Gromnir

our vote for worst traffic chaos, based on personal experience only, is mumbai. those three-wheel black and yellow cabs ignore even the idea o' lanes and scooters dart in and out from behind busses on streets which narrow inexplicably or lead to "intersections" which we has no vocabulary to accurate describe. india represented our worstest traffic nightmares, with mumbai being the worst o' the worst. HA! Good Fun!

@Hurlshort needs to do a better job with you kids. the embrace o' fascism decreased in the US post ww2 'cause it were inextricably linked with nazi germany, death camps and hitler. find ten people you know who can define fascism w/o using an internet search engine. 'cause fascism is admitted so difficult to nail down, we tend to use real world nazi germany and mussolini's italy as exemplars w/o having a clear notion at to what is fascism. eugenics, a cornerstone o' the nazi brand o' fascism, were an american export to europe and the 1924 immigration act, designed to keep out undesirables such as italians and eastern european jews, were an inspiration for euro fascists. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/walter-winchell-nazi-rally-cbn5kx/15892/ not shocking, ww2 resulted in a bit o' bad press for would be fascists in the US and any kinda authoritarianism were, for a time, rightful vilified by the majority o' americans. yeah, american fascists existed before there were a word for fascism, and ww2 didn't end the existence o' such, but the defeat o' authoritarian regimes reflexive identified as fascist sure resulted in a chilling effect on fascist recruitment here in the states... for a time. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/viktor-orban-american-conservatism-admiration/671205/ see, the thing is, just as kp's history is wonky, most americans don't know what is fascism, or communism or even socialism. is a fail o' education which is gonna require decades to fix. fascism is bad, every american knows that. so if Bob is an avid fox viewer and tucker carlson is telling him 'bout the benefits o' testicle tanning, the righteousness o' a war on wokeism and how fantasmagorical is orban's hungary, then maybe Bob is less able to recognize the warning signs o' fascism, yes? as is so often the case, the solution starts with education. 'course the hard right conservatives is the folks fighting tooth and nail in local school boards across the country to change how kids is being taught. unlike most western nations, local level politics is far more relevant when it comes to education, which is why southerner history textbooks will baffle a minnesota or illinois reader. HA! Good Fun!

film not a lotta down sides to Cal, but am sad to share that berkeley is not all that safe so am highly recommending on-campus housing. murder is low in berkeley, but violent crime in general is disturbing high and over the decades female students in particular has been disproportionate targeted w/o real efforts by UC or local police to fix the problems. am suspecting a considerable number o' assaults o' female students has gone unreported. am not trying to scare you unnecessarily, but am admitting we would personal be concerned to send a daughter to berkeley. while it should be obvious, avoid being alone at night is probable the best advice we may offer. on the positive side, even back in the 80s/90s, the Cal student body were extreme open-minded 'bout lgbt. HA! Good Fun!

we got an understandable bias in favor o' Cal, but if we had a crumb snatcher who were thinking o' attending a nor cal school, and they couldn't manage stanford, we would likely do what we could to subtle encourage consideration o' uc santa cruz. might still be a bridge too far, but acceptance is not quite as challenging as is berkeley. HA! Good Fun! ps am not poor, but am nevertheless shocked whenever we look at housing and tuition costs for US college students. UC is extreme cheap compared to similar quality alternatives, but is nevertheless distressing expensive and even back in the mid-late 80s we wouldn't have been able to pay as an out-o-state student w/o the benefit o' scholarships. two years o' jc could result in a major cost savings? after two years o' lower division nonsense, you are also far more likely to know what your major is gonna be.

