Dark Holy Elf
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Posts posted by Dark Holy Elf
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But he can veto it, right?
Trump would have to choose to veto it. He will have to choose his battles on where to oppose congress, since he also needs their help to pass his own agenda.
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Meaning some cancers can be cured. :/ If it's detected early enough, treatments can kill the cancer cells or a surgery can remove the cancerous tumor or whatever, and in a lot of cases, the patient is cancer free after that and stays that way. This is technically curing said patient.
At least one cancer also has a vaccine, interestingly enough. I should know, because I've gotten the shot before. It's for cervical cancer.
The vaccine is for human papillomavirus, rather than cancer specifically. However, you're not wrong: the damage this virus can cause is a serious risk factor for cervical cancer, and preventing it is one of the reasons to get the vaccine. That said, cancer itself is not a virus or bacterium and thus vaccines can not prevent it. Vaccines essentially prime your body to deal with foreign invaders, while cancer is the body's own cells gone rogue.
Different cancers do have various cures and treatments, but they certainly aren't ironclad, especially for certain types of cancer (e.g. pancreatic cancer is particularly deadly). There's a reason it's one of the leading causes of death.
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Swing states are already polled much more often and in much greater detail than non-swing states, for what it's worth. National polls are still useful because they reveal overall trends quite well. If someone wins the popular vote by 5% or more they're going to win the election every time.
Pollsters are going to use observations from 2016 to tinker with their methods but broadly speaking they're already doing the right thing, as best we know it. Serious misses like Dewey/Truman are (most likely) a thing of the past.
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This is a pretty flimsy comparison to the 3DS cut-ins. The in-battle supports of the GBA era might seem awkward but those games didn't really have a developed "between battles" portion of the game like Tellius and the 3DS games did. How do those even compare to something like Selena's mad laughter in battle or characters making cheeky one-liners when they kill people?
To be perfectly honest this is one of the most realistic battle quotes.
War and killing are extremely brutal and the most common vocalizations during them are screams (especially these), laughter, and simple comments along the lines of "DIE!" If you can see Mist killing someone with a sword (and gameplaywise she certainly can), then yes her doing one of those things is probably the most realistic. She's not going to be a demure anime girl during battle even if she can maintain that personality outside it (though to be honest most FE characters should probably rapidly shift to far more haunted, traumatised personalities given how many people they kill).
Agreed that goofy things like "Yay, I won!" are far less likely. Very few people are going to be cheerful in the middle of a battle.
That said, I like crit cut-ins because of the rule of cool. They're not very realistic on the whole (outside the ones I mentioned) but nor is the entire setup of FE. The day FE wants to honestly deal with the consequences of war and killing and what they do to people, they should get rid of them. But until then, I will continue to enjoy them.
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Actually, the PC sits just left of center in Canada, but just barely. The Liberals are firmly left, the NDP are hardcore and the rest are inconsequential. It's actually a common mistake because the country leans towards socialism even with the PCs in charge. Republicans are far more right wing than the PC and the Democrats aren't as left wing as the Liberal Party.
Well at this point, it really depends how we define what centre is. I was using the median political views of Canadians, since the politics of Canadians are what matters for the opinion of Canadian newspapers, not those of Americans.
Certainly I agree that Canada is to the left of America on average, but so are many (likely most) other democracies. It's very difficult, and arguably pointless, to try to define an international political "centre" point, but if you have a logic for how you're doing so I'm curious to hear it.
I'm not surprised you don't like Trudeau because you are extremely far right, based on your opinions voiced in this and other threads. However, a newspaper having good things to say about a PM who has the approval of a wide array of Canadians doesn't prove they are biased towards the left. It just proves they are to the left of you.
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From what I've read, he wants to keep the preexisting condition clause and the part that lets kids in their 20s stay on their parents' plans, but overhaul the rest.
Honestly anything over "burn the whole thing down and replace it with the joke of a system the US had before Obamacare" (which was a pretty common Republican mantra in the primary) is a big improvement to me. And Obamacare does need changes, though whether Trump implements good ones... well. We'll see what ends up happening, I suppose.
I strongly hope that Roe vs. Wade will stand (and I suspect it will; the SC doesn't like to completely overturn its own decisions + remember that it never got close to being struck down even when Antonin Scalia was on the court), as I consider abortion to be a right to control one's own body and I don't believe states have any business restricting human rights. But I'm not sure this thread is the place to debate such things.
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I've generally found Midori inadequate due to mediocre speed (which is really weird considering who her father is) so I'd think the you'd want a mother who salvages that. Azura, Charlotte, Selena, Camilla?
