Bartimaeus

Oh, also, Donald Trump is officially unbanned from Twitter as of 10 minutes ago after Elon Musk held a Twitter poll as to whether to unban him.

Using the law to bludgeon private companies and individuals into allowing speech they do not want to platform is pretty obviously the complete opposite of free speech. If fascist scum spray paint swastikas all over the side of your house, I imagine most anyone except fascist scum would be a little peeved if the government compelled you to never wash said vandalism off - and that you must also allow the other defacement that any random bugger walking by decides to create or put on your property to stay up as well. It's the exact same for the Obsidian forums and any other website hosted and maintained by a private entity or individual: your property is your property, and the government forcing you to allow it to be sullied and tarnished is the impingement of your property and free speech, not kicking to the curb the random dregs who are abusing their privilege (and not right) to be there by taking a crap all over it.

Just imagine what it sounds like without the music, which is how it was originally delivered. Hard disagree on the song you just posted, though: couldn't make it very far into that one. At least the Tamura video I could watch all of, embarrassing as it was.

My first thought was "it's hard to believe this sort of thing exists in the same universe that I occupy". Thing is, I was already coming to this thread to post the following video that I had the same exact thought about, even though it's from a totally different end of the spectrum. I think yours is admittedly more effective as ear cancer, though.

The U.S. Justice Department has appointed a Special Counsel (one Jack Smith, most recently the Specialist Prosecutor for Kosovo at the International Crime Court) to handle two separate criminal probes into Donald Trump: firstly, the January 6th insurrection, and secondly, the issue of stolen classified documents. We'll see if it concludes and ends in convictions within two years...seems unlikely given what I know of the U.S. justice system and how slow it can move when one party is doing everything they can to delay, which has seemingly been Trump's MO.

Yes, well, now that I've actually seen the advert in question, your previous response also makes a hell of a lot more sense, .

Bastard browser tricking me and making me think you were responding to what I said. I should've known that there was something there because of the extra empty return at the beginning of your post which usually denotes something is missing but it can be hard to spot if I'm not looking for it, my apologies.

I don't think anyone's ever called me subtle before, that's not really my thing. What's your specific issue with what I said?

I don't think I'd say that Republicans are evil. It's a lot more complicated than that and there are a lot of different forces at work here, some of them genuinely kind of evil but more just mostly borne out of a combination of different values, ignorance, intolerance, lack of empathy, tribalism, various kinds of frustrations and feelings of being transgressed against over a long period of time, and so on...and all of which apply to at least some degree to the other side as well. Being too strongly polarized for too long understandably tends to create feelings of animosity when it keeps resulting in each side pushing and transgressing more and more against the other. In real life, for my part, I almost universally pretend that I don't know the first thing about politics so that I mostly avoid hearing anything about it from anyone else, because frequently desiring to decapitate all the loud-mouthed morons in your life that just can't help but incessantly assert their stupidity, intolerance, and ignorance because it's apparently an incredibly critical part of their personality and identity to do so is just not a very good place to be if you can instead avoid it. Wanting to decapitate internet morons, on the other hand, now that's where you want to be. Bring out the virtual guillotine, folks! No, but really, I don't know where we go from here, because for as long as each side feels like the other is infringing upon them in whatever area that is sacred to (both of) them, the level of anger exhibited is only going to continue to rise. Predictably, it results in some degree of hatred, violence, and death...but how much in totality, where do we end up as a nation and society on the other side of it, and how does the overton window shift? I don't see any of this magically fixing itself, but maybe if we can wait out the baby boomer generation running its natural course without all hell breaking loose before then, then perhaps the worst of it can be avoided...maybe. I guess we'll find out in due time, won't we?

Well, I can't complain, court jester's not that bad of a job...as long as you keep all of your blood, that is. Get a year of valuable experience, move on to better pastures - I hear Henry VIII will need a new one by then... Hm, maybe I won't suggest this particular idea to Ms. Bathory after all...

It really doesn't help that I don't care much for schmaltzy Hollywood junk, and both of those films that I've seen were just that. Not to say that they're terrible because of it, but...ergh, it's just not for me, and it's going to heavily limit how much I enjoy them. Maybe Taxi Driver is the exception and worth a watch, I don't know. In my experience, if it feels like you strongly dislike the style of a particular director, you should probably stop trying to watch their stuff....because while a given film may do more or less to appeal to you with its premise, themes, and characters, if you dislike the director's style, that's typically just not going to change too much from film to film. Also, I am definitely not going to watch any of the ones starring Leonardo DiCaprio - that ship has already sailed and I have had more than enough of Leonardo DiCaprio for one lifetime, thank you very much.

Yeah, I've only seen The Gangs of New York and I'm pretty whatever about it. Now I'm sure that I would enjoy probably at least a couple of these, but the only one I read that interested me was Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. (e): Oops, I've actually seen The Aviator as well...but doesn't change much: I was pretty whatever about that one as well. Maybe if Leonardo DiCaprio hadn't been the lead...

