Lurker > ElatedVenusaur

Just finished a book about the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Now starting a John Brown biography.

Amazing, simply tremendous.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/29/study-to-succeed-in-america-its-better-to-be-born-rich-than-smart.html
Oh hey, look at this.

LightHawKnight posted...

College is mostly pointless, the internships and networking are far more important to get a job and rich people tend to have more easy time with those.

Internships are a great thing to bring up, because when your parents are loaded, you can take an unpaid internship in an expensive city without a second thought(like, say, as one of Nancy Pelosi's secretaries).
If you have to support yourself, that same internship is a pipe dream. Also, Richie's dad knows a guy on the company's board(or maybe all the guys, if he's really rich), so the internship is probably a formality and it doesn't really matter if Richie is any good or not, they (or their parents) know all the right people.

Tales of Vesperia - Gattuso
Gattuso is just straight overpowered for when you fight it. It's early, you don't have a lot of tools or durability yet, and Gattuso is really fast and hits like a truck. Worse, flowers that poison your characters spawn into the arena, further complicating affairs.

Pokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum - Cynthia
Cynthia's really the first Champion since Blue without an obvious Achilles' heel. And she has one of the few pokemon to approach the sheer power of RBY Alakazam: Garchomp. Her Garchomp will savage your team with 100 BP Earthquake and 120 BP Dragon Rush. It's fast, hits like a truck, and is disconcertingly durable. It will tear through your team if you can't answer it. And that's just one of Cynthia's six: she also has Milotic, Spiritomb(no weaknesses in DPP!), and Lucario, which can all put a serious hurt on your team. It's no wonder they couldn't resist having her show up for rematches in BW and BW2!

It sounds like you might want to bring this up with a therapist, preferably one with experience dealing with nutrition. I realize; however, that may not be fiscally possible. Your thought patterns in regards to food and eating sound a bit unhealthy. You should be eating more than you do.

With that said, bananas, salmon and spinach are all foods that are excellent nutritionally.
Like, for breakfast: how about a cup of yogurt to go with the banana? Preferably a brand that's relatively low in sugar, like Siggi's or Skyr. Bananas are loaded with good nutrients, but they're not very nourishing on their own: yogurt supplies healthy fat and protein to nourish and satiate.
Eggs are another good (cheap!) source of good fats and protein that are easy to prepare(and you can have them a dozen ways and with any meal).
Salads are another relatively easy meal. Just buy a tub of greens(or, if you're ambitious, a head lettuce, a bushel of kale and/or spinach) and throw in some veggies. Chicken, salmon, hard-boiled egg, or really any protein makes a great accompaniment to round it out. Olive oil and vinegar(of any kind, really) combine to make a nice, healthy dressing. You can switch it up with different dressings, greens, veggies, and proteins to keep it from getting stale.

Tell me Harpie: do you cook? If not, learning would be an excellent medium-to-long range goal that would give you a lot of control over your diet and enable you to switch things up on a whim.

Oh, lastly: do you exercise? That's good for your body, but also good for your nerves.

Does Culdcept count? It's a video game series, of course, but it's card-driven, and deck building is a vitally important part of it.
Basically imagine if Magic: The Gathering and Monopoly had a kid.

New Zealand is capable of self-governance.

Cleo_II posted...

Canned tuna is absolutely vile. Fresh tuna is so much better.

"So much better" is probably understating it.
But yeah, I love nice, fresh tuna too. In sushi or just a steak of it. Heavenly stuff.

Two cops(Kamala was AG, Demings was Orlandos police chief and also a perennial sponsor of Blue Lives Matter legislation) a hawk(Rice), a disappointment(Warren) whose seat would probably be filled with a worse Dem, and then the wild card at the bottom.
Oh, and Bottoms oversees Atlantas cops, so, well, Im sure there are plenty of skeletons.

He would be profoundly upset to learn the prevailing sentiment is that poor men, women and POC are people entitled to all the same rights as wealthy white men.

Yeah, the Dems lost seats in the Senate primarily on the back of Blue Dogs failing to hang on in red states and unlikely flips like Texas and Tennessee not materializing.

