netstack
Texas is freedom land
No bio...
User ID: 647
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1hr ago
I was really tempted to play this after reading this logistics guide. It just seemed so crunchy! But when I read more about the metagame, I got the impression that it led to some weird strategy. I’d been hoping the model would result in something closer to the historical strategy.
So…did you play Hearts of Iron IV? Same engine as Stellaris, but much more focus on war and war production.
The smallest thing you’ll control will be air wings with dozens of planes. Troops are organized at the division, army, or theater level rather than as squads. That means strategic maneuvers like rolling over the entirety of Belgium to get at Paris. You’re also responsible for equipping them, which means asking questions like “can I afford to switch my production lines to this new tank design?” or “why the hell are there no rifles in all of France?”
It does a bunch of stuff that really sells the scale. The simulation isn’t nearly as sophisticated as War in the East or Shadow Empire, but in return you get something which just feels enormous.
Edit: you mention being cold on WWII below. Oops. At least HoI4 has outrageous mods! Alt-history, Cold War, Fallout (though that technically reduces the scale). Ponies. I think it’s the perfect engine for a Star Wars game, and I know there have been attempts, but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard one praised.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2hr ago
Right, and it’s possible he would have stalked Garfield even if the VP wasn’t from his preferred party. But he specifically said "I am a Stalwart, and want Arthur for President." So he definitely counts for this question.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2hr ago
“Have you stopped beating your wife?”
I’d say the Stormy Daniels prosecution is probably unjust in that it wouldn’t be happening but for Trump’s political status. Low confidence.
The classified documents, on the other hand? Nothing I’ve seen suggests that Trump was innocent, or that a random citizen could get away with doing the same thing. While I was surprised that it escalated to a trial, I don’t think it’s unjust.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
3hr ago
For all of the disasters that bedevil American military procurement, we can always look to our closest ally, the UK, when we need to feel better about our ability to buy weapons. Twice in the last 40 years, the British have poured enormous sums of money into an airplane, and walked away empty-handed. To make matters worse, it was the same airplane both times, the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod.
From a 2018 Naval Gazing article. Thanks, bean—you always know how to cheer me up!
netstack
Texas is freedom land
17hr ago
It’s not? Out of the four big assassins, the only one who made a coherent plan was Booth. Half credit for Oswald. The Reagan, Teddy, and Jackson attempts were pretty unhinged, too.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
17hr ago
It’s almost like the people who assassinate public officials aren’t particularly rational.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
17hr ago
…what? “Most serious researchers?”
That theory raises more questions than answers, anyway. Like how Cuba remains un-invaded.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
20hr ago
- Lincoln: plot also targeted Andrew Johnson
- Garfield: “Arthur, a Conkling ally, had been selected as Garfield's running mate to placate the Stalwart faction. As a self-professed Stalwart, Guiteau convinced himself that by removing Garfield, he was striking a blow to unite the two factions of the Republican Party.”
- McKinley: anarchist with no statements on VP
- Roosevelt: nutjob with no opinions on VP
- JFK: sigh
- Reagan: nutjob with no opinions on VP, or even President
So 1 out of 6. And Garfield’s assassin was dealing with an actively fragmented Republican Party with multiple credible candidates. I don’t know what Tim Scott’s deal is, but he looks to be a completely generic Southern Republican. What’s he supposed to bring to the table?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
21hr ago
V-E…V-J…no, wait. It is V-E, as applied to the Soviet Union. Guess I learned something today.
It’s hard to search for previous Victory day protests. All that I get are Palestine happenings.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
That seems a lot more complicated than it needs to be. People make dumb decisions all the time. Have you ever seen one of those family court shows?
I don’t think it’s backed up by the fertility data, either, but I don’t have time to check all the income tables right now.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
I agree that the reordering reflects badly on both the FBI and the prosecution. I agree that it should reduce their credibility, and that we should be skeptical of anything they say, checking it against actual evidence. Fortunately, we have actual evidence reviewed by a third party—the scans which revealed this inconsistency.
The change between those scans (taken in late ‘22) and today does not affect the substance of the case. A change before those scans could, but I haven’t seen anyone with actual skin in the game make that allegation.
Who have you seen propose this “chronological order” defense? Perhaps Trump’s counsel? Because I don’t think they’re disputing the authenticity of the special master scans.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
Civil suits have been really popular, lately. Texas SB 8 for abortions. I think Florida’s HB 1557 does something similar for teaching about gender? Surely I’m missing some others.
In theory, these are blank checks for transferring money, just like the ADA. In practice, there’s only so many people getting abortions. Why shouldn’t disability suits be the same?
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
Eh, I’ve heard it before. He hires the best people, right?
What’s the deal with Virginia? Last I heard, the fights over schooling worked out okay for Republicans. Same for trans issues in general. What else is salient in the state, such that the polling leans so blue? @WhiningCoil
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
How to square this with something like @gattsuru’s recent post (and follow-up)? He starts from the assumption that Republicans are, in fact, no longer interested in compromise, attributing it to decades of policy ratchets and plausibly-deniable enforcement. And he provides receipts. If he’s correct, then Congressional stonewalling is a rational response to the failure of previous compromises.
