Gromnir

thought the same thing when we first saw the galadriel temptation scene from lord of the rings. after thor: ragnarok and pinocchio, am accepting ms. blanchett takes herself less serious than does most o' her fans. ms. blanchett does the vo for spazzatura. HA! Good Fun!

the room were specific mentioned in the ed wood discussion we referenced in our previous post. in the pantheon o' so bad it's entertaining, the room is skyfather rank. people know the room. neil breen? in our experience, not so much... and am ok with that. HA! Good Fun!

in the past ten years, other than this board, we have heard neil breen mentioned in conversation exactly once; were a weird tangent from a comment about burton's ed wood. three o' the five people at the table didn't even get the neil breen reference. regardless, we suffer the same guilt from watching breen be breen as we do when we rubberneck when passing an accident on the highway. am self honest enough to admit am only looking to see the bloodshed... metaphorical in the case o' breen. the guy is a walking, talking, breathing cry for help, but in response we chortle and guffaw... or at least roll our eyes. watching breen only for the voyeuristic car crash quality makes us feel bad 'bout our self... if only a little. HA! Good Fun!

funny(ish), a couple days ago we also made short ribs--english, not flanken. we were dry aging a half dozen glorious hunks o' meat in the fridge. the thing is, we had a guest who saw the meat in our chill box and asked if we were gonna make the same short ribs meal we made for her on a previous visit. took us a half second to recollect which recipe she meant. dr. pepper braised short ribs. don't get us wrong, while am less a fan o' meat in sweat sauce, we enjoy the dr. pepper braised short ribs... but these were sooper fantastic short ribs dry aging for extra meat intensity which would kinda go unnoticed with a dr. pepper braise. we made the dr. pepper braised short ribs anyways, 'cause am having difficulty saying no to a guest about something relative trivial. ... got halfway through making the short ribs and it sudden occurred to us we didn't need use all six short ribs for the dr. pepper braise. coulda' used just one or two and made in our smallish dutch oven. we literal had never made less than four short ribs for the braise, so it just didn't occur to us to y'know, reduce the recipe amounts since we were cooking for only two people. idiot. HA! Good Fun!

camaraderie is busted. as we noted in a previous post, you always got credit for being next to at least one ally, and according to patch notes it seems the talent holder was counting themselves as an ally. now? am not sure how to explain the numbers post patch, but we sure ain't getting the described bonuses. edit: *eye roll* the error for camaraderie looks rather straightforward-- 'stead o' adding +1 for self as was the case pre patch, now the camaraderie math is shorting you by one. four adjacent allies counts as three. one adjacent ally counts as zero. HA! Good Fun!

Alabama Court Says IVF Embryos Are “Extrauterine Children” — And People Under The Law not paywall link at huffpost

late 80s Gromnir wished we had a suit that looked that good. HA! Good Fun!

new patch officer got nerfed bigley. most notable-- Bring It Down! can no longer be applied to the same ally more than once per round; Officers no longer generate Momentum multiple times a turn by giving bonus turns to their allies; edit: possible the most significant officer nerf is the finest hour iv change-- all non-attack powhaz o' the character targeted by finest hour now cost one less ap. previous, each kill resulted in a refund o' one ap and one mp (capped by the officer's fel bonus.) ... am so back to the drawing board on a few o' our builds. on the up side, lasting impression works after being patched and revel in slaughter provides described stacking bonuses. is an area of effect damage adjustment based on intelligence, but soldiers can take a talent which allows 'em to replace intelligence with their demolitions score for the aoe damage. luckily our melta guy went with demolitions, but... HA! Good Fun!

we spent almost a whole year in barcelona, so france were an easy side trip. we made it to marseille at least a half dozen times and we even did a touristy stop in paris. we enjoyed france and am certain we woulda' liked it a whole lot more if it weren't for all the french people living there. HA! Good Fun!

update: we watched the linked pbs documentary from our most recent post in this thread. better than fair. well researched. likely surprising to few, am more interested in the economic and legal aspects o' peonage and chattel slavery than the human angle (our subversive crt training showing through?) but in spite o' the lack o' a law focus, the documentary were an informative historical work. didn't feel like an hour and a half neither-- kept our attention throughout. almost no complaints. was worth viewing. HA! Good Fun!

