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look, i hate to double-post, but even @Hurlshort won't show his children the Matrix sequels: i really feel like that says it all if we can agree on at least this

I never said that there's no issues with immigration, I specifically pointed out what you wrote about it now affecting liberals which is patently false and has been making the rounds on conservative sites. There are 4 southern border states and only one is red ...and one is the communist hellscape of California.

As Lexx said, the NATO fear is just a bull**** excuse. If there would be any fear of NATO, Russia would never reduce their personnel and vehicle numbers by 80% after Finland Joined NATO and doubled the length of NATO borders with Russia. This is the best evidence, that Russia always knew very well, that there is absolutely no threat from NATO to them. They just want to have back their vassals, which they lost during Yeltsin's rule.

Just look how diplomacy with Putin worked out for Prigozhin. Russia plans to fight with NATO for a very long time, to get back their east eauropean colonies back. Ukraine is just the beginning. They spent 20 years of Hybrid Warfare to attack my country aswell with bribing corrupt politicians, which used our state fleet to kidnap Vietnamese businessman from Germany, and have close relations to N’Dranghetta, which have now won elections. When Ukraine falls, in 10 years or less it will be my people dying, and West will be paying much bigger bills for that…

You are ignoring that they found huge oil/gas fields and whatnot in eastern Ukraine. Russia needed to act and not allow western companies to get their hands on those resources. Why should we buy from russia if we could just buy from ukraine with a much shorter delivery pipeline? War was pretty much inevitable the moment russia realized they couldn't turn ukraine into a puppet state via politics. Clearly NATO was no threat to them, since right now they pulled almost all their soldiers from their northern borders. Why do this if NATO is so scary?

minor quibble: we would say that the difference is that under trump, the human travesties became policy goals. from a 2019 Gromnir post: "however, before people get too angry at barr and trump, ms. fabian, the lawyer for doj in our clips, argued another flores case three years ago and it were even more disturbing. a woman who were trying to instigate a hunger strike in protest o' conditions at a detainment facility had her child seperated from her and the child placed in solitary confinement. fabian tried to argue such treatment were perfect acceptable under the flores settlement. separate and isolate child were a legit response to insurrection by the mother o' the child. 2015 were obama administration, and while there were not a general policy o' child separations in spite o' trump claims, clearly it did happen in more than a couple instances." have also posted the following a couple times: "not just kids. "'cause is not criminal trial with criminal trial protections, those seeking asylum is not granted real protections and is often given what amounts to a sham trial." ... "ps the last Two presidential administrations has been abominable and arguable inhumane when dealing with the immigration crisis. the trump admin has been orders o' magnitude worse than obama, but the previous President would not be comfortable talking 'bout his immigration record. the obama doj, just one example, argued it were appropriate to use solitary confinement to punish mothers who went on a hunger strike in response to mistreatment o' themselves and their children while being detained on immigration issues. obama's doj argued the moms were inciting disobedience and as were civil, they didn't have criminal rights, so... " ok, the thing is, as much as am having criticized the obama administration, what trump did different is that he and his nativist cronies made suffering the point o' their policies. the goal for the trump admin, with stephen miller as architect o' the scheme, were to make conditions bad enough that illegal US immigration, which btw had been decreasing steadily for decades, would be an act only the most desperate would even contemplate. under trump, human rights travesties were the point. aside, and this will bother many, am thinking some o' the tragedy regarding illegal immigrants is functional unavoidable and the goal should be to limit as 'posed to expecting elimination o' the problems. as a practical matter, it is impossible to make illegal border crossing criminal 'cause we already see backlogs of eight years in many jurisdictions. imagine if each immigrant had to be given a jury trial? can't do it. the problem is the immigrants don't get criminal defendant protections. 'course trump is also the guy who were suggesting the US should invade venezuela, while active working to destabilize the south american regime. pretend as if the US ain't at least part to blame for the massive uptick in venezuelan refugees is requiring a level o' willful obtuse am unable to manage. regardless, US immigration, like US health care, is complex issues with a whole lotta different parts... and Gromnir is old enough to recall a time when democrats and republicans were polar opposites on the issue. keep in mind trumpy fear mongering about illegals stealing jobs from working class americans and the largely imaginary crime stat hobgoblins shared at fox news were mainstays o' the democrat platform well into the 80s. please recall that working class whites were worried about such back in the 60s and at the time those individuals were dependable democrat voters. example: am having previous mentioned how Barbara Jordan is kinda a personal role model for Gromnir. her positions on immigration might be considered too harsh by current gop standards. even so, as disappointed as Gromnir were with all three recent administrations, trump were a notable outlier and not just 'cause trump appears proud o' the human suffering brought about during his term. human travesty were a conscious goal under trump. HA! Good Fun!