Second, some discussion about whether Trump credibly advanced a different issue: the deep state. That was how I learned about the attempt to create a Schedule F of policy-driven government employees. It was a battle entirely waged within the executive branch. Trump promulgated an XO; Biden rolled it back. Various agencies fumbled to add more regulations which would slow or stop a future return. Never was Congress consulted, of course.
It seems obvious that Congress, by refusing to act, hands more power to the Executive and Judicial branches. But it also seems obvious that Executive power is too fragile to survive an opposing presidency. And there’s a long list of reasons why the Judiciary is not a satisfactory policymaker.
I suspect that relying on Trump’s branding is a strategic blunder. No, it’s relying on one man in general. The Democrats leaned on Obama after 2008, and supposedly it completely eroded their back bench. Now we’re watching the GOP double down on an uncomfortably similar mistake.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
I agree that using the photo as such is editorial narrative-peddling of the basest sort.
It’s like…you’ve seen those photos of heroin bricks and gold-plated guns from drug busts. They’re pure propaganda, right? The police want to look strong and successful, so they have incentives both to create such photos and to spread them around. Departments will tend towards policies that let them do it, like stacking all the product in one spot. But does that make the drug bust illegitimate?
I guess I’d expect a magically apolitical FBI to generate very similar photos. Maybe department policy includes a stack of cover sheets. (In my experience, the government loves those things, even in unclassified situations like training.) Or maybe they made the decision in the moment, either to make their sort easier, or to get that snappy photo.
If that’s true, then we’re back to priors. I believe the FBI is somewhat politically aware, and I assume some of its leadership holds a grudge against the FPOTUS. I don’t believe that was the driving factor. Then again, I wasn’t expecting them to pull the trigger at all.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
I think that’s plausible, but not because of the revelations here.
Check out page 8. The government concedes that they were inconsistent because the order within boxes changed. Nothing else. They insist that the only other change to contents is the placeholder cards.
But nothing in the indictment, the sealing, the warrant depended on order! It was all about number of documents suspected to remain. Nothing I’ve seen in here casts doubt on that unless we assume that the boxes were made up wholesale. I’m not willing to bite that bullet.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
The government insists that it wasn’t wrong about what they were. Or even which box they were in. Only that it was an error to say they were “in the original, intact form as seized,” because the order is not the same. Page 8.
Nor do you have a good reason to believe the documents were planted. Only that Trump was informed of some (other?) boxes left in Virginia. His administration has never denied that the boxes belonged to him, has it?
And what’s all this bullshit about mislabeling? A banker’s box in your house is inappropriate for any level of classification.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
cover sheets
Hot damn. If the FBI managed to screw up the investigation of what should be obvious misconduct, I’m going to be so disappointed. Let’s see what exactly they did…
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/03/mar-a-lago-trump-classified-documents-00156124
Looks like they added placeholders and cover sheets when they initially sorted the fifteen boxes. And then possibly failed to remove them? Assuming every cover sheet was left in the count, and there are really only half as many documents as stated in the warrant, that could mean Trump’s 15 boxes held fewer than 100! Witch hunt!
This is stupid. It’s also not the cause of the delay, which stems from the complaint that those searched boxes are now out of order. How much did they change? No idea. How did they notice the change? Because the contents were exhaustively documented after the seizure.
It’s not a great look for the prosecution. But it also has no bearing on the facts of the case. If Trump’s team could point to any version of the boxes as favorable, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I don’t mind a delay of the trial, but I’m not going to treat this as exculpatory.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2d ago
Might be the first time I’m hearing news stories described as longer. We had to keep our Floyd containment bare links thread for months!
I’m skeptical that article delivery has changed much, at least in the mainstream publishers. The struggle to hold on to newspaper models continues, I guess.
Which one is the fraud case? Hard to search.
Yes, I’ve been keeping up with the unredactions. Mostly to argue with people in the other subthread. I swear, when I started reading I didn’t look like such a partisan hack!
A few of the claims are very defensible. Then they’re used to argue something much more elaborate (and, of course, more favorable to Trump). Nothing about the document reordering changes the facts of the warrant or the charges. Translating “we acknowledge inconsistency with what we previously understood and represented to the Court” as “we are lying liars who got caught” is disingenuous.
That conclusion is propped up by thinner evidence. There’s a paragraph suggesting NARA gave Trump boxes at one point? That must mean they were the classified documents; it’s all a setup! News outlets ran with a misleading FBI photo? Psyop! Any time Politico or CNN says something uncharitable? Proof of the deep-seated conspiracy. Except when the judge postpones; clearly she’s the only rational, unbiased individual in this whole mess.
The biggest outlier is the claim about early DoJ/NARA collaboration, which is most likely to prove a political but-for. It’s also getting far less attention from Trump partisans. Is that because they aren’t sure about the timeline? Because they understand the difference between correlation and causation? Because they already assume the political motive is the only way? I don’t know. That’s the issue I’ll be following most closely.
More options
Context Copy link