What “us?”

I’m going to be right there alongside her, on my way to an execution too.

And so are you.

I wonder how she’s going to feel about this choice a few years down the line, when President-for-life Trump orders her execution.

Very much so (and there’s at least one patient gamers community around, because I’ve posted to one).

The only advantage I can see to playing a game on release is taking part in that first rush of interest, but I’m antisocial enough that that doesn’t appeal to me anyway, so I’m not missing anything there.

Beyond that, I think playing a game at least a year or so after release has all of the advantages. The initial flurry of absolute love vs. absolute hate has died down so it’s easier to get a broad view of the quality, the game is more stable, the price is better, dlc and expansions are out and generally packaged with the game, and best of all, in this current era, I can most likely buy it from GOG and actually have the full game, DRM-free, on my system.

And there are a bajillion good games out there, just waiting for me to discover them.

I haven’t read those yet, but I intend to. And I expect that, like every one I’ve read yet, they’ll be solid 7 or 8 out of 10 books.

That’s the thing that reminded me of Crichton. He has that same ability to start with some fascinating idea and run with it and deliver a solid, well-told and satisfying story, then move on to some completely different fascinating idea and run with it and deliver another solid, well-told and satisfying story. He’s not locked into any specific genre or any specific approach to telling a story - just whatever works for that idea, that’s what he does, and it just works.

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I’ve been on a bit of a Tchaikovsky binge lately. I read Children of Time years ago and enjoyed it, but for whatever reason, didn’t read anything else by him then. I had a copy of Made Things knocking around though, and I finally read it a few weeks ago and was so impressed I started reading him in earnest. This is the… let’s see… seventh book of his I’ve read lately.

He sort of reminds me of Michael Crichton. He’s not a particularly notable prose stylist - his writing is entirely competent and sufficient, but not in any way really remarkable. But he tells very imaginative stories very well, so he’s a satisfying read.

This one is a sort of political thriller wrapped around a mystery that plays out a bit like a science fiction update of a Lovecraftian eldritch abomination story, leavened a bit with Emily St. John Mandel style misfit spaceship crew slice of life. I’m enjoying it.

I hadn’t put it together before, but Israel is sort of an international case of affluenza - a spoiled, indulged rich kid who ends up a psychopath because daddy’s money has always given them whatever they want and shielded them from ever having to face the consequences of whatever they do.

It’s long past time to cut off their allowance.

Has anyone else noticed that the NYT’s coverage of the election lately has been more generous to Harris and more critical of Trump?

I think a case could be made that that’s potentially an even more sure indicator that Harris has the advantage than any poll, since the NYT is so craven and cowardly that the only way they’d shift their coverage like that is if they’re reasonably confident that Harris is going to win. If they thought that Trump might win, they’d still be kissing his stinky ass.

And Netanyahu’s obvious provocation strategy is playing out exactly as intended.

I’d say more the latter, but people are multifaceted, so it’s likely not quite the case that it’s people being their true inner selves as just indulging a part of their true inner selves.

Let’s not kid ourselves - Israel will target whatever and whoever the fuck it wants to, entirely regardless of possible consequences, and the US won’t do anything meaningful about it, ever.

Well, he is the bestest and most smartest president in the whole history of ever.

For anyone who still has any doubts about who the real groomers and pedophiles are, the far right is now essentially putting up blinking neon signs announcing that it’s them.

On a bit of a side note:

Dimon announced earlier this year he would not make an endorsement prior to the 2024 election.

In August, Dimon wrote in The Washington Post, “We live in a perilous time. Deeply divided, our nation now faces both challenging domestic issues and perhaps the most complicated geopolitical situation since World War II. We may be at an inflection point that will determine the fate of the free and democratic world for decades.”

Though my take on all of that is much more cynical than his, I agree in principle.

We need to elect a president who is dedicated to the ideals that define and unite us, and who is committed to restoring our faith in America and our indispensable role in the world.

And I can see why he won’t endorse anyone - because that person isn’t a candidate.

Identity in general doesn’t matter much on forums (as opposed to microblogs, like Twitter or Mastodon). Forums are focused on topics rather than people, and what is said is generally more important than who says it.

I keep wondering why we don’t see more of this.

IMO, planting trees is the most obvious and basic response to climate change. Literally what they evolved to do is to remove carbon compounds from the atmosphere.

They’re not going to solve the problem alone, but they’re such an obvious benefit, and planting them is something every community and even every individual can do right now.

It’s safe to assume that the “uncomfortable” part is that he’s either going to have to admit to soliciting sex with minors or perjure himself, and neither one is going to end well for him.

It’s not quite true that we “never” hear about Ukraine’s far right. We hear about them fairly regularly in fact - from Putin’s apologists and sycophants.

“We do not currently assess” is ludicrously blatant mealy-mouthed misdirection.

Ah… yes. A lot of things just clicked into place for me, and not just regarding Vance.

Most notably really - trying to grasp the idea of “TheoBros” broadly - I wondered how such a thing is even possible. How can any even moderately intelligent person spend a great deal of time online and cling to a Christian belief at all, and much less a conservative one? There’s just far too much information out there that contradicts that view. Granted, there is of course content tailored to affirm it, but it’s essentially a specialist thing - not just a bubble, but a very specific and limited bubble, surrounded by a sea of contrary views and contradicting facts.

And then it clicked - the way to maintain a conservative Christian viewpoint on the internet is to be an aggressively censorious conspiracy theorist.

The only way they can face the sea of contradictory information is to ascribe it to some sort of ridiculously massive conspiracy by the forces of evil - such that the vast majority of what exists on the internet is the lies of Satan’s minions - and to establish little, aggressively monitored and censored enclaves in which their views and only their views are allowed, and everything else is condemned and preferably censored.

Their whole cognitively dissonant view on “free speech” - in which they somehow simultaneously cry about being “censored” generally simply for being massively downvoted and even as they, in their own bubbles, overtly censor any and all contrary views - suddenly makes sense. They explain away the fact that the vast majority of people disagree with them and even condemn them as a conspiracy to silence them, and create the illusion that they’re not merely a noxious and irrational few by aggressively monitoring and controlling their walled gardens, so that opposition is at least underrepresented if not silenced entirely.

It also explains their slippery relationship with truth, and specifically things like Vance clinging to the Haitians eating pets myth even after it’s been proven false. For them, coming across information that proves them wrong has to be an essentially daily occurrence, so they undoubtedly work out an approach to it, such that they, exactly as he’s doing, just flatly ignore the necessary ramifications of the truth and instead just blithely cling to whatever myth affirms their beliefs.

Yeah… suddenly a whole lot of previously inexplicable behavior and beliefs are making sense to me…

And frankly, while it’s notably pathetic and cringily willfully ignorant, it’s also scary. More on that later maybe…

Right. The country in which officials insist that soldiers should be entirely free to sexually abuse Palestinians can investigate itself.