Lurker > ElatedVenusaur

Kuuko posted...

I'm surprised to see the sentiment being taken away from this that voting doesn't matter and it's all pointless. That's the exact opposite sentiment you should take away. Democratic voters' reluctance to vote when it matters keeps biting them, while Republican voters solidly show up to the polls every election. That reluctance is in part why Clinton just barely lost in 2016. There are other reasons she lost too, believe me. But in an alternate reality where Democrats solidly vote and Clinton wins, then Clinton chooses a judge to replace Scalia, a judge to replace Kennedy (most likely), and either Clinton or Biden chooses a judge to replace Ginsburg. Alongside Democrats replacing Breyer as Biden did. In that reality it's a very strong 6-3 majority of young Democratic judges in the SC and we'd be debating whether or not Republicans would ever take back the court in the next few decades. The important takeaway is how important every election at every level is, if you care about something like pro-choice or anything else.

The Democrats have majorities in both chambers and a Democrat in the White House right now. If they wanted to, they could put those to use to legalize abortion access nationwide. Also there are probably enough anti-choice Democrats to scuttle the effort, because it would mean to do purity-tests on non-progressives, and wouldn't it be silly, because certainly Roe v. Wade will *never* be overturned...I, err, I am just now hearing...
But, of course, they failed to do so every other chance they had to do this since 1973, why would they start doing something now?

Moreover, our very political system minimizes the importance of votes via gerrymandering: either via the biased drawing of House districts or already built-in, as in the Senate. Some states are so thoroughly gerrymandered it would take a supermajority of voters to kick out their Republican majorities!
So, no, I'm sorry, but voting hasn't solved this problem and it will almost certainly continue to not solve this problem. In all likelihood, it will only become less and less meaningful as the Republican supermajorities and the courts continue to undermine voting rights in carefree defiance of the popular will.

This would represent the latest evidence of our political system's systemic decrepitude and growing illiberalism. In no sane country does a court of lifetime-appointed judges have the power to essentially rewrite the nation's laws with a stroke of a pen. It is pure insanity, and the fact that the judges appointed to the court are appointed by presidents (most of the justices making this monumental decisions were appointed by presidents who didn't even win the popular vote!) and confirmed by a heavily anti-democratic Senate just takes the cake. This has been a evangelical Christian (and then general conservative) project since Roe v. Wade was decided, and they have now won their terrible victory. All in spite of the fact that a majority of Americans believe in women have the right to make their own choices. This is what this is really about: to them, people belong in predefined roles determined by their birth, and any attempt to deviate from these rules is akin to apostasy and must be punished severely, as no doubt thousands if not millions of women will discover first-hand.

However, the Democrats are not blameless here. The party has long been ambivalent to the right to choose and has routinely welcomed anti-choice politicians into the party, frequently allowing them to veto any extension or codification of women's right to choose into law. Indeed, as I type this, the Democratic Party's leadership is supporting anti-choice candidates in Democratic primaries! And Democratic politicians and many a liberal commentator have long spoken of Roe v. Wade as a "settled matter" and dismissed the movement to overturn it as insignificant. Probably all most Democrats will do is disapprove of the decision but otherwise legitimize the authority of Supreme Court and continue to talk about the need for a strong Republican Party/

And, of course, this is but the opening salvo of what will be a very long, terrifying, and heart-breaking fusillade of terrible, evil court decisions.

Yeah, I can remember bits of every other temple very clearly, but not the Shadow Temple. Definitely the weakest of the bunch.
At least Bongo-Bongo is memorably weird even if he is a total chump.

Tyranthraxus posted...

What is it protecting kids from? The knowledge that gay people exist?

Tulsi is very triggered by gay people existing, so naturally everyone else must be too.
And don't get her started on trans people.
No, really, don't. I don't need to hear that.

The name is super confusing: I bet many expect the sport will be more like football as opposed to rugby. Even so, it is moderately popular in Canada, Great Britain, and Germany.
Insert joke about Germans loving blitzes here.

gunplagirl posted...

