WhiningCoil
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User ID: 269
WhiningCoil
22d ago
I mean it's nice the head of the Democratic party is finally just dispensing with subtlety and is being honest. If concerned parents being added to FBI watchlist, people defending themselves being thrown in prison, functional communities being utterly destroyed by federal human trafficking didn't already give it away. How is it not manifestly obvious these are policies of hate and destruction? They consider felons and illegals more legitimate constituents than people who want property rights, safe communities, and schools that won't teach their children to sterilize and mutilate themselves.
WhiningCoil
24d ago
short term - YIMBY. Build more and restore cities. (Dems win handily)
I'm not sure how you draw this conclusion when the modal Democrat controlled state is California, a state renown for the impossibility of building anything, and rent control schemes sabotaging housing supply over decades. Compared with nominally Republican controlled Texas and Florida where building is cheap, easy and plentiful.
WhiningCoil
24d ago
It's all selective and out of context quotes. I listened to an MSNBC clip that was just a gish gallop of gibberish. All the hoaxes in one run on sentence, "fine people", "bloodbath", "dictator on day one", "enemy within", "jail his political opponents". They only reason they compare him to Hitler is because Hitler is the only fascist dictator they don't like. Stalin, Mao and Castro are all heroes in their book. That leaves pretty slim pickings for fascist to compare him to, so you are left with Hitler even if it's a really poor fit.
WhiningCoil
26d ago
You son of a bitch, I'm in.
WhiningCoil
26d ago
Laws that make it illegal to catch criminals should be ignored.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
Because you can register to vote up to 21 days before the election in VA. What good does it do to purge the voter rolls of non citizens 90 days out, and no later, when they can register for another 69 (nice) days?
Next question.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
What I don't see is Trump effectively pushing back against them.
Why not? Look at the four years we already had with him. Yes, the generals rolled Trump and lied to him or sabotaged pulling out of Syria and Afghanistan. But they weren't able to talk him into new wars. Try as they might to stop it, Trump successfully fixed the border. Even without a full wall, the remain in Mexico policy was an enormous success getting numbers down and discouraging the attempt. There was relative peace in the Middle East, and Trump's executive actions kept Iran boxed in and without funds to create proxy wars all around Israel.
No, we didn't get the CIA shattered into a thousand pieces and scattered in the wind. I think we can largely blame Pompeo for that, and Trump will have better people around him this time. Yeah, we still got massive deep state censorship in violation of the 1st amendment. But that was before Elon bought Twitter.
We may not get mass deportations in another Trump admin. But I'd expect him to fix the border same as he did before. I'd expect Iran will be boxed in again as best as can be done, denying them assets to fund proxy wars. I'd expect no new wars, and maybe even having one or two buttoned up. Might look similar to Biden's pullout from Afghanistan, but I'll take what I can get. That's on the generals IMHO.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
Read about the Jewish Pogroms in Russia. There was no program to forcibly expel them. Rather the government plugged up their ears and closed their eyes when a smattering of Jews got assaulted or sometimes murdered, and the Jews self-deported fearing for their lives and sensing which way the wind was blowing.
What is happening to towns across America is absolutely as bad, if not worse, than the Jewish Pogroms in Russia.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
If these people weren't "deficit financed" maybe. But that's not the situation. There is no level playing field here. There is a scheme to undercut the labor market of legacy Americans, so that the company no longer needs to pay a living wage, and the government subsidizes these people to live there.
So you lose your job because these people can be paid less. Your taxes go to paying for them. All your institutions (schools, hospitals, policing) are overrun by them such that the services you can derive from them are greatly diminished. Landlords kick out their tenants because why rent to 1 legacy American family when you can collect welfare checks from 5 third world families.
Yes, they are replacing white Americans. This isn't just a "git gud" or "sucks to suck" argument where Whites have sour grapes about foreigners outcompeting them. The thumb is on the scale so fucking hard it's impossible to survive, except to accept living in third world conditions or leaving.
Or being killed in the ongoing pogrom.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
Name them
Jesus I thought I did.
This is every bit an ethnic cleansing as the Jewish Pogroms in Russia, as the Goths or the Huns invading the late Roman Empire and pillaging the provinces (often under a fictitious appellation from the Emperor as the new "protector" of that province, even as they pillaged it and put it's natives to the sword or torch). It's every bit an ethnic cleansing as the "illegal settlements" in Gaza or the West Bank.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
I wouldn't count on it. The Republicans in the legislative branch have purposely thrown away their majority, and caved on every significant issue the Uniparty truly wanted. FISA courts stayed, endless money for foreign wars stayed.