For comparison with the above: https://www.270towin.com/2020-senate-election/
The Dems have four obvious pick-up opportunities against weak incumbents, including two in blue states(CO+ME). All four races feature a deeply unpopular incumbent Republican. There are also two open seats in Georgia and various other unlikely but not impossible pick-up opportunities. Importantly, the only clear pick-up opportunity the Republicans have is in Alabama. None of the other Democratic incumbents seem particularly likely to lose.

Anticyclonic posted...

None of what you're describing is "defunding" and Ok and if this happens then whatever is built from scratch, better have individuals who are well educated and their mental health well taken care of.

Oh no, defunding is actually a vital part of the solution!
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/defund-police/612682/

The U.S. invests obscene amounts of money into its military and law enforcement, while spending relatively paltry sums on social welfare(here meant in the broadest sense: not just public assistance programs, but also education, rehabilitation programs, etc.) This is true at all levels of government. Many towns make ends meet through the aggressive assessment of fines and civil asset forfeiture, "taxes" that disproportionately affect the poor. It's rotten all the way up and down.

All of these explanations are great, but the goal of a slogan is to be catchy and memorable, even if it isnt an exact description of the goal.
Like, I want to spend less money on police and more on social programs is, perhaps, more accurate, but its a poor sound bite they would distort anyway. The status quo will never deal with us in good faith.

bloodydeath0 posted...

it's such a stupid discussion. there's like no clear direction for the "movement" right now. some people want to abolish police entirely, some people want to REDUCE funding (not defund which implies making them privatized or just abolishing), some people want to keep them the same, some want more funding.

it's insane. some cops are shitty. lets add some public accountability measures and de escalation training. let's have a discussion about the role of police. not just be "ALL COPS ARE RACIST WE MUST MAKE OUR OWN SOCIETY LIKE LORD OF THE FLIES"

btw Chaz is basically a reality show and i'm enjoying watching it

No, see, let me ask you something: do you think murdering George Floyd was the first bad thing Derek Chauvin did on the job? There were, what...three other cops who watched him murder a dude while he begged for his life, and they stood around and did nothing. They just let Derek Chauvin straight-up murder a guy, and here's the thing: those cops aren't the exception to the rule, they are the rule.
And, of course, Chauvin had a long record of abuse, and was actually referred for prosecution over an earlier incident, but he was never prosecuted, because our political and legal culture is so subservient to and protective of cops that it's perfectly feasible Chauvin will be acquitted for murder even though we have video of it happening.

Stuff like this happens every day, all across the country. This is how the system works, that's why the system needs to be torn down and reimagined and rebuilt from scratch.

Also, TC? When Bernie says something that's wrong, he's wrong. It's really easy to understand!

You might be wondering: why Berserkers, why #BERSERKERRISK? It's because berserkers are baaaad, primarily because they are permanently, well, berserk. Meaning you cannot give them orders: they just attack a random target. To make matters worse, their action bar always starts on empty. At least you can tell your Dancer what to do, and, if you're lucky, slap on a powerful ability like !Summon. Oh, and you need a full 999 JP to unlock both of their abilities, the first of which is the ability to be permanently berserk.
However, that is not to say Berserkers are completely useless. Their second ability, Equip Axes, like most such abilities, confers stats; in this case, the Berserkers strength stat, which is third-best. They use heavy armor and shields, and can also get plenty of mileage out of the Knight ability Two-Handed and the Ninja ability Dual-wield(at the cost of their shield). They are the only class which can equip axes, which may seem like poor weapons, given their wide damage range and shoddy accuracy, but there are a number of powerful axes, including the Reaper's Scythe, which is a drop from enemies on Crescent Island in the first world, which can activate Death on hit.
Late-game, they have access to an axe(forget the name) which triggers Quake on hit as well as the Rune Axe.
Lastly, berserkers have an innate immunity to the Confuse status.

The Rune Axe is special, because it's powered by MP. It consumes MP to do extra damage, but Berserkers have terrible MP. So what you do is equip them with a magic skill, which gives them a mage-sized MP pool, and just watch them go to town. The Rune Axe will hit the damage cap on crits.

None of that makes up for the class' many shortcomings, of course, but whether you're brave enough to do #BERSERKERRISK, or Gilgabot is just cruel, a berserker(or two) isn't the end of your run.

