Enoch

Can't say that I like the reference to Taunting. I'd prefer the game avoid Dragon-Age-style aggro mechanics. Hopefully they'll be logical (and liberal) with Taunt immunity, granting it to enemies who the lack the intelligence or comprehension to understand the Taunt, or who have enough training and discipline to know they should disregard it. If we're running around taunting green slimes and iron golems, I'm going to be sad.

On the drive into work this morning, I think my 2-year-old made his first song request that wasn't some variant of "sing this nursery rhyme." I asked what music we should listen to, and he said "Wobots!"

I don't disagree-- I was struggling for terms to explain stuff to WoD there. We know what we're getting with the Clintons at this point, and that bundle of goods includes a long history of (in the kindest interpretation of available facts) doing dumb things out of reflexive concern for their personal secrecy. It is disconcerting. From my perspective, the thing that bugs me more than it probably does most people is that State let her do this. No way should State's GC and IT security folks have let her keep using her private server in the first place. Yes, Colin Powell had a similar setup in the past, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a bad idea that raises hosts of legal compliance challenges. Political appointees, in general, will try to get away with a lot unless their civil service management restrains them-- they usually need to be made to give a **** about things like records retention, IT security, official transparency, etc. In State, that restraint simply wasn't there. Comey alluded to this in his statment: "[W]e also developed evidence that the security culture of the State Department, in general and with respect to the use of unclassified systems in particular, was generally lacking in the kind of care for classified information that is found elsewhere in the U.S. government." The IG Report that was released in May (link to .pdf) discusses this in much more detail, but note that the OIG only bothered to look into this after it started hitting the press. All that's not to excuse Hillary, of course. The fact that a control failure enabled a bad decision doesn't make the decision less bad.

Instances aren't enough. You need to establish intent, and have the evidence to convince a jury of it beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, the FBI has concluded that a smart defense attorney wouldn't have a particularly hard time establishing enough reasonable doubt to prevent a conviction. So long as there's a chance that Clinton set this up for non-classified stuff, but had a few "whoopsies" along the way, a prosecution was doomed to fail. 100 or so bits of classified information in a population in the tens of thousands is bad, but it's not clear-indication-of-intentional-misconduct bad.

He explains it:

Yep. Not a criminal. Just "careless" and "grossly negligent". Just what you want in a President. "Grossly negligent" is the legal standard that would have supported indictment ("either intentionally or in a grossly negligent way"). Comey said that there wasn't enough evidence to support that. (Or, more precisely, that a reasonable prosecutor wouldn't bring the charge.) "Extremely careless" is as far as he went in describing her conduct.

This skirts dangerously close to my day job, so I'll just say that I'm inherently suspicious of most executive branch authority. The administration has lots of smart lawyers who can always make an at-least-somewhat-credible case for their actions falling within legal limits. Sometimes I agree with them, sometimes I don't-- depends on the details. That said, the dysfunction of the Congress hasn't given the executive many other options over the past couple presidencies. And many of their more legally tenuous offerings are better understood as political gambits (e.g., "I'm going to do this because it'll make my opponents look bad when they complain about it, sue, or reverse it via legislation.") than they are pushing the limits on executive authority.

Sure, true believers in the movement that a 3rd-party candidate represents are going to show up, but folks like you are not exactly numerous. And, yes, it's a truism that local elections have more impact on the day-to-day lives of most citizens, but, in practice, there is still a pretty huge bump in turnout during Presidential election years. Most of those people are showing up to make sure that their guy/gal ends up in the White House (or, more likely this year, to ensure that the other guy/gal doesn't get within spitting distance of the place). If that's their goal, they're not voting for Johnson or Stein.

You mean this? http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html As of right now, Clinton's still up 5.6% in the aggregate in a four way with Trump, Johnson, and Stein. 3rd party folks also consistently underperform polling-- particularly polling this early. People are not frequently motivated enough to show up on election day just to cast a protest vote.

I'm not sure when it became normal for insinuations that major American political figures were in the practice of having folks murdered to go unchallenged, but it is rather disquieting to me. The whole Foster thing has been pretty thoroughly debunked, yet it lives on (and grows, I suppose) the minds of folks who want desperately to believe anything and everything unpleasant about politicians who they don't like. That said, I'm the weirdo around here in that I hear the word "establishment" and think "actual somewhat-reasonable adults" rather than "the source of everything unpleasant in America." (Sure, some of them are self-interested jerks, but not really in greater proportions than the rest of the population.)

