Gromnir

first season o' daredevil did a good job o' making matt murdock's faith central to the story and father lantom got some o' the best dialogue in the show. is tough to do faith and sooperpowers. overt expressions o' god's approval is incompatible with faith. however, if it makes you feel better... "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision." --j.r.r. tolkien all those folks who loathe religion but adore lotr were covert indoctrinated by tolkien. HA! Good Fun!

and Gromnir were initial responding to shady observations 'bout the ussr. more specific, the baltic states is having significant russian expat populations, and the expats is curious more pro putin than those current living in russia. also, the baltic state economies were inextricably linked with russia during the dismal post 1991 years. same problems. the thing is, it is our admitted limited experience (mostly lithuania) that the the baltic governments is hardly pro moscow. as recent as a couple years ago (haven't checked recent) lithuania were calling russia a terrorist state and estonia is always at the forefront o' nations pushing for tougher western sanctions o' russia. HA! Good Fun!

fake news. western lies. only kinda kidding. russians know there is better than what they have, but particular the older generation o' russians remember just how bad things can be. for near a decade after 1991, russians were promised how much better things would be. just wait a little bit for free market magic to work. starve. freeze. putin made things better. is not complicated or deep or profound. HA! Good Fun!

looking at it the wrong way. the russian economy, by any western metric, is not good, but the situation from 1991 until near 2000ish were kinda nightmarish. germany and japan, after ww2, were rebuilt by the winners. the russians/ussr lose cold war and then the west stands by and watches as many freeze and starve. putin shows up and and gdp functional doubles in eight years, lowest wages is significant supplemented and pensions is restored. not a surprise people in russia love putin. today, no matter how bad things get and regardless o' how many is sent into poverty with each new self-inflicted financial crisis, putin has convinced russians it is the fault o' the west. putin's playbook is based on deflection and whataboutism and he uses with his own people as much as in foreign policy. but again, post 1991 were a terrible and frightening time for russians. can bring up statistics ' bout how terribad is the russian economy in 2008, 2014-2017, today, but none living in russia has ever known better. is not a hard sell for putin to convince russians they is doing good, 'cause compared to how bad things were, putin is not wrong. HA! Good Fun!

yeah, that was ugly. the army lt did not immediate pull over and did not mindlessly follow all police instructions. cops reflexive see as a contempt of cop situation justifying force? serious needs to be an effort from cops to end contempt of cop /attitude test nonsense. until cops see as wrong, am not sure we are gonna see widespread change. HA! Good Fun!