The center is an empty void. It has no vision, no plans, no solutions. Hell, it hardly even admits that there are problems!

It's pretty gross people are mad that the unemployed may actually have enough money to live on(until the extra amount expires July 31st and they're back to being f***ed).
Be mad you're not being paid what you deserve. Bernie had to sneak the unemployment provision in last minute and grandstand Graham into submission to get even that much for average people. Be mad that 90% of the people in Congress don't give a damn about anything other than lining their donors' pockets with endless bail-outs.

DuranOfForcena posted...

Biden didn't hijack the DNC in order to get the primary nomination

Well, it should be said that, in both instances, the DNC was a willing participant, and Clinton's target was actually Biden, not some obscure senator from the Green Mountain state who definitely would never be a threat!
Maybe Biden didn't hijack things this time, but Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Jim Clyburn sure pulled a movie-worthy heist.

Biden inspires basically no enthusiasm, but Trump does: both for himself and against himself, and it seems increasingly likely the latter force will prevail. If that is true, then it's yet more proof all the talk of "electability" in the primary was gaslighting.

In any case, Biden represents the Democrats doubling down on Hillary's 2016 strategy: aggressively pursuing suburban whites at the expense of...everything else. It is a more conservative demographic than their typical constituencies, but that will also lead to worse policy outcomes, and they will also be likely to abandon the Democrats once Trump is gone.

LOL a goddamned tax credit for taking a vacation? Thatll be a YUGE help to all the freshly unemployed without incomes and everyone else who cant afford to travel in the first place! To say nothing of the wisdom of encouraging travel right now...

hockeybub89 posted...

Sometimes certain actions forever stain your life's legacy. Like being the top general of a rogue state that broke away because rich dudes wanted to enslave black people.

Worth remembering that Robert E. Lee was himself a rich dude who enslaved black people.
Also he had a notable predilection for attacking and looting freedmen towns on his campaigns north.

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

You dont know why southern states would still celebrate soldiers who fought to defend their state and families? They were traitors to the Union. They were not traitors to the states they called home. If the federal government tried to conscript you to literally kill people in your own neighborhood and you said nope, Id rather go to prison or fight you instead, I seriously doubt you would consider yourself a traitor, even though you technically would be.

Attack the celebrations and memorials from the slavery position. Thats the one that is reasonable.

A war that brought them death and ruin and (would have) benefited only the white aristocracy. It was a gross tragedy, yet only its architects ever seem to be honored. You do not see much commemoration of southern efforts to resist secession or the Confederacy, for example.

Yeah, Boston rioted over desegregation.

KainWind posted...

Wow this sounds really cool. I don't know the game well enough but it would be fun to watch.

I don't even remember dancer in the game, what were it's abilities?

Dancer is fast and gets access to the !Dance command, which causes the Dancer to randomly use one of the following attacks:
Jitterbug: Drains the enemy(very bad if it targets something that's undead)
Mystery Waltz: Drains MP
Tempting Tango: Can confuse the target
Sword Dance: Does a ton of damage
(The Dancing Dagger works by sometimes triggering the !Dance command on attack).
Dancers have dancer-exclusive gear that increases the rate Sword Dance happens(IIRC, if you equip all of it, including the Dancing Dagger, you can get up to a 75% of Sword Dance). Additionally, dancer is the only class that can equip Ribbons and learn an ability that enables other classes to equip them.

The sum total of this is unimpressive, largely because they die if an enemy looks at them too hard. Bad defenses, light armor, and mage-tier HP do not a frontliner make, but putting them in back neuters most of what they have going for them.
Lastly, !Dance is one of the commands that enables you to use the Chicken Knife without triggering its auto-flee chance. There are better options for that (Ranger's !RapidFire, for instance), but you might not get them.

In conclusion, Dancer has few strengths or synergies.

