Zoraptor

To be fair to Bruce not wanting Biden/ being relieved he isn't president is not the same as being happy Trump won. He might well prefer if some milquetoast US Keir Starmer equivalent or establishment republican won instead of either. Yes, it retains its same value. Which was an absolute refutation of your claim. It wouldn't matter if repeating the same thing doubled the value of your gaslighting though, since its value started out at zero. I mean really, you could just have dropped it. Not like I actually care, and it was an easy enough thing to miss. Tripling down, though, that is definition gaslighting. Ah, curiousity, the mother of speculation/ 'just asking questions'. Yes, you do have to come up with some kind of evidence of degeneration, when the source of your 'curiousity' dates back 8 years, two election campaigns, nearly 3 years as president etc etc and cognitive issues are almost always degenerative. Or, alternatively, suggest how it isn't degenerative in his case. Again, he was tested for anxiety and depression as well, does that mean his doctors think he's depressed? Doesn't seem very likely. You only think taking a MoCA is 'curious' and the other tests aren't because the MoCA reinforces your preconceived notion, and the others don't. As always, the only disorder you've shown actual evidence for Trump having is... being Trump, which everyone already knows about. (Said it before, will say it again: Trump speaks how people think. That is one of the reasons a lot of people like him, and relate to him no matter how silly it may seem for some random blue collar worker from Milwaukee or Toledo to relate to a 'billionaire'. Most people in the public eye train themselves for years to not speak as they think since typically a Trump like politician would fail instantly. Not speaking the same way you think is what the more, hmm, politically aware/ educated set tend to expect and will find any deviation from that unusual. But unusual does not in itself imply a disorder)

Must have missed that, or I would probably have picked it up for that price. I do remember decent Stellaris/ CK2 newsletter deals though, so I agree they definitely have them.

No, there isn't. It was already addressed, twice, and quite specifically that you could substitute cognition issues for dementia. Precisely because I knew you'd try to make a big deal out of it. Have I ever once given the impression gaslighting works on me? Why you choose to keep trying it is a mystery. No, you haven't actually. You've repeatedly said that he has cognitive issues, you've just tried to obfuscate it behind what is effectively the old canard of 'just asking questions'*. What you haven't done is offer any reason for those issues. I also addressed this earlier when I pointed out that people were looking at a symptom (cognitive decline/ dementia) which is not in itself a disease per se, and requires a cause. You've failed to offer a cause, you've failed to explain (beyond everyone lying) why Trump seems to pass and you've failed to offer any explanation for why a 'disease' that is in the vast majority of cases progressive and would have obvious progression over 8 years hasn't progressed significantly. Trump is still, Trump, 8 years later. He made it through two years of presidency, two election campaigns, all the scrutiny and stress etc. You may hate the comparison, and there's a reason for that, but quite apart from Trumps' obsession with his enemies Joe Biden didn't make it through a campaign when he started having issues. We all know the types of people who hide behind "just asking questions". It's people who want to speculate, but also want to claim that they aren't if called on it. Considering how much you seem to hate other people speculating you certainly do love doing it yourself. *"why did doctors feel it were prudent to have trump take the MoCA?". MoCA is a cognitive test, so --> "why did doctors feel it were prudent to have trump take a [cognitive test]?" --> "why does anyone take a cognitive test? --> "because they have apparent cognitive issues that need testing". So yes, you are saying that Trump has an issue, and it's a cognitive one.

Already addressed. Onus is, of course, on you to show that Trump has a cognitive issue that isn't significantly progressive- over the course of nearly a decade- yet is otherwise hard to detect and thus requires frequent testing. I wish you good luck with your research. Ho hum. Donald Trump's primary cognitive issue is being Donald Trump.

It's the paradox of Paradox: the base game tends to be far too simplistic but the dlc are too many to be consistently balanced/ implemented properly and always (unless the game flops) end up costing multiple times more than the base game did. At the tail end of the dlc cycle they really want you to quickly move on to the sequel after buying the last dlcs too. But if the game clicks it still ends up being good value for money. (Their 'attitude' is also weird when there aren't millions of dlc. Stick a then ten year old game- Victoria 2- on GOG, bundle one dlc with it but the other costs as much as the base game and dlc. Never give more than a 50% discount)

I see our latest Nobel Peace Prize laureate is once more going according to type and calling on armed intervention from the US in an interview with Bloomberg. per the committee and yes, she'd called for armed intervention before the peace prize award as well.

