Victory Dance!
I will be playing Genshin Impact tonight, (7:30pm EST / 12:30am UTC). After flexing a bit about finishing Phantom Brave and all the Total Overwhelming Victories achieved in Genshin on Friday, I'll be trying to make sense of all of these crazy people we met in Liyue on Friday who claim to have known us for years. Also: The RNG provided a Chibi Gremlin and her Radish Rabbit, so I will be running them through their paces. Come and marvel at this intersection of "Kawaii" and "Kowai"!
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One hearsay is that if one was listening to Tucker not that frequently, it could become obvious that Tucker simply went mad at some point.
I've joked that his FBI handlers are just that desperate to discredit the releases of the congressional videos.
The thing about commenting on politics, or commenting on commenting? Recent times have been hard on everyone's mental health, and trying to stay in the business seems to have been especially maddening.
Okay, so I have been trolling/commenting on political blogs for maybe as much as fifteen years (According To Hoyt under another handle), or perhaps even twenty or so. But, it was not income, so I could quit for a while if the situation got too confusing. I have absolutely needed those breaks.
Maybe I was never /that/ sane, but I definitely have had some worse periods, where I actually later appreciated the opportunity I took to be silent.
Honest, true, sane, and will not get the speaker punished. Achieving one does not automatically achieve others.
I can be honest and also closely approximating true.
I can be honest and also closely approximating sane.
I am not trying to run a viable business of pushing out words.
David French is, and seems to have picked dishonesty.
I don't really know anything about Tucker Carlson. I tend to think that the search for a human to champion right, when no one closer is championing right, is a weakness of personal philosophy, and personal conviction. IE, instead of pretending that bad people are good, if alone in the world, remain resolute that the world can go frustrate themselves.
Putin is basically similar to HRC.
I'm not sure if the Putin fanboys I have seen online are mostly paid Russian assets, or go along to get along American nominal Christians in the visible Christian church, who were never really brought into the true Christian church by the Holy Spirit. It is fundamentally absurd to suppose Putin as a champion of Christendom. Whatever the merits of Orthodoxy, Putin has tried to lead Muslims against Christians.
For me, the big moral qualm is funding for defense programs.
I like funding for defense programs.
There's the pragmatic trade off that letting the Democrats steal a lot, and take credit for good things done by others, is undermining the long term political support for defense programs.
If a Biden can be allowed fraudulently into office, no future defense spending questions can remain entirely isolated from the question of the returns from that spending being destroyed by a further future Biden cognate. I can like Ukraine a lot, like fighting the Russians, like lots of the spending for Ukraine, and still understand that fighting the Ukraine funding in congress now makes confidence available for longer term defense spending in the future.
(Expecting anything from congress now except theater is short term ism. I know the service community is committed to lobbying for continued funding. It is still short termism, and not having any officers speaking on the record about this congress's basic ability to deliver anything good is prudent but maybe undermines positioning for having strategic vision.)
Posted by: PatBuckman at Mon Feb 26 11:11:39 2024 (r9O5h)
What Are We Gonna Do Tonight? THE SAME THING WE DO EVERY MONDAY NIGHT!
At 7pm EST/Midnight UTC , I'm going to be streaming FF14: No sidequests tonight. We're going to just be wailing on METEOR GIRL! (I promise to go at least an hour before I rage quit & stream something else!)
...and, TBH, we're getting a little better at this every time so this might actually result in victory!
Not Stressed Enough? Getting Too Much Sleep? Unable to Maintain a Fetal Position While Rocking in the Corner for a Day or More?
Rudyard has you covered.
Tired, But Better
Mom's out of surgery. The surgery was unrelated to her symptoms the other night, which seemed like a heart attack but turned out to be a prescription interaction.
Happy Day.
In other news, I have been visually contemplating everything I've eaten the last few days.
