Shoblongoo

Its called growing up.

Makes me wonder how much of the history of World Religions is just mentally ill people ascribing spiritual significance to their manias and psychotic episodes.

I've just started delving into the supports, but my initial impression is that this game is leaving me with a much more favorable take on Edelgard. Like--not enough to say she's in the right or move off my position that Claude's ideology and vision is the cause I'd most want to get behind. But she's definitely coming across as more of a social visionary with a well thought-out agenda and legitimate need to make the decisions she makes to see it enacted. And less of a petty tyrant with a chip on her shoulder.

[Contemporary Shitlords]: "Games were better when they weren't so political." [Tellius Saga]:

Its an abortion-flavored variant of the trolley problem. Which is to say its a simplified framing of the moral issue. But it serves its purpose as a test of: "lets see if you really believe that." If the position to be defended is [life from conception] = [baby]. And the obvious moral imperative would be to save the baby and abandon the tube rack + that it would be unconscionable to leave a born child to die in a fire to save even 10 times as many 'unborn' lives. Then yes--the question is absolutely the 'gotcha' I think it is. But 'gotcha' is such an ugly word. Lets call it admission-against-interest.

^^^ This. And on this point, it would better serve The Right's anti-abortion posturing than any of their current rhetoric for them to be: in favor of paid maternity leave in favor of universal daycare and pre-k in favor of national health service coverage of pre-natal care, delivery, and pediatrics. in favor of living wage laws that include the cost of childcare Because there are few things that come across as more deliberately wicked-minded than mandating that it is a woman's duty under-the-law to carry and deliver each and every single conceived pregnancy. In a country where you've made it so that persons of average means have neither the ability to pay for someone else to watch their kids while they work, or the ability to cease working to watch their kids.

@AnonymousSpeed You're in a hospital. There's a fire. As you flee you pass a fully-formed newborn baby crying in its crib, and a tube rack containing ten (10) in vitro fertilized eggs developing into human embryos. You can take one and only one with you as you flee. The baby in the crib will burn to death if you take the tube rack. The 'unborn children' in the tube rack will burn to death if you take the baby. ___ Tell me the obvious non-sociopathic choice. Then admit that there is a difference.

When the progressive left AoC/Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party has enough Senate and House seats to outvote the entire Republican Party and Pelosi/Schumer liberal establishment combined. (i.e. it'll probably be quicker to just wait for said justices to die of natural causes)

PoV: its a slow news day, and FOX needs to cover anything but the 1/6 Hearings

Agreed, sadly. I'd give them nothing beyond a base assumption: "its a corporate oligarchy, and their first impulse is to serve the overclass. Every time." A lot of investment capitalists made a LOT of money off the feds single-mindedly focusing on inflating stock values, while not noticing or not caring what was happening to currency valuation and consumer pricing in the real economy. ...i think its less that the world is following our bad example... And moreso that other countries are having the same problems we're having with reactionary conservatives getting angsty about the social changes of recent decades. Getting more and more extreme in their politics. And getting more and more mainstream in their ability to influence politics and enact their agenda, as people looking at compounding crisis after compounding crisis after compounding crisis in recent years become increasingly dissatisfied with the performance of established mainstream political parties in addressing the pressing issues of the day. Just to a lesser extent. The problem is of course more pronounced in America. As we're a more baseline religious/conservative country to begin with, and our system of national elections has always skewed towards over-representing conservative countryside populations + under-representing more diverse and progressive urban ones. So where other countries have been able to a better job doing things like say--implementing COVID policies, over the objections of religious nutjobs who think that modern medicine is The Devil and the entire pandemic was a communist conspiracy to turn followers of God into followers of The State. Recent elections here have empowered those elements in America to just go buckwild. And they now have an entire major political party beholden to them. ___ Like the Philippines and Brazil weren't "following our lead" there...Duterte and Bolsonaro just so happen to be shitters cut from the same political cloth as Trump... Rightwing authoritarians the world over exhibit the same leadership traits + make the same bad policy choices.

...the alternative to high inflation was for the federal reserve to do its job and raise interest rates when stocks were at a record high to counteract the inflationary pressure of over-saturating the money market. Instead of keeping them near zero and artificially pumping stocks to go higher and higher and higher + treating its primary mission as fellating stockbrokers, rather than protecting currency stability. That was the mistake of Jerome Powell (i.e. the federal reserve chair appointed by Trump in 2018) ___ ...who Biden *derped* and reappointed to another 4 year term this year so...yeahhhhhhhh...thats not great...but I feel you... And the people putting gas prices on Biden are just being petulant.