The rules are simple: once you have registered with Gilgabot, you tweet to it whenever you reach a new crystal, and Gilgabot will assign you a job. The codes are #wind, #water, #fire, and #earth . You can only use your available job(s): for example, if Gilgabot assigns you Knight as your Wind job, you must make all of your characters knights. Once you get a Water job, at least one character must be that job. So if you got Berserker, one of your party members would have to be a berserker at all times.
Basically, you must have at least one instance of all your unlocked jobs active at all times. You may freely swap party members between your available jobs; however unless you do Natural.
When you defeat the final boss, you take a screen shot of its (very lengthy) death animation and tweet that to Gilgabot with #victory to confirm you have completed your run. If you're up to it, you can also get credit for killing the game's two super bosses: Shinryu and Omega; by screenshotting their deaths and tweeting them to Gilgabot with #victoryshinryu and #victoryomega , respectively.
The website has a handy tool that will auto-generate a valid tweet for registration purposes.

https://i.imgur.com/IChsAYS.png
That's how things went last year. I didn't have it in me to play FF5 then(it was a busy summer), but I figure I'll go at least once this year.
Well, I'll leave this flopic alone now.

shockthemonkey posted...

Especially because Sanders and Biden are saying the same thing about this.

And, for the record: they're both dead wrong!

s0nicfan posted...

Did people think that mandatory body cams, additional training, and additional oversight were all going to come free to departments?

$300 million dollars is, like, a drop in the bucket for big-city police departments that spearhead many high-profile cases of brutality and murder. So it doesn't really make much sense by that logic: it's pure "virtue" signalling.
Mostly to cops that nothing fundamentally will change.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/19/homan-square-chicago-police-disappeared-thousands
A reminder that Chicago PD ran an illegal black site for years. It saw some of its heaviest utilization under Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, now a top Biden advisor.

People who refuse to tear down these statues at this point should be forced to replace it with either a statue of Nat Turner or John Brown.

http://fourjobfiesta.com/
The idea is to play FF5 to raise money for the charity Child's Play. But this is a challenge run: you may only use four jobs, one from each crystal, as assigned from @FF5ForFutures (otherwise known as Gilgabot). It starts up in a week, and I'm posting this now because you have to pre-register in order to take on an extra challenge: #BERSERKERRISK
Basically, you're "risking" that some number of your jobs will be locked to Berserker, generally agreed to be the worst job in the game(due to being permanately berserk and also having an action bar that always starts completely empty). The number of berserkers handed out to the (un)lucky #BERSERKERRISKers is dependent on how much is donated before the Fiesta starts.

It's a fun way to play, though it can be quite daunting if you get a bad combo of jobs(like my dire Chaos run two years ago: White Mage/Monk/Dancer/Dragoon was pretty dire, and White Mage is even really good!)

I read a lot(at least when I'm not in school). Currently finishing up a book about the Egyptian Book of the Dead(The Book of Going Forth by Day) which contains a reproduction of the Ani Papyrus, all the (known) chapters which don't appear there, and some explanation of the history of scholarship on The Book of the Dead and an explanation of what it all meant(to the extent that we, far separated from Ancient Egypt, understand it). I also read fiction, history, and the occasional philosophy or political science text.
I follow politics and attended a rally just yesterday.
I cook a lot, and love reading Atlas and Gastro Obscura articles about food. I love finding and experimenting with new ingredients.
I like to go for walks amidst nature and occasionally hike.
In brighter times, I liked getting together with friends to play board games together.
I am known to enjoy alcohol, especially beer, rum, and whiskey. I always seek out new beers to try.

I dont know whats popular and whats not, but I dont encounter many people who watch What We Do in the Shadows or Killing Eve.

Doe posted...

You're out of your mind do you realizes how many judges they've confirmed including two US Supreme Court members

Yeah, and the Republican Party will almost certainly win big in the 2022 mid-terms, so even if they lose the Senate and presidency theyll be right back in the saddle.
The silver lining for Democrats is that this is a redistricting year, so winning big locally would enable them to draw more favorable congressional maps for what little the House matters.

Metal_Bomberman posted...

much easier than actually offering real change

Nancy is the queen of political performance

Pretty much.
I don't care that the Congressional Black Caucus coordinated this, it looks dumb and performative as hell. But then, the CBC being out of touch shouldn't surprise anyone.

scorpion41 posted...

Being elected causes more bias than being appointed. Just look at every elected official...more concerned about remaining in a positive light than making unpopular decisions.

Plus, you want to be sure the people on the highest court in the land either possess a lot of relevant experience and/or exceptional legal scholars. Like, ideally.

Judge terms being life is terrible though and 10 year terms sounds fine. You would stagger them, of course, and there would be no term limits.