it's disappointing how those kinda costs tend to come in painful groupings. our intent were to sell one our remaining properties in early may, but our tenant refused to leave and by late august it no longer made sense to sell. we became resolved to the probability that it is now a minimum 2-3 years before is again a right time to sell. so all those major items we has been holding off on replacing/repairing 'cause we were planning on the 2022 sale is almost certain gonna need being addressed before we do sell. why paint the house or replace hvac if you are selling, eh? we did dodge a bullet with ducts. had multiple contractors tell us +$5000 would be our cost to address a major duct issue... and then when we had our reliable guy finally take a look, he patched one section o' ductwork and our total cost were less than $100... though we gave the tech $100 'cause he effective saved us thousands. one o' our two remaining tenants is a licensed plumber who also does hvac, so that is nice as he is doing upgrades at-cost. the other tenants is a couple o' kids who had credit issues, but we wanted to give 'em a chance to repair their finances, but we discovered after they moved in that they is lacking any kinda common-sense and they believe the best way to deal with problems is avoidance. HA! Good Fun!

y'know, an easily overlooked aspect regarding the murder and devouring o' mr. kevin bacon in 2019 is that we have no recollection o' the headline from that time. is not as if we go looking for such stories, but is weird we didn't hear anything when the events was a bit more contemporaneous with what we would imagine were initial reporting. HA! Good Fun!

personal, am baffled by the point o' metacritic for pro reviewers o' media. the only value am having ever derived from critics is discovering one or two such individuals who appear to be simpatico with Gromnir's notions o' good and/or entertaining. warning: sweary once we discover personal useful critics, we read their reviews if am ambivalent 'bout a show or movie we has yet to see. otherwise... useless. meta? am not getting the value. HA! Good Fun!

‘A Pig Like You Can Never Have Remorse’: Michigan Man Sentenced to Life in Prison for Murdering Grindr Date and Eating His Testicles on Christmas Eve Shiawassee County Circuit Judge Matthew J. Stewart on Thursday ordered Mark David Latunski to serve a sentence of life in prison without the possibility for parole for the slaying and dismemberment of Kevin Bacon, who was killed just before Christmas in 2019, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show. grisly and unnecessary details, but 'tis the season, so... ... bench trial took two days.

Senators draft bipartisan framework to legalize DACA recipients and extend Trump-era border policy (dec. 5) fast-forward to dec. 14 were predictable as the gop didn't wanna give democrats any kinda win on immigration. even so, is too bad even common sense immigration legislation is doomed 'cause o' politics. HA! Good Fun! ps a few democrats were also opposed to the legislation 'cause it would maintain, for at least a year, a few o' the less humane enforcement provisions adopted during the trump administration when dealing with those who cross the border between designated ports o' entry. 'course this were a year-end and last-ditch effort at compromise and seeing as how with the gop taking the house gavel in january, is tough to imagine a better deal anytime soon. regardless, were another shot at amnesty for dreamers wasted 'cause o' stoopid politics.

*sigh* again, even your own source says season 2 were less popular. freaking groundhog day. HA! Good Fun!

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/the_witcher/s02 hardly a definitive source, but a better starting point than personal recollections and feels. personal we weren't a fan o' the source material or the show. am embarrassed to admit the source material is something we woulda' enjoyed... when we were fifteen. kinda cringey. the show (at least early episodes o' season one) were an emo version o' kevin sorbo's hercules tv show from the 90's. even the production values for witcher remined us o' 90s hercules. we were not hoping for more witcher. as to cavill's superman, we had issues with the DC movies, but we thought cavill's performance were not a problem. HA! Good Fun!

am gonna suggest an alternative. in battleship you were typical competing with another player w/o being able to see their moves, which were as often as not the common lan dynamic. is also far more likely, given our guestimates o' shady approximate age that he at least once played battleship. additional, you could play battleship w/o pizza. lan and pnp role-play almost always involved pizza. original table-top wargaming actual discouraged pizza as it involved extreme valuable maps and/or models as well as precise ruler measurements which didn't necessarily mesh well with greasy fingered nerdlings. HA! Good Fun!

... to show how far down the nerd hole we has fallen, the first thing which came to mind when we saw "extracorporeal shockwave therapy" were the following: link and based on your description o' the recovery from therapy, am thinking our imagined expectations did not have us too far removed from the reality. your "good practitioner"? HA! Good Fun!

