BruceVC

Or you could argue much of the media is now being honest about the concerns and reality of Bidens mental acumen which was largely ignored or handwaved by the Dems This is not about " Biden speaking one wrong word" and several EU leaders are equally to blame for not insisting on making there experiences with Biden more public and known https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/foreign-leaders-worry-about-bidens-health-decline-1235053927/ I mentioned this before but the Dems had an opportunity to find a new candidate after the midterms. The Dems overall strategy has backfired on them and this was because of overconfidence And now its too late, Biden might still win. The undecided voters could swing it for the Dems

I base my views on politics around the policies of parties and outcomes, I dont subscribe to identity politics or personality politics So when someone says " dont vote for Trump because he is a racist or fascist " thats not a very convincing reason for me But if that is a point we want to discuss then the evidence around voting choices people of colour make in the USA doesnt support that The GOP has steadily seen an increase in the votes from people of colour and this election will be the same https://theconversation.com/what-early-2024-polls-are-revealing-about-voters-of-color-and-the-gop-and-its-not-all-about-donald-trump-227534 And there are various reasons for this but end of the day a black or Hispanic person is not going to vote for a party they genuinely thought was " racist" So support for Trump\GOP in this election is much more complex and nuanced than that

Yes that would be ideal but unfortunately I cant see Biden winning especially with the state of his mental acumen Its prudent we prepare ourselves for another 4 years of Trump

This list has some of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard... " ban books on Slavery " I absolutely reject that, I demand my reparations and redress from the slavery inflicted on my Saxon ancestors by the Romans and the Vikings. We must never forget the cruel injustices of the past

Trump has lots of advisors as Im sure you will remember, he had Bannon as one advisor and he didnt do everything Bannon wanted or suggested and thats always how Trump operates. He surrounds himself with people to get advice but he makes the final decisions based on how he thinks. He is capricious and unpredictable. But things around the border and illegals being deported will be implemented because he has stated that many times And then if you go through the list from the Heritage Foundation you can see already that Trump wont agree to certain points like the complete ban on abortion, he has already said leave it up to the states. What I am saying is we should be concerned with the Heritage Foundation but it doesnt mean that Trump is going to implement what they say. Lets rather wait and see instead of jumping the gun

One of the greatest losses in gaming development PB was an iconic and prestigious studio and they created some of the best games I have ever played, Im sad

Sounds like a plan, count me in. Hopefully we get to read your blog and gaming journey as a contribution Good to hear you still around

Im about 15-18 hours into F:NV and its been the incredible and predicted positive experience that I knew it was going to be The mods I loaded from Viva NV and other additional mods seem to have created the ideal wasteland experience for me And as usual I must talk about MO2 and how it helped with troubleshooting because you typically experience most mods conflicts in the first 2-4 hours and once you fix them the problem is resolved Firstly I noticed immediately that Doc Mitchell had the pink mesh problems around his character and that was related to the Fallout Character Overhaul https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/54460 So I did some troubleshooting from the mod Nexus page and everything seemed fine but then I realized I had made a mistake with this mod and I had installed a hotfix with the " Replace" option and not the " Merge" or " Rename " Merge should always be used for hotfixes because it just replaces similar files which is what you want, Replace deletes all assets and just uses the new ones and that meant my mod obviously wasn't installed properly because you need the original mod files with the hotfix. I then rechecked about 3-4 other mods and reinstalled them with the " Merge" That fixed my pink mesh problem. I then noticed I had a problem with circles in the sky and thats a known problem around Desert Natural Weathers and conflicts with other weather mods. But I was confused because the Desert Natural Weathers was the last ESM in right of MO2 but then I noticed that Realistic Wasteland Lighting was conflicting around meshes in the left side of MO2 so I just changed the order of Desert Natural Weathers on the left so it was lower than Realistic Wasteland Lighting and the problem was solved And then Im using mods like World of Pain which adds lots of new and fun quests like Vault 40 and the Harder Barter Faster Stronger which makes the overall economy and resources much more difficult and Im spending lots of time finding resources and being selective about what I can sell. It adds to the overall survival element of the game when money is always a factor The only thing Im " unhappy " about are my companions and how they too powerful and unbalance the dangers of combat. I loaded a mod that allows Companions to die in combat but I will keep the autoheal for companions after combat because I can live with that convenience and Stimpacks are in short supply anyway with the mod settings I use But great experience so far and modding has really improved the vanilla game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faraway_Tree There are a whole series of fantasy books based on the Faraway Tree theme and these books were written from 1939-1951, I had forgotten how much they had influenced my love of fantasy because I had assumed it had started with the Steve Jackson books but when I was thinking about the blog and my journey I realized it had started much earlier. I didnt read these books myself so that was what had created my original love of fantasy And that red box D&D image, I will never forget it

Interesting French election outcome, the general global media got these predictions wrong where they made assumptions that RN would win the second round The bogey man of the " French far right " ruling France is subdued again Here is a good interview with Le Pen where she explains somethings to Christiane Amanpour about the RN and what they stand for and how they not the same as US " far right "

Yes but again, the Heritage Foundation does not define what Trump can and will implement. Project 2025 is there blueprint and most of these ideas are far too extreme for Trump to want to implement Its different if Trump said " my presidency is going to be about Project 2025 '' then we should be very concerned. But at the moment there is no need for fearmongering

Yes, it was a predicted loss for the Conservatives It will be interesting to see what fundamental, if any, changes Labour makes But Democracy is the winner, if you not happy with leadership you can use the ballet box to make your unhappiness realized

Yes I have heard lots of things Trump says, that doesnt mean he is going to do these things which is why I asked you what concerns you the most? And I had never heard of Project 2025 but I looked it up now https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do Some outrageous suggestions including " Under the proposals, pornography would be banned, and tech and telecoms companies that facilitate access to such content would be shut down " How dare they consider banning porn

What do you think Trump is going to do if he wins in November, what concerns you the most? Im concerned more with his foreign policy decisions like NATO membership and aid for Ukraine I cant see Israel aid changing and we will probably see more escalating tension towards China and Iran?