Trump specifically brought up Biden in the quote I provided, that's about as relevant as you can get. Indeed, one suspects that is why you've gone back to 2017, now, despite that utterly torpedoing your argument in other ways that really ought to be obvious. Dementia is a progressive 'disease'. Almost all hard to detect causes of cognitive decline are as well. You can say with about as complete certainty as it is possible to get from casual observation that he didn't have dementia in 2017, for that reason. If he did, and lied about it, he'd be dead or effectively vegetative because... dementia is progressive. ie, it only ever gets worse. Thing is, for the 2017/8 test it doesn't even matter if everyone involved was lying- we know he didn't have dementia then because it's progressive. Your argument is the very definition of circular reasoning, where rather than the evidence supporting the conclusion the evidence and conclusion are one and the same. To whit: Ironically, that's exactly the sort of reasoning you get from Donald Trump and which he too hates being called on. You can substitute cognition issues for dementia if you like, doesn't make any actual difference.

Trouble is, we know that didn't happen. Don't think there's anyone here- even Bruce, probably, when he isn't just being Bruce- who wouldn't prefer Harris to have won. The problem with her acceding after a Biden resignation post cancer diagnosis is that it's impossible to see Biden winning unless you magic away his other health issues. If you're going to do that, might as well just magic Trump (and/or racism) away instead and solve the root issue. Yes, you said. So he's been taking and passing (unless he's lying!!!) cognitive tests for 7 years. Not exactly supportive of dementia, which is characterised by an active decline for almost all causes. That's only a plus for you via a very specific circular reasoning, ie Trump's doctors think he has dementia--> make him take test--> he lies about passing --> doctors know he has dementia so... make him take it again next year so he can lie about it again. And, the doctors are making him take a non diagnostic test, so it's basically useless, except, they want him to take the test because they think he has dementia and him taking the test proves they think that. There really isn't any point at all arguing against that, because it relies entirely on speculation about everyone involved lying/ being incompetent in a very precise way specifically to support one conclusion; and with no actual evidence to back it up. To quote a certain poster on other subjects: maybe one shouldn't do unfounded speculation and just wait for the facts?

Well, his and his doctor's. It's probably the most detailed section of the report, for whatever that's worth, since it mentions no less than three specific tests. It is perhaps relevant that you don't tend to get people saying Trump's doctors think he has anxiety or depression, which were the other two tests he took along with the MoCA. It's pretty clearly so a damned if you do, damned if you don't for Trump. Whatever he does people are going to think it's evidence he has dementia. If he takes a test it's because his doctors think he's got dementia. But if he doesn't take one then that's because he's trying to hide his dementia instead and he'd probably end up taking one anyway. He certainly has signs of mental decline, but that is what inevitably happens to old people. 14 for Trump, 20 for Biden. Number and even quality doesn't necessarily correlate to effectiveness though, given those 20 medical professionals missed Biden's cancer. In terms of a neurologist specifically, Biden's campaign claimed he'd seen one three times during his presidency, by way of comparison. Don't really want to write a thesis level analysis but quick and dirty: cognitive tests like the MoCA are useful because they're quick- and if you're seeing 14 or 20 specialists in a day that is important, same as it is if you're seeing a dozen patients a day- and a litmus test for a specific symptom. Dementia can be hard to diagnose from 'physical' tests, in part because it isn't actually a disease per se but a symptom of (a) disease(s) (or other cause) such as Alzheimer's/ Parkinson's/ ischaemia/ TBI etc. eg my dad had no direct physical symptoms at all when he was diagnosed despite two MRIs.

Not going to bother a couple of days after the Ukrainians complained that China was shutting them- and suppliers in Poland and the Baltics- off from buying drone parts, which is (or would be, since there doesn't seem to be anything official just the Ukrainian complaints) probably the most effective sanction package of the whole war. Not that there's much competition there. As a general comment, the quality of analysis is utterly appalling. If I had a dollar for every time I read a hyperbolic headline of imminent victory/ doom/ economic implosion or whatever over the past 11 (!) years I'd be able to buy Larry Ellison out of Oracle with some spare change for Elon and Mark. Very far from all from the David Axes and Hamish de Bretton-Gordons (or Dimitri Medvedevs) of the world either; we've had supposedly reputable organisations complaining about pro Russian plant growth and the like.