Israel's part of the rules based order, so no need for that.

Yeah, nah. That semi-sentient infected ballsack did not want to prevent anything for quite some time, if ever. On the contrary, it was itching for conquest lately and the only question is how much of that was pragmatism of grabbing rich lands/keeping zone of influence and how much revanchistic delusions of grandeur of aging mediocrity of a dictator whose grip on its country had't been challenged for a long, long time. It is wary of USA, not sure how much of that is inheritance of sovietistan's archenemy -- that thing is very fond of sovietistan's "legacy" -- or deliberately constructed bogeyman for its country's people that had gotten out of hand and affected those that created it in the first place, but it's there alright. It definitely didn't think EU was a threat, and to be completely honest it was deserved - have Ukraine folded overnight, I'm certain EU would just tut disapprovingly and invoke some weak-ass excuse of "sanctions", like it was with Crimea in 2015 or Georgia in 2008. So "NATO is a threat" is just a piece of propaganda. Anyway. It's kind of funny in "really not funny at all" way that russia's blitzkrieg turned into blyatzkrieg largely because of russia's signature penchant for lying about everything all the time and corruption of immeasurable proportions. Fingers crossed they will finish the job eventually.

What Lexx said above. There is a reason why all so called "Eastern bloc" and Baltics rushed to bang at NATO's door begging to be let in the minute after sovietistan imploded. Big, psychotic, cruel, dangerous reason. Starts with R.

That's some deja vu. i'll just repeat what I wrote 2 years ago: If russia wouldn't be such a huge **** to all its neighbors, maybe they wouldn't feel the need to join NATO.

Cocoon. The dimention hopping puzzle game. It's alright. I mean it is very, very well designed, but I didn't find it that fun to play for the most part. Puzzles ramp up very gradually, and the game does an excellent job in introducing concepts. However, I didn't find this puzzle game actually required me to do much thinking, until last few puzzles. I was more often amazed how devs found clever way for me to do what they need me to do, and take with me balls they wanted me to have, but I had very few "aha!" moments.

Tesla coils, though.

I don't read reviews at all, at most I'll take recs from people I know and whose taste can align with mine. Anyways....Bioware is getting sued for not paying enough severance. I'd say I'd boycott anything Bioware puts out until they pay up, but everything they've put out for a decade or so has been mediocre bargin bin bait at best so it's not like I'd be buying it in the first place. Excuse you, I'm a (semi-)pro hater. Like The Monarch.

The UN/NATO should send peace keepers to stabilize the situation.

who re-watches them to even find that out in the first place like many bad sequels (see: indiana jones' crystal skull), there may be parts that are fine or even good, but if they can't make up for the overall experience being bad, they deserve everything they get that was definitely the only problem they had and why both of them received inordinate amounts of hate...in 2003 ftr, i think i liked the third one more than the second, but i only remember the second feeling like a giant waste of time where literally nothing interesting happened, and then later i found out that there was only supposed to be one sequel but they were contractually obligated to make two sequels, so suddenly it made sense that nothing happened in Reloaded stretch that roll of garbage tape out as long as the roll of garbage tape will go, baby my gosh, why hasn't one of Yor, Anya, or the other guy killed this piece of crap yet

Yep. Most were over an hour, so it still took me awhile to get through it.

