Forbid Supreme Court justices from ever owning anything ever again after they become justices. Establish a community for Supreme Court justices that has nice houses, amenities, everything that they could reasonably want, and then require that they and their immediate families live in the Supreme Court compound. Anyone found violating this oath is stripped of all benefits and exiled to Scottsdale Arizona to live out the remainder of their miserable lives.
Perhaps it was a plaster cast replica of the real fossil itself.
I mean, I grant that there’s a pretty steep degradation from the first to the fourth, but are you annoyed by the implication that Superman could crush coal into diamond?
Word Crimes, by Weird Al Yankovic
Go squish some coal into diamonds.
My understanding is that irradiation can keep fruit fresh longer, so I have a suggestion:
I read The Sum of All Fears in high school and it had a weak president being advised by a bunch of stupid advisors working from faulty data and bad assumptions in a way that was leading us step by step to a nuclear World War 3, so that gave me nightmares for a while.
Not to mention the vast majority of the rest of America. In movies, if you want to have visual shorthand for “America,” you probably use NYC more often than Washington DC, and certainly more often than any other candidates like LA or Chicago. In real life, we treated the 9/11 attacks on New York as an attack on the United States, and just about collectively forgot that there was also a plane that hit the fucking Pentagon.
As far as the popular collective imagination is concerned, New York City is America. Attack that and see what happens.
I DID tell the guide what he was wearing because I didn’t want us to end up in a military detention cell but the guide was like “Eh, it’s fine,” so I guess it was, but boy it didn’t feel like it should have been!
I got a tour of a military base with a guy who was wearing smart glasses and I couldn’t fucking believe that someone didn’t grab them off his face and break them in half. I was being VERY careful to ask if I was permitted to take pictures in some places (in at least one of which where the answer was No), and this dude was cruising around like Boris Badunov trying to gather secrets.
Can’t sell shit if no one can buy shit.
That’s the one that I’m actually interested to maybe try someday.
I don’t think anyone will like what happens if even the illusion of a functional system of laws is well and truly swept away. When enough people believe that a system is working, even if it isn’t working but they believe that it is, then life can more or less continue in a vaguely tolerable fashion. When that belief is taken away, things tend to get weird.
Edit: For the record, I think that most lower class and an ever-increasing number of middle class people already live in that reality. I think it’s the people with the most to lose who will find out just how bad it can get if the imaginary glue holding society together evaporates away in a puff of searing populist anger.
I remember reading a scene where a pilot is getting orders over the radio and it went something like:
Tower: I want you to return to base immediately!
Pilot: Roger.
Tower: I heard a “Roger,” but I didn’t hear a “Wilco,” now I repeat, I am ordering you to return to base!
Pilot: Roger.
Tower: [Explodes in radio transmitted fury]