Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Mar 22, 2018 3:49 pm

It's probably just me that's saddened by this, but TRU is going out of business. Fucking Amazon Bain Capital.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:26 pm

No, not fucking Amazon, fucking Bain Capital.

Most stores still open are profitable, that profit then, instead of going to like, actually fucking profit thus convincing the people in charge to keep the stores open, goes to paying of the loans that Bain Capital took out on Toys R Us behalf to buy Toys R Us.

Stores that make money are now bad because finance companies forced it to take on billions of dollars of debt it didn't need to take on.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/28/opinions ... index.html

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Mar 22, 2018 5:26 pm

Kaelik wrote:No, not fucking Amazon, fucking Bain Capital.

RIGHT?!

I ranted the other day about this because, seriously... It's Toys R Frickin' Us. It's not like people have stopped buying toys. It's not like it no longer is a great place to amuse your kid until they pass out on the floor and complain about being hungry. Toys are like crack: they sell themselves.

I am so sick of seeing articles where they go off for most of it about how Amazon has put TRU out of business and Target (FREAKING TARGET!) is going to pick up the pieces. Um... If a brick and mortar store is going to pick up the pieces of a brick and mortar store, then it's not just Amazon that's the problem.

Private equity acquisitions are killing companies. Since TRU's announcement, I have seen multiple other companies declare bankruptcy, and all of them (except Weinstein) were because of debt incurred by leveraged buyouts from private equity firms. Sometimes, you get lucky and see a mention of debt in the article about the company's demise. But a lot of the time there's not even that.

Shrapnel wrote:It's probably just me that's saddened by this, but TRU is going out of business.

No. It's not only you that's saddened by this. My kid cried about it. My brother and sister and I have been talking about it for days. And we have been singing the theme song like a funeral dirge.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Mar 22, 2018 9:45 pm

Worth noting that TRU execs got 14 million in bonuses this holiday season, while in the trench workers get nuthin'. The bankruptcy judge approved the bonuses because none of the creditors objected. And the three biggest creditors were Bank of New York, Mattel, and *Hasbro*.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:34 am

Shrapnel wrote:It's probably just me that's saddened by this, but TRU is going out of business. Fucking Amazon.

Ah, just in the USA. Scared me a bit for a moment there.

Even in China TRU shops are pretty popular from what I've seen (and that's with both chinese being crazy for online shopping and bootlegs being sold everywhere).

Iduno · Post by **Iduno** » Fri Mar 23, 2018 4:23 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:Worth noting that TRU execs got 14 million in bonuses this holiday season, while in the trench workers get nuthin'. The bankruptcy judge approved the bonuses because none of the creditors objected. And the three biggest creditors were Bank of New York, Mattel, and *Hasbro*.

Yeah, but who is more important? People who were smart enough to be born rich, or the people who have to do work?

Edit, because Hasbro: Plus, the workers would have wanted hundreds of thousands of dollars, not just millions.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Mar 24, 2018 3:23 am

OAFE has a pretty good article on who is to blame for the demise of TRU.

http://www.oafe.net/articulation/1803.php

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Mar 26, 2018 2:51 am

Remington has finally filed for bankruptcy. They're blaming it on Trump's election and sagging gun sales, but if you do a bit more research, the company is yet another victim of a leveraged buyout.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Mar 26, 2018 4:57 am

Maj wrote:Remington has finally filed for bankruptcy. They're blaming it on Trump's election and sagging gun sales, but if you do a bit more research, the company is yet another victim of a leveraged buyout.

Yeah, but unlike Toys R Us, they actually have had a huge drop in sales. The NRA spent the entire Obama administration with hysterical doomsaying about what the Black President was supposedly about to do and telling their faithful that they needed to stock up on guns and ammunition for the coming negro apocalypse. That was good for the short term profits, but was an obviously unsustainable revenue stream. Any firearm company that structured its finances and took out loans based on the sales they were doing in 2011 is going to be having a hard time in 2017.

Remember that the firearms industry is driven by small numbers of crazy people who have huge numbers of weapons. The United States has more firearms than people, but less than one third of households have any guns at all. The difference is made up by less than 3% of people who own a majority of those guns. A business model that is based on whipping up terror in less than 10 million ammo-sexuals that the Liberals are coming is not sustainable, and especially not sustainable during periods of conservative ascendancy.

And let's be honest: the gun nuts are doing plenty to stigmatize themselves. Having outside agitators bussed in to try to intimidate children with firearms sure doesn't make me any more sympathetic to the cause of firearms owners. Fuck those guys.

-Username17

Pariah Dog · Post by **Pariah Dog** » Mon Mar 26, 2018 5:27 am

Did I fall into some alternate dimension where the entertainment thread has merged with the news thread?

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Mon Mar 26, 2018 10:08 am

Pariah Dog wrote:Did I fall into some alternate dimension where the entertainment thread has merged with the news thread?

No, you fell into the reality where the news and entertainment crossed streams.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Mon Mar 26, 2018 2:25 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
Maj wrote:Remington has finally filed for bankruptcy. They're blaming it on Trump's election and sagging gun sales, but if you do a bit more research, the company is yet another victim of a leveraged buyout.
Yeah, but unlike Toys R Us, they actually have had a huge drop in sales.

Oh, I know. The point that I was failing to make is that the main cause listed is Trump's election, while the only allusion to any thing else is "massive debt."

Unsurprisingly, gun sales are increasing as the protests from Parkland heat up.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Mar 28, 2018 10:20 pm

I'm watching the new season of Jessica Jones, and it hasn't lost me exactly, but I'm curious about something-

In one of the later episodes, Jessica is investigating someone, and is confronted by him in his home. He attacks her, and she kills him.

