Bartimaeus

From the sounds of it, a heart attack.

Shocker: Trump has refused to authorize the release of the Dems' memo.

The first point about the dossier has probably been debunked already, based on the opinions of various reporters who looked at the specific wording of the Nunes memo. The memo said information that was in the dossier was used, but not the dossier itself. A weasely way of saying that information from another source that also happened to be in the dossier was used. I'm pretty that's one of the clarifications that we'd see in the release of the Democrat memo. For the second point, Obama had definitely been briefed on the Russian investigation - he had begged Mitch McConnell (Senate Majority Leader) to go public with him on it either before the primaries or as they were ongoing (I don't remember which), to try to nip it in the bud, but McConnell refused. Also, it's really weird that Strzok keeps getting painted as this super anti-Trump guy...when he was the one that convinced Comey to re-open the Clinton case, leading to that infamous Comey press meeting days before the election announcing exactly that. Strzok did not appear to like either candidates, which probably just means he had a good head on his shoulders. Except for that whole cheating on his wife with another member of the FBI while apparently writing some really stupid texts - that stuff seems rather contradictory to that point. (P.S. I don't think the Federalist is considered a very good source of news. It's not utterly terrible along the lines of breitbart, though.)

@Pidesco: Coincidentally, the idea for Fox News was originally coined in 1970 by Roger Ailes during the Nixon presidency when he was "media consultant" to the president. Discovered by Gawker (yuck) in old memos in the Nixon Presidential Library: https://web.archive.org/web/20111016200523/http://gawker.com/5814150 Originally envisioned as sort of state-run, pro-GOP news. Roger Ailes would eventually go on to help create Fox News, becoming its first CEO (starting the day it officially launched) until his resignation in 2016 as a result of a sexual harassment scandal.

Yeah, I can definitely see similarities between those three as well, but this felt even stronger than those. It's getting a little off-putting at this point. Disney needs to change up its animation style at least a little here...so many of their 3D movies just look and feel the same.

Zootopia. It was alright. Felt pretty formulaic, though, but I guess that's not totally unexpected. As far as talking animal animations go (which I don't ever bother with), this one was O.K., I guess. Could've been more interesting, though - there were several points where I was thinking that it looked like the film might be breaking free of the formula, but then it kept pulling me back down to Earth, which was disappointing. I couldn't but help keep thinking that the main character, Judy, was just Anna from Frozen, though - and it didn't help any that they made them look similar along with similar physical/expression mannerisms and voices to a degree. Princess Mononoke. Was this supposed to be a spiritual sequel to/remake of Nausicaa? Because that's kind of how it seemed. A lot of shared themes, character roles, and the structure of the film seemed pretty similar, too. I liked Nausicaa better in some ways, and Princess Mononoke in others - I'd rate them right around the same, I think.

*(not actually the same dev, although some of the guys that used to work at GSC Game World before they were all unceremoniously laid off did help form Vostok Games) BR market is already crowded, wouldn't be surprised if this made the company crash and burn. Furthermore, the connection to Stalker is tenuous at best due to BRs playing like the complete opposite kind of shooter Stalker was in most respects. Furtherfurthermore, it's not like the Stalkers were the best technically, and it seems like most BR games are utter technical disasters initially, so I can't see that going well for them when the current crop of BRs have had so much time to mature, and will have even more by the time it comes out.

pop music was a mistake I did recognize a few songs, but I think all of them were from weird al, neil cicierega, silvagunner, and postmodern jukebox parodies

Trump likes veterans who didn't lose their legs in the line of duty.

​You're not kidding. Almost all of the relevant images are of Obama and the Japanese Emperor. I did see the one image of him and the Saudis, though.

​Sorry, I'm a dummy, and was missing the greater context of "attacking the Wall". I think that's really up to Kelemvor. It seemed to me that a part of him hated the Wall (hence why he originally stopped using it, but was eventually forced to return to it after he was found to be screwing everything up and possibly risking his godhood because of it). So maybe it was his way of rebelling against the other gods, letting attacks to continue on it while only putting up a half-hearted fight so that he could claim he was defending it to the other gods. I was also under the general impression that though deities have those kinds of powers, they are not really supposed to use them except in extreme cases - direct interference will just lead to other gods directly interfering. This may be one of those extreme cases (attacks directly on a god's home subplane would seem to qualify), but Mystra, for example, seemed to still oppose the Wall of the Faithless - perhaps she would prevent something like the instant death from happening. I think the subtle resistance thing, and perhaps a sort of general kindness on the part of Kelemvor, is more likely, though - he appeared to have a better understanding of the plight of mortals than most, and probably wasn't really in the business of coming down as harshly as he possibly could on people trying to (in their minds) do a valiant act that he once would've strongly agreed with.