would hardly surprise us if you do **** up as much as the average cop. lord knows Gromnir were hardly infallible and we were considered to be kinda near the top o' our admitted underpopulated professional specialty. the thing is, we knew that given the volume o' work and time constraints we faced, we needed folks to double and triple check our work, and we still made errors. our mistakes were, as far as we know, never fatal. relative high pressure and not near enough resources (typical time were our greatest adversary) led to ordinary and everyday mistakes which were usual minor, but am wondering how perfect we woulda' been in our field if a large % o' our work were done literal under fire, or at least under threat o' immediate lethal retaliation. am suspecting most o' us, if we were honest (*snort*) would admit our work errors would increase substantial if we were in the situations US cops face all too often. US population is so well-armed that every adversarial confrontation 'tween cops and public has the potential to get extreme ugly. take any volatile confrontation and add at least one participant who is armed with a lethal weapon. how many is shocked when somebody gets hurt in such situations? nevertheless, we expect cops to be better than ordinary people... which is fine. Gromnir hopes cops is having training enough so that they behave better than the average citizen. even so, am thinking all too many o' us is expecting improbable infallibility. have mentioned before how we did work as part o' a probation department-- juvenile detention facility. counselor? as a counselor, we were security and we made mistakes. am recalling a unit wide fight which happened in a high security portion o' the hall on a day when we were working. hindsight. our first mistake were there were signs o' imminent trouble, and we failed to recognize. serious am not sure how we missed the obvious tells, but we did. not only that, once the fighting started, we had a charlie fox scenario as Gromnir had one pair of handcuffs, pepper spray (which we never used) +20 residents trying to beat each other to death, and at least a couple o' those residents woulda very much enjoyed hurting us. there were only one other counselor with us in the unit when the p00p started and we lost track o' her almost immediate. so we restrained a particular violent resident (not gently we might add) and cuffed him, and then we moved on to another resident who needed restraint. the guy we handcuffed and left sitting on the concrete floor were promptly beat into unconsciousness by multiple other residents. the guy we handcuffed coulda' been killed and for all intents and purposes we were the guy who rendered him defenseless. probable made other mistakes that day, but sh!t were happening and Gromnir were reacting more than thinking. same observations as always: 1) cop training sux. 2) cops, while is never explicit stated in court, near universal punish those who fail the attitude test. so called contempt of cop violations is punished not by courts but street level by cops. 3) as cop education increases, excessive force complaints tend to decrease. am knowing people not like to hear the last observation 'cause sounds elitist, but excessive force complaints 'gainst cops drop dramatic as education level o' the cops increase. education is the single best defense 'gainst excessive force complaints. education don't prevent the ordinary and everyday mistakes which all o' us save kp makes, but for cops, education does prevent the most terrifying errors. unfortunately, in spite o' fact cops is well paid, is difficult to hire cops who pass physicals, background checks and psych profiles when education requirements is only high school as the minimum. in our juvenile hall situation, we personal exceeded any ordinary minimum requirement for education which woulda' been applied for any police force in the US, and we were not a contempt of cop d-bag neither. it is true our training didn't prepare us for the unit wide bruhaha, but am not sure what training woulda' prepared us for that particular scenario. we made mistakes. period. can't help but wondering how bad we woulda' looked if the entire debacle were caught on video and made it to evening news local and/or national. given our admitted limited observations o' board behaviors, am guessing the average cop is no more a mistake magnet than kp, but such a recognition ain't particular significant. cop mistakes has a much higher likelihood o' resulting in lethal results, so is understandable if as a society we demand higher than kp level competence. the thing is, we is near universal unwilling to pay for more competence (education levels) and the contempt of cop and training shortfalls need be changed department by department. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_enforcement_agencies_in_Minnesota the fed can't fix the problem. have tried to explain this many times. the fed is specifically prohibited by the Constitution from interfering in police power o' states and local. the fed can offer additional money to states if those states embrace new hiring or training policies, but the fed capacity to bring 'bout meaningful change is extreme limited. is an understandable mistake, but we do wish media and teachers would do a better job o' educating the public 'bout the limits o' what the federal government can do about state and local police violence and/or mistakes. oh and the states has somewhat limited practical power to bring about change, particular at the county sheriff level. many sheriffs departments is functional autonomous and do not rely on state dollars for funding. the folks in st. paul can pass all the laws they want and more than a few sheriffs will just ignore such laws. example: would be amusing to see how many county sheriffs public ignored state mask mandates. more than a few. what could state governors do to enforce such mandates at the county level if sheriffs were not supporting? little. welcome to america. change is gonna come city by city, county by county and state by state. how many people demanding change is happy with such a reality? oh, and don't point out a specific situation to us and say such n' such example were an unforgivable cop mistake, 'cause chances are we agree with you. ain't how this started. we responded to a silly generalization which ignores certain realities. cops make mistakes. is likely due to experience and training they make far fewer mistakes in high pressure situations than most o' us would be making. nevertheless, there is clear shortfalls in cop education, cop training and cop acceptance o' the complete bs attitude test/contempt of cop punishments. need make changes, but am worried most people have no idea what is the practical obstacles to fixing the all too real problems. 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peter jackson film btw. HA! Good Fun!

