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agreed. too little attention for this point. Buy Greenland? Take It? Why? An Old Pact Already Gives Trump a Free Hand. Analysts say the Cold War agreement allows the president to increase the American military presence almost at will. Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland. Right now, the United States has one base in a very remote corner of the island. But the agreement allows it to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.” It was signed in 1951 by the United States and Denmark, which colonized Greenland more than 300 years ago and still controls some of its affairs. “The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen. “I have a very hard time seeing that the U.S. couldn’t get pretty much everything it wanted,” he said, adding, “if it just asked nicely.” ... The fear was that Nazis could use Greenland as a steppingstone to America. The Germans had already established small meteorological bases on the island’s east coast and relayed information for battles in Europe. American troops eventually ousted them and established more than a dozen bases there with thousands of troops, landing strips and other military facilities. After World War II, the United States continued to run some bases and a string of early warning radar sites. As the Cold War wound down, the United States closed all of them except one. It’s now called the Pittufik Space Base and helps track missiles crossing the North Pole. end at one time, the US had something like seventeen bases in greenland, although "bases" can be misleading as a few listening stations described as bases were likely a building or two manned by a handful o' people, but our understanding is that the people in greenland and denmark were, by and large, perfectly fine with the arrangement. no surprise as there isn't much meaningful industry in greenlandl, and the US presence meant there were business opportunities for greenlanders who is significant supported by government assistance programs. this is all so stoopid... unless you accept the equal ridiculous suggestion that the greenland nonsense is due to the fact greenland appears extreme large on flat maps, and trump wants to add the huge island to his real estate portfolio. longitude demarcations at the equator is +111 km apart and at the north pole they all converge and therefore is 0 km apart, so on many flat maps, greenland appears much larger than it is in reality. trump sees acquisition o' greenland as akin to the louisiana purchase or alaska, and he is convinced acquiring the property would be a major benefit to his personal brand. based on reporting from folks such as susan glasser, trump was just as obsessed with greenland in term 1, but the sane folks surrounding the President always managed to deflect his attention to something more meaningful, but there is far less sanity to be found in trump 2.0. this is all just so dumb, and yet republicans in Congress and the trump administration who know better has decided to unapologetic go all in on what should be a comical emperor's new clothes bit, but even Gromnir is having difficulty seeing the humor in this idiocy. HA! Good Fun!

As opposed to all of the good reality tv shows out there?

This. the US already had free hands to expand their military presence on Greenland. Two problems with that... one, it doesn't distract from the still unreleased Epstein files and two, doesn't make Mango Mussolini look like a proper conqueror.

Generally, I suppose no one should have expected the Trump administration powered by vibes and incessant insecure masculinity to be competent or efficient.

Damn the USA sucks and anyone who downplayed the dangers of Trump sure does look like a moron now, well toodles.

Most important thing in the trade deal is that coffee price should drop. I am am willing to let farmers to lose their livelihood for cheaper coffee

A GoFundMe for the fallen warrior is up

am clear not gonna complain about getting drawn into a tangential discussion, particular when is more intriguing than the ones am having indulged recent. HA! Good Fun!

As much as I'm interested in theological archeology, I've yet to figure out the background for the Aboriginals (native Australians) creation myth, The Dream Time. It may have been covered in basic school, but I didn't go to school in Australia and a disproportional number (one third? I need to check sources) of schools is run by the Catholic Church and is more likely to teach kids, that we weren't here 6000+ years ago Sorry guys, completely unrelated to Florida, just my absent and sometimes too abstract mind going off on a tangent

had same here at approximate same time. that said, am thinking you are expecting too much from steube and/or his voters everglades fog is the stuff o' legends, but asking folks to make the connection 'tween swamp fog or ocean advection fog (which is a common occurrence in florida with all that ocean frontage, yes?) and chemtrails is a bit like getting seth rich conspiracy believers to face facts. offer facts and expert sources and you are simultaneous galvanizing florida man. it doesn't need to make sense. HA! Good Fun! ps got an unwanted cliff clavin trivia fact. am recollecting there is numerous florida indian tribes that have common creation myth elements. one such-- in the beginning there were fog. a few o' the florida indian creation myths start not like genesis with nothingness and darkness, but rather with fog. am gonna go out on a limb and hypothesize the creek and seminole were familiar with persistent fog. pps we shouldn't have identified creek and seminole as indian tribes with the fog creation myth, but taking out now feels like cheating. our +20 year remote source mentioned "native americans" and "florida" so we reflexive thought creek and seminole, but am not certain 'bout which peoples o' florida shared the primeval fog myth.