I met with another one of the big villains. She tried to take Scratch from me and I had to spend all of my Inspiration points to resolve things peacefully. But I'm actually considering reloading and making sure she never abuses another dog. Not to mention Scratch ran away after her and apparently this part is bugged and he cannot be summoned again. And... one more npc is horny.

Yeah, I'll definitely give it that. Just the 80s big hair lady samurai (now edited into previous post) beats the hell out of anything I saw in either of the sequels, and that wasn't even my favorite one.

The Animatrix (2003). I finally sat down and watched all of it. World Record (guy running so fast he breaks out of the Matrix) was the trash can sandwiched between my two favorites, Program (80s big hair lady samurai getting co-opted by her boyfriend to rejoin the Matrix) and Beyond (lady and her cat exploring a 'haunted house'). The Second Renaissance was also a pretty nice lore setup for the series...but the rest was mostly forgettable, I think. Not too shabby overall.

If you really want to see the thing from the perspective of both sides, here is one more perspective from the Russian PoV, which you are still missing. At the end you have also a google translate link from Russian Media.

Well Netanyahu must be glad, people will get off his back for a bit

Yes. I die when my time comes up. You don't have a point here with whatever it is you're trying to imply.

Not sure this game is good enough to deserve a second thread.

Those layoffs seem to have been mostly about union-busting too.

I loved the play/theater feel it had in some places as opposed to more organic neorealist fare like Sean Baker's recent work (which I love, but for different reasons), it sort of played up the absurdity of the situation and combined with the narration/narrator felt like we were seeing a story within a story. I don't think it's really comparable to The Banshees of Inisherin in terms of comedy or style. El Conde is much more explicitly a magical realist satirical horror-comedy with surreal aesthetics meant to separate it from real life while The Banshees of Inisherin keeps it's absurdist tendencies rooted in a historically accurate Ireland with natural compositions of the world. I honestly would not have thought of them in the same sentence if you hadn't mentioned it. I guess our brains are broken in different ways. And I think El Conde was silly enough, but I'll admit I would prefer more stuff like.....the smoothies to seeing the (middle-aged) kids talk. Like we get it

Started Weird West today. One hour in so far and I'm craving more.

The only difference between Obama's, Trump's, and Biden's immigration policies is advertising. All three are human rights travesties. Trump is just the only one who is proud of it.

I like that Steam reviews put people on my friends list at the top. @melkathi has reviewed everything. But seriously, I usually just read a few and can get a pretty decent idea if the reviews are any use. Of course the AAA just gets a lot of random haters, but it's not like those games don't have enough exposure to overcome that.

But that doesnt really make sense if thats what he meant. Remember people kept saying " when is the counter-offensive going to start " because the Russian offensive was reversed and they had retreated to eastern parts of the country And obviously one way to end the war is to drive the Russians back or end there appetite to stay in the country. So the Ukrainian offensive had to occur at some point. So again I dont understand why anyone would consider the losses pointless when they are an expected part of any war and the strategy that was necessary Unless you can think of another way to end the Russian invasion?

To quote John Stark's succinct and pithy words: "Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils."

Yes this is exactly how I operate as well. The thousands of Steam reviews for big/AAA games mean absolutely nothing to me, but Steam reviews for a small indie game I will take into my consideration.

I realize English is not your first language and things get lost in translation. But explain to me how defending your country and dying in that defense is pointless? Do you believe defending a country against a Russian invasion is pointless or do you support defending your country against some invasions and not others ? So for example when Poland fought against the Nazi invasion in WW2 and lost was that pointless and Poland should have surrendered?

Back to Yoda tunes. This one's not as earwyrmy as Seagulls, still very catchy

and today it is almost always a doe outside our office, but in early autumn the bucks monopolize the spot. HA! Good Fun!