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Not the articles I've been reading. I've seen more praise for Trudeau from the NP than the G&M in recent weeks and a LOT of disdain for anyone who was supporting Trump. That being said, it's not like the CPC is as right wing as I wish it would be (it will be if/when Mad Max Bernier wins the leadership race).
Trust me, I know the NP well. They've done an article on me and my sister personally (interviewed her, got the skinny on me from her and my mother). I have no problem giving them praise when they deserve it but right now, there are only two people writing pieces for the NP that don't insult the public. That's Conrad Black and Rex Murphy. A criminal and goddamn Rex Murphy.
Go read Jonathan Kay's latest piece if you don't believe me.
-The CPC may not be as right-wing as you are, but they are unquestionably right of centre. If you call them and their supporters "leftist", the term loses all meaning, except as defined relative to your own personal views. (And at that point, of course almost all media will be "leftist" to you.)
-Justin Trudeau has a ~65% approval rating, last I checked, which implies that a lot of centre-right Canadians approve of what he's doing (since some of his disapproval comes from the far left, though more comes from the right I'd hazard). It's entirely possible to praise him without being a leftist, particularly if you praise him on fronts such as his getting the CETA trade deal done with the EU (a deal which started being drawn up under Harper). I will also remind you that leading up to the election, they were strongly in favour of Harper over Trudeau, so at worst you can argue they fall politically between the two, i.e. right of centre.
-I read that article you mentioned. I can see why you take issue with it (it is certainly dismissive and disdainful of Trump supporters, and I won't defend that), but it is definitely a conservative intellectual's criticism of Donald Trump, not a left-wing one. Again, you can't define left- and right- wing solely by one's opinion of Trump. Mitt Romney, Evan McMullen, and the Bush family are not suddenly left-wing just because they spoke out against Trump. I keep saying this, but in many ways Trump isn't even that right-wing: he's a protectionist on trade, he wants to increase government spending on infrastructure, etc. Similarly, I'm not trying to defend the National Post wholesale; you read it regularly and I don't, and it sounds like you have some valid complaints. It just isn't left-wing (or if it is, this is a sudden change which is very out of line with its previous history).
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Us on the right have been skewering the MSM for a long time. I myself am considering buying CRTV just to be able to actually hear the Conservative take on news since all my friends send me liberal stuff and I read The National Post and Globe & Mail (both Canadian papers but still heavily leftist that are still deriding Trump supporters) almost daily.
The National Post certainly isn't leftist. They consistently support right-wing economic positions and the Conservative Party of Canada, and have unequivocally endorsed them (or the Canadian Alliance) in every single election since their inception. If you consider them leftist it says far more about your own political views.
They may not like Trump (I've not read them this year; I don't really do newspapers any more though I made an exception during the Canadian election last year), but liking or disliking Trump isn't necessarily a left/right thing, especially for a Canadian (if Trump followed through on his worst protectionist threats, that would be pretty bad for us; Canada does an insane amount of its trade with the US).
Regardless, I do definitely agree that it's a good idea to get news from different sources, including at least one with politics you find at least mildly opposed to your own. Liberals who surround themselves with MSNBC/Huffington Post and conservatives who watch nothing but Fox News both end up with rather twisted views of reality; I've personally seen too much of both (some of my own family is very far left; some of my partner's is very far right).
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I have many issues with the media, but I don't think this
honestly hope the media is having a wake up call right now. Their job is supposed to report everything from a non biased pov. Report the facts, and let the reader decide. For the past 10 or more years though, they have been in the pockets of the highest bidder, and in the case of this recent election, Hillary.is accurate or fair. If they were trying to be in the bag for Hillary, they did a horrible job. Go look at how state-controlled media works in dictatorships: they don't give their opponents the time of day. The US media did the opposite, giving Trump lots of attention. (And much of the attention they did give Clinton, just as for Trump, was negative!) This is true of the media outlets who obviously wanted Clinton to win (MSNBC, etc.), of those who obviously wanted Trump to win (Breitbart, parts of Fox News), and everyone in between.
They are driven by money, certainly, but it's not money from candidates: it's their own ratings. They report what's entertaining (in this case: the crazy things Trump said). I would absolutely love to see them report more facts, and particularly more about policy, since at the end of the day that's what matters in an election.
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This, along with the above posts, has cleared up a lot for me, thank you. But what made pundits so stubborn to consider a Trump presidency that they only looked for data that supported their view?
There are a few possible explanations, and I imagine all were factors.
1. Some (not all) pundits strongly preferred the idea of Clinton winning and thus interpreted numbers in a way that made them feel better. I certainly watched some of my own friends do this. Of course the flipside of this is that some pundits strongly preferred a Trump win and some actually overestimated his chances (predicting a Trump landslide). We saw this from both Romney and Obama supporters in 2012, too, so it's not some new thing.