But doesn't that say that *any* greater power could do that, not just a greater power who also happens to hold the death domain? I mean, I guess the god of death could start killing people and then immediately start destroying their souls (maybe?) so that they can't be raised, but Ao and the other deities wouldn't stand for that for long - didn't Kelemvor get slapped around for trying to do the opposite? Can't see how the other gods wouldn't try to stop that. ​ ​​Yes, I'm reading now that both Kelemvor and Mystra were yelled at by the other gods for their favoritism and unbalancing of the realms, and it was put a stop to. So yeah, can't see how that'd work out.

​What makes you figure they could do that?

​Furi, got through a few more fights, and then it ended my game and erased my save file because I apparently sat around in a room too long. Uh, okay: uninstalled. Who the hell decided that was a good idea? The gameplay's not so good that I want to redo them all... ​ ​Okay, I looked it up on the wiki. Apparently, if you stay in that area for 5 minutes, it ends the game. Unfortunately, I was playing with Cheat Engine on 10x speed to get through the bad lame story bits that didn't matter, so that was actually only 30 seconds for me. That's partially my fault sort of, but why did it have to actually erase my save game? I was halfway through the game already, I don't want to start over...

​better there than anywhere else!

Princess Kaguya. The first 30-45 minutes I was somewhat bored, but right around the running/dream sequence is where things took a strong shift for the better for me. A weird but good ending.

It didn't help that the two things that seemed interesting - Comey calling the Steele dossier unverified but then apparently using it to justify FISA surveillance (bad), and Steele's apparent extreme bias against Trump (especially bad when combined with the previous point) - turned out to be a lie in the former case, and a half-truth at best in the latter.

Yeah, I think so, because then your new payment rolls over to the next month. They're trying to make people stay subscribed, not only subscribe for one month to get the current crop of games.

You're best off actually contacting Humble themselves if you were already subscribed.

​Fantastic artwork. Fairly mediocre (and sometimes a little off-putting) story and writing, and the gameplay isn't much better than that. It's not a bad game by any means, but I was unfortunately pretty disappointed in it when it came out, .

​they stole that pretty patty from spongebob ​ ​ ​ ​although black is a new and bold (...and disgusting-looking) direction, I'll admit

​I mean, they aren't exactly the same, but they're pretty similar. "Not likeable" in the context of film, especially when referring to what're supposed to be the heroes, is pretty similar (and almost always negative) criticism.

​Asked if Trump has faith in Rosenstein and/or plans to fire him, Trump replied, "You figure that out." Yeah. What a joke.

​...That's it? It's basically just a glorified complaint that Steele was biased against Trump, and it was his information (the infamous dossier) that provided a justification for the FISA surveillance against Carter Page? I mean...alright, sure. Yeah, Steele seems like a real dumb dumb, but it doesn't in any way invalidate all the others findings since then. ...Also, I'm reading elsewhere that Page had already had been being monitored since 2013 2014* for his involvement with some Russian spy ring? And if that's the case, then that blows a huge hole into the "the FBI only started monitoring him because of the Steele dossier" - at best, it would be the deciding factor as to why they continued to monitor him perhaps longer than they initially thought necessary. (e:) Also also, the memo specifically mentioned "information" in the Steele dossier being used to justify continued surveillance - not the dossier itself. That likely means information corroborated from elsewhere - very careful wording there, it seems. Trying to paint Comey as a liar after he said the dossier itself was "salacious and unverified" but then apparently used information that was in it to justify continued monitoring, when in reality, it's more likely he got corroborated info elsewhere that was used instead. ​ ​And we have Paul Ryan out here calling for "cleanses" of the FBI. What a joke. If this is the nonsense used to end the Mueller investigation, I'm not so sure that we live under the rule of law anymore. ​ *​2014, way before the creation of the Steele dossier: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/former-trump-adviser-carter-page-under-fisa-warrant-since-2014-report/article/2630576