Of course, the first step to getting there is probably packing the courts, because Calvinball seems to be the only solution at this juncture.

Tyranthraxus posted...

We could literally save so much fucking money by just not R&Ding shit we never use. We have spent literally trillions making fighter jets that no American pilots ever flew and to recoup the massive losses we sell them overseas and sometimes it winds up in the hands of our enemies

Seriously. Anytime you want to get mad, read about military R&D. Its graft, corruption, and waste all the way down. Congress often literally appropriates more weapons than the military wants.
Of course, thats just part of the problem with our military budget.

We're starting to come close to failing, certainly.

scorpion41 posted...

The SC is already hard right...where you been?

And Biden will probably only be able to maintain a court where John f***ing Roberts is the swing vote(with occasional guest appearances from Gorsuch).
In fact, its fairly likely whoever Biden appoints to replace Ginsberg wont be as good as her. Then youre basically hoping that Thomas or Alito keels over before the midterms.

At this point, its probably better to start actively attacking the legitimacy of our courts.

Man, if only we had nominated some one who wouldn't waste this historic opportunity...

Aww man, now his bug-eyed visage will inspire only sorrow...
This s*** has GOT to stop.

SmidgeIsntBack posted...

How do Democrats settle on a guy who looks deader than Trump

He was the only not-Bernie who polled above single digits with minorities.

Good. She has a huge platform, so I'm glad to see she's putting it to good use.

Irony posted...

President isn't at the top, Congress is

Maybe that's what they intended, but it certainly isn't even close to being true today.

Do you, perhaps, have a senior position at the New York Times?

Our current conception certainly is. Police, as they are, exist primarily to enforce the prevailing social order(which is fairly classist and extremely racist), and, in America, that has always been their primary function.

Personally, I think these departments have gotten too big and too militarized. You have a one-stop shop for investigating crimes of all kinds(or not investigating them, as noted in the case of rape), for enforcing any and all rules and regulation(speed limits, parking, etc.), for responding to mental health crises, for serving eviction notices and court summons, etc. etc. Every single one of these functions is served by some dude who doesn't need a degree, got 840 hours of training on average(mostly relating to fitness and marksmanship), carrying a gun and maybe a taser and/or baton at all times or even a dog.

What we need is to break that up. You have one entity investigating crimes, one dealing with mental health issues, one handing out citations for stuff like parking, etc. , so you can give them meaningfully different missions and specializations and tools, and you put a lot of effort into integrating those departments into the communities in which they exist, so that they actually serve their communities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country
I mean, just look at that, and tell me our current approach "works" and that we just need to make some small changes, because right now we average more police shootings per capita than many African nations. You could probably argue those countries may be under-reporting, but no amount of error could explain why we have almost 3 times as many shootings per capita as the worst developed nation(Luxemburg has to get its s*** together, apparently).

You know, it occurred to me we should offer suggestions on what breweries to look out for. The brewers I personally trust most are...
Stone
Dogfish Head
Left Hand
New Holland
Thimble Island(you probably won't find them unless you're relatively near Branford CT though lol).

I've had enough different kinds of beer by them to be confident that everything they make is bound to be good(at worst), even if it doesn't fit my taste buds.

DespondentDeity posted...

It's more like he proudly exclaims, "I'm pickle Rick!"

And its all an elaborate scheme to get out of going to family therapy that nearly results in his death and then he winds up showing up at the end of session anyway.

The best thing to do would be to go to a restaurant or bar that offers "flights": basically a varietal selection of beer in shot glasses. You could get a good spectrum: a lager, an IPA or two, a sour, an amber, a porter, a stout, or so on, and see what you like.
Of course, we live in the time of Corona(virus), so that may not be possible/advisable.

As others have said, go to a liquor store that sells singles, and buy a selection of different varieties. That can get expensive though, especially as you get towards the darker end of the spectrum(generally speaking, the darker a beer is, the longer it took to brew it, so stouts can get really pricey). If you get six, I would suggest trying to cover as much of the spectrum as you can(unless you have a hunch as to what you may prefer): light to dark. A good place will have people who know about beer and can recommend you some.

No, bad.
Invader Zim owned and I will fight you.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/
Here's an interesting article.