more morals than this fuck.
The scale of this, and the callousness of it, are far closer to Hitler and other genocidal maniacs because none of them wanted to get their hands dirty; they’d never kill anyone, personally. At least serial killers are into DIY and often are quite proud of their fucked up accomplishments.
It really says something about this guy’s absolute depravity when a comparison to a serial killer makes someone say “you know, that’s offensive to serial killers.”
I’m not disagreeing with what you said, I’m just frustrated because this guy was worse than serial killers and that is really something else.
I’m just going to drop selections from the Troma catalog in here:
These are objectively shitty movies. Most of these movies are irredeemable; hell, some of them are down right an exercise in poor taste. A lot of it hasn’t aged well, and I’m not talking about the cinematography. I haven’t kept up with Troma in the 21st century, though, so maybe Troma has gotten worse-better or better-worse?
However, I find joy in these movies because they are like a time warp back to New Jersey and New York in the 80s and 90s. They were so low budget and always filmed around New York (except for Toxic Avenger II which somehow was filmed in Japan), that they used a lot of family members of the cast and crew or random locals as extras. It is obvious that a lot of people on screen probably didn’t know they were being filmed (or if they did, didn’t realize what type of movie they were in). There’s bad hair and makeup (but not from the effects department), and thick accents and regionalisms that have faded. There are mainstreets and skylines that don’t exist anymore, or if they do, are wildly different. It is amazing to catch a glimpse of an era that doesn’t exist anymore. This exists in all old movies, but the low-budget realness hits differently.
Most of these movies are trash, but they’re my trash. Apologies to Mr. Kaufman.
I’m dying on a lot of hills when it comes to 90s action/sci-fi. Sci-fi movies from 1990 to 1997 or so have a very specific vibe that I can’t articulate well but I know it when I see it; the Stallone Judge Dredd is a shining example.
Judge Dredd, Demolition Man, Total Recall, Fifth Element, Mario Brothers, Tank Girl, Starship Toopers all have this campy retro-future theme-park vibe that is just fun.
I don’t care too much about Judge Dredd the movie(s) lining up with Judge Dredd the comic; they’re both fine to me. The Karl Urban one is a better movie, but it is missing the “eat recycled food” aspect.
Senators in the US senate serve 6 year terms and there are only 2 per state. This means that there is always an even number of senators and they have a lot of time in office before needing to focus on campaigning for re-election. Compare this to the House of Representatives where the terms are 2 years and states get allocated different amounts of representatives based on population.
Other things to note about senators is that there are certain procedural elements in government that only originate or happen in the senate: approving presidential appointees, judges, generals and admirals, authorizing treaties. The senate also has various committees that advise or manage various aspects of governance. Bills, including the budget, must pass both houses of Congress; in the case of the budget, it originates in the House of Representatives but must be approved by the Senate. The Senate has a lot of power to kill/block legislation because legislation requires both houses of Congress to pass it.
Historically, the Senate was the states’ representative in the federal government and, in fact, state legislatures used to select senators. Although senators are now voted for by the populations of each state, they still have a legacy of being “more prestigious” than the House of Representatives and often vote more conservatively (read as deliberate or less reactively).
Candidly speaking, senators are known to become legacies often staying in office for more than 20 years and it is not uncommon frontje children of senators to also become senators. I mention this, because socially senators are often perceived as being part of a supposedly “non-existent” US aristocracy.
To be fair, the schisms have been occurring for like 200 years.