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I keep going back to how much dems are screaming that this election will decide the fate of democracy to try and convince people to vote but are not operating strategically like it is. At the very least you'd expect them to put forward someone more liked than Joe, which strangely enough Kamala is, let alone flex some of that new presidential immunity granted by the supreme council of elders....but they're just barreling forward with a strategy that looks likely to fail.....because going against Biden now could hurt their future political career. Guess the ivy league can't teach sense. Also like you said, the seeds of this were planted under Obama. If his administration had stuck to their guns to force replacement for Scalia instead of giving up and if they had convinced RBG to step down then we wouldn't be dealing with this right now. The sad fact is that Republicans are simply better at navigating the contours of US politics (even if they are also bad at actually running things) and operate to achieve total victory while Democrats are still treating politics like a gentleman's game where everyone operates in good faith. It's ****ing maddening to watch.

I think the GOP collapse did happen in 2012 and produced Trump, as the system loyal more polite brand of conservatism fell in favor of Trump's more bombastic and pugilisitic reactionary politics became the new order. It isn't favored popularly, but it is embraced enough internally by conservatives (from donors to activists to the base) that this is going to be the way for the time being. I don't disagree, the US clearly isn't working. But sadly I don't think it's confined to here, reactionaries seem to be ascendant everywhere. Maybe we can stave them off for now by everyone getting together to stop them, like in France recently, but I'm not sure if that works as a long-term strategy.

The game now takes 10 minutes to load with all the mods I'm running. The mod that broke it? Sawtooth Sabres can be selected with Finesse Training. .....there's a Deceiver specific mod, I'm kind of interested in it but I want to run it as Int based....also I like metamagic.

I think most people are unaware of how campaign finance law works, I certainly am. But I also think that running Biden is going to lose the election to Trump and that people who want Biden out of the race are not wrong to do so, whether from concerns about him being able to beat Trump again or displeasure with Biden over Palestine, regardless of the practically of doing so. Aside from Bruce and a handful of brainwormed yuros I think most people on this forum recognize that Trump is a horrible fascist who shouldn't be let back into power. But if we're in a position where the Democrats have to win every presidential election from here on out and prevent a super majority of Republicans from getting into congress while also curtailing the unelected council of elders legislating insane **** or else democracy is gone.....then I think we've already lost it. The fact is that Trump isn't going away even if he dies, the Republican party is just going to be like this from here on out.

To be a radical centrist for once, I firmly believe that both Biden and Trump have dementia and should be retired instead of running for President. There's a sick irony in that the only generation that will be able to retire just won't.

48 hours later and over a million power outages in the Houston area, and still the most accurate way to track them is through the Whataburger app because Centerpoint gave up on even having a map. You have to love Texas. Maybe I am, maybe I'm not.

I'd appreciate that, I've been m+kb or switch (only for nintendo specific games, which are imo are generally easier) for a decade now and haven't really played with other controllers.

Well they are loud and proud about being Christian Nationalists so that certainly fits. If anything their objection to Nazi comparisons would be that the Nazis, who pioneered privatization and were admired by arch-bourgeoisie Henry Ford, were not nearly pro-business enough.

I guess my brain forcing me to sleep was a defense mechanism.

So I'm looking at sales and right now I'm thinking I'll finally given Elden Ring a go. But will I need a gamepad? @Bartimaeus @majestic I think both of yall are into souls games, so i'd appreciate anything you could help me with here. Also looking at Skald: Against the Black Priory and open to any other recs.

Right now we're in the eye of the storm so it's calm and it looks like the rebound isn't going to be too much. All things considered the very intense thunderstorm we had two months ago did more damage to the area I'm in. There's still a chance of flooding so I'm hunkering down for the day. Good opportunity to watch a movie or finally start my Lich run.

I'm getting hit by a hurricane right now. Guess that's one way to get Monday off.

I would prefer not to. The intro sequence is awful, and after that it segues into one of the ****tiest ambulance scenes that has been inflicted on me. Beyond that half the time it feels like the cast is doing line reads to memorize the part instead of acting, it's like the shockingly bad Florence Pugh line in Dune 2 but in almost every goddamn scene of this movie. Then in the middle of the action, where the future Spider-Women are being hunted by evil bizness Spider-Man, the titular character drops the girls off with Uncle Ben (yes that one) and ****s off to Peru for a week to discover her past and does some vision quest stuff....because evil bizness Spider-Man who has a hacker lady using 2003 NSA tech and facial recognition on every camera in NYC can't figure out the lady preventing him from killing some teenagers (and whose mom he killed btw) has a friend who has a sister? Come the **** on Sony. I figure I fell asleep during the most action heavy sequences, and I've played enough 10 year old videogames to have an idea how it looked. Anyways I woke up for the end, where the main character is now blind and paraplegic but is also the legal guardian/mother figure to three teenagers who will grow up to put on gaudy Spider-themed costumes and fight random scrubs. This is what happens when I put on a terrible movie to knock me out when I'm trying to sleep, so I guess I can credit it for helping with that.