Some of the porn stars I follow on Twitter posted pics of them there and retweeted posts that tagged them.

Gotta say, I'm glad I'm a lesbian with how creepy some of the dudes look. And I can only imagine the smell...

Hard same. Also Jesus I did not need to be thinking about the smell.

Probably something else would have emerged. In the absence of Islam unifying the Arabs, Persia likely remains Zoroastrian(which would likely spread if/when the Sassanids defeat the Eastern Roman Empire) and Buddhism and Hinduism remain the dominant religions in what are now Malaysia and Indonesia (enterprising Arabic merchants brought Islam far and wide, far wider than the sword ever did or could). It's quite possible Judaism would be a major religion in Arabia and Ethiopia (at least). Sikhism possibly never becomes a thing and Manicheanism probably doesn't happen either (it was briefly a major religion).

Then you have all the weird, poorly-documented religions and mystery cults floating around in the Roman Empire, like Orphism, Mithraism, and Isisism. Mithraism probably still loses out as in OTL, since it specifically banned women from participating (historically, the fact that women were theoretically equal members of the Christian community, at least in the beginning, likely made it much more popular).

Plus, you know, Temple of Doom has Mola Ram, who is a genuinely menacing villain played by late Bollywood legend Amrish Puri.
All Crystal Skull has is Russians with Rocky-and-Bullwinkle quality accents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85u34SUh05Y
Link to the Past is an...obvious one, I know, but it starts with a bang and just drops banger after banger on you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBjTSBiGI-o&list=PL893FD255B626B759
Secret of Mana is great. I know some people aren't the biggest fans of the game, and it's overshadowed by the other fantastic Squaresoft RPGs on the system, but that doesn't mean its OST isn't great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilbelzwAdy8&list=PLXtzRwQrH7sx_hNYCv3WcshqDKdWBdMjD
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice for a more modern example.

Dat_Cracka_Jax posted...

I just don't understand the loan cancelling logic... The system that required people to amass an insane amount of student loan to begin with has remained unchanged. I'd be on board if this wasn't to going to be an issue again in four years

Well, because our political system is pathetically broken, this is the only sort of thing that can be done about the problem at this time.

It's better than nothing, but it sounds like they're really worried about it being too much better than nothing. Everyone with student loan debt is a victim of what amounts to price gouging, regardless of their current or future earning potential.

Really, it's abundantly clear that Rowling simply didn't think much of her setting through. Which made it a fine setting for a series of kids/young adult fiction but gets really glaring the more you drill down into the details.

Harpie posted...

pls

She doesnt even do that anymore. She quit her job, realized she cant pay rent if she has no money, then moved in her gf and HER two cats so that the gf can pay her rent. So essentially theres an extra person and extra animals and my rent is still the same

I feel powerless at this point

She sounds like a real piece of work and I'm sorry you've wound up stuck in that situation.

Also I'm sorry for her GF. Get out of there ASAP.

Yes, they're products of social forces and pressures far greater than themselves. Some of them would likely be shitty no matter what, but many of them are just dupes trying to fit into a group, in a society that has thoroughly destroyed most kinds of collective enterprise and kinship in the name of the cult of individualism.

I will say Nixon was a better president than some. Buchanan and Andrew Johnson, for example.

I'm going to leave this one to Hunter S. Thompson, who penned the only eulogy Nixon deserved: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a-crook/308699/

Some choice quotes:

Richard Nixon is gone now, and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing -- a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that "I know I will go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon."
I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.
Nixon laughed when I told him this. "Don't worry," he said, "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you."

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.
These are harsh words for a man only recently canonized by President Clinton and my old friend George McGovern -- but I have written worse things about Nixon, many times, and the record will show that I kicked him repeatedly long before he went down. I beat him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a chance, and I am proud of it. He was scum.