First new poll I've seen since the decision has (D)'s leading (R)'s 48 to 41 on the generic ballot. (the polls are a mess right now and its from the same polling group that had North Carolina +6 for Biden in 2000, so take that with an ocean's worth of salt) The headwinds of Biden being an unpopular president presiding over record gas prices and inflation are still unfavorable. But if there's anything that can overcome it and get Demorats to the polls: its Roe v. Wade being on the ballot in November.

Well we knew they had 5 votes to overturn Roe (3 Trump appointees, Alito, and Thomas) when they shoved the Handmaid through to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg a month before the 2020 election; thats why everyone who watches the Court was sounding the alarm bells back then. I'm surprised it was a 6-3 opinion with Roberts in the majority though. He had enough of a reputation as an institutionalist and a non-partisan that values the integrity of The Court over pushing a conservative agenda that I thought it was gonna be 5-4, but I guess he's showing his true colors here.

I don't even feel like I'm being hyperbolic anymore when I say "For the future The Left wants: See Star Trek. For the future The Right wants: See The Handmaid's Tale"

May it be the most Pyrrhic of victories.

Oh they'll do it again now every single time they lose a national election if they aren't indicted for 2020. Once you set the precedent that the consequence of declaring yourself the winner of an election that you lost and trying to block the lawful transition of power to the next administration is grounds for committee hearings and political grandstanding but not a criminal prosecution...thats it...its the new normal... We'll never have an election where everyone agrees it was held freely and fairly and the winner won + the loser lost again.

They've gotten seditious conspiracy charges to stick against the low-level mooks who showed up to break into the Capital. They've charged a few people close to Trump (presidential advisor Peter Navarro is the highest up they've gone IIRC) with criminal contempt for failing to respond to subpoenas. They haven't tied the knot of bringing seditious conspiracy charges against any of the people-at-the-top. __ Classic "The people at the bottom committing the lowest-level crimes got prosecuted the hardest."

Obligatory reminder that the only difference between a failed coup and a successful one is whether security forces side with the governing body they've been assigned to protect, or the people trying to overthrow it. And that if the cop who shot Ashley Bobbitt had joined the mob, they were fully prepared to lynch The Speaker of the House.

And where, pray tell, do you suppose they got that idea?

I get what @Jotari is saying though. Sex and gender as descriptors of human biology and behavior start to lose meaning and applicability when you get into the territory of transhumanism. Like obviously we can still apply them to many of the non-human characters; Laguz and Manakete and Gods/Goddesses throughout the series clearly have sexes and gender concepts. But The Morphs do seem to be a special case where the parameters of their identity and freewill are entirely defined by Nergal. Such that unless Nergal specifically goes out of his way to give them sexuality and gender identity (like he did with Sonia)--they don't have any. (Sonia being a special case where Nergal went out of his way to give her sexuality and gender identity, because it was required for her intended purpose)

My take in on it is that representation is done tastefully and respectfully when a fleshed-out character is just incidentally LGBT without that being their ENTIRE character. And bad-taste fanservice when its their entire character and all that ever comes up whenever they have screentime. Consider Dorothea and Soliel. Dorothea being an example of a fully fleshed-out character who has a backstory as a street orphan turned opera star. Motivations of wanting to marry someone with $$$ because she's afraid that once her youth and beauty fades and her diva career is over, she'll be broke and living in the streets again. Character traits of being witty, sassy, and observant. Insecurities about other people thinking she only got into the Officers Academy because she slept with the right nobles + doesn't deserve to be there. And then Incidentally to everything else about her--shes also bisexual. Soliel being an example of bad-taste fanservice whose entire character is: "I'm a cute girl who also likes cute girls. I'm SO gay for cute girls." And I literally couldn't tell you anything else about her.

A well-regulated militiaman appeared outside of Justice Kavanaugh's home and took actions necessary to the security of a free state. If he understand why that's legally incorrect, then he understands why his own doctrinal position on the 2nd amendment is horseshit.

So Judge Kavanaugh thinks he has a fundamental right to privacy in his own home + safety in a gun-free zone ...interesting...

"We have a Second Amendment in this country, and I think we have an obligation to use it… to maintain an armed rebellion against the government if that becomes necessary," said Congressman Matt Gaetz. Not talking about this story, but surely he still has the same take. "When leaders refuse to hold themselves accountable, over time people revolt… the people in charge need to acknowledge their mistakes – or else the consequences will be awful," said Fox News Opinion Host Tucker Carlson in August. Same thing. "Ultimately, the truth is it's our Second Amendment rights, our right to bear arms, that protects Americans and gives us the ability to defend ourselves from a tyrannical government," said Marjorie Taylor Greene in January. ...That was about rightwing threats of violence against Stacey Abrams, but again, great to use here.

What???? you mean Tellius Saga isn't based on the American Civil War and Ike isn't Abraham Lincoln? Absurd [/s]