am suspecting most o' the modern westerns is inspired by a handful o' older westerns which were less silly and perhaps a bit more dreary. high noon, the searchers and the wild bunch is among our favorite westerns o' all time. am s'posing wild bunch could be deemed silly as it has tarantino levels o' the ultra violence but if it were campy it weren't meant to be so. the more silly westerns is still being made today, but they ain't set in the old west. superhero films and action movies owe much o' their genesis to the old less dour westerns with impossible characters (heroes and anti-heroes) doing the improbable as they confront a cartoony villain who is getting his/her comeuppance at the climax o' the film. actors and directors is fans o' the dreary old westerns, so they wanna be part o' making more such films. high noon in space... sans grace kelly. am recalling once having read that every american actor wants to do at least one western and every english actor wants to be in a gangster film. inspired by the debate in the political thread, am not sure where that leaves scotsmen. the thing is, am thinking the american actors who wanna do westerns is less interested in doing a rio bravo reboot. HA! Good Fun!

am most likely to think 'bout scotland 'cause o' entertainment: shakespeare's play which actors refuse to mention by name, if we happen to see trainspotting (arguable all-time best example o' a movie which did not need a sequel btw,) nerdy highlander references, and anytime gerard butler tries to do an american accent, etc. from an economic pov, scotland is middle o' the pack if we were to place it on the list o' oecd nations by per capita gdp, right along with uk, france and nz btw. not adjusting per capita and scotland is on par with the US state o' oregon. offshore oil is a significant contributor to scotland gdp and as such scotland economic numbers can fluctuate more than a little in a given year. dunno. am genuine not having more than trivia question answers knowledge 'bout scotland economy. most curious from a personal pov, having spent a couple years in europe decades past am admitting racism in scotland were kinda unique. from what we could tell, being racist in scotland were, as often as not, linked to loathing o' the irish. "fenian bastards" were an invocation which somehow found its way into racist tirades no matter how incongruous. weren't many muslims in scotland at the time when we were there... not many religious or ethnic minorities period. indian and pakistani were most common minority groups. clearly the locals weren't sure what to make o' Gromnir. were just kinda weird to hear drunk racists in a bar in glasgow or edenborough 'cause eventual, in our admitted limited experience, the bigots would turn their ire to the "fenian bastards." 'pon reflection, we probable know more 'bout james clerk maxwell, ctr wilson and long past history o' scotland than 2021 events, people and issues. am ok with that. HA! Good Fun!

*sigh* am knowing what you were talking 'bout, but again, is utter irrelevant. similar weapons were used in the french and indian war. so what? the kit guns owners is not being forced to suffer some kinda special limit. opposite. the kit gun is now having same restrictions all other similar firearm sales need meet. point out fact that some such guns is modeled on firearms from the american revolution is some kinda attempt at deflection or just misguided. couldn't possible put a second amendment limit on an american revolutionary weapon? once the Constitution became the law o' the land, pretty much every state, and a whole lotta municipalities had gun control laws which would necessarily have impacted revolution era weapons. however, because certain specific kits are not getting a special exemption, you somehow see as onerous to the 2nd amendment? serious? the requirement that ghost guns need have serial numbers and ownership must be following same background checks as other firearms baffles you why exactly? of course there will be select ghost guns which while still lethal is unlikely to ever be used in some kinda crime. so what? the second amendment infringement resulting is no greater than the burden on other current firearm ownership and it would be utter asinine to try and carve out individual exceptions (which necessarily create opportunities for exploitation) when the burdens is negligible. who do you want deciding which firearms is not scary enough or lethal enough to require serial numbers and background checks? again, the burden being imposed is no different than other firearm ownership. more no compromise silliness. HA! Good Fun!

am not sure what relevance you see regarding the american revolution, but we went ahead and fixed your post... although it kinda lacks the no compromise bite it had previous to our needed edit. HA! Good Fun! ps biden is not infringing on any weapon used in the american revolution as all weapons manufactured pre 1900 is exempt from federal regulation.

our position on the filibuster has been stated many times, so won't repeat. HA! Good Fun!