Shrug, right back at you. You asked the question of why, twice, you got the answer, twice second time with a direct quote- and you didn't like it, twice. Nobody else's fault but yours about that. Indeed, your response is highly reminiscent of what you'd expect from... Donald Trump insisting something is wrong because Sleepy Joe said it. I'm not one to take Trump at face value, but there is literally nothing to support your assertion- made twice- that Trump's doctors wanted him to take a cognition test. Nothing. His doctors don't say that. Trump didn't say that. He has a demonstrated history of demanding them to be taken previous and (allegedly) took them previous. He even got it being a cognition test rather than an intelligence one correct, initially. You might think it's silly trying to own Biden by passing a cognition test, I might think it's silly* but it's entirely in keeping with Trump's character over decades, and is something he demonstrably said he'd do and supposedly had already done more than a year ago. Again, the clearly in decline Biden couldn't be 'forced' to take one as you asserted Trump was. There is literally nothing to support you except it being Trump. You do actually have to come up with some evidence that Trump is lying besides his lips moving. Otherwise it's just Trump Derangement Syndrome and you can accuse him of quite literally anything- and whatever he says is evidence for your view. In this case everything is readily explainable by the one thing pretty much everyone except his absolute fanboys would agree Trump has- chronic narcissism. He was boasting about passing the test because Biden refused (or 'refused'), and because a load of people asserted he had dementia, and because he said he would and people would complain if he didn't. That's what he said, it makes sense from the perspective of a chronic narcissist, it's what he said he'd do more than a year ago; and there's literally no counter evidence provided. Disbelieving him him just because it suits you is an extraordinarily weak argument, even for you. Indeed, it's not really an argument at all. *not wholly so, after all Biden clearly was in decline and you got lots of people asserting Trump had dementia as well as a deflection from that. From Harris's recent comments you get the idea that she would have loved Biden to have taken one as well before deciding to stand again...

Shrug. "why did doctors feel it were prudent to have trump take the MoCA?" or " but that fact is not actual relevant to the significance o' a doctor determining a MoCA were warranted" assumes- without evidence- that the doctor wanted it. It happened because Trump wanted it to. Maybe, just maybe, it being spelled out in an actual quote from the horse's mouth- Donald J Trump himself- might help? from April 12, 2025. He even got what the test was right, then. Sure, Trump could be lying about his motivations just because it's Trump and he lies. Chances are significantly higher that he was telling the truth- otherwise, why mention it?- and wanted it specifically because Biden didn't take one, as he stated. The chances of him being 'forced' to take one by his doctors are also shot to pieces by Biden not being forced to despite his obvious decline. Indeed, in some sources he is said to have refused to take one.

14 specialists examined Trump in 2025, and 20 (!) examined Biden in 2024. That is far beyond a 'comprehensive physical' already. Maybe, if your surname was Bezos/ Musk/ Ellison. Maybe. Drawing conclusions from mislabeling a cognition test is at very very best tenuous. Trump boasting of passing an 'intelligence test' for a cognitive test is absolutely par for the course with his behaviour since forever. Not just in getting what it was wrong (ie thinking he's highly intelligent and this proves it, as a narcissist that is absolute par for the course) but also because he's getting back at his predecessor since Biden infamously didn't take one in 2024 when prompted to; and Trump is very much about being 'better' than Biden (and Obama). The answer to the question of "why did doctors feel it were prudent to have trump take the MoCA?" is pretty clearly explained by him having demanded Biden take one, and that is actually a pretty good reason for taking it. (I know perfectly well what cognitive tests are as my dad has dementia and I too sat in a room while one was administered. He didn't take a MoCA (or at least, not the one Bartimaeus posted, it was out of 20 and apart from the clock what he had to draw was different) but a very similar one. That and the simultaneous chat with the specialist was enough for a diagnosis of dementia on the spot. Note: I actually can prove that since I still have the formal diagnosis in my files, though for obvious reasons I won't. What the cause/ type was needed an MRI, but that was all. And knowing it was mixed ischaemic/ frontotemporal meant basically nothing anyway, except in terms of knowing what to expect)