we spent time in russia and other soviet bloc nations just a couple years before the wall came down. we don't claim to know hearts and minds o' the russians in the late 80s-- russians we met were friendly but they were simultaneous reserved about anything other than surface interactions. pretend we know how russians in general felt about the ussr or what any individual genuine felt would be disingenuous. even so, we didn't feel any animosity from russians about americans or even america at that time, and... am knowing this is gonna offend a few, but our trip to russia changed our pov a great deal 'cause it were different than we expected. no, people weren't freezing or starving like would be the case for too many a few years after the soviet union dissolved, but the russian people had so little and they were so envious o' what we had... and Gromnir were poor by american standards. store shelves were mostly empty and rare were anything other than the most basic staples were available. also, it felt as if all o' russia had been transported three or more decades into the past 'cause access of regular people to basic modern technology were so limited. and again, we didn't get any sense o' animosity from the real people o' soviet nations during our visits. russians wanted to talk to us 'cause we were american, not just out of curiosity but 'cause they knew they were doing something dangerous... but just a small danger. were crazy black market kinda offerings we received for trivial items. am betting (conjecture) the main reason russians approached us to make such trades were not 'cause they wanted our nick-nacks, but 'cause they wanted to do something dangerous and illegal. in the smallest o' ways, they were standing up to the government by trading with us and perhaps saying something inappropriate. ... we did get a battle flag from a soviet warship in trade for our backup walkman. we thought that were kinda ballsy o' the sailor we met, but perhaps it weren't. we liked russians. we felt compassion for their plight. 'course we weren't any less terrified o' nuclear apocalypse after leaving russia. in fact we were a smidge more afraid 'cause we could see just how close the ussr were to desperate measures. trying to maintain military parity with the west were impoverishing so many for so little. am getting how soviet era russians and eastern europeans might find it impossible to forget how bad their lives became after they lost the cold war. unlike after ww2, western nations didn't make an effort to rebuild russia as they did with germany and japan, although the situation were considerable different as russia weren't sacrificing their sovereignty after losing the cold war. 'cause the russian country side and cities hadn't been devastated, rebuilding weren't an easy sell in the west, but such myopia ignored just what a shambles were the russian economy-- different sorta annihilation. too many watched as western corporations and russian criminals destroyed what little were left o' the russina economy. as such am recognizing how russians never wanna go through the post cold war collapse again, but am similar not understanding why so many would see ye goode olde days o' the ussr as a positive alternative. HA! Good Fun! ps am having mentioned more than once on these boards, but the item we were asked to trade most frequent while in the ussr was condoms. were initial shocking to have people rando approach us asking for a condom trade. we coulda' lived like a king in russia for a year if we had a box o' condoms. take what you will from that reality.

another irony immune poster? y'know, just 'cause you says "sarex," doesn't mean people can't see what post you were responding to. *chuckle* self owning as a habit. and somebody still hasn't learned anything 'bout reflexive whataboutism and deflection... 'cause relevance or somesuch. regardless, hurl literally quoted hoon's general west is bad post and then offered any equal generalized response, so the fact you don't think hoon posts should ever be taken serious is irrelevant-- hurl did indeed respond serious. you and sarex were quite capable o' seeing who hurl were responding to btw. btw, hoon, as is his/her habit, did a drive-by post meant to elicit a response, so is hardly a shock somebody responded. also, it borders on willful obtuse not to have gleaned hoon's political leanings after so many years. his/her "jokes" clear skew in a very predictable direction. speaking from experience, is possible to provoke, joke and promote a particular perspective all in the same brief post, so again, you gotta be kinda obdurate to just dismiss all hoon posts as meaningless especial in the present context as you could see hurl's quote o' hoon. honest, what is with the gaslighting? regardless, hoon probable is laughing as nobody is talking 'bout navalny or the wrongs which led to his poisoning, imprisonment and death. am expecting hoon wanted a reflexive west is bad tangent and he got it and then some. even so, am gonna be satisfied if even one person is now more cautious in following the usual suspects on their whataboutism and deflection wild goose chases. HA! Good Fun!