Took the 2-year-old to Target the other day, to pick up a number of odd things that it doesn't make sense to order online. The kid's hair is light in color and thickness, so I've been a little worried about a sunburned scalp, and he has consistently rejected all the hats we've acquired. But he has shown some interest in one of my baseball-style hats, so I wanted to shop for those a little bit to see if he'd find one that he liked. I found a limited selection of hats in the boys department, although most of them were the kind of branded merchandise I usually avoid. (Why should I pay a company to advertise their brand, dammit?!) Anyhow, after a little rummaging, the kid calls out "I want the pizza hat!" I have no idea what he's talking about, so I starting looking again at the various Mickey/Comics/Minecraft-themed nonsense to see if any pizza is incorporated. Turns out he was referring this: Roughly triangular, with a mottled red and yellow color scheme? Yep, that's pizza! I bought the hat, of course. And he wore it for the entirety of a walk we took later that afternoon. Superman is probably going to be known as Pizzaman in our house for a good long time. I can tolerate a little brand-hucksterism if it comes with a good story, I guess.

as enoch is aware, Gromnir ain't a jazz guy, but we do got a soft spot for herbie han****, and not just 'cause o' his death wish soundtrack. . apparent all our jazz favorites is cartoon related? peanuts. fat albert. weird... or groovy. HA! Good Fun! Hard to find much fault with that-- I'm hardly alone in that many of my favorite classical compositions came to me via either Looney Tunes or Fantasia. Unrelated:

I work at a U.S. federal agency in DC, and, after the Navy Yard shooting in 2013, "Lockdown" in event of an active shooter became one of the building security protocols that we are briefed on annually. (Along with Evacuate and Shelter-in-Place.) We didn't get any physical training like that, but they do go through the Run, Hide/Barricade, or Fight decision.

Psychonauts is a game that it seems like I'd really enjoy, if I could tolerate platforming as a core gameplay element.

...and there we have it. The solution is not for banning guns or more survaillence. Rather, it's about Islam accepting the gay. They are clearly not inclusive enough and we as society need to focus on the toxic masculinity which is spread in their mosques. Homosexuality is rejected by the Muslim world, they must be the most intolerant religion as far as homosexuality is concerned In the ME many countries have the death penalty for anyone found to be gay If this guy was indeed gay he would have been in this permanent state of confusion and he would have been conflicted. Sadly when certain people refuse to accept who they are as far as sexual orientation is concerned they sometimes resort to violence as a way to somehow deal with the frustration of not being able to be themselves I have seen this before, sometimes the worst bigots end up being gay themselves Keep in mind the message that ISIS puts out: First, it is the duty of the faithful to come to Syria/Iraq and join the fight to re-establish the grandeur of the Caliphate. But, if you can't do that for whatever reason, it'd be great if you could kill as many infidels as you can where you are. This offers a way for unstable folks with violent tendencies to feel justified-- even holy-- in acting out their fantasies of bloodshed. ISIS bears no cost, and gets the benefit of looking scarier to the outside world ("Lone Wolf" attacks are by nature more difficult to prevent than ones involving central coordination), as well as inspiring nativist and anti-Muslim reactions that feed the cycle of recruiting. Thus, "ISIS-inspired" attacks like Orlando (guy who might well have been a self-hating homosexual kills lots of gay folks) and San Bernardino (terrorist attack that just happened to target the perpetrator's co-workers) where religion appears to have been the final justifying factor for violence that already-unhinged perpetrators really wanted to inflict for other reasons.

You know Alum I'd even go along with that if I thought for a second that is where it would end. But it won't. The goal of the gun control crowd is no less than prohibition followed by confiscation. They are willing to do it incrementally but that is the end all things are leading towards. Each new "reasonable" restriction begets another "reasonable restriction" and another and another and another. The best way to ensure you never reach the bad end is don't start down the bad road. That is the heart of it right there. That is why you see people like me opposing even "reasonable" restrictions. Because we do not trust the government to be satisfied with that. We are not dealing with an honest partner. You have a better shot of convincing people if you don't automatically assume that those who disagree with you are Bond villains. People who want gun control in America don't gather to laugh maniacally about the success in the next stage of their Master Plan. (Or, well, they wouldn't if they ever achieved any political victories worth celebrating.) They're just ordinary citizens who are sick of seeing bullets hit things they care about. For my part, the horse is pretty much out of the barn on gun control. Sure, if I had the choice between a society with few guns in private hands, versus one with many, I'd pick the former 10 times out of 10. (The latter was a useful check on 17th-18th Century tyrants, which is why the 2nd Amendment was written, but modern technology has functionally destroyed the capacity of personal arms to overthrow a better-than-3rd-World oppressive sovereign power.) In America, though, that choice was made for me a long time ago-- both in the whole Constitution thing, and in the fact that there are just a ****load of guns out there. That sucks, and creates a whole lot more tragedies than there need to be, but that also doesn't make it smart to expend a whole lot of political capital tilting at that particular windmill.