2. For all that they're all aware of the electoral college, only a few analysts really considered who had an advantage in the electoral college given a popular vote tie (which was certainly Donald Trump). If Trump had needed to win the popular vote to win this election, his chances would have been much worse, but he didn't have to.
3. The vast majority of people struggle with probability. They see a "90% chance" (about what it was at the height of Clinton's post-debate swing) and they assume it's a sure thing, when in fact it isn't. We've all missed on an 80+ hit in Fire Emblem.
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You'll find very few prominent US politicians who weren't against gay marriage in 2004, at least publically.
I unequivocally believe that a Clinton presidency would have been better for LGBT rights than a Trump presidency, but hopefully a Trump presidency won't be too bad. I agree that he himself doesn't seem too bad on LGBT issues; I just hope that Pence or the anti-gay rights wing of the Republican party in congress isn't able to exert too much influence on that regard.
I just hope this election sends a message that major parties have to put forth better candidates next time. I'm surprised third parties didn't get more support to be honest. My biggest disappointment is it looks like the Libertarians won't get the 5% necessary to be in a better position for the next election cycle.
To be perfectly honest the third-party candidates were weak too. Johnson had that Aleppo gaffe, while Stein was hopelessly out of touch with the US centre and flirted with the anti-vax movement. I think a lot of people considered them but ultimately collapsed back to the major candidates (the polls suggest this was the case with Johnson, for what it's worth); it's hard to throw your vote behind someone you know won't win unless you believe in them very strongly.
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Came into post exactly what Nobody and Rezzy did. The polls didn't actually miss by much; the problem was pundits failing to understand what the polls meant, and a lack of understanding of polling errors. Polls are not perfect; they must make assumptions about the composition of the electorate and some of those are going to be slightly off. You should always expect some slight error. In this case, the slight error was in Trump's favour, and that was enough for him to win.
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Somewhat off-topic, but... Say'ri is notably bulkier than Lon'qu and has equally good offence; the only stats she loses are speed and skill and hers are already very high. I definitely prefer her myself.
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Making him an archer instead of an axe-user has one big effect: it means that you can't fight him with flyers (unless they have a full dual guard meter).
As a final boss I definitely thought he was more about the map than anything else. With no throne bonus and kinda middling speed he actually dies more easily than most of the previous bosses (Dragonskin is nice, but whatever, Corrin just got a new super-sword which pierces it), however he has a really cool map which rewards rushing down to face him quickly and efficiently, and I'm a pretty big fan of that map although I do feel you should probably have been able to save before it.
Flavour-wise, we've had way too many dragon bosses already, so I'm happy when the game tries something different.
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And not every Republican was as far to the right as Trump was, but look who won.
Trump isn't especially far right by some metrics. Even McMullin literally based his campaign around the premise that Trump wasn't conservative enough. He would absolutely be the more centrist candidate by US standards (with their fear of mere word "socialism") had it been him vs. Sanders.
Also Sanders lost Pennsylvania by 12 points to Clinton in the primary, so the idea that he could have taken PA from Trump is a pure Sanders fan pipe dream. He was significantly less popular than Clinton among African Americans, who make up a huge part of the Democratic voter-base in Philadelphia.
I speak as someone who likes Clinton and Sanders about equally, for the record.
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EDIT: Didn't see the third page, sorry! The first part of this response is to Eclipse.
I definitely agree.
I'll have to disagree on the death penalty not being important. The system itself costs a lot of money, and the appeals take time - both of which could be spent elsewhere if there was no death penalty.This inspired me to go digging and okay, yeah, I had underestimated the cost difference. I always knew it was more, but I am (unpleasantly) surprised at how much more.
Correct me if I'm wrong: that drug war was about people having drugs on them?
If that's the case, then that war was a lost cause right from the start.
I don't have a problem that you consume drugs, alcohol or even cigarettes as long as you don't force it in someone else's throat and you don't hurt someone while being under their effects (not about cigarettes, of course).
Well, we all agree about that! "Drug crimes" does not refer to crimes people commit while on drugs, it refers to possession and distribution of illegal drugs. I'm not an expert in legal systems everywhere but in most places, if you willingly get intoxicated (be it with a legal substance such as alcohol, or an illegal one), you are absolutely responsible for any crimes you commit under the influence.
We can't, that's the problem. After being in prison, you are marked FOREVER as a criminal.
Like I mentionned, most criminals that have been freed will do another crime to go back in prison because they can't have a job.