gaslighting. hurl responded with an extreme generalization to hoon's wacky western media take. then you brought up trump... and the kennedy conspiracy. let's keep honest. but again, you missed the point. sure we criticize the moon hoaxers and their weird whataboutism, but we were also cautioning folks such as hurl who don't even notice anymore how wacky were hoon's initial take. am not sure what is hoon's motivation, but he clear wanted the discussion to shift from navalny to the evhul west. all hurl had to do is respond to hoon and then of course all the usual suspects jump in with their deflection, whataboutism and conspiracy theories-- it's an oft repeated pattern. what is terrible is that the pattern is so commonplace most people don't even notice. also, you are kinda stretching on the mental health angle. claim a statement or position is crazy is hardly an accusation o' mental disease. but here we are, not discussing navalny... oh, and am s'posing you missed the irony, so... am personal more open-minded. we see nothing wrong with sarex discussing the weaponized doj or whatever is his current kink, but trying to inject such stuff into the navalny topic were ludicrous... and the norm. HA! Good Fun!

aside, after the police disbanded, sting managed to keep himself surrounded with superlative worthy drummers. . gotta give gordon credit 'cause pretty much every sting solo project were in fact supergroups o' mega talent. got vinnie colaiutatu, dominic miller, and david sancious on ten summoners is impressive... most impressive. nothing like the sun is leaning heavy into jazz, so sting manages to land gil evans, manu katché and branford marsalis? every sting album, even the not so greats, seems to have included the best possible talent. HA! Good Fun!

epstein death were hardly "glossed over." were front page news. were investigated. and recall we got a deep divided government hereabouts, so those murky and unspecific powerful forces wanting to coverup something terrible is gonna be counter-balanced by those who will want to exploit the situation. and as we mentioned previous, the silliness on focusing on epstein death as some kinda mosad or cia action (HA!) ignores the actual manner in which powerful people in this country use the system. epstein's predations were an open secret to many powerful people and apparently at least a couple prosecutors knew as well, but precisce 'cause epstein were influential, he were able to avoid any meaningful legal repercussions for decades. 'course discussion o' epstein as somehow relevant to navalny being poisoned, imprisoned and possible killed is just more deflection... 'cause. moon hoaxers. *snort* but serious, the next time some underrepresented group in the US or the uk suffers violence and the wrong is either the fault o' government or the government once again fails to address the problem, see how people react. in response will anybody bring up the bosnian genocide, chinese treatment o' the uyghurs or russian functional making it illegal to be lgbqt in an effort to diminish the perceived wrong o' a western power? how likely is it that a board american patriot scoffs at the chinese and russian state media predictable and insufferable response to underrepresented injustice in the west following the most recent tragedy. sounds crazy no? it is crazy, but since it happens all the time, you don't even notice anymore. however, am gonna concede conspiracy theory indulgence would be pointless as an effort at deflection or in efforts to reciprocal whatabout 'cause is no need to go to the conspiracy well to find unquestioned but irrelevant bad acts and villainy by russian, chinese, syrian, north korea, etc. is no shortage o' real examples as 'posed to feverdream nonsense. regardless, am thinking the whataboutists, deflectors and conspiracy wonks should be called to account for their silly and ridiculous reflexive responses. go along and discuss their pet conspiracy theory or teh rehul evhul that is western media is not gonna help them overcome their issue unless you make 'em face their whatabouting sickness. be part o' the solution and not the problem. help these folks find a better way. HA! Good Fun!