I'll see you and raise you five Madame Web (2024) I know that on forums like these we often engage in hyperbole and exaggeration, but I can sincerely say that this is easily one of the worst films I have ever seen, if not the worst. On every single level this movie just ****ing sucks, from the bad cgi to wooden acting to a plot so damn stupid even by the stupid standards of superhero movies....it's just ****ing awful. Luckily I fell asleep for a quarter of it.

It's funny that Trump will probably win because the dems couldn't convince Biden to go home and their uncritical support for Israel's slaughter of Gaza alienates key blocs they need to win. They have been screaming that this is the most important election in the history of elections but can't make a single tactical move to try to help their electoral chances, let alone attempt to curtail Trump and Leonard Leo's goons in any other way. Honestly it's just pathetic to watch a party this bad at real politics being the only electoral bulwark against the most abominable political ghouls still breathing. I dunno, maybe an economic crash happens with Trump/Project 2025 and Marx or Bakunin gets proved right. There's probably more of a chance of thay happening than the dems getting their **** together.

Now that's a pleasant surprise.

Given what Starmer has said recently, I don't think yall will be that lucky even if every Tory got dragged straight to hell.

I think it's funny that the same body has made the President a term-limited (for now) dictator shortly after dismantling the regulatory apparatus of the executive branch. So courts no longer have to defer to federal regulatory agencies in matters that are vague (such as what constitutes a stationary source of pollution emitting devices), but a president could threaten all judges or litigants to get in line or get the drone? Real galaxy brain stuff. You have to wonder just how far the ruling classes will go before they break the camel's back. By their seeming inability to slow down I honestly have to wonder if they truly desire the fate of 18th century French aristocrats, like they actively desire sparking a revolution against themselves by being so blatantly terrible. Did they pay so little attention to history that they think such things materialized out of the air?

Salome's Last Dance (1988) - Oscar Wilde watches a brothel put on one of his plays. Incredible. It's just a brilliant move to make a film that rather than a straight adaptation of a play is just the play being put on in front of an audience. Certainly an interesting way to stretch a budget and reinforce the unreality inherent to the form of the stage play. I found myself getting engrossed in the play only for cuts to Oscar Wilde to be drinking or pursuing a twink to interrupt the play action. Whore (1991) - The anti-Pretty Woman It's visceral and raw, a small-time and personal tragedy that could be any number of people. Personally I find myself preferring the stories of people who aren't major figures but are closer to the people that you'd know, like I'm not interested in a hesit film with an elite crew but would absolute watch a bunch of broke people attempt to rob a chain restaurant. Whore absolutely falls into this category and it is wonderful for it. A bit of serendipity, both films are based on plays.

I may do that soon, however I intend to watch 2-4 Ken Russel movies today to see if they can drive me insane.

Unfortunately I need a pickup for my job and there isn't a good electric option for that is affordable for me or available in my area, so I'm stuck in a 2018 Colorado. It sucks paying for gas and an electric would be better for many options, but I don't want to cause a fire with a Cybertruck. To boot the Cybertruck is definitely the most hideous vehicle I have ever seen and breaks down doing normal truck stuff.

Ah, nonetheless I am disappointed because hbomberguy is good listening. I do not remember playing Fallout 3 but I assume it is a lot like interacting with bots on social media, navigating a wasteland filled with pale imitations of humans spouting drivel that would be a surface level conversation between two real people but without any soul to it. At least you can just shoot them in Fallout 3, too bad playing Bethesda game makes me want to shoot myself. You're not wrong. I've said this before but the dystopia of robots isn't Terminator (Jimmy Cameron was wrong again) but being flooded with bull**** like "I like car games vroom vroom" to the point where actual contact with human beings is few and far between because navigating the bots is too much effort. Given the amount of energy bots take and where that energy comes from, the reality of burning down the planet to allow **** to use spam bots for scams is more horrifying than the machines just wiping is out. But that line was pretty funny.

Fire Emblem: Engage Honesty I'd probably rank this in the lowest tier of FE games I've played, right next to Fates. It's just off-putting to me in a way that the good encounter design can't really compensate for, and like Fates it was a rare instance of me losing momentum and taking weeks long breaks or abandoning a FE playthrough outright. It's all the worse coming from 3 Houses, which for all it's faults delivered a consistently better experience throughout the game....even with the fishing bull****. @Gorth I was in the middle of jumping in the convo when you removed the filthy robot and @Bartimaeus sending it to hell. How naughty Anyways no new hbomberguy thing is out.

The Boys has jumped the shark quite a lot and honestly I'm fine with it, silly camp is good and should be done more instead of the hyperseiousness that is just boring as ****. The other part of the episode, well one of the other parts, hit a bit close to home and left me feeling pretty bummed because I could very well be in a similar position as Hughie was soon. The V52 expo was completely on point though, "it's been a year since my last film, so time for a reboot" is much less satricitical than it should be.