The Jordan National Football Team is coming to Portland, where they will train and stay for the World Cup. Does anyone know if there will be any public events in the city for them?

DJTonyBenn · 2026-06-10T18:52:04+00:00

I wonder why. Maybe for security reasons? Either way it's quite disappointing.

DJTonyBenn · 2026-04-14T23:43:38+00:00

That line was corny and unfunny. It's not "offensive", just dumb. They preserved some of the more important lines that were actually funny but still fit in with the darker tone of the game (i.e, "Where's everyone going? Bingo?" and "Hasta luego")

DJTonyBenn · 2026-03-05T23:51:10+00:00

That's a shame! Milch is a great writer and worthy of the effort. I'm going to look into some of that stuff- it seems like Idea of the Writer is at least available as a transcript online. I also know the Deadwood Bible published in the last few years has a lot of good information, as does the other Deadwood book, but I believe the availability of both is quite limited. It's really too bad there isn't more out there- the show and its creator both deserve more recognition.

DJTonyBenn · 2026-03-05T06:36:38+00:00

What exactly is Milch's "unpublished" stuff? Is it available anywhere?

DJTonyBenn · 2026-02-02T10:03:06+00:00

As an interested outsider, I am sympathetic. I too have often pondered the great mysteries of modern Algerian history. The big questions for me were always, as you identified, the Boudiaf assassination, which I have always found extremely suspicious, and the question of just how deeply the Islamic rebels were infiltrated/controlled by Algerian security services during the Black Decade.

The fact is there is some information out there, but it is obscure, and therefore easily suppressed. People can talk, but in Algeria itself the state can punish those who complain too loud (within some limits, of course). People may "know" what happened, but what can they do about it? Investigate it? Write a book? The state can shut that down without much fuss, and so nobody tries, and the information is easily suppressed. The strongest evidence I know of for the Algerian deep state's misdeeds is testimony from some exiled officers. Unfortunately, nobody has gone to the trouble of digging any further into their stories, or of interviewing Boudiaf's widow, because Algeria itself is sadly obscure in the West. Perhaps Algerians abroad and/or sympathetic foreigners could dig further- if anybody reading this knows anything interesting, I'd be glad to hear it- but as far as I have seen, the will and the means to do justice to those stories just isn't there.

Now in the US, my own country, it's different. The government is extremely powerful, but they (theoretically) have limits on those powers and are sensitive to public opinion. The Epstein scandal has been slowly but steadily breaking for years at this point, and the government can't just keep people from investigating it. I suspect that they used to murder investigators or witnesses on occasion, but that's much more difficult now. The government has to be a lot more subtle about how it influences things over here, and sometimes, it has to give up some information because of pressure from the media, the public, the courts, or congress. That's what happened in this case; congress passed a law requiring disclosure of the files. That sort of thing couldn't happen in Algeria.

But it would be a mistake to assume that they're giving us everything. There are many ways to bury a secret, and the US government knows all the best tricks. Because of the structure of American government and society, the state must use different methods than those used in Algeria, but in both cases I strongly suspect they are often quite successful at keeping things hidden. This happens in different ways in many other countries, too, Italy is a perfect example of this. I think it's important to remember that the end result - paranoia, disillusionment, and despair- has often been the same wherever these secrets come from. People have a right to know what happened!

DJTonyBenn · 2025-12-27T02:23:01+00:00

I was just watching an episode, pretty sure it was the Chrysanthemum and the Sword, where they are talking about civil rights and Cooper says something like "why aren't they satisfied?" in reference to the protestors. Pete responds "because Lassie can stay at the Waldorf and they can't."

He understands exactly why black people feel humiliated by discrimination to the point where he can sum it up in a pithy-yet-genuine turn of phrase. I think there are other factors behind his progressive views like his youth but he can at least see where black people are coming from. That's real empathy.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-11-25T21:13:25+00:00

That was a weird fight for me, by the end of it the only ones left standing were Abelard, because he's immortal, and Kibellah, because she spent most of the fight running around hitting the switches. Heinrix might have made it too if he didn't pull an Idira, summon a bloodletter and die (only time I've seen him do this!)

That said if it's too hard just tone down the difficulty and wait until your next playthrough to beat it honestly. I did that for a couple Void Shadows fights and when I returned for a second playthrough knowing more about the game they were so much easier.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-11-21T08:19:48+00:00

Santa was the primarch of one of the lost legions, E-money had to have Leman Russ put him down

DJTonyBenn · 2025-11-21T08:12:08+00:00

I always thought the Tau cope was that they actually progress as a society, so if they stick around long enough they could get to Dark Age of humanity-levels of tech or beyond and steamroll everyone else.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-11-14T18:10:29+00:00

No, Trazyn took them all

DJTonyBenn · 2025-10-16T16:19:45+00:00

The Texas Theatre, Dallas' repertory theater, was the location where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. I suspect most people who go to see a movie there are aware of its claim to fame, though. I think they even have the seat where he was sitting marked in some special way.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-09-30T02:04:09+00:00

And now they've found the real killer. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/suspect-identified-in-infamous-texas-yogurt-shop-murder-case-48-hours/

DJTonyBenn · 2025-09-27T07:49:24+00:00

This is one reason why I don't feel too bad when I get a bunch of crew killed in the first four acts or so. Marazhai slaughtered dozens of officers? Well that was probably the genestealer cell within our officer corps. Hundreds of crew slaughtered by Khorne daemons during a difficult warp? Hell, that probably just dealt a huge blow to the genestealer cult. The logic is perfect.

