ComradeYellow

Yes Americans like celebrity-type people, even as politicians. The perfect American POTUS would be both famous and experienced in (probably local) politics. I'm saying this as someone who's not particularly fond on Reaganism (he polluted our landscape with harsh right wing politics that screwed over future generations) so bias isn't a factor here.

Horizon Zero Dawn Ok here's the deal. It started out wonderful, I mean the plot/narrative was a bit meh but the gameplay and world were absolutely stunning, I was even contemplating ranking it as one of my favorites. However! I'm at that midpoint+ point of the game and the typical issues with open world games are becoming very glaring, like tedium, repetitiveness and overall feelings of artificiality and a dry overabundance of superficial content. I don't even know why I bother with open world games anymore, I mean this is probably one of the best there is and it's still got that disease.

No. But yes on public schools probably being the smarter alternative in general. West Point would be badass but am not really attracted to the constant fitness requirements to be a military officer. Thanks for the link though, I shall weigh my options.

Well that's not including room and board so I guess about $75,000 total which about the going rate for all major U's and equal to Princeton and Harvard. I mean the Free University of Berlin in Germany is ranked at 118th in the world and that's not bad for Free College I guess xD

Stanford University looking mighty fine. $54k tuition fee? Pfft you can win that on a lottery ticket.

Easy for you to say Mr. White Privilege. There's millions of poor, disabled, abused, ethnic minorities, and other misfortunates who kinda need more robust breakthrough legislation. But yeah, having only two parties kinda cripples things.

Won't pass in the Senate, it's a partisan bill. Gridlock ensures nothing gets done.

Cops have had this heroes vs. villains mentality for a very long time, so even bad cops are just heroes with issues and still far better than the villains according to the "good" cops. I still think one of the major problems is simply that there's way too many police agencies. If every state had one agency that was well organized and in touch with the public it could go a long way towards accountability. 18,000 police agencies makes them little better than the street gang "villains" they hate so much.

Deadfire is certainly better than the original. The only gripe I have with Deadfire is the bleh interface, to me it seems more like an academic encyclopedia than a video game.

Probably true, but there's definitely more deaths from AR's than AK's here in the U.S.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/10/metro/years-boston-police-kept-secret-union-president-was-an-alleged-child-molester/ Cops.

Have you actually fired a modern AR model? A 5 year old could wield one, it's strange because it looks and feels like a toy, but it isn't! And yes, AR guns are the standard issue infantry small arm of the U.S. so naturally most of these shootings will occur with them.

Good. Another baby step for human civilization. Chauvin will probably get 30 years or so.

Fascists are very strange, strange people.

Xi says China 'will never seek hegemony,' no matter how strong it becomes (msn.com) Nice speech by Xi, most westerners don't trust him, and authoritarian governments suck but I think he's half sincere here.

Inflation, housing bubbles, culture mass shooters, massive defense spending. It's like a perfect storm...

Not to mention political actualities/implementations are very slow. Even if a group of people brainstormed the perfect solution, it could take a loooong time if ever to see proper legislation.

My current stance on gun control is thus: There should be a process to legally buy a firearm. You should have to go through a significant background check and meet an official to go through a firearms safety course. Something is very wrong if it's much harder to acquire a drivers license than it is to pick up a gun. Besides, firearms are messy, expensive, loud, leave way too much evidence/can easily be traced. I still don't know why would be killers don't see the value in these bad boys. Garrot wire is silent, cheap as Hell/disposable.

If the Syrian government collapsed, who knows what kind of extremist groups would replaced Assad. If Islamists like ISIS took over Syria they would have had full access to the Mediterranean and would have been free launch sea based operations against Europe. I'd say Assad could in fact be the lesser evil here.

Not quite. The U.S. gvt arming neo Nazi's in the Ukraine is a bit alarming though, and I take issue with that.

Literally nothing more satisfying than luring a Sawtooth into a hail of traps and tripwires in Horizon Zero Dawn. All I need is one measly rat bone and I will have every satchel upgrade. I'm such pathetic, thorough, utter completionist!

https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/bidens-zigzag-diplomacy-aims-to-alienate-russia/ Figures.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/us/biden-afghanistan-troops.html Called it. I predicted the U.S.-Afghan war would end in 2021 a few years back. The Soviet-Afghan war lasted 10 years so I gave the U.S. 20 years. Now back to Cold War era theatrics that old farts love so much!