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for those faced with same/similar obstacle as @Gorth Cyndi Lauper Performs as President Biden Signs Respect for Marriage Act Into Law: ‘We Can Rest Easy’ When President Biden signed the act into law on the White House lawn, Lauper delivered a special performance of “True Colors” for the occasion. Sam Smith also attended for a performance of “Stay With Me.” Lauper has been a notable LGBTQ+ rights advocate for much of her career, having also founded the nonprofit organization True Colors Fund in 2008 to expand education on LGBTQ+ issues and help to end homelessness for LGBTQ+ youth. “Now we’re allowed to love who we love — which sounds odd to say — but Americans can now love who we love,” Lauper added at the White House. “Bless Joe Biden, and all the people that worked on this, for allowing people not to worry and their children not to worry about their future.” ... HA! Good Fun!

possible the best argument so far for support o' the marriage equality bill: do you wanna be on the side fighting against cyndi lauper? HA! Good Fun!

for us it were x-wing v. tie-fighter. HA! Good Fun!

“A fully autonomous Heron flying the entire airplane (system) is still quite a ways off,” he said, adding the goal is to see “if this is even feasible right now.” so, the answer to the initial query regarding the capacity to implement the requisite ai capability into a 2022 fighter is, "no." am unsurprised, but am curious what is a reasonable timeline for "quite a ways off"? given the unanticipated manner in which tech advances, is quite possible that by the time the current obstacles is overcome, the solution is rendered moot by some other new tech. is equal possible advances on the combat fighter aircraft ai end up producing more meaningful results otherwise unrelated to the original design goals. regardless, am a staunch advocate o' support for daarpa, jason, nasa and similar in spite o' recent administrations, democrat and republican, seeming dedicated to gutting such whenever possible. HA! Good Fun!

am wondering if the frankenstein/skynet fears is slowing a transition to fully unmanned combat vehicles, not to mention the fact that such complex ai is likely still scifi fodder as 'posed to reality. 'tween active and passive jamming capabilities, which will no doubt only improve, am thinking ai is the obvious solution to a remote piloted vehicle being predictable rendered somewhere 'tween handicapped and impotent. is tough enough to maintain signal at even limited distances during bad weather, but add contested battlespace conditions and am not certain remote piloting is a real solution as o' today. so, is it possible to install sufficient ai capacity into a 2022 fighter craft airframe? f-22 capacity is so not the same as a predator drone. how smart does an unmanned combat vehicle need be? a modern uav may be programmed to take specified actions when signal is lost to prevent the loss o' the aircraft, but real combat is gonna be complex, yes? no doubt is more than a few nato generals and admirals who don't feel comfortable with anything more complex than siri and alexa driving a 40 million dollar aircraft, but am thinking you need something a heck o' a lot closer to skynet to get the job done. but again, am kinda talking out our arse on this as am having zero expertise to draw 'pon. HA! Good Fun!

kinda a repeat, but so is almost all Gromnir posts after +20 years o' posting, eh? our favorite christmas movie, not including tv fare, is the lion in winter, but is not a fun or festive offering and am hardly so tone deaf to the spirit o' the season to include the film on a viewing itinerary meant for friends and family wishing to enjoy yuletide warm and fuzzies. the lion in winter makes denis leary's the ref appear saccharine by comparison. likewise, am not gonna include the silent partner or the french connection. if that scene don't capture the spirit o' christmas, we don't know what does. also, as much as we enjoyed the recent green knight, chances are we leave it off the viewing list this year. kiss kiss, bang bang, stalag 17, edward scissorhands, the nightmare before christmas, and white christmas is all gonna get votes from Gromnir. am a big danny kaye fan; sue us. is multiple tv offerings worth mentioning and most is so obvious we ain't gonna list 'em, but in spite o' typical bbc production values (*snort*) we would recommend seeing terry pratchett's hogfather particular as it is something those o' us in the US is unlikely to have seen unless we made special effort to do so. HA! Good Fun! ps am waiting for somebody to do the little match girl justice. obvious is gonna be a short, but while am having seen dozens o' adaptations and homages, none has ever been close to what we believe the tale deserves.

