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Um...there's no explanation of the Confederacy that does not end back in an attempt to justify and perpetuate slavery. If you look at the common narrative of the "Lost Cause", you get things like - It was about states rights (to keep people enslaved); It was about the economic life of the noble, chivalric south (because it was built on slave labor); It was a war of Northern aggression (how dare they try to free our slaves!); Slavery was a God given "positive good" promoting the welfare of blacks who were better off as slaves than free in Africa because they are unequipped to be full people yet (because the North and southern abolitionists can't argue against a Divine institution can they? And thus allowing slavery to be perpetuated which we need or all us rich people will all be poor.) Regarding "losing" history...history is always looked back at and revisited; there is a tendency to view the past with a romantic or mythological eye and then later to re-evaluate it with a more dispassionate one, and that re-evaluation is always a constant. I'm old enough to remember still being taught things like George Washington cut down a cherry tree and admitted it to his father because he couldn't lie. We made mythic men out of the founding fathers, but inevitably historians were going to go back and really look at what happened and find they were just people, complex and messy and inconsistent people. Here's a few things that I've learned as an adult that was never touched on when I was in high school (cue comments about the poor education in southern states! ): Washington almost bankrupted the army; after being asked to be the 1st President*, he said he'd do it - not for a salary but to cover his expenses. But Washington was a spendthrift and as I mentioned, almost bankrupted the Continental army, so they actually turned down that offer. Eventually Washington relented and accepted the salary. Abraham Lincoln was the wrestling champion of his county in Illinois. His life narrative when I was a kid involved log cabin building, putting himself through school, his law practice and then the presidency which he won because a girl wrote to him and suggested he grow a beard to hide his face. (Okay only mildly serious there) President Garfield is often described as being shot by a disgruntled office seeker. Charles J. Guiteau, however, was suffering from mental illness and had never talked with Garfield prior to Garfield winning the presidency. Having a long history of problems (including being kicked out of a free love commune), Guiteau believed that getting a speech published (Garfield vs Han****) and presenting a handful of speeches (some that he couldn't even complete) was sufficient work to earn a position in Grant's cabinet - if not an ambassadorship. He finally met with Grant the first time after he'd taken the Presidency, and not getting his desired governmental appointment plotted and executed an assassination. Modern psychologist think Guiteau may have been a narcissistic schizophrenic. However, for the most part, this narrative was left out, giving the perception that Guiteau was an aggrieved public servant promised a job which Garfield later reneged on. Georgia wasn't originally a slave state. It was money and influence from the Carolinas that caused the leadership at the time to reverse the decision (and fairly quickly, I think there are only a few weeks between announcing that there wouldn't be slavery and when laws were changed to allow it. Plantation owners in the Carolina wanted to open up the savannah lands (getting rid of the people already there) but only if they could bring their slaves to farm the land). I do think that eventually historical figures from the civil war and before will be understood as both people who did good and bad things and that some of those things were due to thoughts that to us now seem as abhorrent as, say jus primae noctis**, or as weird as say, using beef bullion enemas to treat a President who'd been shot while prodding his wound with unwashed hands, but weren't in their time. What we're struggling with is demythifying the past at the moment, and accepting what that means about then and how it informs now. *Even this is a bit of myth, as it implies the US was a leaderless confederation until Washington, ignoring Peyton Randolph as president of the First Continental Congress, John Han**** as president when the Declaration was signed, Samuel Huntington as president when the Articles were ratified and took effect, Thomas McKean as the first president elected under the Articles, and John Hanson as the first president under the Articles to serve the prescribed one-year term **Yes I know there is debate about how widespread this custom was or if its entirely mythological, but since it was specifically outlawed by King Ferdinand of Aragon in the Arbitral Decision of Guadalupe and combined with historical references to similar practices going back to ancient Greece, I'm erring on the side that it was a thing of some kind in some places or with specific rulers.

Why is there a safe in the middle of town square? Why is a cannon pointed at it? Why is a cow on a balcony?

Last one

Find out next time on Desperadoes 3!

I need an adult.

I'm fully convinced the authorities are already spying on me via all my electronic devices, or at least have the capability to spy on me, were I worth spying on. That's why I make sure to choke the ol' chicken as much as possible in front of my phone, laptop, and desktop. I have this image of a windowless van parked 200 yards down the road. The back opens up up and a guy enters carrying a box of donuts and 2 coffee cups. "Hey Hank, what's our boy up to?" "Do you even need to ask, Bob? He's beating it." "Again!?" "Yes again. ALWAYS. Dude is always beating it." "He's inhuman." "He's something." "Well, what's his porn of choice this time; gangbang, tentacle hentai, anal? "Lesbian tribbing." "Solid choice."

Well, I'll go with what I heard first..