Eh, I'm not sure we can draw too many conclusions from what was done in Trump's medical exams. Especially so given what happened with Biden. Not just the apparent mental decline with no (medical) explanation but also having advanced prostate cancer. Diagnosed after he left office for sure, but he definitely had it while president and it was not picked up on. Whatever else, Trump isn't just a normal 70+ year old just as Biden wasn't. He's not just getting his bp checked, maybe a blood test and a listen to the heart plus a quick chat about any ongoing issues and review of medications; and you wouldn't expect that to be all they had even for relative youngsters like Clinton/ BushGW/ Obama. And in this case, and I can't believe I'm going to end up 'defending' Donald Trump, Trump did insist Biden should take a cognitive impairment test way back in early 2024 (which Biden didn't) so he's actually being consistent taking one himself. Really though, Executive Leaders ought to be obliged to take cognitive tests. Otherwise you'll end up with something potentially disastrous like announcing a declaration of war as a sound test (thanks, Ronnie).

Pretty good example that unconditional support results in no influence, really. After all for all the supposed influence and goodwill and backing Israel to the hilt the Israeli's voted against the US position, not for it. Anyway, time for a related summary. So far Israel has (1) not opened the border crossings it was required to (2) not allowed in the aid it was required to (3) not set the 'yellow line' where anyone else thinks it ought to be. Indeed, it hasn't set its version of the yellow line where it claims it ought to be itself on its military's own website, but well inside what should be Palestinian territory. Resulting in (4) continuing low level attacks on Palestinian civilians, continuing starvation and malnutrition but most importantly political leaders and media can at least now pretend it isn't happening.

You can't read anything into Medvedev. Five years ago it would have been Zhirinovsky making the exact same sort of post. It's partly to rally (nationalist) Russians but mostly to make sure everyone knows that (or 'knows', more accurately, since it's definitely in large part performative) Putin is a moderate compared to the alternatives.

Ha, weird. Maybe they've obfuscated the main exe to make the launcher compulsory then. I've previously used custom shortcuts for EU4 to avoid the launcher and (not Paradox, obviously) FO4 to direct to a mod/ ultrawidescreen enabled exe with no problems. I've also used the argument function to skip those annoying long and unskippable startup videos some other games have. I don't have vtmb2 though so can't check my end. (Since you're having problems running it otherwise I'd suggest verifying the install if you haven't already, it's always possible- not likely though- that something has gone wrong in the download/ extraction)

It's pretty trivial to avoid Paradox's launcher if you want to. Redirect the shortcut (for non galaxy) to the main game executable rather than launcher.exe or use manage installation-->configure-->features-->custom executable (from the game's page) in galaxy to do the same.

I'll never not be amused by media rewriting history to suit their own narrative. Another of the perpetual 'this time it is different!'s is an extra bonus. Slovakia's government was stridently anti-Russian up until 30 September, 2023. Which is roughly 18 months into the war, and definitively not three years ago as Politico claims. Even the most basic of backgrounding could have found this out, if one didn't already know. But while the previous government was fine with giving away S-300 and MiG-29s they were not all that keen on turning off the spigot gas wise either, since one of the reasons for their collapse was inflation/ cost of living. It is after all not just a matter of having alternative sources like, lol, Azerbaijan* but them not being expensive. It's very easy to claim it's 'just' an extra 10%, when you're an EU bureaucrat with a property portfolio and on 500k a year. And when you pretend that that 10% rise doesn't compound since so much relies on gas. Orban isn't pro Russian. If he were he'd have vetoed stuff, irrevocably. He's entirely transactional- which is probably why Trump seems to love him so much. Blocking sanctions gets his country lots of concessions, no different to how the UK used to operate or how Denmark got concessions to finesse the EU's loss in its referendum. Similarly to the Brits, it really really annoys the federalist executive side of the EU that wants to rule by decree. *always hilarious to see Ursula and pals fanboying over Aliyev, who is everything they accuse Putin of being. As always, if the EU didn't have double standards they wouldn't have standards at all. And, of course, they largely sell rebranded Russian gas. When the EU isn't buying Russian LNG directly and (technically correct!) claiming it isn't gas.