I wouldn't count on them to serve as any significant check in Kamala's agenda, especially the worst parts of that the Uniparty clearly wants. "Misinformation" and "Hate speech" laws, further weaponization of the DOJ against political opponents like Musk, endless wars, a "path to citizenship" for all the illegals they've shipped to battleground states and/or quietly allowing illegals to vote by making it impossible to check the citizenship status of voters or coercing Soros DA's from prosecuting them.
They only way to block a Kamala/Uniparty agenda is if Trump is butt in seat in the Oval Office.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
In 20 years we can check back in on these towns that had 50-100% of their existing population in "deficit financed cheap labor" airdropped on them. Assuming the <70 IQ third worlders stay, I'm pretty sure with the crime and destruction of institutions, along with the total deafness the political class has towards the legacy population's suffering, the area will be 75-99% ethnically cleansed.
And yes, words do have meaning. This is every bit an ethnic cleansing as the Jewish Pogroms in Russia, as the Goths or the Huns invading the late Roman Empire and pillaging the provinces (often under a fictitious appellation from the Emperor as the new "protector" of that province, even as they pillaged it and put it's natives to the sword or torch). It's every bit an ethnic cleansing as the "illegal settlements" in Gaza or the West Bank.
There are ways to remove populations from their ancestral ground short of putting them on trains and gassing them. Or putting them on a death march to a reservation. Just because it falls narrowly short of the worst ethnic cleansings in history doesn't mean it's not at least meeting the standard of several others which are widely considered ethnic cleansings.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
I read a few when Space Age was first announced, which is why I'm hopeful it will be different enough to appeal to me. But I haven't kept up. I kind of want most of it to be a surprise. I've never been the sort to have a wiki in one window and the game in the other, you know?
WhiningCoil
27d ago
I'm so excited to get into this, but I already blew my wad on Mechwarrior 5: Clans this month. I know some people can play these automation games over and over and over again. But I tend to play to the endgame once, "win" in so far as a win condition exist, and then kind of lose interest in doing that grind again or faffing about in a post game grind. I want to believe this expansion is enough of a remix on that puzzle to make the journey interesting again for me, but it's no sure thing.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
https://x.com/GlennYoungkin/status/1849826145258148113
A federal judge decided VA must allow non citizens to vote. This election is going to be fortified so hard.
WhiningCoil
27d ago
Well, I beat Mechwarrior 5: Clans in about a week. I fucking loved it.
It brings back the more linear style of missions from the non-Mercs Mechwarrior 2-4. It does it in grand fashion as well, with lots of cutscenes for story telling. Just the right amount IMHO. The story kept me engaged too, and I generally enjoyed the characters.
If you are a Battletech lore nerd, I think they brought the Clans to life in a way not seen since Robert Thurston wrote his novels centered around Clan Jade Falcon. I've seen people upset with CGL's management of Battletech taking it out on PGI's hard work here, and generally I think that is undeserved. I didn't catch a single whiff of "current year" in this production, and I find the lore complaints about how Smoke Jaguar culture is depicted unconvincing.
All in all, I think it's a must play if you are a Battletech fan. Probably doesn't have the longevity that MW5: Mercs has, with it's open world and career mode. But it's a fantastic game, and I can't wait for the DLC. Too bad for me that it's probably at least a year off, given the DLC schedule MW5: Mercs had.
WhiningCoil
28d ago
I think I first posted such a case 5 or 6 years ago. Shit maybe it was 8 years ago? It was the first one I knew of. Everyone at the time just hand waved it away. The "child" was 17, and was moved to her Grandparents who were willing to "affirm" the child's identity. By the time the article was written, and the court cases over, the child was 18 or 19 rending it all moot. The fact that a massive violation of parental rights had occurred, and that those parents had now permanently lost their child was viewed as not being a problem at all since the whole thing had been accomplished fait accompli.
Since then it's been a steady drumbeat.
Here are some more.
I could keep going. It is happening. Please don't say it's great.
WhiningCoil
28d ago
It's all well and good to make mouth sounds about how your team isn't all good, and the other team isn't all bad. It's another that when pressed on any specific issue, you start doing summersaults about how the only reason you side does bad things is because the bad side is riling them up with their "heated rhetoric". Push come to shove, on any specific issue, I've never seen him admit his side bears the moral culpability for any specific wrong. Nor provide a path forward where his side should just admit they are wrong and stop doing the thing he admits is wrong. His only "answer" to the mass sterilization and mutilation of children, last I saw, was that Republicans needed to stop making an issue out of it first so that his side (the side that's been pushing it in the face of all reason, evidence or morality) could break from the trance and backtrack without any political consequences.