I'm happy to announce that the mod has reached its 100th download (from actually different users) on Nexus. Apparently, it has been "hottest" PoE2 mod from its release (appears first on Nexus for PoE2 because of number of recent download, I suppose). Once again, thank you for your support ! I advertised for it on Steam forum but got a single "I-would-have-done-otherwisish but vague" comment (my favorites ). However, it received a much warmer welcome on reddit. I don't know how much this contributes to diffusion, but I wanted to share this experience.

I know I usually put my Rammstein posts in the metal thread.... But I don't think this is really "metal" As is often the case with Rammstein, their lyrics have multiple meanings and interpretations. Lyrics translated We stick together We endure one another We hold onto one another No one holds us back We stay faithful to you We firmly hold onto that And obey the rules If you leave rules to us* And the shark, that has tears And they run from the face But the shark lives in water So no one can see the tears We keep our speed We keep our word If one can’t keep up Then we immediately stop We keep our eyes open We hold each other by the arm Six hearts that burn The fire keeps you warm And the shark, that has tears And they run from the face But the shark lives in water So no one can see the tears In the deep it is lonely And so many a tear is shed And it so happens that the water In the oceans is salty You can think of us Whatever you want We get compensation We never keep still And the shark, that has tears And they run from the face But the shark lives in water So no one can see the tears In the deep it is lonely And so many a tear is shed And it so happens that the water In the oceans is salty And the shark, that has tears And they run from the face But the shark lives in water So no one can see the tears Translation © Affenknecht.com

Playing War in Russia these days... as the Soviet Union taking on Nazi Germany, full campaign 1941-1945 I love the game, even if the interface shows its age. Bring your own dos-box to run it It's originally made by Gary Grigsby, a name that some old wargamers might recognize. The current owner of the game after SSI's demise is Matrix Games, who offers it as a free download from their website (i.e. fully legit). For those who prefer the Pacific War, that game is also there for free. Warning, if WIR was big, PW is humongous, not byte wise, but in scope and time investment. Edit: Link for any fellow wargamers out there who might be curious/interested https://www.matrixgames.com/game/war-in-russia-matrix-edition

the earth is weeping: the epic story of the indian wars for the american west two observations: 1) probably weren't what you were thinking 'bout when you asked for suggestions. w/o question the indian wars fits definition o' colonialism, but is rare what persons is intending by reference colonialism. 2) is possible the only decent book we ever read with "epic" in the title. another title worth mentioning is, the divided ground: indians, settlers, and the northern borderland of the american revolution author is alan taylor, who wrote the admitted superior william cooper's town. regardless, is a couple works we mention for no other reason than they is unlikely to show up on any other colonialism reading lists, but deserve spots nonetheless. HA! Good Fun! ps only just seen the finnegans wake post. am conflicted 'bout the title for reasons we won't fully go into, but the thing is, unlike ulysses which gets the masterpiece label, finnegans wake were the breaking point for many a diehard joyce fan. joyce were fully cognizant he were punishing the reader with fw, which in our mind is an unforgivable conceit for an author... but we kinda/sorta forgive anyways. complicated.

‘Fallout’ Series From ‘Westworld’ Creators in the Works at Amazon.

That only shows that the effects of Conduit (sometimes, but you have to cheese) and Blade Cascade (always) are too powerful - like Brilliant. Giving players superpotent but ultrashort effects and then allowing flat prolonging isn't overly smart in the first place if you want to achieve balance. Either do not deliver very strong effects in the first place or don't allow flat prolonging. On the other side: "abusing" SoT in order to extend very short potent stuff like Blade Cascade can be fun and interesting. I still don't think SoT is the problem. Blade Cascade is just too good. It would have needed a counter and not a duration. Conduit would have needed a cap. Or simply a fixed lash. Using BDD in order to survive 300pt shock damage is the cheesy part - not casting SoT afterwards imo. Casting of SoT itself takes some time away from the duration already. Besides that: shouldn't SoT only add 10 seconds? At least that's the number I'm referring to. Anything else is either a bug or wrong description.

My mod add a cap for SoT effect : Blade cascade (or any other effects) can only have its duration doubled by my version of SoT. It's very strong, but less than normal. Blade Cascade is extremely strong by itself anyway.

I don't get it. EDIT: I get it.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/senates-new-anti-encryption-bill-even-worse-earn-it-and-thats-saying-something Ahh, look, the US coalition of geriatric ignoramuses is going at it again.

Need wit of death's herald for sure, and optimize assassin's dps. With maximized INT, empower, brilliant you will have up to 140 sec before run out of Guile, if you dps is high enough oozie is killable. Also there's a watcher ability called No time for the Lost which extend your benefit duration for around 10 sec, which could be used to extend brilliant and blade cascade. I tried to solo hauani with a holy slayer recently, at first i really think it is impossible but after a lot of tries this is also doable, you will need 3 stun to prevent gigantic oozie and massive oozie's merging, I used Lockdown from warden gloves, No quarter from the rakhan field boots and Shout of hosts from heaven's cacophony, then kill one oozie when both are stunned/knockdown. Need a lot of optimization/micromanagement but doable.