what can you do, right? the history o' russia, china, north korea, syria and (fill in the blank with whichever nation you believe deserves to be in such illustrious company) is so inexorable enmeshed in corruption and blood, there just ain't a real solution. 'course you could say same for most any nation if you stretch the timeline back far enough, yes? england? france? sweden? any of 'em get off clean if we go back six hundred years? don't need to go back very far with germany, italy and japan, do we? as such, am not sure if shrugging the whole thing off as russians being russians is a compelling counter argument. the situation in russia is never gonna change if the people in russia in particular keep shrugging off change as impossible. being poisoned, imprisoned on trumped up embezzlement charges and possible murdered is okie dokie 'cause is russia and 'cause gorth has decided navalny were one o' the bad russians. if am misrepresenting, please clarify, 'cause anarchist or not, you gotta recognize what a precarious moral precipice 'pon which you are standing when you make such distinctions. and as much as we agree navalny's bigotry were rare mentioned by western leaders, you should see such is irrelevant insofar as deciding whether or not being poisoned, imprisoned and possible murdered were justified. clarification: as an anarchist, gorth don't trust the russian government, but the russian peoples, for the most part, like putin and all those things you dislike about navalny don't bother most russians-- is the reason navalny went to prison for embezzlement and not one o' the sins you mention. can't trust the russians and their six hundred year traditions? ok, now what? does gorth get to decide which russians is bad and deserve punishment. obviously as an anarchist there ain't gonna be a government solution. maybe gorth just don't care. as long as the bad guys he identifies suffer, then call it a win? am s'posing that works just as long as everybody everywhere agrees to adopt gorth's moral compass. am not gonna hold our breath waiting for that day. let's use a western example and since a poster improbable brought up trump. Gromnir is on record as being dubious 'bout the ny hush money case against trump. from as yet uncontroverted evidence, it would appear trump engaged in illegal behaviour multiple times as he paid stormy daniels but did not disclose those payments appropriate on his taxes or campaign contribution records. however, ny is trying to bring a case against trump for felony counts based on a rather novel bootstrapping approach; the individual charges against trump in ny is all misdemeanors. also, ordinary the fed would handle such a case given trump were running for national office, but they declined to do so reported 'cause they had no confidence that their primary witness, michael cohen, would benefit their case. of all the cases against trump, the ny hush money case looks weakest to us and am questioning its legitimacy. much like the mar-a-lago case, am thinking some o' the tv lawyering is giving the public false impressions... though in the mar-a-lago situation the media were underselling the threat to tump as 'posed to oversell. trump has done all kinda wrongs. his knowing misrepresentations 'bout covid led to hundreds o' thousands o' unnecessary deaths, and those numbers is from folks chosen by trump to serve on his covid advisory team... and am not even talking 'bout fauci. we would be here all day listing the unconstitutional and moral wrongs committed by trump which should make anybody who has ever uttered tds sans irony look like a complete yutz. trump deserves prison, but he ain't going to prison unless it can be proven to a jury o' his peers, and beyond a reasonable doubt, that he committed crimes. is our opinion that even if ny can prove their hush money case against trump, it ain't a case which shoulda' been brought. that said, there is plenty o' other folks with more legal cred than Gromnir who disagree with us and am happy to argue the merits o' prosecuting trump in ny for his porn star payoff. now suppose one o' the obsidian board liberals, bothered by our opinion on trump's ny case, starts pointing out how things work in russia and china. Gromnir complains 'bout the US media, but boardies ask us to imagine how chinese news papers would cover if somebody xi didn't like were being prosecuted. and btw, there is a whole lotta evidence trump is a russian stooge, so that makes all the russia whatbouting relevant somehow. were literal more than a dozen russian state-sponsored hackers who were convicted o' helping trump and the mueller report found considerable evidence o' collusion by the trump campaign insofar as russia in spite o' what bill barr convinced the maga faithful. is not difficult to find soundbites o' trump which make him look like a russian stooge. in russia, trump would be lucky to have any kinda sham trial, so our handwringing about the ny ag finessing the law a bit is so qq. etc. insofar as the hush money case is concerned, chinese newspaper coverage, the russian system o' justice, and trump being responsible for more than 100k covid dead is irrelevant. if trump goes to prison for the hush money case, Gromnir is gonna question whether such were a fair outcome. sounds ridiculous when you do same deflection and whatabouting, yes? heck, we didn't even work in the conspiracy theories. whatabouting and deflection from the usual suspects hereabout is so reflexive, most o' us don't even consider how silly such is. aside-- the mar-a-lago case remains the obvious no-brainer/dead-to-rights case trump is facing, but the judge in that case is utter incompetent and is dragging her feet at almost every opportunity. am literal unable to imagine a meaningful defense for trump in that case assuming the state proffered evidence is legit. contrary to conspiracy theorists, is improbable the feds engineered false recordings and made up testimony in their indictment if for no other reason than that such lies would be revealed easily during discovery. is near impossible for trump to claim evidence were planted after he called for a special master to return his seized property. a couple of trump's own attorneys has given testimony which incriminates the former President. there is audio recordings o' trump talking about documents he claimed in an affidavit were not in his possession. is also video tape o' his cronies moving boxes filled contemporaneous with the lawyer and fbi searches. is also the IT guy's testimony. etc. in any normal situation, the defendant in such a case woulda' tried for a plea deal, but if trump can win the election, the prosecution disappears... HA! Good Fun! ps a fun fact am having mentioned once before is that when the US Constitution were penned, felonies were, by definition, those crimes punishable by death. high crimes and misdemeanors were a bit less baffling in 1787. felony v. misdemeanor has changed a smidge over the years. even so, am thinking many people is shocked to learn that in the US, misdemeanor ≠ trivial. max time o' imprisonment for a misdemeanor in most US jurisdictions is one year.