Not only is this a waste of time and money, the criminal also ruins someone else's life in the process of going back in prison.
So, who should be blame for this? The society who is inable to forgive a criminal?
No, because let's be real here, would you really trust a former criminal? And I'm not talking about a thief who stole a chocolate bar to a convenience store or something. I'm talking about someone who killed or raped.
Well, if you are speaking only of rape/murder, you should be specific about that. Most crime is not rape or murder; theft, for instance, is more common by far. And if you use punitive prison sentences in awful conditions to punish these thieves, they will be unable to rehabilitate and will either cost the state a lot of money during their over-long imprisonment, or cause society problems when they are released, unrehabilitated, and commit more crimes.
If you were speaking only of rape and murder, I will re-iterate that the sentences for these (when a conviction occurs, at least; getting a rape convinction to stick is difficult but that is a whole 'nother can of worms) are certainly high enough to dissuade any rational actor.
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I am against the death penalty, but not strongly. I feel that the "against" camp has the better arguments (particularly the issue that there's always the risk of executing an innocent) but at the end of the day it's not one of the more important justice-related issues. I can see the case for using exeuction in the most vile (and doubt-free) cases, such as McVeigh or Breivik.
I can guarantee that if punishements were harshers, a few would think twice before commiting a crime. Those would still do it would 100% deserve the punishement. Of course, this is only on paper.As mentioned, the ludicrously high mandatory minimum sentences for drug use tried in the drug war did not, in fact, decrease drug crime. You can google the colossal failure of California's three strikes laws if you aren't familiar with it; that's one of the best examples off the top of my head.
Most people who commit crimes either (a) aren't being rational, (b) don't think they'll be caught, or © don't care about the consequences. Therefore increasing penalties does little to alter their behaviour, provided the penalties are already stiff enough to discourage rational actors. A few centuries ago humans had all sorts of horrific punishments for people (you've probably heard of thieves having their hands cut off, or the gruesome execution method known as being "drawn and quartered") but crime rates are lower now than they were then... by around an order of magnitude or more in case of the best-documented crimes (such as homicide).
This suggests that the best way to prevent crime is by removing the circumstances which lead to it in the first place (such as poverty, and untreated health issues, especially those related to mental health and addiction). I would also say it is helpful to have a prison system that emphasises rehabilitation of criminals (see Norway's highly successful prison system). It's ludicrous to say that prison is a "vacation" in most countries given the high rates of violence and sexual violence that are documented within them; that isn't going to help prisoners become functioning members of society again even if it might make a few people feel good to think the criminals are being "punished".
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Obviously scientists can be wrong, but they're still far more likely to be right about their subject than someone who has not studied it.
Put it this way: it's a lot like the fact that 90-some percent of doctors believe that smoking causes cancer. Sure, they could be wrong; after all, doctors have been wrong about things in the past. But they're probably not, and if the overwhelming majority of doctors (/medical scientists) are saying one thing and cigarette companies are saying another, well, I know who I'm gonna trust.
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Between this election and Brexit, I will never trust another poll again. I've already been skeptical, but my God...
In both cases, the polls didn't miss by much, just 2-3 percentage points. (Looks like 2% in the case Clinton vs. Trump, just a critical 2% of course). You should always, always take polls with a grain of salt, even if you believe the pollster to be unbiased, because they do have a margin of error, and methodologies can be flawed. Actually, the polls likely missed by more in the 2012 US election (we'll see for sure once the final popular vote is tallied), it just didn't matter because all it did was turn a "narrow Obama victory" into a "clear Obama victory".
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-difference-2-percentage-points-makes/
The above is an excellent article on the subject.
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My partner actually worked in climate science for some years. I can assure you that while the exact figure may depend on how you define things, 97% sounds about right. It's a completely accepted scientific fact that human activities are causing an increase in temperature, as well as ocean acidification. Whether it is "most" of the reason for temperature change or not is irrelevant; it is certainly significant.
from Wikipedia:
Carbon dioxide is a significant greenhouse gas. Since the Industrial Revolution, anthropogenic emissions - including the burning of carbon-based fossil fuels and land use changes (primarily deforestation) - have rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. It is also a major cause of ocean acidification because it dissolves in water to form carbonic acidIt could scarcely be clearer. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, therefore putting more of it in the atmosphere, as humans inarguably have (cutting down trees and burning of huge amounts of fossil fuel), will result in a net increase in the world's temperature, all other factors being equal. It has already increased from about 320 ppm to 400 over the last 50 years, and is going to continue to rise for at least the next few years. That's kind of a big deal.