One of the Scarier Interviews I've Seen
Brett Weinstein, a world renowned biologist, has been looking at the migration through the Darian Gap. Here he is interviewed by Tucker Carlson and reports what he saw firsthand, his conclusions and he hypothesizes some genuine grade-A high-octane nightmare fuel. It's an hour and 12 minutes.
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I just asked 'If we leave the borders open, won't that allow Russian Spetsnaz troops into the US?'
The question rises since the Dems and Austrian Republicans have now given us the false choice of either leaving the border completely open or Ukraine will lose.
Posted by: cxt217 at Mon Feb 5 21:21:10 2024 (ZLF73)
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Most likely, Spetsnaz and PRC cognates have been here for years.
That biology professor in (IIRC) Philadelphia who was murdered in 2020 looked to me like it was probably a PRC operation.
I could simply be wildly paranoid on that point.
That said, southern border has been a security disaster for decades. The known knowns have been concerning for a while. IE, civil war, failed nation, and a bunch of criminal states. Known unknowns include the question of how many of our nominal politicians are cartel employees.
Legislature could easily still screw us, but there are even a few signs of optimism there. Mainly, it seems like the Republican 'leadership' does not understand what they can deliver, and the Democrats are ignorant of that.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Tue Feb 6 19:29:01 2024 (r9O5h)
The Panda-Girl Cooking Challenge!
Join us to night @ https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet at 7:30pm EST/12:30 am UTC as we continue to try to learn to play Genshin Impact. Tonight we're trying to finish the panda-girl cooking challenge...No...wait...I mean....we're NOT cooking Panda-Girl. She's a celebrity chef and we're helping her cook...and there is a time traveler....WHAT EVEN IS THIS GAME!?
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I recall a Filk (Not Hype Eyre) that was something like "Minus ten and counting" referring not to liftoff, but the number of lives we will have to give up to achieve man's dream in space. It was not saying it wasn't worth it, but more that it was a necessary sacrifice that should be honored.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Jan 28 21:46:18 2024 (nk1Z+)
Surprise!.... ZOMBIES!
Check out https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet tonight @ 9pm EST / 2am UTC for an unscheduled Project Zomboid stream. Come, stop by, say "Hi!" point, laugh, and make "useful" critiques of my gameplay as I celebrate finding my keys (no really) as well as my first payout from streaming! ( I am now officially an internet celebrity!)
Holy Crap!
If the Orthodox Patriarch and the Catholic Pope each took a dump in the same chamber pot, it would still not warrant the phrase "Holy Crap!" as much as this does.
And it might stink less.
So: "Powerful People Back East" are willing to pay a populist large amounts of money to back out, and make oblique references to 'The cartels being active in every state' when she says no. Given the bloodbath happening across the Rio Grande that's a VERY specific reference.
My thoughts on Trump have already been stated, but this is actually the sort of thing that his supporters can rightly point to that justify their forlorn clinging to him in hopes of stymieing, in some way, undeniably malevolent forces in our leadership cadre.
As I stated before, I don't think their trust or hope is justified, but, if, as now seems to be the case, I find myself voting for him in November, I'll hold my nose a little less tightly as I figuratively piss in the wind.
Streaming at the Intersection of Scuff and Cringe
Join us tonight @ 7:30pm EST / 12:30AM UTC for a gaming double feature as I make yet ANOTHER attempt to finish Phantom Brave. Then grab a drink and a snack, sit down, point, and laugh as I make ANOTHER attempt to not suck in Genshin Impact! Drop by @ https://www.twitch.tv/brickmuppet and say "Hi!"
The governors of at least Oklahoma, Florida, and Virginia have said they are backing Abbot on this. There are currently National Guard contingents from 12 states helping the Texas National Guard secure their border. I believe Governor Youngkin is in Texas at the moment meeting with the V.A. National Guard Troops on deployment in the state.