It's not like Trump hasn't been a weather vane before. He's been pretty infamous for repeating the views of whoever he talked to last whatever he seemed to believe beforehand. In that particular case though Trump's previous 'support' for Ukraine/ Zelensky always looked very bluff like as well as being heavily transactional. For all the shouting about tomahawks no one ever explained how they'd be launched* or programmed, least of all Trump, so they never made for a very good stick to get concessions from Russia/ Putin. *aside from just fire them from a container bro, she'll be right. Super simple, barely an inconvenience. Which one suspects is ever so slightly a simplification of the problems involved.

Kind of hilarious watching Sir Kid Starver try and get Maccabi fans- unapologetic genocide enthusiasts who have both provoked and committed violence wherever they've gone- allowed in over police objections while banning Palestine Action for considerably less violence. Plus, of course, not wanting the Palestine Action decision to be subject to Judicial Review. Always a sure sign that you're confident you're in the right, when you're concerned that a judge is going to throw your decision out.

Having played both they're pretty much entirely unconnected, except for having a similar establishing concept/ mechanism. They're both also better Star Trek than most of the recent TV shows despite lacking the licence.

Ultimately it always boils down to Us vs Them, and Israel is incontrovertibly Us so far as the vast majority of political elites in the west are concerned. For that, Ukraine doesn't matter, at all. Whatever Israel has done previous* criticism has been extremely muted, if present at all. If it weren't Russia, it would be China, if it weren't China it would be someone else. As an obese former flying ace with a penchant for women's clothing observed, it's easy, effective and extremely tempting to use fear to manipulate the population wherever you are. Elites always need enemies and if one is not apparent it will be invented. (Dunno how successful the UK government has been. Designating Palestinian Action as big t Terrorist and having Brave Bobbies regularly arresting 80 year old grannies among the thousands of others for literally holding signs has been an international embarrassment moderated only slightly by the domestic media not being able to say outright how stupid it was because, of course, that would be... Supporting Terrorism. Now, just imagine if it was Russia doing... actually you don't have to imagine, because Russia has an equivalent law and we've seen the media reaction to them using it the same way) *excluding 1956, but that was mostly the US/ USSR wanting to make sure Britain and France were permanently Broken as world powers, Israel's invasion of Egypt was pretty much an afterthought and it was only the US part of the west objecting.

Didn't take Israel very long to start abrogating the agreement. The Palestinians are meant to have 72 hours to return bodies (specref:part 4; and also the Hebrew text published in Israeli media), or give all the information they have on them and Israel is already refusing to open the Rafah crossing, halving the trucks allowed in and, quelle surprise, killing more civilians returning to their homes based on them not returning bodies. "Israel Agrees To Go Back To Killing Palestinians On Less Frequent Basis" indeed. Don't think Ukraine made any difference to be honest. You'd have hoped, if Europe's 'ideals' were actually ideals, that a campaign of indiscriminate bombing, collective punishment, mass destruction of civilian infrastructure, mass detention, mass torture, systematic sexual violence as part of that torture and mass starvation would garner some sort of functionally negative response whoever was carrying it out. There's no reason to think it wouldn't have got crickets without Ukraine, and several reasons to think Ukraine should have actually galvanised a response from them if only to avoid embarrassment at the obvious double standard. Id est: it was a highly embarrassing comparison having Ursula and Kaja (but notably, not Josep) burble on about the indiscriminate Russian bombing campaign in Ukraine while tacitly applauding/ being silent about Israel doing far worse in Gaza; or complaining about Putin and Lvova-Belova being accused genocide fugitives from justice who'd kidnapped (a few hundred, lest we forget) children while not even closing EU airspace to Netanyahu who'd outright killed far more than 10,000 Gazan children. It would have been far less embarrassing if they'd done the absolute bare minimum against Israel as well, but even that was too much. End result: there's yet another example of a double standard to be thrown in the faces of the Rules Based Order for the next 20 years.

Eh, Trump's original 'solution' was relocating all Gazans. Specifically so he entrepreneurs could build hotels along the foreshore. Like it or not you don't get any more US than its President, and you don't get any more 'West' than it either. That that did not happen was mostly due to the resistance of the arabs and, unsurprisingly, no one wanting 2 million angry and permanent refugees. The Euros- with a few exceptions- were perfectly willing to throw every moral qualm and supposed principle out the window.