Congress Clown Greg Steube needs to get out of Florida for a bit. Back in December we had three weeks of constantly overcast skies and a lot of fog. Very, very persistent fog. In fact so persistent, that we've gotten less than ten minutes of sunshine from December 1st to Christmas. Three entire weeks it looked like Silent Hill. Nice shot from our office terrace. So yeah, dunno, how long can water vapor stay in the air given the right conditions? Weeks of cloudy skies? Fog that won't go away for days and days?

Congress passes $24.4 billion NASA budget, rejecting Trump's deep cuts | Space

No, especially because of all the other reality tv bullcrap being total shait as well. It's garbage and nobody should support it, ever.

Safety first.

Oh yeah, the trailer is terribly. Thankfully I learned not to judge the content of the games, by content of trailers Still one of the most awful trailers in FGC, if not in gaming in general Anyway one of the mysterious characters is most likely Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, which should print money for SNK. The other one? Looking at SNK's current track record, it will be Magnus Carlsen

#moderngaming https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/pc-gaming/buying-all-dlc-for-monster-hunter-wilds-unlocks-twice-the-fps-performance-higher-fps-accidentally-paywalled-by-resource-hogging-background-check-for-paid-content

Just to say, I recall spending too much time making that cat avatar work - partly because tiny size ruined the visibility of eye-squinting expression, plus the circle cut off the ears etc. I gave the cat more and more "eyeliner" and filled in the pupils darker and darker until it kinda worked. Not a fan of circle avatars either.

Reality tv based on Fallout? If I understood correctly.

While going after Bill now is certainly not motivated by a desire to see justice done, I personally don't care if he does get caught up over that because he sure as well was/is very good friends with a lot of the other Epstein guys and probably did do that ****. While he's there he can tell them about another guy him and Jeff hung out with in the aughts.

Yes, but there are definitely legitimate questions for Bill, especially. Much like Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, Peter Mandelson and others Bill seems to have kept contact up after Epstein had his legal troubles whereas Trump cut him off years beforehand. Not for morality concerns, one very much suspects, but still. Obviously a non partisan approach would have Trump answering questions too, but neither side really wants a non partisan approach. It's rather like Jimmy Saville in the UK; nobody in power really wants a proper investigation because a lot of influential people stand to get caught out and they aren't limited to one political slant. They were all of those at times and most of them very frequently, unfortunately they all too often weren't incompetent/ ineffective. Most of the 2nd tier of leadership was very good; for a certain definition of good of course. Even some of the top tier were effective. Himmler was a terrible guy to say the least but his secret police was very competent, and Speer was perhaps the best administrator of the 20th century. Donetz ran the navy well and Jodl/ Keitel implemented a lot of stupid orders as well as they could. There's also been a certain amount of effort put in to frame the competent Nazis as not really being ideological Nazis, but convenience ones. And, if you describe Nazi Germany that way then you don't leave any room for describing the almost complete talent free zone which was Fascist Italy.

This is correct; I was, and kind of still am, a Packers fan, even though I don't follow the NFL at all anymore. I always cheer for the local sports team unless they are playing my actual favorite teams, but that goes for all team sports. The Madden and Tecmo Bowl games were the reason for my early Packers fandom, if anyone is wondering why the Packers. They had Sterling Sharpe and he could catch anything in those games and little kid me wanted to be a wide receiver. When I was a kid in AZ, everyone hated the Cardinals because they chose to be a city team rather than a state team, though they later rectified that. The Cowboys fans always outnumbered the Cardinals fans in my little corner of southern Arizona.