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Yes. I suspect the powers that be in DC think this would be another incident like the Littlerock Nine. I think this would go very differently if they try to follow the same script. Too many people, even in Democrat states (which are socialist Red, not Blue thank you very much!), feel that the border situation has gone too far and want a solution. They won't have public support on this.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Wed Jan 24 22:31:14 2024 (r9lDC)
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This issue is not even a little bit complicated - the international border is a federal responsibility. It is the federal government, and only the federal government, who has jurisdiction at controlling and protecting the borders, essentially from foreign invaders (Some of whom are ACTUAL bad guys, like Hezbollah and Al Qaida.), and definitely from people breaking federal law. There should be no state involvement in taking over border protection, except as assistance to the federal government.
Yet we have a federal government that not only refuses to enforce border protection, but is involved in transporting illegal immigrants into the country! At this point, Biden et al are actually violating their oaths to the Constitution, but no one cares because Trump!.
I do not see any good way for getting out of this issue. The Supreme Court was right in their decision, but Texas has just told the court and the rest of the federal government to go pound sand. Federalizing the Texas National Guard, like some people suggested, will just lead to all sorts of different issues and that is not getting into the rank incompetents that now populate the military flag ranks.
Posted by: cxt217 at Thu Jan 25 17:30:38 2024 (ZLF73)
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Have to wonder what they're thinking, why THIS is the hill Biden wants to die on.
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Jan 25 23:57:29 2024 (nk1Z+)
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DC as a whole (the Bureaucrats, Biden, The Dems, and the Country Club wing of the Republicans) are being pushed by business interests on this. We saw, when Trump substantially reduced the illegal immigration at the border, that it cut off the flow of below market price labor, forcing wages up. Business desperately wants a massive increase of cheap labor to backfill what Trump stopped to keep a cap on wage costs and meet need going forward. In addition, with the Boomer population buldge retiring and the following generations not being large enough to fully replace them (not just in US but in much of the world), businesses understand that if they can't stuff the pipeline of labor full of people now, in a few years unemployed labor is going to become so scarce that labor will have negotiating power they haven't seen since before the Industrial Revolution.
This realization that the elites are about to lose a lot of the bargaining power they've had for the last few centuries is driving a significant chunk of their desperation.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Fri Jan 26 08:59:02 2024 (EqqLc)
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cxt217: "This issue is not even a little bit complicated - the international border is a federal responsibility."
If only it was that simple. Sure, Texas cannot fashion or implement it's own border policy. It can't set up it's own border crossings, it can't set up an additional customs stations right behind the federal one and apply additional screening, etc. But it can certainly limit access to state property, and it can certainly defend itself using the state guard from invasion. Those are actually declared and delegated rights and permissions in the federal and state constitutions. The Constitution of the United States would not have been ratified if the states did not retain the right to defend themselves, and this is not speculation, there are actual essays, discussions, speeches etc on the topic in the Library of Congress and other places.
So, the Governor of Texas has looked at the fact that the Cartels, which are certainly an armed force of a foreign nation, are operating in the territory of Texas. The state of Texas can, and should, ask the Federal government for help in this matter, but it is not forced to subjugate itself to that response.
The State of Texas can also seek to control access to state property. There are of course places all over the country that are protected by fences and guards and it is a city, state, or federal offense to enter that property without proper permission. And again, this is state property and the federal government has no real say in the matter.
But expressing it actual legal terms, one of the central arguments will be made is the difference between law and policy. Federal law supersedes state law where they are in conflict. But does federal policy, which is just created by unelected administrators, supersede state law? In this case, the state and federal laws are actually in agreement. The feds are actually by law supposed to be detaining anyone not in the country with legal permission. But as a matter of policy, they are not doing so. If the state chooses to align itself with federal law, but not federal policy...
The problem here from a judicial perspective is that the designed resolution to this is that Biden should have been impeached and removed from office long since over this. It's not really a matter designed for the judicial branch to resolve.
Posted by: David Eastman at Fri Jan 26 13:45:15 2024 (R7Z4D)
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