Thanks, I will take advantage of this for sure

Firstly the " spambot " made a post that I agree with based on my review post of what I posted earlier Secondly I dont use SM comments and videos when its better to ask people on a forum to respond, thats more accurate and its about lived experience. Anyone can find a video on Youtube to support there views, thats not the same as your opinion

Of course you entitled to your opinion but you not explaining why you think its garbage? Maybe just use 4-5 bullet points why you think that?

Absolutely, I have just finished all the DLC for F03 and I added the Explorer Perk and I can see how many dozens of locations I never discovered and this was despite all the exploring I did. I typically wouldnt select the Explorer perk because it ruins the excitement of discovery but Im on level 27 now and I wont continue with the game because I have now completed all the main quests and the DLC So I will be starting on my heavily modded F:NV game and this time I will make sure I explore more so I dont miss out on locations But yes, FO3 is an incredible game for exploring and finding random and exciting locations. Not so much for main narrative

I agree that the contentious legal point to this ruling is going to be " what is official and unofficial " But I dont see why that should be complicated? For example if a US president goes to a fund raising and then sexually assaults a waitress thats not official and he should be charged But you can make a direct link between Fentanyl that is ending up in the US and how several cartels are involved in smuggling this drug so if you stop the cartels bringing in Fentanyl thats in the best interests of the US and particularly the Fentanyl crisis and higher levels of overdoses. So if a US president says " we going to assassinate Cartel leaders until they stop bringing in Fentanyl " thats an official government decision based on a specific outcome So there is a difference between official and unofficial decisions and can the US president be charged and I do think 6 January was unofficial

This wouldnt apply to unofficial acts or decisions the US president made. I think the ruling makes sense, for example lets say the US president orders the assassination of drug cartel leaders and that is an official decision. But lets say something goes wrong and civilians are killed accidently, should the president be now prosecuted because he approved the operation? The US president can still be prosecuted for unofficial decisions like 6 January or lets say something like sexual violence or rape This only protects the US president for decisions made in the interests of the US in his capacity of president

That was probably the funniest juice media ad I have ever seem, it really made me laugh "oh no, killer robots " The girls imitating accents are always hilarious I love the end " authorised by John Connor "

Yes, any delusional leader is a risk but I dont think Putin is like that. He is a warmonger, a nationalist , a liar and he is paranoid but I dont think he wants to see Russia wiped out in the obvious counter attack if Russia used nukes on the USA. I dont think Putin is suicidal, he wants to survive if you think about the virus and how terrified he was about contacting Corona Any world leader that went to those lengths to avoid getting the virus clearly wants to survive And Kim is definitely more delusional than Putin but he also has objectives for NK he wants to achieve and he uses threats of nukes more for brinkmanship

The reality of nuclear war would be so terrible its almost impossible to contemplate but lets say for argument sake it occurred, it would be between the US and Russia\China but most likely Russia vs USA But heres why I think its very unlikely, 5% chance at most I use history as an assessment of these types of concerns and if there wasnt nuclear war between the US vs USSR in the Cold War why would it happen now? Ideological tension and real events like the Cuban Missile Crisis created a reality for decades where people on both sides really hated and resented each other and wanted to go war , Communism was an absolute scourge and blight on the world but there was no WW3 but rather proxy wars and spycraft and this was primarily because of the concern of MAD (mutually assured destruction ) because of nukes that would have been inevitably used if the likes of the US went to war with the USSR So the deterrent of nukes prevented another WW because the consequence was too terrible to risk, Oppenheimer was ironically wrong when he grappled with guilt when he said " I am become death , the destroyer of worlds " His important contribution in the Manhattan Project saved millions of lives that would have been lost in WW3 So if nukes were never used during the years of real ideological hatred in the Cold War why would they be used now? Our geopolitical differences are generally much less than they were in the Cold War?

Yes but Russia can still invade and occupy a country, it just depends on the resistance they meet and the type of warfare the Russians adopt. They have lots of ways they can devastate cities, look at Aleppo, so its not like anyone wants to be invaded by Russia I have also never really believed the whole WW3 narrative but thats not why I support Ukraine

Its interesting how the entire Russian military offensive around Kharkiv has stalled and now looks like its reversed in certain areas There was lots of exaggeration about the success of that campaign and the reasons for it but I do remember Ukraine openly acknowledging they had to make strategic retreats in several areas because they lacked the military equipment. But that was before the US $60 billion had been approved or arrived The US aid to Ukraine is critical to them being able to stop the Russian offensive. Before the invasion I use to think Russia had an effective and well trained military but I dont think that anymore after the last 3 years of warfare The Russians can effectively use cannon-fodder and meat-grinder tactics but even that has its limits