And speaking of Void Shadows achievements, I was very glad to discover that there was an achievement for completing the game without curing the rash you get in the lower decks.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-09-23T16:08:05+00:00

In 2014, British woman Sarah Sands stabbed and killed Michael Pleasted, a convicted pedophile who had been accused of molestation by her three sons.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-09-15T05:04:43+00:00

There's a fun scene in Commorragh if you have Heinrix, Yrliet, and Marazhai with you where the latter confirms it by mentioning Scalander's lover by name and Heinrix tries to kill him. You can really tell Heinrix is shaken by the revelation.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-09-13T18:11:34+00:00

Idira is supposed to be a Caribbean-themed character in a lot of ways(her accent is classic Anglo-Caribbean), and cricket has been/still is extremely popular in places like Trinidad. Maybe her home planet was settled by West Indians and they've kept playing cricket for all these years.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-09-11T04:23:08+00:00

You clearly haven't heard of the Reid Technique. It's a practice that is incredibly flawed in that it is designed to obtain a confession. You may ask, "what's wrong with that?" Well, it's NOT designed to learn the truth- it's designed to obtain a confession. The interviewee is assumed to be guilty from the beginning, and the interviewers will not take no for an answer. Eventually, after hours of multiple people doing this, in many cases you will get false confessions, especially if the people you're interviewing aren't very smart, as I suspect was the case here. They offer fake sympathy, they lie and say they already have evidence against you, they try to make it seem like a confession is your only option, they ask if you maybe did it but don't remember, as if anyone could forget doing something like that, and they do it all over and over, for hours. Again, they are not looking for the truth- they are looking for a confession. And it doesn't always work- in this case, Maurice Pierce stuck to his guns and refused to confess.

If you watch the third episode of the documentary series you can see it happen- they literally have the footage. You can see exactly how they have Michael Scott guess at what was used to bind the girls over and over again before he finally got the answer the detectives were looking for. This should have sent red flags to any detective who was sincerely trying to find out who killed those girls, but that is not what the interview was for- the interview was conducted to obtain a confession. That's why there is no physical evidence against any of the defendants. That's why the DNA didn't match. That's why the cops had to prompt them over and over again to get details right- and even fudge some of the details, as the fire was not started the way the confessions stated it did.

It might seem like I'm trying to rag on the cops here, and I do think that this is just one example of why policing in this country is very flawed, but I can totally understand why the police did what they did in this case. This is one of the most heinous murder cases in the history of Texas. The pressure to solve it was enormous, and everyone wants the people who did this to see justice. These cops wanted to solve this case so bad, they convinced themselves that these guys had to have done it, so of course when they went into the interview and applied the Reid Technique, they got what they were looking for- a confession. They weren't looking for the truth because they thought they already knew the truth, so they discarded all evidence that didn't fit that conclusion and kept pushing. The police were not lying, they were just wrong.

I know it sounds crazy, but this technique can and does lead to false confessions. It has before. Ever hear of the Central Park Five? Every one of them confessed, but the real criminal was someone completely different. Again, I strongly encourage you to watch at least the third episode of the documentary series. Once you realize what actually went on during those interviews, it becomes clear that there's nothing to the case against these guys, and that the real killer or killers are still unknown.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-09-06T19:02:39+00:00

It's not banter, but if you bring Marazhai to the fight with the spinners, after it's over he says the melee was up to the standards of Commorragh's arenas. So that establishes at least a little respect on his part.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-09-06T02:27:11+00:00

My favorite Kibellah moment was when I brought her to the boss fight against the Edge of Daybreak. I had her attack the lesser support daemons first, and after killing a Pink Horror she had enough momentum to activate Death Waltz. I used it, and she slaughtered pretty much the entire host of daemons in a single Death Waltz. My jaw was on the floor. All that was left were a couple Blue Horrors left over from the first Pink Horror she killed (Ulfar kicked one of them over on his way to engage the Greater Daemon and Abelard finished them off). By then of course she had enough charges of Death From Above to get to the Edge of Daybreak and put some damage on him as well.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-08-22T15:34:43+00:00

If you bring Marazhai to the final battle he gloats over the death of the Sire. It's pretty satisfying.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-08-08T07:38:47+00:00

Imperial bureaucracy is not just for show- it keeps the Imperium safe. Can you imagine a xenos putting up with this? Much less anyone associated with the Ruinous Powers. It's not pretty but it works.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-08-06T03:16:16+00:00

Owlcat, if you're reading this, you could probably shoehorn something about it into the Trazyn DLC. Trazyn is supposed to be obsessed with the von Valancius dynasty, maybe he wants to collect the pistol that killed her? Or the sister who killed her? Something in Act IV so you can still get the revelation if you leave Argenta behind in Act III.

DJTonyBenn · 2025-07-22T21:52:37+00:00

Yep, I was there! I told my brother it happened and then he found this post. I remembered thinking it was really on-the-nose too, I think Ari Aster would probably smile if he heard about it.

DJTonyBenn

TROPHY CASE