our prejudice against stoopid and incompetence made us dubious about the effectiveness o' a hegsteh department of war and a jeanine pirro US attorney for dc. doge were charlie fox before it even started as the potential fraud and waste literal could not amount to the trillions o' dollars claimed and the notion that "big balls," would be able to fix US spending problems had us rolling our eyes. usaid is gone and hundreds of thousands o' people is dead 'cause o' the end o' such funding with projections o' fourteen million dead by 2030 if nothing changes. the civil rights division o' doj had ~400 lawyers in various offices working in december 2024. less than half those folks remain after mass resignations. trump's sh!t coin scam has generated billions in wealth for his family-- now try tell us that were donald's idea. the republican party is open welcoming overt antisemites such as nick fuentes and candice owens into the fold, while simultaneous the trump administration used claims the major universities failed to protect jewish students during the recent israel-gaza protests to cut funding to those schools. the overall effort o' trump 2.0 to kneecap law firms, universities and media groups has been far more effective than we thought possible given how empty the administration's legal threats were/are. cecot etc. we keep underestimating the administration. keep in mind, is Gromnir who since 2017 has been warning that the traditional legal and institutional guardrails don't apply to trump. joe rogan's 2025 and 2026 epiphanies regarding the trump administration's authoritarian efforts would be amusing if joe's willful ignorance for years weren't part o' the reason we are needing suffer each new trump administration effort to outdo their previous high watermark for cruelty. unlike rogan, we saw this coming and predicted it, but am nevertheless surprised by the amount o' pain trump has been able to cause given the reality o' the people running the sh!t show. paul ingrassia is the kinda guy trump has brought in to implement project 2025. these people are clowns who is living and breathing expressions grievance who somehow manage to be utter incompetent in spite o' the fact project 2025 spent four years looking for the ideal people to implement the regime change? jeanine box-of-wine pirro and her efforts to prosecute sandwich guy and investigate jerome powell, has been entertaining 'cause she is so inept, but don't forget that she is quietly preventing any number of investigations and is otherwise effective destroying one o' the most important prosecutor offices in the country. trump 2.0 is incompetent and inefficient to a degree previously unimagined for a Presidential administration. and? HA! Good Fun!

Because this is a farce. Right now the GOP is trying everything they can to push all blame on Clinton, while Trump stays out of this. I believe they said the same, but I'm too lazy to look it up right now. And they are not wrong. The current approach to this thing is ridiculous and insulting. They release whatever suits their narrative while scrubbing Trumps name out of everything. They are very clearly biased.

Well ##### certainly achieved his goal of taking J. Epstein out of the headlines this weekend, although B. Clinton may bring it back.

Tiffany? Who's Tiffany? Also: I miss American Bandstand, silly dancing and lip syncing and all. I remember seeing this on the old tubeTV back then and I'm pretty sure I have it recorded on VHS tape in a closet somewhere. Famous film composer Danny Elfman used to dance funny, hehe. It's how we saw our fave bands outside of in-person live concerts, back then. Now YT over-saturates us all. But at least it also lets us nostalgia.

This is how I picture my husband being at this age. So cute.

Why not, it's time to create new markets given how difficult China and the US have become.

am realizing that our favorite enameled cast iron cookware is staub. staub is not manufactured noteworthy superior to le creuset or even lodge. staub doesn't offer superior color options or a better aesthetic design approach... though am gonna admit we like the staub knob replacements nope. the reason am having decided after many decades to finally commit to team staub is 'cause o' the black enamel interior. our ocd means am spending ridiculous time attempting the impossible: keeping white enamel on a braiser or dutch oven stain free. black enamel don't show those minor color stains. staub wins. that said, if you want good enamel cast iron cookware, lodge is fantastic and costs a fraction o' staub or le creuset... or you could just buy all o' 'em 'cause you are stoopid and got some kinda weird illness when it comes to chef knives and dutch ovens. we got eight enameled dutch ovens in the 5-7qt range alone. am collecting dutch ovens, enameled and naked, and am admitting we go to estate sales with the sole purpose o' looking for old dutch ovens and butcher blocks... as well as the good PYREX glassware 'cause am still missing a couple lids to complete a golden sunflower daisy set. HA! Good Fun!

