ABigGuy4U
12hr ago
I think it’s always been a lot more likely than people think. Nixon, Golda Meir, Kruschev and DeGaul all got close to using them at one time or another. Someone will eventually unless God keeps stopping it.
Now with respect to this current conflict I don’t think it’s likely. I think your best bet at seeing mushroom clouds was in summer of 2022, when for a minute in looked like an entire 60,000 man Russian army group was going to be encircled and destroyed. Other than that one which is already past, I think there are two potential scenarios.
The second is that Putin uses nukes offensively to win the war quicker. I don’t think that’s very likely because Putin is already winning the war, if slowly. Even if the Russian economy really was about to shit itself and die, and extreme measures had to be taken, I think there are probably several alternate extreme measures he could take instead. Like a full wartime mobilization and draft. Or conventional strikes on Polish rail terminals. Or loudly declaring victory on Twitter and going home.
The third option is that I chug an entire Mountain Dew Baja Blast and we switch over into the Call of Duty Modern Warfare II timeline, and it turns out Ukraine was just a prolog to a full scale Russian invasion of Europe. Obviously that could lead to a nuclear war but there would be many, many intervening steps that would have to happen and it would probably take years.
I don’t think your picturing it right. It wouldn’t be nuclear strikes on NATO. It would be tactical strikes on various hard points in Ukraine, with the aim of collapsing the Ukrainian army in a matter of days, not weeks. Then the Russians would wait and observe to see what kind of response there is, which could range from “nothing” to “limited nuclear strikes on Russian soil”. That said I don’t think it’s likely, I will explain above.
It did fuck me up and make it hard to sleep.
I also suffered a few nights of insomnia after seeing the film, due to intense feelings of
ABigGuy4U
12hr ago
He was one of the most loved sports figures in America. He was a big for you, a big guy for me, a big guy for everyone really.
ABigGuy4U
1d ago
I liked him for it because he captured the public image of OJ before the murders, of a very friendly and harmless guy. The guy that got turned down from Terminator for not being a convincing enough killer. So because of that, I didn’t mind that Gooding is physically completely unlike OJ. That said, it’s a shame they didn’t get Jonathan Majors, I think he could have pulled that disarming friendliness off while at least approximating OJ’s real build (he was a big guy).
ABigGuy4U
2d ago
Bear in mind that if you join the Peace Corps, you will be legally barred from “US foreign service” ;) :^) for at least five years. So if that’s your intent you probably shouldn’t join. Also you shouldn’t be broadcasting your career aspirations toward that on a Mongolian ceremonial woodworking forum.
ABigGuy4U
2d ago
I would also add that there are a lot of hints that the death of Bear’s grandmother hit him very hard and he hasn’t really gotten over it.
ABigGuy4U
2d ago
The People vs. OJ Simpson also used that technique to good effect, layering takes where Cuba Gooding Jr. played OJ as a genuinely wronged innocent man and ones where he played him as contrite and guilty or mocking and smug.
ABigGuy4U
2d ago
If you mean the cute exaggerated frowny face, some people can just do that. I can do that.
I don’t know how you got the impression that Nikki’s father abused her
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The fact that Ian and Sarah both take it as a given that Nikki hates her father so much that she wouldn’t really care if he was dying of cancer.
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The fact that Nikki hates her father but still can’t bring herself to stop caring for him, which she expresses through the made up cancer diagnosis.
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The part where Nikki goes on a demonic rant implying that she’s sexually attracted to Bear because he reminds her of her brother, who her father regularly forced her have sex with. She dresses it up like a fairy tale, but when you combine it with everything else it seems pretty damning.
I Saw Obsession (For Real This Time)
So I saw Obsession (2026) for real this time, and the discourse around it makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills. All the rape/incel stuff is just projection, it’s clearly intended to be a metaphor for a codependent relationship between people who just aren’t good for each other.
The actual sequence with Bear wishing on the willow is obviously supposed to be a metaphor for Nikki genuinely latching onto Bear in a time of unique emotional vulnerability, not a rape scene.