wrath uses pathfinder rules and adds mythic, so whatever issues you had with kingmaker and its tendency to increasing encourage exploitive bs to survive late/end game battles is gonna be magnified as 'posed to dispelled. more pathfinder options ironic results in fewer choices as players need plan from level one to overcome challenges which sans meta knowledge is unlikely to be anticipated. there is right ways to build a pathfinder character and/or party. for wrath players w/o meta knowledge, is gonna be a whole lotta trap builds and insta-fail parties which perform great for 1/3 to 2/3 o' the game and then become impotent w/o a drastic lowering o' game difficulty. oddly enough, some o' that metaness(?) is part o' pathfinder's appeal. by comparison, there were early game telemetry from poe2 which showed that literal nobody had played a shaman character, so Gromnir prompt created a shaman and realized such a combo were highly effective at virtual any level. 'pon reflection, we most likely had most fun in poe2 with a contemplative (priest of eothas + hellwalker monk) and not 'cause it were the obvious win-button build but 'cause it were offering a relative unique gameplay approach. more than a few pillars diehards were enamored with chanters, and am understanding why, but that class offered a much different gameplay approach compared to our priest focused characters. there were no loser class in poe2, though am admitting that it were possible to make a loser multiclass character, but such were exceptions as 'posed to rules. and yeah, am thinking that the developers o' poe2, in hindsight, would do something 'bout the brilliance + salvation of time exploits in poe2, but you did not need to use such cheese to win any poe2 battle. however, am gonna observe the difficulty slider in wrath makes a big difference. normal is a far different challenge from core. one o' the owlcat developers is (were? no update in near a month) doing a core difficulty play o' the beta material and she were getting gobsmacked by battles over and over and over again. more than once the developer observed how she had played such n' such a battle on normal and it were much easier. by comparison, the owlcat community manager is doing a walkthrough on normal difficulty, and she clear ain't a pathfinder expert with foreknowledge o' battles. the community manager is having a relative leisurely run through wrath's beta material. regardless, the pathfinder system is what it is and owlcat is not gonna change the rules particular as kingmaker were, as we understand it, a financial success. example: maximized blade barriers (particular with the new mythic path option which makes 'em do 75% damage instead o' 50% on a successful save) is gonna be endgame cheese in wrath same as kingmaker... but even more so as 'posed to less. should not expect owlcat to fix that which from their pov were not broken, even if Gromnir agrees with you that such degenerative gameplay silliness diminishes our enjoyment as 'posed to increasing. Gromnir opinion don't count, which is probable a good thing. HA! Good Fun!

the flood o' voter suppression efforts in multiple states has been predictable. unfortunate, what needs to happen to combat such limits on the franchise is old fashioned grassroot efforts to maximize voter turnout particular in battleground states. need increase voter turnout in spite o' the new laws. 2022 and 2024 will not be like 2020. republican election officials will not be on tv defending election integrity and the courts will defer to all but the most egregious new obstacles created by state legislatures. am concerned 2020 trump campaign defeats will have made far too many people complacent. republicans have finally recognized the impact o' automatic voter registration laws and they know expansions o' mail-in voting (pandemic related or otherwise) hurt their chances at retaining power. the gop is going old skool with overt efforts at voter suppression via state legislatures and they have a major news network helping them with their gaslighting efforts. democrats need to get serious if they do not wanna lose ground. SCOTUS will not protect them. anybody who thinks Justice Roberts is gonna side with Kagan or Sotomayor when it comes to state capacity to limit voting rights has not been paying attention to the relevant cases. all o' the so-called conservatives on the Court is gonna be antagonistic to just about any effort to place limits on state legislatures insofar as voting laws is concerned. need to accept such a reality and plan for how to deal with those laws. npr and psaki are correct 'bout the georgia law, but being right about fox news and gop lies don't change or invalidate the georgia law. HA! Good Fun!

your ordinary southern bigot is not big on subtlety, but give millions o' people +100 years o' practice and they can collective become adept at finding ways to broadcast their racism w/o it being overt enough to be worthy o' sanction. HA! Good Fun!