Do we know what Ms. Bathory's beliefs regarding democracy and free elections were? I have to weigh my options between her and Republicans here...

Nancy Pelosi officially announced that she's stepping down from being Democrats' leader of the House. She was the first woman House Minority Whip, House Minority Leader, and Speaker of the House, and held the Minority/Speaker position for Democrats for the last 20 years.

KP recommended that show to me a while back after finishing Samurai Champloo (made by the same people?), and I put it on the list. Given that you and I don't seem to agree on much any kind of media to my knowledge, I must admit to some amount of trepidation now...but I guess even Sarex has liked a couple of things I do as well. ...Well? Is he? Moonlighting as a wacked out anime director doesn't seem like it'd be completely out of the question for him...

One year after his traumatic run-ins with trouble during the events of Home Alone and Home Alone II, lovable but violent child prankster Macaulay Culkin... In some universe, specifically this universe, important people who were responsible for letting this happen apparently thought having American sweetheart child star Macaulay Culkin play this role fresh off his success of the Home Alone films was actually a good idea. Well, all I can say is...bravo. I mean, the movie is sort of terrible on the whole, but these kinds of moments were usually hilarious because it was Macaulay Culkin performing them, so I can't complain too much.

When Trump has been on the ballot in 2016 and 2020, he has majorly outperformed expectations. In both of those elections, it was right on the margin of error for how well he over-performed. He lost the 2020 election by a combined mere 65,009 votes through just four key states (Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Nebraska) that would have won him the election...and that was after the absolute clown fiesta nightmare 4 years that we experienced with him and with him utterly bungling a deadly global pandemic - if not for just the latter, he absolutely would still be president right now. In 2018 and 2022 when he hasn't been on the ballot, it has been a completely different story. For so many people in this country, Trump is their guy, the only guy that they truly believe in, that nobody else could ever be for them. It is called a cult of personality for a reason, and so while these midterm performances with him as the "leader" of the Republican Party have been weak, I very strongly hope that he does not win the Republican ticket for 2024 because it is my feeling that there is a significant voter base that only he can tap into, and if the Republican party rejects him, that base will neither forgive nor vote for the Republican party, and good riddance to them. Probably the absolute best scenario, of course, would be that Trump loses the Republican nomination and then still runs independent as an act of revenge. I'm sure the majority of us would love to see that and the resulting implosion.

I'm more just in shock that apparently the later entries are MUCH WORSE. Like, so much worse that it makes this look good in comparison? Everyone has their trash, so to speak, so it's whatever if you can sit through and enjoy it, but...my brain just can't compute that part. Admittedly, I have *the* highest of standards of anyone here in at least a few particular ways, so I don't have any chance of experiencing the truly terrible stuff...

Uh...no, whatever that means. I guess I'll find out, or not. The show has been mainly focusing on Jun and her very dear lady friend, Kazumi, in between all the murdering. Which is just as well for me, since that's predominantly what I care about, . I did make sure that I was looking at the original 2003 show, so if the later shows are much worse...I mean, come on. I don't think I'd be able to watch more than a minute of this crud, .

She...was in the anime, yes. Yeah, it's kind of this show's MO, the only thing that surprised me was that it happened so quickly. It made sense a minute or two later once I realized the show was doing a different angle, though.

Devilman Lady, episode 14. The episode opens up directly with this: Now, if you know anything about Devilman Lady like I do, you know that we're going to learn a lot about this little girl over the course of this episode, including whatever unfortunate circumstances or outright tragedy she's preserved through, and then we're a thousand percent going to horrifically maim and then kill her. It should be a pretty good time, all things considered.

Oh, that's so apropos what with her having released "How One Man Kept Water Cremation Illegal" just a few days ago and going into the silliness of the political process of legalizing it in just one U.S. state. My condolences: even in death, we can't escape this kind of ridiculous racket. Recover well and speedily from whatever's ailing you, .

Top tags...ecchi, action, martial arts. Poster shows lady doing a kick and showing off her lady bits. The user-submitted screenshots are all of...women in various stages of either undress, upshots, downshots, and/or "action" poses. Yes, I'm sure it's just a perfectly quality show with a perfectly wonderful fan following, . Now if you will excuse me, I have to get back to slitting my wrists...although in light of what I've just seen, maybe I should focus more on my eyes instead.

Ah, . I...genuinely can't remember the context of how I found her. It was only a few weeks ago, but I got covid maybe a few days later and had about four or five days of fevers between 101 and 103 so that kind of knocked the crap outta me and made the surrounding time period a bit of a blur. I'm really trying to remember, but I honestly don't have a clue. Nothing as sad as your grandma passing away, that's for sure, .