Bartimaeus

Haha, my friend and I had the same exact experience. For some reason, the stupid things don't come with any.

Yeah, that's what I was confused about. So Biden brags about getting Shokin fired, people interpret that to mean "Biden got prosecutor who was looking into his son fired!!!", but from what I very quickly read, Shokin had been starving the Burisma investigation and nothing about it seemed to be aimed at Hunter Biden himself, so none of that really adds up.

Wait, what? I thought the Hunter Biden part of this was about Joe Biden getting fired the prosecutor that was maybe looking into prosecuting Hunter Biden, not about how Hunter Biden was hired in the first place. I'm sure the fact that Hunter Biden was hired was in no small part due to his father being who his father is, but unless there's actually some kind of evidence that Joe Biden deliberately and unduly used his office (or the influence thereof) to make it happen (as opposed to an independent decision in an attempt to buy undue influence made by an independent company, which it technically is even though I'm not sure how true that is in practice being a major energy company in Ukraine), that doesn't really seem like actionable reason to look into it. Is the fact that it "something happened" really evidence in of itself? Not sure that I want that to start being our standard of evidence for starting investigations against political foes - the word "investigation" will soon lose all meaning. Personally, I am much more interested in the fired prosecutor side of things than how he was hired (cronyism is unfortunately a pretty worldwide standard to begin with anyways, though we should definitely hold our highest representatives and executives to a similarly high standard...I just think we need something more than "well, something happened" before we start investigations), as that story has been greatly confused. Though it should be noted that I am grossed out at the thought of voting for Biden this November, so I am not your target here to begin with.

If I were doing it in terms of percentiles, I'd give it to the 49ers with a roughly 60-40 split. Not a strong favorite, but a favorite. And since I want the Chiefs to win, that makes it a no-brainer to choose the 49ers, .

In a post-Trump world, it is funny how these oh so little things can have the effect of utterly capsizing a candidate. Almost feels silly.

Warren has super faded since her little stunt against Bernie a couple weeks back. Everyone seems to be agreeing it's Bernie and Biden now. Bernie's currently projected to win the first three states (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada), but after that, it starts getting tricky unless the landscape drastically changes because of those (presumed) early wins (with Iowa being the closest and most important of the three). Bernie in teal, Warren in purple. As you can see, Warren fell off a cliff a little while back and Bernie gained big for it at literally the exact same time.

Super mediocre movie relative to how much it's loved (or so I sadly thought), but it did have a great soundtrack that I turn on every now and then.

who the **** is letting all these cringey alts on here, good lord is there a limit to how many people you can put on the ignore list. because I must be getting close

since we were on the subject

His 13 year old daughter, Gianna, perished as well, along with 3 other passengers. RIP.

>local-national-global Where am I going to talk space blockades and galactic trade negotiations now?

RIP (retire in peace) Eli Manning, .

Neither does Gabbard: she's on her way out of the House as it is.

Think Wells Fargo did the whole "create secret accounts to accrue fees" thing in the U.S. some years back, and got very lightly slapped on the wrist for it as well.

ya remember how I said we'd need to play perfectly, get lucky, and not ever fall behind by more than a score? we fell behind by 4 scores, got a bunch of bad bounces, and played horribly. whoops.

lmao

Infinity Train. First season had a lot of hype for it, but I only thought it was solid at best. Second season came out last week and I honestly wasn't sure I was going to watch, but a friend pushed me to and I was glad they did - marked improvement over the first season in a lot of ways. The "new" protagonist (who I was not sold on whatsoever) was awesome and a huge part of why I liked S2 a lot more, in addition to the season just being more consistent, fun, and interesting.

Yeah, it's definitely concerning, especially when you consider that while the Packers receivers have been pretty poor (but not terrible as we have at least had Davante Adams) as a unit for a couple years now, we have had a good to great offensive line pretty much the entire time. Still has had trouble being consistent. If you look at years from other elite/great QBs who have "mysteriously" had bad years, like Tom Brady this year, it almost always follows having a bad offensive line that year...but Rodgers hasn't had that excuse. So...not great. I say "two years" because I remember him looking pretty great to start the 2017 season, even if the team itself did not (and we did start 4-1 due to a lot of heroics by him before he broke his collarbone in the 6th game). His final game against the Panthers put a bit of a malus on his stats for the year, but I thought it was pretty clear that he had not recovered from his broken collarbone yet and he had only played because it was be eliminated otherwise (I remember him not even having the strength to throw the ball downfield that game - borderline irresponsible to have let him play just to save an already virtually lost season).

Some employers'/managers' fixation on qualifications vs. actual quality/body of work is utterly asinine. That sucks.

Well, QBR wouldn't personally be my stat of choice, but yeah (...usually better to look at a few different things for a more complete picture than just one composite stat anyways - QBR and passer rating are the "let's boil it down as simple and contextless as possible" stats). He has been uncharacteristically inaccurate this season, lots of trouble throwing downfield, not as quick on his feet anymore, is more paranoid of interceptions than ever before to the point of preferring to throw stuff away than give receivers a shot if there's even a slight chance of an interception... I wouldn't close the book on him yet, being that it's literally only his second scheme/playcaller in his career (outside of like half a season back in...2015 when McCarthy temporarily let the OC call plays so McCarthy could focus more on the team as a whole?) and it's possible he's still recovering from his injuries to a degree, but he has definitely been playing well below his normal level the past two years. He's still been pretty good, but...inconsistent. He's my favorite player (and a big reason I got into football in the 2013 season), so I hope he can have another elite year or two a la Drew Brees, Tom Brady, et al. have had before at advanced ages...but those guys haven't gotten hurt like he has.

I'm sitting at 4-4 for my pick'em, although one of them was me picking against the Packers for superstitious reasons - still counts, though. It's been a (thankfully) chaotic playoffs year.

Of the JRR-Christopher books, I only ever read Hurin, which was pretty messed up but decent. Never was the biggest Tolkien prose fan, but nevertheless RIP.

that image is too small homey