Bartimaeus

Congressman (Republican) Walter Jones in hospice: https://www.witn.com/content/news/FIRST-ON-WITN-Congressman-Walter-Jones-in-hospice-504916912.html Known for being a genuine and principled moderate, he's pretty well considered even among progressives - a little bit of a unicorn in this day and age. Sad to hear, and best of luck to the man and his family.

Society? I thought we were talking about politics? Sorry to differ with you guys but he is done. The only thing that saves him is a SCOTUS fight if RBG steps down or another Hillary Clinton-esque candidacy. Had his opponent been literally any other democrat (with the exceptions of Warren, Sanders, Pelosi, or Schumer) he would not have won in '16. He was less loved than she was hated. As far as where is supports would go? Home. They stay home. I vote in every election but if there is no LP candidate for President I would skip that one. Or write my own name or Mickey Mouse's in. Put the black mouse in the White House in '20! Politics, society as a whole, both really. At this point, it seems like RBG will fight to literally her last breath than let Trump appoint another SCJ. We'll see how that turns out.

He's been a laughably pathetic manbaby his entire term - this might be a black eye, but who else is his base going to turn to? ...Of course, the reasons that I see him as a pathetic manbaby (see almost literally everything on his Twitter...sigh) aren't the same that his base might, so I guess I don't know for certain. The amount of machismo about him "caving" is really stupid, though - when did being able to compromise and admit you were wrong become completely synonymous with weakness in our society? It's such an awful attitude to have, for literally everybody. Not that anyone should be singing his praise or doing somersaults for very temporarily ending something he started over something so stupid (that he really should've been fighting his own party with two freaking years ago when they controlled the House - funny how it only became an issue the moment Democrats controlled it), but goodness gracious, the tribalism is getting so freaking insane.

As someone who leans more toward the left, Imma ask... Should we trust this source in the age where leftist extremists call themselves "unbiased" and manipulate statistics? My gut tells me don't believe everything I read. Esp if it's on the net and even moreso when it comes to politics. "Hello there fellow leftists. I am very left-wing. Just the most left-wing guy you can imagine. By the way, have you noticed how everybody on the left is an evil lying extremist?" P.S. Trump advisor Roger Stone was arrested by Mueller this morning.

Yeah, I find them supremely awful on the whole too, but I'm more or less at peace with it at this point. I do wish they were more avoidable in online/public discussion at times, but I'm sure large amounts of people wish some of the things I like were more avoidable, too.

Yeah, I wasn't responding to you - more on top of what Volourn was saying. In an ideal world, sure, the Saints would've already won and a single blown call wouldn't matter. But then I think of the 2009 Packers-Cardinals playoff game where Aaron Rodgers played some of the best football the world's ever seen for an entire game while his defense sucked dogbutt against Kurt Warner also going godmode, and they collectively have one of the best shootouts ever to happen in NFL history. Then they get into overtime, Rodgers gets blatantly facemasked and loses a fumble because of it, it's then run back for a TD and now the game has unceremoniously ended. It sucks as a fan, and I'm sure it sucks as a player, especially one of the offensive players who couldn't have realistically done anymore than they already did. So even though I wanted the Saints to lose, if they get that single blatant call, their winning percentage probably goes up to something like 99% and they almost certainly win, and it's crappy that it didn't. The whole thing about "should've already put away the game" is nice in theory, but in the most brutal of all modern sports (I think?), especially in the playoffs where literally every game is the end of your season if you don't win, it's just that: nice in theory.

Close, Minnesota. Yeah, it's partially up to the specific professor - some of them are not terrible people and don't require $200 new textbooks. Even then, sometimes a college will list a book as "required", then you actually get in the class and the professor tells you "don't buy the book, the school is making me list it, we won't need it". Which I mean...is better than nothing, but most people buy their books before the semester starts.

Have to agree with Volourn - they're equally as bad when their severity and importance are equal. Football is a game of inches, and if you give even a terrible team enough tries through phony penalties at an opponent's 1, even against an amazing defense, they're going to get it probably within a handful of tries at worst. Same way the other way around - even an amazing offense against a terrible defense can have their receivers illegally knocked over and tackled, and if it ain't called, there's not going to be much they can do about it. You're effectively playing different games at that point. In this case, the defender did not play or look for the ball, hit the receiver way before the ball arrived and made it effectively impossible to catch the ball, borderline illegally hit him when he a defenseless receiver, AND on top of it all, it was a helmet-to-helmet hit.

Depends on the state, depends on the college. Even a lot of community colleges around here cost upwards of 3 grand a semester to attend full time, and the "textbooks" come with mandatory CD keys to unlock online content that is a requirement to even be in the class (since professors will use that online platform to do all coursework, and you can't get on it without the CD key)...and those CD keys are only good when purchasing new, and new usually costs 120-200 per class.

I thought it was pretty good. It felt a tad rushed, like there should've been another story arc in between resolving the conflict with the Diamonds (since we were pretty much JUST introduced to White Diamond). From what I read, there was originally more planned in between, but because Cartoon Network wouldn't tell them whether they were going to be renewed for a sixth season, they decided to make sure to properly end it even if it was early rather than risk having no resolution.

Awful, terrible call, but it's hard for me not to be happy with the result at the same time. Still gross, though.

Unrelated:

WALL-E's my favorite Pixar movie, but I mostly just adore the robots (particularly WALL-E and EVE) in it and most of the other stuff is kind of whatever (which lends itself directly to what algroth said about post-Earth stuff). That's more of a personal taste thing, though. And yeah, I really don't like Up, but the beginning is fantastic. Some of us are man- or lady-babies who can still feel emotions, yes. The amount of times my eyes have started watering during even silly stuff like Steven Universe is, quite frankly, pretty embarrassing.

If there was any part of it that was false, no matter how major or minor, it probably makes sense to deny it, since they were attributed to his Special Counsel Office and that might wind its way back to him in the future. Makes it much easier to correct whatever was wrong with it later, too, and it probably improves the perception of his integrity. Wait for the full report with full context instead of stupid headlines, I guess.

One of our (Packers') first round picks this upcoming draft is the Saints', so how well they do determines how good the first rounder is. Saints have been looking mighty mortal as of the past handful of weeks, though, so I'm hopeful that the Rams beat them.

14 points on your first two drives, nothing for the rest of the game. Yikes.

what the hell

2 for 4 in my pick-em group so far...but today were the safe picks - I picked Chargers and Eagles for tomorrow. We'll see how that works out. The Cowboys not making it past the divisional round curse continues, it seems.

There are lame-brained people in every walk of life, unfortunately.

If that happens, it would mean two wildcards would be in a conference's championship game for the first time ever, and a wildcard would subsequently host a championship game for the first time ever. That'd be pretty cool, although I think I'd prefer a Chiefs-Chargers championship game.

I think I'd rather play them than the Chargers. Tough wildcards in the AFC this year. Chiefs have a history of losing playoff games to the Colts, though, while the Colts have a history of losing playoff games to the Patriots - I'm sure the Colts are happy it worked out this way.

Aren't the Cowboys usually pretty good in the wildcard round? It's the divisional round where they lose every single time, I thought, .

I've been subjected to a couple of those new Transformers movies and I think "numb" would probably be the best word for how they've made me feel.