It is fitting that Richard Nixon's final gesture to the American people was a clearly illegal series of 21 105-mm howitzer blasts that shattered the peace of a residential neighborhood and permanently disturbed many children. Neighbors also complained about another unsanctioned burial in the yard at the old Nixon place, which was brazenly illegal. "It makes the whole neighborhood like a graveyard," said one. "And it fucks up my children's sense of values."

The historians were strongly represented by the No. 2 speaker, Henry Kissinger, Nixon's secretary of state and himself a zealous revisionist with many axes to grind. He set the tone for the day with a maudlin and spectacularly self-serving portrait of Nixon as even more saintly than his mother and as a president of many godlike accomplishments -- most of them put together in secret by Kissinger, who came to California as part of a huge publicity tour for his new book on diplomacy, genius, Stalin, H. P. Lovecraft and other great minds of our time, including himself and Richard Nixon.
Kissinger was only one of the many historians who suddenly came to see Nixon as more than the sum of his many squalid parts. He seemed to be saying that History will not have to absolve Nixon, because he has already done it himself in a massive act of will and crazed arrogance that already ranks him supreme, along with other Nietzschean supermen like Hitler, Jesus, Bismarck and the Emperor Hirohito. These revisionists have catapulted Nixon to the status of an American Caesar, claiming that when the definitive history of the 20th century is written, no other president will come close to Nixon in stature. "He will dwarf FDR and Truman," according to one scholar from Duke University.
It was all gibberish, of course. Nixon was no more a Saint than he was a Great President. He was more like Sammy Glick than Winston Churchill. He was a cheap crook and a merciless war criminal who bombed more people to death in Laos and Cambodia than the U.S. Army lost in all of World War II, and he denied it to the day of his death. When students at Kent State University, in Ohio, protested the bombing, he connived to have them attacked and slain by troops from the National Guard.

Nixon liked to remind people of that. He believed it, and that was why he went down. He was not only a crook but a fool. Two years after he quit, he told a TV journalist that "if the president does it, it can't be illegal."
Shit. Not even Spiro Agnew was that dumb. He was a flat-out, knee-crawling thug with the morals of a weasel on speed. But he was Nixon's vice president for five years, and he only resigned when he was caught red-handed taking cash bribes across his desk in the White House.

It would be easy to forget and forgive Henry Kissinger of his crimes, just as he forgave Nixon. Yes, we could do that -- but it would be wrong. Kissinger is a slippery little devil, a world-class hustler with a thick German accent and a very keen eye for weak spots at the top of the power structure. Nixon was one of those, and Super K exploited him mercilessly, all the way to the end.
Kissinger made the Gang of Four complete: Agnew, Hoover, Kissinger and Nixon. A group photo of these perverts would say all we need to know about the Age of Nixon.

He has poisoned our water forever. Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.

megamanfreakXD posted...

https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-caps-exclude-high-earners-student-loan-relief-2022-4

wtf biden

Did going through 3 waves of a pandemic as a medical resident mean nothing? HeALtHcArE HeRoS my ass

Why yes it did, back to work for your betters peasant.

Hard shells suck, but I also have the "cilantro is soap" gene, so....

May Day Eve?

AloneIBreak posted...

Do not wait to strike, till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking. - William Butler Yeats
Fucking love Civ quotes. Little bummed they went for humor with VI though.

Plus, you know, Leonard Nimoy was perfect.

"To move a mountain, begin by carrying away small stones." - Confucius
Yes, I remember it because of Civ IV.
It's actually been really helpful to me in my transition, in regards to being patient and just keeping at it.

JuanCarlos1 posted...

Arent the death numbers lower % wise?

Death numbers are always a lagging indicator, IIRC.

https://twitter.com/JReinerMD/status/1520409239168196616
A reminder of how the CDC decided to present its data in a different way that downplays local COVID transmission.

