Agiel

I've been trying to tell Trump supporters this for years: Obviously, the most elemental feature of populist politics is to associate one’s opponents with “elite.” But Trump is unable to maintain the pose because he cannot stand the stink of the people upon him.

A thought occurred to me while brooding on Cyberpunk 2077: It would be interesting if players who skewed their builds heavily towards the Razorgirl, Molly Millions side of things but had the option to make up for their relative lack in technical skills by contracting hackers for jobs (a Henry Dorsett Case, if you will), the downside of course being you would have to split more of your earnings with him or her (or something like a monetary fee for every hack beyond your means).

The nuclear weapons historian Alex Wellerstein notes that it's difficult to disentangle the events of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria and precisely which played the biggest role in Japanese decision-making (worth pointing out that upon learning of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 7th Stalin ordered the the timetable of the Red Army's invasion moved up from the middle of August, so evidently he believed that further atomic bombings would bring about an end to hostilities before the Soviet Union could make its own land grab). Also keep in mind that even after the Soviet invasion and the bombing of Nagasaki the Japanese would not announce their surrender August 15th, a full six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the invasion of Manchuria, and even then it was only after a coup launched with the intention of preventing this had been quashed.

At least as compared to the Division the bullet-sponges can in-universe be attributed to sub-dermal armour, automatically-injected morphine, implants that shut down pain-receptors, or plain just too hopped up on narcotics to notice the pain.

Now that I think of it, the part at the end with the "corpo" has shades of that one scene from Layer Cake.

Have to say that when the demo was behind closed doors at E3 (and even at Gamescom) I thought a 2019 release was hopelessly optimistic. Now a Holiday 2019 is conceivable in my mind (or at the very least, that gets announced at first, before it gets pushed back into Q1 or Q2 of 2020).

If my character can't ride a bike straight out of Akira or Bubblegum Crisis then no buy.

As of now at approximately 1700 Zulu of 27th of August a stream of the first public gameplay reveal of Cyberpunk 2077 is on.

Holy **** that is a good quote. world has gone topsy-turvy. whenever we explain how eisenhower-nixon were the doves and kennedy-lbj were the hawks, we get blank stares and disbelief. kennedy were elected in large part 'cause o' his rejection o' eisenhower era pacifism. robert mcnamara's adoption o' metrics for determining success o' a military campaign (body count) were transformative and seeming irreversible as those in the pentagon desirous o' promotion knew they needed show progress and achievement through metrics. I should point out that things are a _little_ more complicated than what may seem at a first glance. While it was true that Eisenhower heavily favoured a large draw-down in conventional forces his administration still sought to address the balance of force in Western Europe that favoured the Warsaw Pact by investing heavily in strategic forces. After all, it was Eisenhower's Secretary of State who coined the term "Massive Retaliation," in which the US would respond disproportionately to an offensive action taken against a NATO power with nuclear arms (helped by the fact that in his time the Soviet Union's ability to respond in kind against the US was extremely limited; there wasn't even a guarantee that they would be able to hit targets in the UK). Was this cheaper than a large conventional force stationed in West Germany? Undoubtedly yes. Was it particularly wise if, had the dice rolled a little differently, the Warsaw Pact to call the United States' bluff? Well... probably best not to dwell too much on that prospect if one wants to sleep soundly tonight. As for Kennedy it should also be noted that under his administration a bewildering array of white elephant programs started under the Eisenhower administration such as SM-62 Snark and SM-64 Navajo, (surprise surprise, nuclear delivery platforms) were quashed. Granted this was largely done in service of what seemed to be far more long-lasting and useful systems such as the UGM-27 Polaris and LGM-30 Minuteman (the former was the grandfather of what is today considered the gold standard of nuclear deterrence, the UGM-133 D5 Trident II, while a derivative of the latter remains in service today).

Satanic temple sparks uproar by unveiling statue of goat-headed, winged creature called Baphomet in Arkansas state capitol I would have recommended getting Wolves in the Throne Room for the proceeding.

Must have some MKUltra contraption in my car since that was largely my sentiment when I heard about it over the radio this morning. It's a deregulation proposal that is of that rarest of breeds: One that actually favours regular Joes over Gordon Gekko types who can shrug off the capital gains tax penalties for short-selling. The pressure to deliver favourable earnings calls every quarter seems to tie the hands of executives trying to invest in the long-term health of the company, perhaps exemplified by analysts grousing things like "Labor is being paid first again. Shareholders get leftovers."

...and postponed. Heartening to an extent that the current administration isn't totally immune to, putting it mildly, bad press, particularly in light of the proposed Space Force, a defence budget that only offsets real decreases as a result of inflation, and Trump's own avoidance of service. If the Democrats don't seize defeat from the jaws of victory and the "Blue Wave" pans out, who knows? Maybe this can keeps getting kicked to the right indefinitely.

I suspect where some were hoping for something more like the traditional homecoming parades where serving men and women in ACUs and caps waved to crowds while walking down an avenue to a marching band Feldmarschall Bonespurs had this in mind: I would think Mattis was in the former camp, and may have leaked this himself in the hopes that the bad press might convince Trump to at the very least settle for a far less costly spectacle. The original news piece belaboured the point that this is far more expensive than exercises originally scheduled with the ROK, and given the history of Trump tweets I imagine Mattis rubs his temples whenever Trump tries to lay out defence policy without consulting him first. Trump's draft-dodging also seems particularly egregious in light of Mulvaney's attempt to drop protections against predatory loaning practices to veterans.

Addendum piece from Mackenzie Eaglen at AEI:

Emphases mine.

In honour of the 65th anniversary of the first French woman to break the sound barrier, Jacqueline Auriol, flying a Dassault Mystère II. Serendipitously enough Auriol shares her given name with the first woman to break the sound barrier, Jacqueline Cochran, who accomplished the feat earlier that same year.

Firefighter from Utah dies battling Mendocino Complex, the largest wildfire in California Trump _COULD_ go to California to be the comforter-in-chief, as presidents both Republican and Democrat before him have done in such occasions, but by all means he can play "He-Said, She-Said" with Omarosa. God knows those two friggin' deserve each other.

In light of Mattis' earlier opposition to the prospect, I can't help but think Mad Dog is still saying in a deep, mournful Goliath voice "Gee... I don't know, Donnie."

And now for some easy listening:

South Carolina manufacturer says it's closing plant over Trump tariffs. They say experience is the best teacher... https://youtu.be/sBffNiUOeiA?t=6s

As if a sign from the heavens I found this video while drinking some J&B Scotch.

Ob's stürmt oder schneit...

In spite of being the biggest Homeworld fan here I somehow got sidetracked half-way through Deserts of Kharak when it first came out. I finally came around to finishing it recently and man what a journey. There's a level of craft to that game that's hard to find in games of its league, from the sense of scale the artists instill into the player, to the idle unit banter, to the tracks in the sand left by a lone Baserunner making its way across the desert (even with the budgetary might of Blizzard the in-engine cinematics of Starcraft fail to be as cinematic as this game). Looking forward to whatever Blackbird Interactive comes out with next.

Man, this was such a pleasant surprise: