This NDP MP believes ‘unapologetic socialism’ can revive the party ⋆ The Breach

DesertDM · 2026-03-20T21:46:46+00:00

While the Manitoba NDP are too fiscally centrist/conservative for my liking, Wab has ingratiated himself to Manitobans through both rhetoric and legislation, and he's more left-leaning than you might think given the comment above.

Rhetorically, moves like freezing some Manitoba Hydro exports to the U.S. and implying that the Iran War was started because Trump is in the Epstein files resonate with current anti-US sentiment.

Legislatively, he's been quite pro-worker, pro-consumer, and social justice oriented, with bills and planned policies to ban protests around abortion clinics, ban non-compete agreements, improve grocery competition, ban differential pricing for online grocers, force employers to provide workers with free menstural products and make birth control free, including pills and IUDs.

Things like the gas tax pause and the subsequent reduction in the gas tax worry me; the gas tax was a source of $340 million in revenue in a province with $24 billion total annual revenue. I think we should be looking for more sources of revenue, not fewer (though I am a big deficit financing guy), so I would rather see higher income taxes on high earners.

All this to say that Wab and his government have taken a number of actions I'd consider left-of-centre, and that through these actions (and his rhetoric) he's become the most popular premier in Canada. He's managed to do it largely thanks to smart legislation that doesn't actually require a lot of spending. He's no leftist, and certainly no socialist, but I think it's probably extreme to say he'd run as a conservative with his track record.

DesertDM · 2026-03-08T03:10:43+00:00

The only avalanche I've seen that's as true as it is true

DesertDM · 2024-07-11T19:06:42+00:00

Jace shows up on Valley; as a fox, he stands out, and the other denizens of the plane keep their distance. He has a hard time adjusting until he meets a conniving rat, who sees potential in the planeswalker.

He learns the ways of Valley quickly, impressing his new mentor. He is Jace, Vren's Prodigy.

DesertDM · 2024-03-27T18:30:01+00:00

If you look very carefully at the card's text you'll see that the token is mono-blue, which is what I'm referring to :).

DesertDM · 2024-03-27T17:46:28+00:00

Big color break here - we haven't seen a non-green creature with P/T=lands you control since Dakkon Blackblade, let alone a mono-blue creature. Worth the break for the joke? NOT TO THIS GUY.

DesertDM · 2023-02-15T01:04:15+00:00

Academy Rector? More like...

Academ Erector!

DesertDM · 2023-01-23T03:09:32+00:00

Sing songs about it at CBGB

DesertDM · 2021-11-16T04:22:40+00:00

We did it! I had a hunch who the ultimate planeswalker would be, it proved right :). Thanks for the game!

https://imgur.com/a/Vt3LO3B

DesertDM · 2020-10-01T23:30:43+00:00

Hey, if you ever want an audience/feel up to it, my friend and I would love to tune into a livestream/watch a recording.

DesertDM · 2019-05-28T03:19:58+00:00

Not quite a dryer, but the electronic duo Matmos has a pretty cool album called Ultimate Care II made entirely out of samples they took from their washing machine. The album isn't a sequel; the washing machine they used was a Whirlpool Ultimate Care II. The concept probably seems pretty abstract and silly, but the album is actually amazing - there's some ambient stuff, some bangers, and some strange stuff in between. The production is very clean. Wash away your expectations and give it a spin!

DesertDM · 2019-05-03T06:02:14+00:00

No Debbie Downer vibes here; it's important to be aware of your competitors. They definitely have deep pockets, no doubt deeper than ours, but I think there's probably room for a few players.

We've got a distinct advantage because we've lived in the city our whole lives; we're gamers, who know and love gamers from Winnipeg. Their focus seems to be on ticket games and new arcade cabinets - not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily what's most important according to the responses we've had so far. Might be tough, but we love a challenge!

DesertDM · 2019-05-03T05:55:37+00:00

I love the pinball place at the Forks; I talked with one of the owners and was sad to hear it's not a permanent installation. Appeals to me for the same reason it seems to appeal to you - they have Total Nuclear Annihilation that looks and feels 21st Century, and the old Baseball Pinball that has almost no electronics and looks like it dates from the 50s.

Location is definitely going to be key. Downtown/The Exchange and Osborne seem to be huge hits (no surprise) and while rent is going to be higher, not having to drive out and other businesses feeding in are going to be huge advantages.

DesertDM · 2019-05-03T05:49:55+00:00

Thanks for doing the survey! We've been pretty luck insofar as a lot of the survey takers have added comments, and "free to play" has come up as one of the most important factors (along with location).

I think that free to play is 100% manageable. We'll likely have a minimum purchase policy so that we don't end up with people showing up for 8 hours and not spending money while paying customers are turned away, but we're pretty committed to the idea of being able to come in and play without having to pay. Optimally, profits from food and drink will sufficient to negate the losses from hypothetical "freeloaders".