My fashion is a little basic at the moment, though more-than-friend-lady-from-Hinge insists I have a good sense for it she also insists I'm hot lol. My day-to-day wear is heavily restricted by Whole Food's Market ridiculously restrictive dress code, which bars anything political (no trans pride necklace), any outfit with more than four colors (no rainbows fuck you), or...floral patterns and certain kinds of stripes (why not? Gotta pretend this isn't about banning Pride because they wanted to justify banning BLM), among many other things. For example, an unpublished addendum to the dress code we get mandates the wearing of socks. They enforce this if they want to.
Furthermore, my job in the Bakery specifically bars me from painting my fingernails, which is basically all I did between coming out and transferring to Bakery. Overall, however, the transfer has improved my life. Even if the white coat I have to wear does a great job of concealing my breasts, and leads to a lot of misgendering (people generally don't bother paying attention to name tags. Or don't care about my girl name and "she/her" pronouns. Fuck them).

Moreover, I'm still feeling out what I like and don't like. And my comfort level has just reached "Wear yoga pants to the gym". Some day I'll wear a skirt outside and probably love it. Then my spectacular legs will be unleashed upon the world and the hour of doom shall approach.

gunplagirl posted...

He thinks that the workers seizing the means of production and distributing wealth and housing to everyone regardless of their ability to contribute to society is violence.

He also doesn't think that abusive working conditions, poor and intentionally stagnated wages, denying people housing based on their income or lack thereof, or having people holding other necessary for life resources constitutes violence.

I am reminded of Mark Twain:

There were two Reigns of Terror, if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the horrors of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terrorthat unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

If the Evangelicals have their way, it will be illegal to be gay or trans or to get an abortion. Ignore the backlash at our peril, and, eventually: yours.

Oh hi, happy birthday Ms. Deity!

Ivynn posted...

I dunno, I've had more than one dream where I'm a woman, heck I'll admit those dreams were pretty fun, but I'm very certain I'm 100% cishet dude >_>

Anchor Arms(TM) commercial, but tiddies. I just can't conceptualize it right now.

SSJPurple posted...

Thank you for actually contributing a serious and insightful response.

That must have been (and still be) extremely difficult. Im glad that you seem to have accepted who you are though. Thats inspiring.

My response was serious. It's exactly like asking when you realized you were cis.

Ukrainian debt needs to be forgiven after this is over, and I hope we will be as generous in aiding Ukraine in rebuilding as we are in aiding its fight for its own existence.

And it really goes without saying we could and should be spending several times that at home, but the ruling political zeitgeist amongst our elites is that big, ambitious programs are definitionally bad and even just keeping the lights on is suspect. Certainly aid for Ukraine isn't coming at expense of any domestic measures, we have virtually infinite money, it's just the political will doesn't exist for it.

How did you figure out you were cis? Hell, a few years ago, I would be in this very topic insisting I was cis.
But now? Now I have tiddies and everyone loves me! Especially me.

I used to do medium, but I do medium rare these days. Really I'm happy either way though.

Faye Webster

Just gender dysphoria out the wazoo. That really fucks up your head, and even getting your hormones right doesn't undo the damage that's already been done. I'll always be an anxious person. Further combating that dysphoria (both by lessening it directly and indirectly. And I mean beyond the benefits HRT is bringing) will require expensive major surgery.

I also have high cholesterol. Garbage-tier liver. It's not bad enough they've put me on anything for it yet though.

One of my enby coworkers (she/they enby, as a matter of fact) told me the other day that they hate when people ask them what they want for dinner, because they haven't even figured out their own gender or sexuality (they're bi) so how can they be expected to figure out dinner?
I also know a they/she/he enby. You can feel all of those pronouns from them, either discreetly or all at once.

Its hard not to give him a 10. On the scale of American Presidents, internment camps and general racism just, you know, you might as well vote 1 for all of them, at that point. Im serious, this country is and always has been racist AF at every level.

While FDRs New Deal was actually not enough to overcome the Depression entirely, the fact remains that he did more good for this country and its people than any president since. We still benefit from shit established by him and will until our corrupt oligarchy finally gets around to privatizing it all. And the only one with a case in the before category is Lincoln.

spikethedevil posted...

Or the very bad and ignorant now I think about it showing of someone with multiple personality disorder.