The problems in the relationship don’t start until a few months later, when Bear begins to pull away. And unfortunately in his years of idealized pining, he didn’t notice that Nikki actually has pretty serious mental problems. There are major hints that Nikki was molested by her father (everyone in the discourse just seems to not pick up on that) and that she had a serious mental breakdown in high school: Bear misunderstands the “Freaky Nikki” nickname as implying that she was slutty, when it actually arose due to her genuinely bizarre behavior. Pay close attention to the way she acts before the willow. Her affect is already a little bit off (glib charm suddenly snapping into hostility). Ian’s concern isn’t just him being a cad, I think he knows Nikki has serious issues.
And Bear is a weak-willed drip incapable of handling Nikki’s worst impulses. She feels simultaneously suffocated and abandoned by him. The whole joke about the cat is Bear IS the cat, he got into something he didn’t understand and now he’s screwed. He’s certainly an ugly person inside, but not because he’s a bitter resentful incel. He’s just needy and narcissistic, and he’s willing to look the other way on Nikki’s mental breakdown way too long because she validates him. Then when he realizes the full gravity of her problems, he tries to dip out on her. The central thesis of the film is directly stated by the demonic phone operator in a line that everyone misses, right after it breaks the news that the curse is permanent:
“Huh, sounds like you have a moral obligation to be there for her....”
Bear’s sin isn’t getting Nikki into the relationship, it’s that he did it to only to validate himself and not because he really knew or loved Nikki, or wanted to take care of her.
Everyone seems to put a lot of weight on the scene where Nikki is talking in her sleep, but she’s constantly saying a lot of bizzare and inconsistent stuff both before and after the willow.
I really don’t know what the internet is smoking on this one.
In terms of a quality review I think it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time. Vicious things happen in it, but it’s shot through with tragedy in a way that makes it feel very surprisingly humane. It’s not coldly sociopathic like Saw or Evil Dead. I think it’s no accident that the ending is a very on the nose reference to Romeo and Juliet. I may have been pretty rough on the two leads above, but pretty much every single character in the film is really likable and when bad things happen to them it’s genuinely sad. Even demon-Nikki is genuinely heartbreaking.
ABigGuy4U
3d ago
No it’s the one where Mel Gibson skewers Jason Isaacs with the Betsy Ross flag.
ABigGuy4U
4d ago
Rich white people were already being taxed at an 90 percent rate so it wasn’t a live issue. To seriously answer your question, Kennedy was broadly sympathetic to the racial Current Thing of the era, in a mealy mouthed Barack Obama kind of way.
I’m not asserting that Mamdani is necessarily either a good politician or a good man. I’m just saying that the racial and religious politics surrounding him are currently well within the bounds of what we have seen for other integrating ethnic groups historically.
ABigGuy4U
4d ago
Politics and holidays aside, I think The Patriot is one of the most underrated films of the 2000s.
ABigGuy4U
6d ago
Yes, Kennedy being soft on Communism to the point of being a secret or not-so-secret red was a constant rhetorical drum beat on the right, like it has been about every single democratic politician since FDR. Look at the “Wanted For Treason” flyers that were being passed around Dallas the day he was murdered.
ABigGuy4U
7d ago
Everything that has been said about Mamdani was said word-for-word about Kennedy.
ABigGuy4U
7d ago
So I'm left wondering what his play for the POTUS is
Honestly I don’t think he would even make it out of a fair Democratic Party primary. He would whiff it big with the Deep South, which is the most important region in Democratic primaries. Now given the recent track record I think there’s a good chance he gets a rigged primary and wins that, but he would flop in the general against basically anyone. He’s the white male Kamala Harris.
ABigGuy4U
7d ago
In fifty years the Latinos, Indians, East Asians and Muslims will have Irishified and the United States will be back to being 85 percent white.
ABigGuy4U
7d ago
Sure, but even within that mindset Roe isn’t great. I think she also touched on the backlash it caused and said it might have been better to let it progress through democratic means, but I could be misremembering.
ABigGuy4U
7d ago
All 12 members were killed in a vicious ambush set by the Free Wales Army.
ABigGuy4U
7d ago
I’m one of those users, but I’m in no way qualified to tell you what any kind of aerial phenomenona are.
I think there’s also a good chance it turns into an East India Company situation where SpaceX is the only entity in the world with access to Mars and Luna.
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