as we observed, navalny were no hero in our estimation. the thing is, he weren't in prison for any o' the stuff you mention. we disliked navalny but that don't make what happened to him ok, does it? is it ok to ignore stuff like fair trials when the person being locked up is a bad person? who decides who is bad enough such that a government may poison or imprison a person? and again, the wrongs @Gorth perceives is so not why putin were annoyed with navalny... and the bigotry and nationalism o' navalny sure didn't make him less popular with a considerable number o' russians neither. not shedding tears for navalny is one thing. seeing the imprisonment, poisoning and/or murder o' individuals as ok regardless o' stuff such as rights and fair trials just because the target o' government vengeance were a bad guy is dangerous. regardless, beware the whataboutism, deflection, conspiracy theories and false equivalency. is farcical and predictable how the death o' yet another putin critic is somehow reallys about western evhuls. HA! Good Fun!

so, let us get this straight. navalny dies in a russian prison, and next thing you know, the predictable board personalities is discussing the evhuls o' western media, snowden, and the assassination o' kennedy? *chuckle* deflection, false equivalency, whataboutism and conspiracy theories? for reals? you folks are a hoot. we didn't particular like navalny, 'cause other than being against putin, he had few positions we could stomach-- his ideology were embracing nationalism and racism beyond even the russian norm. understatement to say we didn't embrace navalny as some kinda hero. 'course, to say we didn't like him much is different than wanting him to die in a russian prison. tell us navalny improbable fell out o' a prison window to his death would not shock us... or probable anybody else, but y'know, whatabout... regardless, navalny's death as the impetus for seth rich kinda conspiracies and reflexive whatabouting so matches our expectations. wilie e. coyote at least mixes up his efforts... tries something different each time. HA! Good Fun!

admitted is not the first time am having shared, but our favorite atomic apocalypse song by a significant amount is... complete lack o' irony makes the song even better. ... is tragic this tune never made it into a fallout game. sting's russians is high on our apocalypse list but it were a bit too modern for fallout. vera lynn's we'll meet again is an honorable mention but only 'cause its prominent placement in dr. strangelove. HA! Good Fun! ps am recalling @Gorth is a fan o' deserves a nod. is stunning just how close we came to annihilating ourselves during the cold war. weren't war game's computers-gone-amok or dr. strangelove scenarios but human error which were the most common cause o' almost annihilation. balloons. geese. the freaking moon?