I'm not sure why it would be a "bogeyman". To say that is pretty much to say an entire field of scientists (a group of people who are to a large degree motivated by a desire to discover the mechanics of the world we live in) to create an elaborate lie for little to no gain. (By contrast, climate change deniers usually have very, very clear financial and/or ideological incentives to do so, and typically aren't scientists, funnily enough. Also for some crazy reason they tend to be localised in specific countries where the issue has become politicised, like the US.)
The issue of whether government or other avenues are the best way to deal with it is an acceptable political debate (I would argue that governments have a great position to do so, because it only requires an agreement between a few major powers to legislate change, instead of requiring agreement of large number of individual businesses), as is what methods would work best (I'm a pretty big fan of revenue-neutral carbon taxes, as they allow businesses to figure out the most economically efficient way to handle reducing CO2 emissions, and being revenue-neutral makes them much less political). Implying that climate change is not something we should be concerned about, though, is ignorant at best and outright vile at worst.
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Thanks for all your work on this! I sent in a donation; hope it helps. :)
I'm most interested in seeing anything on Micaiah, Pelleas, and Nailah.
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I think Hana's a pretty interesting unit. In many ways she plays more like an archer or mage: you use her to destroy one target on the player phase, then wall her in. Thanks to Duelist's Blow, she can usually dodge the counter she faces on the player phase, especially if you give her a Dual Katana; with the option of that and a normal katana I seem to recall only the more accurate enemies (typically sword-users) pose a major threat to her on the player phase.
Enemy phase, you can... sometimes afford to expose her to one hit, and if so that reduces the amount of walling you need to do. Not always though, check your local enemy attack stats.
She's not uber or anything but she gets the job done as a player-phase troubleshooter, and while her enemy phase potential is limited it's still better than that of the archers, who are some of her main compeition in player-phase offence. She's outclassed by Ryoma, but so are all other foot units in Birthright, and Ryoma can't be everywhere at once.
I don't have much opinion on her as a character. I didn't hate her Corrin C support, but nor does she do that much for me otherwise.
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In that case our positions don't seem to differ all that much. I think nobody here really disagreed that the BK sucked pretty bad in Radiant Dawn? It's mostly about how much that should be taken into account when talking about PoR!BK.
I rather explicitly did. As I said, I think Zelgius is at least somewhat interesting in Radiant Dawn; we see why he became psychopathically obsessed with Greil and it's about as plausible an explanation for his derpy actions in PoR (e.g. repeatedly letting Ike and company escape) as anything I could personally think of. I appreciate that Radiant Dawn acknowledges how fucked up this guy is, something that PoR didn't seem to want to do, making him instead be "menacing and mysterious".
I'm just not seeing what his PoR appearance has going for him. The only thing about him I found remotely compelling is what his hidden agenda was with regards to Sephiran. Otherwise, he's a stock enemy general with no given motivations, little characterisation, and overexpanded plot powers: he walks around with "invincible armour" and the ability to teleport, and basically the only reason he doesn't kill off Ike and/or his friends at various points is because he doesn't feel like it. That's not a good character at all. I don't give characters points just for being mysterious, because that's pretty much deferring character worth to a later part of the story.
I don't see why defeating Greil is an "idiotic motivation". The appeal of the Black Knight is that he is menacing and mysterious, both his identity and agenda. Path of Radiance is the set-up and then Radiant Dawn gives him a more detailed backstory. Had you only seen A New Hope, would you think Darth Vader a bad character?
Killing someone to see if you can is certainly an idiotic motivation, and was what I was referring to.
I can see the parallels to ANH Darth Vader. And for what it's worth, I don't think Vader would be a beloved character years later had he died at the end of Episode 4 and never appeared again; it was definitely the later movies that made him who he is. However, I do think ANH Vader is a decent character overall, and far better than BK, for a few reasons:
-He's built up more effectively (we get meaningful bits of his backstory very quickly, even though they later turn out to be misleading)
-He actually plays by the rules while simultaneously developing those rules (we see a fair bit of what the Force can and can not do through him)
-He interacts meaningfully with other characters (Leia, Tarkin) and in particular has an interesting dynamic with Obi-Wan (far better than BK/Greil).
-He gets excellent voice work (insert obvious joke about Tellius VA work here)
-Finally, let's be honest here: "Darth Vader" is a far better name than "the Black Knight", since it doesn't immediately call to mind a Monty Python sketch.
The cringiest things from Fire Emblem
in General Fire Emblem
Posted
-Voice acting in FE9-10, as many others have said. (The Ike/Elincia scene in 9 is kinda okay, but the rest...)
-This:
-This image. Creepy as fuck.
-Every time Merlinus said something stupidly wrong so that Roy could be the perfect boy genius again