Oh yeah, that's another. As great as the first game was, it definitely probably needs more of a remake than a remaster. We've just come very far since 1998, and frankly we already knew this shit was insensitive or worse then (or should have).
The game starts getting noticeably thinner once you hit Hollywood anyway.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Well, this was all supposed to be centered around Bloodlines 2. When you conceptualize all of these little Vampire games with that as the big AAA centerpiece, it all makes sense.

But, of course, Paradox gave its centerpiece to a developer that apparently wasn't up to snuff, and so now we have all these small games. I do think the setting supports this model well(and most of these games have been decent or better), but we all want BL2.
I'm surprised they haven't looked into remastering the 1st game. Perhaps the, uhh, frankly very dated and racist Chinatown section is an issue?

Faye Webster - Suite:Johnny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XW19P6DILJI

I'm literally crying because of how beautiful this is.

Unknown580 posted...

The one thing you can all do that the right understand is force. Sooner or later you might all have to fight them face to face, that's the only thing they understand and only way you can all fight and defend/bring freedom from these fascist shit bags

Not only does the Right have all the guns, they also have the support of the cops, and often, the at least tacit support of the state. Trans people are a tiny minority: arming ourselves isnt going to be enough to save us lol. Many of us cant even afford a place to live, and here you are spouting off about it being our duty to bash the Fash ourselves!

How has Lickilicky not been mentioned?

Ruvan22 posted...

What exactly is "detransitioning"? Like... forcing people back into assigned at birth?

Why of course.

https://twitter.com/ErinInTheMorn/status/1518599125901660165
It won't be long before they ban transitioning entirely, at this rate. Fight for us, fight for women, or you may find you don't have anyone left who can fight for you.

Happy birthday! :)

I somehow never finished that lol.

DespondentDeity posted...

Do you ever get red spots on your breasts? Wondering if it could be from HRT? Theres no other symptoms, but Ill definitely be documenting it and ask my clinician.

Oh I was gonna say too thats great to hear that Hinge lady is able to view you in accordance with who you really are. She sounds like a rare one.

I think Im going to actually get really strict about what I eat from now on, like I count calories but I dont really watch macros or anything I just stop eating when I reach my limit.

Might binge Seinfeld season 2 episodes tonight; what are yall up to?

Women just rock, you know?
As for your other question: no. Never had red spots on my breasts. It's probably nothing major, but it never hurts to bring it up.

And yeah, Hinge lady is unique. She's from Mississippi of all places, but her best friend growing up is a closeted trans woman (again, Mississippi). She moved out my way to take care of her sick mom (she died of MS) and had several relationships, including dating/rooming with an out trans woman and marrying a dude and having her kid with him. She divorced him because he's an alcoholic. We quickly got into deep conversation about our pasts and beliefs: she likes to read philosophy. She makes me think and offers insights and observations I often miss.

And, as for me, I'm just whiling away the time until my friend's stream(9 PM PST. Midnight my time). They're doing a stream to celebrate their bottom surgery. I was texting with them a few days ago and confessed to them that I can't wait to be texting with them after my bottom surgery, and they promised to share all the cheat codes with me lol.

Turtlemayor333 posted...

I don't get how they're allowed to be in every industry.

Online shopping.
Whole Foods.
Movie streaming.
Game development.
Twitch.

But senators are mad about Microsoft buying Activision.

Because oligopolies are a sign that the system is working!

IMNOTRAGED posted...

As the part of the article I skimmed through points out this is still in the context of a patriarchal society. A world where women had been in charge for all of known time probably wouldn't have those sorts of dynamics. So much of human development has been guided by religion it's hard to imagine how fundamentally different things might be if a majority of the world didn't believe they were following some sky daddy's rules by the subjugation of women

It could easily be following some sky mommy's rules by the subjugation of men lol.

If you empower women, they can and often are just as aggressive as their male peers. Perhaps they would even overcompensate due to the inherent insecurity of being a woman in power in a patriarchial society which typically treats war and conquest as hyper-masculine pursuits.