is not even tic-tac-toe. trump just says what he thinks his base wants to hear, and sometimes he says stuff 'cause he assumes his base wants to hear same as himself. the thing is, even when trump goes too far even for his base, they will make excuses... says he is joking or that unlike a politician, trump talks like a real person. back in summer 2020 multiple obsidian boardies laughed off trump suggestions he would contest the election if it didn't go his way... and it weren't just trumpers or conservatives trying to suggest trump weren't being serious or somesuch. one poster suggested the media were to blame for fear mongering by giving credence to trump claims... that didn't age well, did it? another poster laughed off the potential threat 'cause even trump had to know he couldn't get away with refusing to leave office. ... at the time we marveled how after three years o' trump, people continued to pretend as if impossible or abject stoopid were obstacles to trump doing. we even predicted the eventual legal mechanism which would be exploited by team trump. jan 6. build the wall. send fed troops to portland. muslim ban. etc. not just one-offs. nevertheless, here we are in 2024 and people continue to pretend as if impossibility and too-stoopid-to-be-real is meaningful hurdles for trump. only the Courts and Congress may limit trump 'cause the trump base is all-in and the rest o' the gop believes it needs the trump base. Court integrity has sadly been hit and miss but they has refused to embrace the most extreme trump efforts such as trying to steal the election (so far) and his attempted muslim ban. on the other hand, Congress is so divided and partisan that unless democrats managed 2/3 in the senate, am not certain trump could be convicted o' any crime or wrong no matter how vile. am no longer genuine surprised that so many liberals shrug at trump excesses. just another social media post, speech, sound bite, declaration o' unconstitutional, etc. ho-hum. am no longer surprised when s'posed conservatives make improbable excuses for trump ... US tribalism to a degree we never woulda' predicted during peacetime. HA! Good Fun! ps worth reading the following 'cause in spite o' fact we noted earlier that the recent special counsel report found there were not enough evidence to prove willful retention by biden insofar as documents, we keep seeing media sources reporting much different. https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1756725689724620921

you had us at "steak." HA! Good Fun!

through the looking glass. s'posed a bastion o' conservative american news, this story is not a headline at the main fox news site. try and imagine imagine if obama had said the same thing. what would fox news look and sound like the day after such a story broke? 2024 tucker carlson fans don't get @Gorth surprise. in fact, before 2018, tell us a significant % o' republicans would shrug off the nato comments you quote coming from the likely gop candidate for President and we would think you were chemical impaired. HA! Good Fun!

is not funny, but we couldn't help but imagine a december 1944 german tank crew viewing your clip. not just an egg, but at least three eggs being supplied to troops in the desert. pride? despair? numb indifference? am not knowing, but our typical perverse turn o' mind made us wonder. HA! Good Fun!

am having brought this up previous, but we did learn an additional fact recent so am reposting https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/ Thirteenth Amendment Section 1 Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 2 Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. in 1867, recognizing the injustice that idiots and the unlucky, through the graft o' sinister individuals could be convinced to sell their freedom, Congress abolished debt peonage. however, please note the thirteenth amendment allows slavery if it is resulting as a criminal punishment. after the civil war, the US maintained a rather robust system o' debt peonage that were legal not in spite o' the fact it were slavery but rather because it were slavery. serious. more than seven decades after the 13th amendment is ratified, when the US entered ww2, fdr realized that his moral high ground as a justification for fighting the evhul fascists was in jeopardy. sure, the japanese and germans were doing unspeakable, but the fact the US maintained chattel slavery was gonna be problematic. so, december 1941, the fed government finally gets around to making US slavery illegal... am thinking it were december 12, but we didn't double-check. juneteenth celebrates the recognition o' the end o' slavery in texas, but the last chattel slave in texas were freed in late september o' 1942... and the last known US chattel slave (again, am talking about people who were made slaves through legit & legal process, so am not referencing modern slave trade stuff. is also not about illegal chattel slavery conducted by sheriffs in a couple US counties as late as the mid 1980s) didn't gain freedom until 1963. am posting 'cause we always thought it were guy who were released in texas in 1942 who were the last chattel slave freed in the US. aside, am never having seen the laurence fishburne narrated pbs miniseries am linking. kinda discovered rando when we were looking for a link for slavery v. debt peonage. don't know how we missed. https://www.pbs.org/video/slavery-another-name-slavery-video/ HA! Good Fun!

"this is a video about how vegetarians ruined sex for everybody." more than an hour, but the history o' american vegetarians is a bit more weird and complex than we were aware. HA! Good Fun!