rand were mighty critical o' the kosovo air campaign, so is unlikely they deflated or purpose chose the most optimistic nato air combat loss estimates. In all, more than 800 SAMs were reported to have been fired at NATO aircraft, both manned and unmanned, over the course of the 78-day air war, including 477 SA-6s and 124 confirmed man-portable infrared missiles (see Figure 6.1 for a depiction of reported enemy SAM launches by type).19 A majority of the fixed SAMs were fired without any radar guidance. Yet despite that expenditure of assets, only two NATO aircraft, an F-117 and an F-16, were shot down by enemy fire, although another F-117 sustained light damage from a nearby SA-3 detonation and two A-10s were hit by enemy AAA fire but not downed. 20 There also were two reported cases of short-range infrared (IR)-guided missiles hitting A-10s, one of which apparently struck the bottom of the aircraft, defused itself, and bounced off harmlessly.21 At least 743 HARMs were fired by U.S. and NATO aircraft against the radars supporting these enemy SAMs (Figure 6.2 provides a detailed breakout of HARM expenditure by target type).22 Yet enough of the Serb IADS remained intact to require NATO fighters to operate above the 15,000-ft hard deck for most of the air effort. The main reason for this requirement was the persistent AAA and MANPADS threat. Although the older SA-7 could be effectively countered by flares if it was seen in time, the SA-9/13, SA-14, SA-16, and SA-18 presented a more formidable threat. In the end, as noted above, only two aircraft (both American) were brought down by enemy SAM fire, thanks to allied reliance on electronic jamming, the use of towed decoys, and countertactics to negate enemy surface-to-air defenses.23 However, NATO never fully succeeded in neutralizing the Serb IADS, and NATO aircraft operating over Serbia and Kosovo were always within the engagement envelopes of enemy SA-3 and SA-6 missiles—envelopes that extended to as high as 50,000 ft. Because of that persistent threat, mission planners were forced to place such high-value ISR platforms as the U-2 and Joint STARS in less-than-ideal orbits to keep them outside the lethal reach of enemy SAMs. Even during the operation’s final week, NATO spokesmen conceded that only three of Serbia’s approximately 25 known mobile SA-6 batteries had been confirmed destroyed.24 ... as we said, rand were critical o' the air campaign efforts. doesn't seem to be much in the way o' controversy regarding combat air losses for nato. serbians, on the other hand, lost five o' their sixteen total mig-29s in the first three days... eventual lost one more mig-29. pp 108-11. feel free to check footnotes. am not pretending expertise on this as am doing little more than reposting rand analysis and numbers from some rando fighter air craft site, but neither we do we see alternative reliable sources being provided. HA! Good Fun! ps is not a fighter aircraft, so is not gonna be included in the numbers from the initial linked source, but is easier to understand the mythology surrounding the warthog based on the following observation: "two A-10s were hit by enemy AAA fire but not downed. There also were two reported cases of short-range infrared (IR)-guided missiles hitting A-10s, one of which apparently struck the bottom of the aircraft, defused itself, and bounced off harmlessly." pps an apache helicopter were also lost in an "accident" in albania (friendly fire?) a harrier were lost at sea during training... maybe? (didn't bother to confirm these and am posting based on +20 year old recollection.) am 'membering an additional f-16 went down due to engine failure. am also suspecting numerous uav were "lost." the linked rand article mentions how the kosovo air campaign were kinda the advent o' modern uav in combat and am recalling from other articles at least a few such aircraft were described as "lost," as there were no confirmation as to cause o' disappearances, but is indeed hard to imagine zero were shot down.

*chuckle* am gonna guess you weren't a fan o' taming of the shrew? "singin'" boasts a few o' the most lauded choreographed musical numbers evar, not least o' which is the cyd charisse contributions. *shrug* as to musicals in general we will watch nightmare before christmas a couple times before january 1, and am also a fan o' a few fosse musicals (all that jazz and cabaret in particular,)as well as little shop of horrors , the blues brothers and purple rain to name a few. is a whole lotta bad musicals and even the good ones is kinda different than other cinema. am having no idea why animated musicals should be distinguished save that they typical remove the dancing element which is a shame but is an understandable limitation o' the medium. am enjoying a few musicals, but we also like a few anime films in spite o' near universal horribleness; am just that open-minded. HA! Good Fun!