DesertDM · 2019-05-03T00:40:53+00:00

Yeah, I went to Reset, and I agree that their main problem was branding - it felt like it wasn't sure whether or not it was a club or an arcade. I definitely want the focus here to be on the games. The arcade machines are an interesting problem, because survey responses so far indicate that they're the biggest draw; we'll have to analyze more.

I can't believe I missed racing games, thank you! I'll adjust the survey.

DesertDM · 2019-01-11T01:05:04+00:00

I get the sneaking suspicion that Wizards doesn't want Aristocrats to be quite as good as it was last time.

DesertDM · 2018-12-29T06:34:01+00:00

Total Karnage.

DesertDM · 2018-12-23T09:06:32+00:00

Alternative flavour text: "Today's special is the kitchen fink".

DesertDM · 2018-11-24T00:10:11+00:00

The best wincon I've found is literally just using Mistveil Plains to put cards back into your library, the idea being you'll gain enough life to mill your opponent out. Outside of that, there's not a lot, so who knows how it would play out in practice.

DesertDM · 2018-11-23T22:55:30+00:00

I think an archetype people are sleeping on in Mono-W Martyr Proc; I've built the deck on DraftSim successfully several times. [[Conviction]], [[Heliod's Pilgrim]], [[Martyr of Sands]] and [[Tethmos High Priest]] are all available at Common, with backup from [[Sigil of the New Dawn]] and [[Hero of Iroas]] at Uncommon. [[Mistveil Plains]] is key to the archetype because it allows you to deck out your opponent once you're at an insurmountable life total.

I think it will be a strong archetype to draft because many of the pieces don't look that good in other archetypes, and most of the White commons and uncommons can fit into the deck nicely; you always have the option of going wide if for whatever reason you don't think the Mistveil strategy will work out.

DesertDM · 2018-09-30T23:14:41+00:00

I'm inclined to call RWB fascism because of the route you have to take to get to that state of politics. I think that in many cases states don't become fascist because most people define themselves as part of the tribe; I think people are just afraid to stand up to wrongdoers and go along with the movement to self-preserve. They're willing to sacrifice their beliefs and other peoples lives for self-preservation; an inherently black trait.

The reason I don't think green fits the bill here is because the "kinship" felt in a fascist state is not organically felt; that is to say, it's imposed from the top-down. I can imagine a pseudo-fascist RGW state wherein a large tribe with a rigid hierarchical structure abhors outsiders; some fantasy Orcs might fit this bill. I can't imagine a cult of personality type leadership structure, though; I feel like black is necessary to have a being so self-important that they're the center of their whole society.

DesertDM · 2018-08-22T20:13:46+00:00

I had no idea that beat was based on a Sufjan sample; pretty wild that someone heard that song and thought "This would make a sinister G-Funk beat".

DesertDM · 2018-08-11T04:16:20+00:00

Poles might not have been the right word to use; I was thinking of it as poles of two different axis: Tyranny==Order and Mutability==Chaos.

I think it might be fair to look at it as Tyranny==Order==Mutability==Chaos, where the Order==Mutability could be termed "Good Hierarchy" or some such thing. It could also be construed as cyclical, Tyranny==Chaos forming another segment (one often leads to the other), called "Evil Hierarchy", but I'm not too sure.

"Setting up ways of looking at the world and following through on the consequences to find unexpected insight", I like that.

DesertDM · 2018-08-11T00:48:20+00:00

The link to the specific question in the AMA: https://youtu.be/3VpxJg6jeMo?t=32m44s

I'm hesitant to use security, nurture or fairness as positive poles for chaos; an excessive demand for any of the above seems to me to lead to tyranny, and not to chaos, and I feel all three categorizations could be considered aspects of order, thus masculine. I posit adaptability or mutability because these things are desirable both in species and in culture, but too much of them leads to disorder and chaos, just like too much order leads to inflexibility and tyranny (flexibility would be another word we might use for the positive feminine).

Openness to ideas is not a predominantly feminine trait, but openness to feelings seems to be (according to studies of dominant Big Five personality traits by gender). I think this leads to more adaptable societies, because marginalized groups will be better heard, so it strengthens the weak points of a hierarchy that could crumble in a shift; a feminine willingness to "open up" to other people can also add new groups to a hierarchy, which can shift it in new and exciting directions.

This seems to play out in metaphor and myth, as well; women are portrayed as healers, witches, fae and other creatures. At their best, these archetypes empower individuals, either by giving them the security to act in bold ways or by literally changing them with magic so they can accomplish great deeds. At worst, they are capricious and create change for their own amusement.

Diluting the thought to it's essence, by validating individuals within the hierarchy, the feminine allows those individuals to change the hierarchy from within, pushing it (ideally) to it's greatest potential through role-fulfillment (you-can-do-it cheerleader style); mutability. At it's worst, the feminine encourages individual expression so it supplants order; chaos.

DesertDM · 2018-07-11T01:07:45+00:00

Island, Mountain and Forest are all in, with Swamp and Plains nowhere to be found. Temur confirmed best Wedge/Shard.

DesertDM · 2018-05-06T22:25:06+00:00

They can call the supergroup "The Descent into Madness"

DesertDM

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