Its fairly common this incredibly inaccurate framing of the war but repeated more as a form of Russian propaganda and or Vatnik cope Can you imagine any war where a country is invaded and when people fight back its considered " a play for sympathy " Tell the Mujahedeen that during the Soviet invasion or Serbia when they fought against the Austrian Hungarians in WW1. In fact have you ever heard of any war where people defend there sovereign territory as "people looking for sympathy " Only in the world of Internet fake news and misinformation

I'm sorry but that's just utter nonsense. How is it not a military operation if territories are being fought over with armies using weapons? How would you define a military operation, then, if this is not one? The fact that it has political overtones does not mean that it is not a military operation, too. (The following is not a comment intended directly at you, but I find it very curious that the internet has appeared to significantly increase the kind of discussion culture where things have to be either one or the other and where multiplicity and simultaneity are not possible, even conceptually. It's both fascinating and quite disheartening.)

I saw without any exaggeration that this is the worst thing I have read all year. "This history is complicated because fighting against the USSR at the time didn’t necessarily make you a Nazi, just someone who had an excruciating choice over which of these two terror regimes to resist. However, the idea that foreign volunteers and conscripts were being allocated to the Waffen-SS rather than the Wehrmacht on administrative rather than ideological grounds is a hard sell for audiences conditioned to believe the SS’s primary task was genocide. And simple narratives like “everybody in the SS was guilty of war crimes” are more pervasive because they’re much simpler to grasp. Holocaust denial by the fifth paragraph. "According to Russia’s ambassador in Canada, Hunka’s unit “committed multiple war crimes, including mass murder, against the Russian people, ethnic Russians. This is a proven fact.” But whenever a Russian official calls something a “proven fact,” it should set off alarms. And sure enough, here too the facts were invented out of thin air. Repeated exhaustive investigations — including by not only the Nuremberg trials but also the British, Canadian and even Soviet authorities — led to the conclusion that no war crimes or atrocities had been committed by this particular unit." Nuremberg found ALL Waffen SS divisions to be criminal organizations. By being a volunteer for the SS Hunka was a member of an organization explicitly dedicated to genocide by eliminationism and the enforcement of racial hierarchy. That he may not have personally fired a bullet does not nullify his complicity in an organization built for atrocity. "And given Moscow’s own history of aggression and atrocities during World War II and its aftermath, there’s a special cynicism underlying the Russian accusations. Russia feels comfortable shouting about “Nazis,” real or imaginary, in Ukraine or elsewhere, because unlike Nazi Germany, leaders and soldiers of the Soviet Union were never put on trial for their war crimes. Russia clings to the Nuremberg trials as a benchmark of legitimacy because as a victorious power, it was never subjected to the same reckoning. And yet, both before and after their collaborative effort to carve up eastern Europe between them, the Soviets and the Nazis had so much in common that it’s now illegal to point these similarities out in Russia." As bad as the USSR, the US, and all of the other powers/actors in WW2 were during during WW2 no one is worse than the Nazis. Equivocating the USSR's WW2 atrocities to that of the Nazis is at best an ignorant both sides brain rot and at worst flagrant holocaust denial. There is no goddamn reason you have to carry water for this dried up old Nazi **** who should have been shot in the head, along with every other SS member, after WW2. You are taking a **** on the graves of 12 million people murdered by the Nazis and pissing on the legacy of everyone (including a lot of Ukrainians) who fought to end their reign of terror. You are neither going to help Ukraine nor own the Russian government by engaging in this kind of ****, if anything you are going to lend credence to their (hysterical, opportunistic, and untrue) accusations of Nazism. Giles should never write again and the editor should quit in shame.

Viktor Sokolov appears to be turning into another "is he or isn't he dead", with Peskov not saying anything and video evidence being inconclusive. The strike in Crimea seems like an effective one in any case.

Spy x Family 26 I actually forgot about Anya’s shocked faces. They are back, of course, and she is not alone with that. But I gave up counting them since there are just too many ambiguous expressions and scenes when they simply just stay with the shocked face indefinitely.