Because that's likely to ever happen.
I also can't read the entire article because it's paywalled. Maybe he gets there.
WhiningCoil
28d ago
I don't know if Jesse Singal has changed his tune, but this always enrages me. There is a political party that is pro child mutilation and sterilization. The entire rest of the world is against this practice, even countries that once upon a time were more open minded about it. The pro child mutilation and sterilization party keeps doubling down, and the Jesse Singal's of the world point to the "Lets not mutilate and sterilize children" party as "politicizing" or "weaponizing" the issue. Because his side can only do good things, and if his side is doing bad things he can't possibly ignore, he must somehow blame them on the other bad side which can only do bad things. Even when they are championing the side of the issue he believes is correct.
I get there is a significant contingent of "Vote Blue No Matter Who" NPCs, but it's astounding to me to witness someone who breaks from the "It's not happening and if it were it would be a good thing" programming, sees the bad things, writes articles endlessly about the bad things, and then still turns around and choses to die on the hill of the party of the bad things.
WhiningCoil
30d ago
Trump cooking and serving food at McDonalds, and taking instruction and orders from a teenage manager reminds me greatly of Saturnalia
The holiday was celebrated with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, in the Roman Forum, and a public banquet, followed by private gift-giving, continual partying, and a carnival atmosphere that overturned Roman social norms: gambling was permitted, and masters provided table service for their slaves as it was seen as a time of liberty for both slaves and freedmen alike.
Trump submitted himself to a humbling role reversal. Was it brief? Sure. Was it "staged"? I mean, on a scale from "The grill is off and the meat is raw" to "Actually worked an 8 hour shift", I'd rate it a 2.5? Maybe as high as a 4? I think, like Saturnalia's role reversal, it's symbolically important.
WhiningCoil
1mo ago
I've been balls deep in Mechwarrior 5 Clans. It's a bit rough around the edges. I don't think the meta is as balanced as MW5 Mercs got after 6 DLC or whatever it was. Also I'm not really sure they captured the raw supremacist attitude of Smoke Jaguar. It's still pretty amazing though. A peerless revisit of MW2's rough timeline.
WhiningCoil
1mo ago
So, Bing's AI response to "Starlink Customers" was
1.5 million customers Starlink has "well over" 1.5 million customers worldwide, including consumer users and businesses. Around 80% of Starlink’s customers are located in North America, while 18% are located in Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Starlink's Roam plan alone has over 300,000 customers subscribed, which likely nets SpaceX a minimum of $30 million in revenue every month.
Although I see a more recent PCMag article says 2.7m customers. Assuming they are all paying the same $120 a month I am, that puts them closing in on $4B in revenue per year. If I did my math right (2.7m * 12 * $120 = $3,888m).
WhiningCoil
1mo ago
I also am not entirely sure how the economics of Starlink work out. Supposedly it's profitable. But I don't know how many red numbers have been moved from the "Starlink" column to the "SpaceX" column. However they do the accounting, the fact that Starlink gets to take advantage of Falcon 9 launches virtually at cost is enormous. The fact that SpaceX has dropped the $/lb cost by almost a factor of 10 helps a lot too.
WhiningCoil
1mo ago
I mean, I'm on Starlink, and depending on usage, my upload varies from 10 Mbps to 20-ish Mbps. Right now it's 17.90 Mbps. I've never noticed. It's been life changing. Satellite is the only thing available where I am, and the competition is dog shit. 700 ms latency versus 20 ms, maybe enough bandwidth for SD video content versus the 320 Mbps down I just measured. It was straight up impossible for me to do Zoom meetings from home half the time. I don't know how the FCC arrived at 20 Mbps up being the litmus test, but I think it largely fails to capture the enormous improvement Starlink is over all the competition. I live in an area where subsidies have been promised for rural broadband for over a decade, and absolutely fucking zero has ever come of it. The money goes somewhere, and nobody ever gets internet.
I'm not shocked Starlink got cut out, they threaten to end someone else's corrupt grift. I can draw no other conclusion.
Do you know Tony Hinchcliffe? He goes for obscure refences all the time. Sometimes he verges on "too online" with his comedy he goes with references so niche. The first part of the joke is in fact a reference to the fact that there is a literal giant island of trash in the ocean. Why wouldn't the punchline be about Puerto Rico's notoriously dysfunctional waste management?
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