It's clearly self-defense. But she's technically intruding.

I don't know how a PI license works, exactly, so I'm curious as to how this would actually work out, legally. Do any of our law experts have insight into this? It's NYC, so far as I'm aware.

phlapjackage · Post by **phlapjackage** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 1:34 am

Prak wrote:I'm watching the new season of Jessica Jones, and it hasn't lost me exactly, but I'm curious about something

Spoilers man

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 2:32 am

Prak wrote:

It's clearly self-defense. But she's technically intruding. I don't know how a PI license works, exactly, so I'm curious as to how this would actually work out, legally. Do any of our law experts have insight into this? It's NYC, so far as I'm aware.

Without going into specific NY law, generally speaking, you can use lethal force in many states to defend your house against an intruder. Especially with Jessica Jones, she's walking weapon, so it would be reasonable to always call her armed.

However, the more relevant point is the Trayvon Martin Principle, which is that if you kill the other person, no one can contradict your story about how they attacked you and you feared for your life, even if you just shot an unarmed person running away from you with their back turned.

Because she didn't belong in his home, his story that "She attacked me" once she was dead, couldn't reasonably be contradicted from the point of view of a jury, certainly there would be reasonable doubt as to whether she attacked him in his home.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 3:49 am

But she killed him. She intruded into his home, and he caught her, and went direct to attacking her. She defended herself, and accidentally killed him.

Would this be considered justified in a court? Does the fact that she is a PI impact things? Does her intrusion actually matter, in so far as a legal defense against murder is concerned ?

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:27 am

Might be worth submitting as a question to lawandthemultiverse.com

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:09 am

Breaking into someone's house is a felony. Killings committed during the commission of a felony constitute felony murder. Felony murder is an entirely different legal beast than murder, and you cannot claim self-defense in response to felony murder because your intent behind the killing is completely irrelevant; the malicious intent behind the felony you are committing transfers to the killing which occurs during the felony, and you are said to have criminal intentions regardless.

If she had been invited into his home and then he had become violent, she would have had a duty to retreat because neither castle doctrine (your duty to retreat is waived in your own home) nor stand your ground (your duty to retreat is waived in places you have a legal right to be, which is not other people's homes). She would have had to prove she had no reasonable means of retreat before resorting to the use of lethal force to defend herself.

Her victim is entirely too dead to testify, which is a big plus for her case. She probably left signs of breaking and entering, though, which is a big uh-oh. Was her victim black? Testimony that black people are dangerous is super credible to juries, because racism.

But no, Jessica Jones is clearly a murderer. She killed someone while breaking into his home. That is super absolutely murder. But in the real world the justice system is corrupt and evil and stupid, and most cases are simply insane and horrible in some way that makes you want to set fire to things.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 10:02 am

Not to mention:
Even as a legitimate official COP you need to have some sort of writ from a Judge actually allowing you to go into somebody elses property (not just house/appartment but actual property if there is a big lawn with a fence or wall all around it). So if even a normal official cop without such a search warrant or however it is called is doing something illegal when breaking and entering, a PI is probably not gonna get such a warrant in the first place and thus always be doing something illegal. And what do we know about evidence being gained by illegal means? Worthless right? Soo . . even if she had succeeded in doing what she wanted without actually having been noticed, anything she gained in there would have been inadmissible in a proper court of justice as i understand it.
Same goes for covert observation without a license or something.
You had no right to spy on somebody in their own home.
Nothing you learn doing it can be used as evidence for anything else.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 10:49 am

Stahlseele wrote:And what do we know about evidence being gained by illegal means? Worthless right?

It's a little more complicated. Rules about gaining evidence are designed to restrict government overreach. There are supposed to be a lot of restrictions on what the government can do (but lots of ways around those) but they don't apply to private citizens.

If you break into someone's home and steal something that they shouldn't have (like cocaine), the police can legally pin it back to the source. Even if you break into someone's house and then leave (you decide not to steal from a drug pin) your testimony can be used to support a legal case and/or obtain a warrant. Usually, you'll be offered leniency on your sentence for your testimony because you can't testify without admitting to a crime.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 10:57 am

Ah, interesting, i did not know that yet.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:47 pm

Actually, NY felony murder only applies to:

" he commits
or attempts to commit robbery, burglary, kidnapping, arson, rape in the
first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, sexual abuse in
the first degree, aggravated sexual abuse, escape in the first degree,
or escape in the second degree, and, in the course of and in furtherance
of such crime or of immediate flight therefrom,"

So since she wasn't robbing him, she could totally be innocent of felony murder.

But again, this goes back to the problem of evidence and what the jury will believe.

If she goes to the jury with "I wasn't in his house to rob him or to attack him, but to snoop around, find evidence of his wrongdoing, and then leave and report it to the authorities." that will be hard for them to believe.

On the other hand, his story if he kills her "She came into my house, and attacked me with lethal force" is really really believable.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 4:52 pm

There's also always the old standby of "I have Superpowers and you can't actually build a prison strong enough to contain me, so just shut up and let me do my morally questionable semi-vigilante job." That's usually a pretty solid defense.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:28 pm

hyzmarca wrote:There's also always the old standby of "I have Superpowers and you can't actually build a prison strong enough to contain me, so just shut up and let me do my morally questionable semi-vigilante job." That's usually a pretty solid defense.

It's less solid if they already built a suitable prison.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Thu Mar 29, 2018 5:29 pm

Marvel actually has several prisons that are perfectly capable of holding super powered . . . *sneerrrrk*
no, sorry, i can't even write that with a straight face ^^