@Bartimaeus reflecting on the motivation to get out a narrative asap (you can tell much about an individual's intellectual dishonesty by observing how they pick and choose which issues need immediate judgement sans reflection,) so that facts won't lead to provable defamation, it occurred to us that something more terrifying could happen post the recent tragedy in minneapolis. the officer who somehow managed to hold onto his cellphone and simultaneous shoot a woman in minneapolis in spite o' being struck (or almost struck... narrative keeps changing,) is gonna have a more difficult time explaining his actions precise 'cause he were the only law enforcement present who fired his weapon. rule: is legit to use deadly force in self defense, and defense of others, if there is a reasonable fear o' imminent bodily harm or death. there were multiple law enforcement present, and nobody else fired their weapon in defense o' the guy who were s'posed almost run down? is a reasonable person standard and there is other cops present who didn't feel compelled to shoot? what if border patrol and ice training changes to address this potential problem? in the past, an investigation would take place after a tragedy such as the one which occurred in minneapolis and then the relevant law enforcement agency would decide whether to sacrifice the officer as a bad apple, or to defend at all costs. the President, vp and secretary o' dhs all came out and defended the cop's actions within a couple hours o' the shooting, so am not expecting any kinda meaningful reflection. furthermore, given how this administration is attempting to avoid any accountability, there is the possibility that a reasonable and logical approach post shooting of ms. good is to train officers to be less reserved about shooting... seeing as there is no political cost being exacted by the republican base thus far, the lesson learned from this incident could very well be similar to the defamation conundrum. as ludicrous as it sounds, the chances o' suffering legal repercussions could be decreased by an intentional effort to behave less responsibly. am not saying ice and border patrol pedagogy will be altered to ensure agents shoot more reliably, 'cause that would be insane, right? ...

I could be misremembering (as it's been a few years), but I believe ShadySands was more of a Packers fan than a Broncos, but he's also more or less stopped watching the NFL. This was probably the least I've been interested in the NFL in the past decade (I only caught about half of the Packers games and really didn't watch much else), but it's probably less to do with the NFL itself for me, and more to do with sports just not being a super compelling method of escapism for me this year.

other than chargers v. pats, the playoff games has been highly entertaining. @ShadySandslikely doesn't wanna jinx by commenting, but the ten year playoff win drought for the broncos could end if they beat the team which knocked 'em out 31-7 last year-- the buffalo bills. 49rs v seahawks also looks like a fun contest with baked in drama given the two previous meetings this year... akin to packers v. bears. color us shocked, but am genuine interested in nfl football this post season. huzzah. HA! Good Fun!

Started Octopath Traveler. Seems very good. Lots of JRPG tropes, but gameplay is interesting enough, I'm enjoying it. Looks like it has some hard achievements to get, but I'm a sucker for those, so I'll probably end up completing it.

uh... most western media articles am having read appear stress how divisive is pahlavi even in 2025 iran and there is a recurring tone o' perplexity coming from writers as they try to explain why some people in iran would offer their support for the 65-year old israel supporting son o' the former shah. real link Few analysts think Pahlavi has a real path to the throne or leadership in Iran. His improved reputation in recent years says more about the mounting discontent with the Islamic Republic than it does about a genuine desire by Iranians for a return of the monarchy, analysts said. Many Iranians see him as everything the current regime is not: pro-Western, secular and capable of ending Iran’s economic isolation. “Over the past decade, Pahlavi’s popularity has increased, reflecting not just nostalgia, but a sharp contrast of what the past was and what the future could be in Iran,” said Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. “This rise in popularity correlates with increasing secularism and nationalism.” ... “The Islamic Republic is so bad people will accept anything in replacement, and he offers a simple solution,” said Javad Chamanara, an opposition activist and member of Iran’s Kurdish minority who favors a federalist system in Iran. Pahlavi is seen as a divisive figure among ethnic minorities, which make up close to half of Iran’s population, because of the monarchy’s past refusal to grant them some autonomy, he said. end quotes "western media" is hardly monolithic, but the stories am reading at nyt, time, washington post, cnn and npr are hardly effusive in praise of pahlavi. "Pahlavi's efforts to position himself as a leader for a future Iran have prompted sometimes heated debates inside and outside the country. And while protesters have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, it is not clear whether that is support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. "His public support of Israel has prompted significant criticism in the past from ordinary Iranians and other members of opposition groups, particularly after the 12-day war launched by Israel in June 2025." ... am having seen opinion pieces at wsj and elsewhere that got more skew, but unless you are in an information silo, suggesting that admitted non-existent monolithic western media is "pushing Pahlavi as the hero of the revolution," is at best misleading. HA! Good Fun! edit: added a few more links... the time piece is noteworthy as a western media take on pahlavi-- The most damning similarity between Chalabi and Pahlavi is the legitimacy deficit. Chalabi failed not because he lacked American support but because Iraqis didn’t want him. He was seen, correctly, as an American creation—a man who had spent decades outside Iraq, spoke Arabic with an American accent, and embodied foreign interference rather than indigenous resistance. Pahlavi faces the same problem squared. The Pahlavi dynasty left Iranians with bitter memories: the 1953 CIA-backed coup that overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh and restored the shah to power; the brutal SAVAK secret police; the Rastakhiz Party that antagonized formerly apolitical Iranians with compulsory membership and heavy-handed interference in daily life; the corruption and inequality that sparked the 1979 revolution. While most Iranians are too young to remember these horrors firsthand, a substantial proportion—those over 50—lived through them. They remember the torture chambers, the disappeared dissidents, the rampant corruption, the grotesque inequality. They participated in, or supported, the revolution that overthrew the monarchy. Their children have grown up on the stories.

