Now, now. Look on the bright side: If true, that means no constraints. It’s an eerie echo of the first time you decided to start a new kind of state based on entirely new principles (and a lot of dead natives plus some living slaves), unhampered by existing norms or traditions of governance. You’ve done it once - who’s to say you cannot do it again?

I won’t go so far as to say “I believe in you” - that’s getting really hard at this juncture - but… At least there’s precedence.

He is, as always, correct.

Fair.

Oh no. You can get close to any star of your choosing with only minuscule amounts of reaction mass if you start out in vacuum away from significant gravity wells - eventually. Granted, the star in question may or may not have gone supernova or collapsed into a black hole by the time you arrive, but I doubt that’ll make a lot of difference to the person doing it at that point.

With that said, I’m not about to discourage anybody from taking an interest in fusion of the up-close-and-personal-kind. And if people aren’t into the math of Magnetohydrodynamics? Well, first off, sucks to be them, but second: Then donate to the cause to pay those who are. Fusion is fucking awesome, and we desperately need it.

Point. Maybe start with that as the core and rebuild the rest on that foundation.

Huh. The only circumstances under which I’d ever expected to see ‘Boris Johnson’ and ‘fear’ in the same sentence involves the word ‘comb’.

That or the right job application and a lot of propellant and oxidizer - but seriously, don’t do that. It didn’t end well for Icarus. Gravitationally-driven open-core fusion reactors are best admired from a safe minimum distance.

America… What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. You?

“It’s always nice to get a customer who can appreciate the finer points of palaeoenvironmental conditions. I swear, some days I have clients without even the most basic epistemological awareness. Then again, I suppose someone needs to watch all that so-called reality TV they’re producing. Let’s get you all fixed up, hun.”

What an interesting idea, America. Maybe the EU needs to adopt a reciprocal policy. Perhaps add in visa rejections for unvaccinated Americans. Actually, let’s prioritize the latter and do that first.

At least it wasn’t a string of drool paired with a dopey smile.

The homepage of the White House is now basically 9gag, but for cantankerous boomers.

Satire is dead, and they killed it.

Yes, it’s a pity the last term is occluded. We might have solved cat-faces for ever if not for that blunder.

Yeah, I’m going to have to remember that one.

Damn. It’s like watching meme’d videos with humorously wrong subtitles when you actually speak the language used in the clip. I just can’t ignore what’s actually on the blackboard.

“And, as it happens, one of those things is failing miserably and suffering said consequences.”

Abject unmitigated balls to the wall madness. There’s absolutely no way that hapless moron can generate in excess of one trillion dollars of value for those shareholders over the next decade, and even if he could no single individual should ever have that amount of wealth.

“I mean, I’ve never been on Fat Drugs,” continued the President.

“WE KNOW,” replied literally everybody else.

“We also plan on patenting atmospheric air and granting reasonably priced usage licenses for limited daily volumes to every man, woman and child on the planet. It’ll be great!”

David Ellison. Any relation to…

Parents

Larry Ellison (father) Barbara Boothe (mother)

Ah. Yes, I see. This is just what I’d expect from a person nurtured by Satan Inna Suit.