"so, what was it like to coach ray bourque?" again, 'cause fred were good natured it were hard for us to be sarcastic 'round him. however, on more than one occasion when fred would reminisce 'bout ye good olde days, we would throw in the above query. the bruins gm, hard as it may be to believe today, didn't want to draft ray bourque. fred kinda pushed for ray and then when things turned sour 'tween fred and harry sinden, fred made mistake o' reminding sinden 'bout how fred saved sinden from passing on bourque. that were the end o' fred's bruin tenure. go figure. HA! Good Fun!

he also coached the bruins. good record with boston, but fred and the boston gm did not agree on anything. gm fires fred and then makes himself coach for last fourteen games o' the season after fred had 'em 40/20/13. HA! Good Fun! ps am seeing shady sniped us. also, am seeing fred were listed as 5'11". sure. we knew fred when he were a bit older and there were gonna be some shrinkage, but we looked down at fred.

parents o' fred's daughter in-law live two doors down from us and they are nice too but they is also the most obtuse trumpers you are ever likely to meet. mrs. ___________ has/had cancer and her husband has chf, so we help 'em out in little ways such as taking their garbage cans to the curb on wednesday mornings and other little chores. the thing is, they refuse to get vaccinated. no point since the pandemic were never real. no surprise as they had a 12' wide banner attached to their fence facing the golf course to which their property backs. "trump 2020." the couple gets miffed when Gromnir and others, who has not yet been vaccinated, refuse invitations to spend face-to-face time with mrs. ____________. she is in her 80s for gawd's sake and again, she has had cancer recent enough that you never see her w/o her wig. you can't help people who won't help themselves. as an aside, have been obsessive checking for covid vaccination appointments in our area since april 1 when our age group became eligible. we got some health issues, so our doctor offered to get us vaccinated a while ago, but as am retired and not needing get w/i six feet o' people save extreme rare occasions, we decided to be patient and wait our turn, so to speak. more fool us. https://www.mhealthappointments.com/covidappt have been refreshing every thirty minutes for thirty mile radius from our zip code since april 1, and each time we get a "limited supply available" notification for a site, by the time we try and actual make an appointment, the supply is actual 0. oh well. first world problems we s'pose. much o' the rest o' the world won't be vaccinated for a long time and Gromnir is complaining 'bout an extra week or two. HA! Good Fun! ps fred's nose, which were improbable, made obvious he were either a boxer or a hockey player during his younger years, and his accent made clear hockey were the anticipated culprit. serious though, most generous and friendly guy you were ever likely to meet.

fred creighton was a friend o' ours. him and his wife marleen were two o' the nicest people we knew. HA! Good Fun! ps added vid link

you joke, but more than a few courts have used such reasoning to explain the otherwise inexplicable. corporations are legal entities (not same as "people"), and such has become the basis for protecting corporate donations as political speech. more than a few observers who is ordinarily aggressive pro free speech, including Gromnir, were concerned 'bout dark money contributions getting out of hand if corporations were given new protections as well as being uncomfortable 'bout the unstable legal foundation 'pon which such cases relied. in the past, corporate speech had always been given less protection (in part to protect consumers, but also to keep mega corps in check,) but with fcc v. citizens united, we couldn't help but wonder why corporations were prevented from running for political office. the legal reasoning which allowed skamco business and it's affiliates to make anonymous campaign contributions (with no way to track who were perhaps contributing to the corporate political pacs including prohibited foreign money) should make it possible for disney or microsoft to hold office, which should be unthinkable. the dark money problems didn't start with fcc v. citizens untied, and other campaign fuunding issues wouldn't entire go away if citizens united were overturned, but 'cause o' that case, corporations are indeed treated as people. HA! Good Fun!

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the gaslighting is... predictable. however, keep in mind ms. powell is facing multiple lawsuits and it would appear the tucker carlson defense is her legal team's strategy. less 'bout a flip flop than it is 'bout trying to avoid the loss o' her life's savings. 'course such a strategy won't help in sidney's efforts to avoid being disbarred, which kinda shows just how worried she must be. her team is gonna argue before a court how her previous legal claims were straining credulity to such a degree no reasonable person would believe? will be lucky if she is only disbarred if such is the argument. HA! Good Fun!

that's disgusting... is what we would like to say, but looking at our keyboard am embarrassed by just how bad we let it get. ... perhaps more disturbing is the realization am willing to let our keyboard exist in its current sad state o' dusty disrepute and am only mild curious as to how much filth need accrue before we become motivated to do a proper cleaning. HA! Good Fun!