Well the problem with this is that antifa isn't an organization, but the closest was in Greece where a guy shot some members of the Golden Dawn in retaliation for Golden Dawn killing a rapper who had ties to anarchist groups. In the US we've had hooliganism (assaults, fights, vandalism, looting), but no rapes or murders to my knowledge. Comparatively off the top of my head we've got George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Rayshard Brooks murdered by the police from the last six months. Everyone is a sjw nazi except for sjw nazis, who are fine. History has already been erased, for instance Thomas Jefferson started...his relationship with Sally Hemmings when she was 14 and he was 44. This is something I was never taught in public school or college and had to be told and research on my own, we can probably find similar things with every figure immortalized in statues. To tie it to something similar, if Gromnir had not mentioned that Colby Bryant likely raped someone on this board I would probably not remember that, I doubt if I asked a hundred basketball fans if they knew about it that they would answer in the affirmative. I doubt that taking down some stone is going to result in (in)famous historical figures being erased.

More importantly, why are there no orange people in this drawing?

I could swear that scrunchie just moved on its own...

Ah well. Tis the center of many memes. Or maybe I just know too many people that only share memes rather than talk about their families on FB....

"I think BLM is well meaning" No, they aren't. They (and Antifa) are responsible for more murders, assaults, rapes, and robberies of black people than the police have been for a decade. While there are people who support BLM are good people and actually believe wholeheartedly the pretend claims of BLM, BLM itself is evil to the core. Only explaination for when we see videos of white BLMers shouting nasty things at black people, BLMers destroying black owned businesses, and murdering fellow BLM supporters after they start to leave a peaceful protest that's about to get violent. BLM is tainted to the core. EVIL. EVIL TO THE CORE.

Of course they offer WIR free, it's a gateway drug for their fairly pricey War in the East. In terms of detail I don't think anything comes close to the old SPI Campaign for North Africa which tracked detail down to the water requirement for Italian units to boil their pasta rations in. And that was a late 70s boardgame...

two titles immediate came to mind: okami iwd for a rush job, the production values were exceeding expectations and am admitting we were kinda shocked by just how beautiful were the title. artwork and music were some o' the best in any game we had played up to that point. even today, a couple decades removed from release, iwd remains one o' the more gorgeous games we has ever played. HA! Good Fun!

Beautiful Desolation /thread Well it's a joke, yes, but the game sure has some pretty locations, so it's not entirely nonsene.

Even though the build forum is for mainly POTD builds you do not need to use the attributes and stuff exactly for yourself. so you can look in there to get inspired with a build but change the attributes to suit your style. The attributes are not a huge component to the builds its more about abilities and gear and play style which you can learn along the way. I wouldnt sweat the stats you rolled they are fine if you want to lower con dex is nice for caster to cast faster and there are lots of ways to buff accuracy in the game especially with priest but also gear , scrolls, rest bonuses, etc (although early on acc can hurt you but as game goes on you get lots of ways to increase it). It depends on what you want those two points are NOT a big deal either way so for instance 2 might adds 6% damage bonus or 12 % aoe and 10% duration so if you want your spells to last longer and your spiritshift ability to last longer go with int or if you want to cast a little faster and or hit faster go with Dex for 6% speed bonus or if you want to hit a little bit harder go with might. But as you seen none of these are earth shattering bonuses. Also Int is more important for dialogue than might but might does gets some checks in dialogue and in scripted interactions. If you want to do a ranged druid bows are fine. there is also reach weapons like pike or staff so you can park behind front line npc out of range but when you spiritshift go right into fight. Paladins and Fighters make nice front line tank / off tanks but in this game i could make pretty much anything tank / off tanks if you are imaginative and because anyone can use any equipment. But yes paladins and fighters are easy to make front liners maybe check out these builds . again you can ignore the total min max attributes but take a look at the talents For new players the beginning can be a little challenging there are some tough fights/areas for new players in the first act so sometimes stuff can feel a little off when its really you just low level and lack full party. the game will get easier are you level into the middle levels and learn the systems, buff/debuffs CC stuff

iwd is still our all-time favorite soundtrack, but inon zur's work on iwd2 has a few individual tracks which is 'mongst all-time best. HA! Good Fun!

Here's something to help you decide Y'all from the US need to get on this ****, and get it fixed. The rest of the world will be equally ****ed as you all =/

CNN - Senate strips provision from intelligence bill requiring campaigns to report foreign election help Well. Here we go...

Well, you might as well have some fun...