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Judge to Hear Justice Dept. Contempt Request in Trump Documents Case The department wants the court to force a representative of Donald J. Trump to swear under oath that there are no more classified documents at any of his properties. the search by the "goons" hired by team trump were swell and all, but am thinking it were an attempt to avoid doing what doj is now asking: team trump swearing under oath there is no more classified docs. whatever legal assurances team trump offered following their most recent search, which unexpected revealed additional classified documents, no doubt included enough evasion and qualifiers as to render such meaningless. the national archives has for over a year attempted to retrieve missing classified documents from trump. even after the warrant search by the feds and the most recent goon search, it has been reported there remains unaccounted classified documents which were in the possession o' the office o' the President when he left office. am thinking it is unlikely team trump acquiesces voluntarily to doj's most recent demand which all but forces an indictment. as to sinema, she had all but ended her relationship with the democrats before the midterms as her absence in supporting arizona democrat candidates running in 2022 were called out multiple times. am already tired o' hearing how sinema voted with biden 90% o' the time. bassackwards. biden had to cave to sinema on every major piece o' legislation and no doubt had to make promises to get a few appointees through the senate process. sinema is current loathed by democrats, but if warnock had lost, she woulda' been in a prime position to once again demand concessions for her support o' every Presidential appointee though is hard to imagine much democrat legislation being passed the next couple years. regardless, from a transactional pov, remaining democrat made sense if warnock lost. didn't happen. sinema does not wanna lose her committee appointments, so am suspecting she remains meek and plays nice with the democrats, right up until a transactional assessment makes it clear that sabotaging democrat efforts is to her advantage. am suspecting nobody in Congress is gonna sudden forget the fact sinema is a freaking pit viper. have mentioned this previous, but arizona is almost unique in the US as near 1/3 o' arizona voters identify as independent and sinema is up for reelection in 2024. democrat and republican were no longer options for the senator from arizona, so independent is the only remaining alternative. am able to explain why sinema dumped democrats, particularly following warnock's victory, but am nevertheless surprised by the switch. HA! Good Fun!

is why we posted the link. you, and likely near everybody you interact with on a regular basis will agree with you the comments from fax nation is embarrassing, but fox is obvious not embarrassed. the comments section is a feature and it sells fox. more americans watch fox than any other news, and most o' the comment posts you roll your eyes at is the subtext to the fox stories which is attracting fox viewers. we made the same mistake. we laughed at sarah palin when she started the whole fake news crappola in the tea party days. we laughed at trump in 2015 and at his handful o' angry troglodytes followers who saw the national enquirer quality insanity being peddled by far right nut jobs and thought it were the TRUTH the over-educated, deep-state liberal elites had been hiding from them in an effort to keep 'em down. we saw as funny 'cause self-deluded people were embarrassing themselves w/o realizing they were embarrassing. we don't have ez answers, but am convinced is a major problem if they think azdeus is a brain-washed socialist puppet blind to the truth and azdeus dismisses them as embarrassing fools. keep in mind how many o' us laughed at trump stoopid, but he successful won Presidency, engaged in unconstitutional behavior on a weekly basis, came far closer to overturning the results o' an election than many suspect, successful inspired an attack on the US Capitol and managed to escape two impeachments w/o a senate conviction. enough democrats nowadays see trump as a genuine threat in spite o' his laughable antics and they will crawl across broken glass to prevent his reelection, but guys like pence and desantis is promoting many o' the same trumpy grievances-- immigrants threaten your livelihood and lgbt/woke liberals threaten your way of life. keep in mind, with the exception o' herschel walker, republicans swept georgia during the midterms. the people voting for brian kemp is the same people posting in those fox news comments sections. am thinking what the fox fans is posting is less significant than why they post and why at fox. HA! Good Fun!