I think you two are vastly overestimating the potential appeal of Libertarian-lite policies with rank-and-file conservative voters. Just being non-mainstream isn't what put Trump and Cruz at the head of the pack-- it was being non-mainstream in a way that busts open the coded appeals that mainstream Republicans have made to less-educated voters over the past few decades. Gut-level issues like national identity as informed by race and religion, with economic-policy appeals that don't extend much beyond "there are fewer jobs than there used to be, and I'll fix that" and "screw China/Mexico." Their pitch is practical, where the Libertarian-flavored pitch is more theoretical. Ron Paul supporters sure were committed, but they weren't especially numerous, and the message doesn't resonate very well beyond that core of guys who took 2 college econ classes and think that they therefore know how the entire world works. That said, I did miss Paul when he left the race. He did present some diversity of opinion the GOP debate stage, particularly when they got to foreign policy stuff.

Yeah, the Hastert thing really was wild. When the rest of the GOP leadership forced Gingrich out, Bob Livingston was the Rep designated to take the Speakership. But in the midst of the whole Lewinsky thing, Larry Flint had put a sizeable bounty on evidence of extra-marital affairs by folks in Congress, and it leaked that Hustler was about to publish its findings on Livingston. So he publicly confessed his affair, and resigned as Speaker-designate on the same day that the House voted to impeach Clinton. Republican leaders scrambled for the most clean-cut potential leader they could find, and the result was Hastert. The fact that Hastert turned out to have had a history of taking sexual advantage of underage boys is both sad and hilarious. The only reason he got the job was the fact that he was viewed as "safe," and he turned out to have been the most dangerous of the bunch.

I've been saying for years this is the best possible outcome. No one gets screwed when the government can't move. Oh, there are a million ways that people can get screwed by inaction, too. Expiration of authorizations, disaster relief, annual spending bills, the whole debt limit fiasco, etc. This logic made more sense before the political polarization of the last 20-ish years. Divided government used to ensure compromise, and allow for significant change only when there was broad agreement that it was quite necessary (e.g., the '86 re-write of the tax code). Now, even things that are broadly acknowledged as necessary don't get done, to prevent the other side from "getting credit" for it, and you have a significant rump of nihilists in one party willing to go so far as to hold a gun to the head of the global economy (i.e., threaten Treasury default) just to prove how badass they are. (Also, I presume you'll be voting for Hillary, then? The GOP's advantage in the state-by-state gerrymandering game pretty much locks the House in their column until the next Census, so you'll need a Democrat in the White House to preserve your desired state of affairs...)

"I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, ****y; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own. Get used to me."

What are your thoughts on this guy? Hilarious when paired with: The Libertarians had their chance here. With a fair number of conservative-leaning NeverTrumpers, they had more public, media, and big-donor interest in their convention than they've ever had before. They responded by putting a bunch of nutters on stage.

Considering how close all the recent elections have been, that would not be a very safe bet to make. The only way you are going to see either candidate get below 40% is if there is a legitimate 3rd party candidate, like when Ross Perot pulled 18% of the vote. The two major parties clearly have a "floor" of around 45% of the popular vote, absent serious 3rd party contenders, but the electoral college is another matter. The Democrats have a pretty strong built-in advantage at this point. The 19 states plus DC that have supported the Dem candidate in every single one of the last 8 Presidential elections are 20-some EVs short of the total needed to win outright. If they can add either Florida or any two of the other reasonably large swing states, they win. By comparison, the GOP's "safe" states don't get them nearly as close to the White House-- they've got to take nearly all of the states that are considered "in play" just to eke out a narrow win.

Good luck. We found having the second was especially challenging. You don't get nearly as much 1 on 1 time with the 2nd kid because the first one is always jealous of them getting attention. Thanks. (And to the other well-wishers as well.) The process so far has involved a lot me double-commuting to drop the 2-year-old off at his daycare. It's in the building where I work, a 35+ minute drive away, and we're paying for it whether he's there or not. Then I go home, help out with the new guy, do chores, and/or nap. (I'm allowed to use my accrued sick & vacation leave, which I'll keep doing until next week at least. The timing mostly depends on how quickly the wife recovers from the c-section.) The time spent driving isn't great, but the alternative is that I'm wrangling the 2-year-old all day, and leaving the wife to handle the baby herself. (She isn't yet comfortable picking the big guy up, or sitting on the floor to play with him.) Plus, it's good for Big Brother to have some structure and to interact with his friends and teachers. So far, he seems mostly curious about the new guy. A little possessive ("no, MY baby!"), and sometimes sweet ("I wanna hold his hand"), with a lot of attempts to share inappropriate things with him. A few angry moments, too, but I think the baby-related Big Nos are starting to sink in-- we haven't seen that behavior (hitting, trying to take the bottle, etc.) much since the early days. Unrelated, the 2-year-old also told me the other day that I shouldn't put a diaper back on him because he wanted to touch his ****.