Exploring. Wonder what happened to them? Hmm, death by frozen pond. Poor lost souls. But they don't need that anymore - I'll take it, thanks. Stopping for the night.

Wrecking Crew looks fun.

Hello, So in both Grounded and Grounded 2 we all see them all over the place when enter Ominet facilities. It would be nice if we can collect some of those coffee mugs and display them at our bases. While I have that in thought, why can't we have a display for all the trinkets that we find in our adventure instead of throwing them in a chest. I may be asking too much here but it would be cool to have a few plates at our kitchen table. I hope the Creators will think on this. Anyway, I am having a good time playing both Grounded and Grounded 2. You guys are doing GREAT!!!!! Thank you

please make pillars of eternity 3 start kickstarter maybe? -Anıl Erdem Sarak

Clippy RPG confirmed

Tim Cain is back at Obsidian!

I have a full farsi translation of pillars of eternity. The whole game is translated and organized into the correct file structure to b e displayed in game. you can verify this by checking the contents of the "out" folder in this GitHub link: https://github.com/PillarFarsiGuy/PillarTranslate.git The only problem id that unity, the engine PoE runs on, does not support Persian/Arabic script. I cant find a solution for this on any forums or ai research agent. Im asking many reddit subs but with no answers anywhere. If you would like me to keep working on this please let me know. Farsi is the most underserved language of over 80 million speakers in the gaming world so this would open a huge door. Please let me know if you know a solution. P.s. everything outside of the "out" folder is the program I ran to translate the game. let me know if you have any questions about it.

Or maybe a mod that turns Avowed into a CRPG?

Unless DJT backs off, I think the one way this could work itself out diplomatically without damaging NATO is for the US and Denmark to agree on some sort of shared "Protected territory" status for Greenland. Let Denmark and Greenland handle the political state and economy, and the US handles most of the defense matters, along with special influence on minerals handling.

warning: sweary until it is definitively proven otherwise, am gonna assume the linked "protester" is @Bartimaeus. am gonna read all future barti posts with that voice and the colorful turns of expression fixed in our imagination. HA! Good Fun!

That nerve destroying op for hubby's lower spine is now on the horizon. Just waiting for a booking opening to open up. Doc says there's 3 vertebrae that are the "worst" but 5 total are problematic so they're going to do all 5. And if THAT doesn't help him, it's down to the spinal-fusion thing, which is a lot more dubious re: could get better, could not, could actually be worse (and just like with the nerves, can't reverse it). Don't know if we'll stay over night in the area or not, depends on time of day (3-4 hr drive). Maybe just rent a room for a few hours of rest/traffic avoidance first.

usa are what it always are but instead of occupy native land or iraq it occupy usa this time

One does need eyes to see, unless they're going where Doctor Weir went.