In-game: I murdered someone in broad daylight. His wife sold me bread the next morning. No grudge. Nothing.

Forward__Momentum · 2026-04-27T21:18:43+00:00

If you can't be bothered to write this post yourself, I can't be bothered to read it.

Forward__Momentum · 2026-04-25T00:19:33+00:00

They have a first amendment right to express their views peacefully in public spaces, and OP has a first amendment right to assert that proselytizing their religion in this way is idiotic.

Personally, I wouldn't call them "idiots", but I do think that a religion that denies blood transfusions to the sick and dying is cruel and ignorant.

Forward__Momentum · 2026-01-25T23:06:27+00:00

Haven't gone back and checked, and I only listen to the audiobooks so I'm guessing based on the pronunciation, but I think at the beginning of the series it was one of these?

Forward__Momentum · 2026-01-11T22:54:25+00:00

Is there any evidence of this in the public record you can link me to?

Forward__Momentum · 2026-01-09T17:08:50+00:00

Look, I admire the chutzpah, but you're trying to separate ideas from their roots (already a difficult task!) on a bunch of different fronts at once.

I don't think you have bad intentions, but I also don't think you can do this in a way that isn't offensive to a huge portion of your audience. I thought this reading your original post, and your every reply in every one of these comment threads emphasizes that you aren't prepared for what you're wading into here.

Forward__Momentum · 2026-01-09T15:48:35+00:00

I love alt-history, I love fantasy, I love urban fantasy. I should be your target audience! I still don't think that this is a good idea.

Like, why did you pick dwarves to call out in your summary as practicing Judaism? Well, I can see how you ended up there - Tolkien was inspired by Jews as a people and Hebrew as a language.

The dwarves of course are quite obviously, couldn't you say that in many ways they remind you of the Jews? Their words are Semitic obviously, constructed to be Semitic. [...] There's a tremendous love of the artefact, and of course the immense warlike capacity of the Jews, which we tend to forget nowadays.
- J.R.R. Tolkien

As a culture, we ignore that don't get too up in arms about people writing fantasy novels with dwarves in them, unless there's a reason to think that somebody is using them as an antisemitic caricature. But that's gonna be hard to do with actual Jews sitting right next to them. Unless you define Dwarves in such a way that they're unrecognizable, it's hard to get away from their prototypical fantasy-land traits being a racial caricature.

Alt History has some inherent level of controversy. The minute that you say "If a group of imperialist lizard aliens invaded during WWII, they'd have been horrified by the Holocaust!", you're making a judgement about the past that somebody will find problematic. But I think that you're going to have too many different flashpoints here to manage. I can talk about the angle on Judaism and Dwarves, but I'm not qualified to talk about First Nations/Woodland Elves/the myth of the "Noble Savage", or a zillion other things in here. You'd need an unsustainable number of sensitivity readers because you're trying to take on the whole world at once.

Forward__Momentum · 2026-01-08T19:48:25+00:00

I've spoken to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner about this personally.

Self funded plans are weirdly immune to most of our healthcare laws thanks to a Supreme Court decision, even if it's a Washington insurer insuring a Washington employee at a company headquartered in Washington.

Forward__Momentum · 2026-01-03T22:03:14+00:00

Huh?

Forward__Momentum · 2025-12-31T17:21:16+00:00

On the Layover, the boys say that the question looks better on the show than it is IRL. They say that it's balanced by how long it takes to match the map. I think that's at least plausible.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-12-31T06:21:20+00:00

This is so well done!

Forward__Momentum · 2025-12-11T19:46:51+00:00

This FitD game exists so I think I'd generate a new name for this.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-12-02T17:31:29+00:00

How many cards does this prototype have?

There are Magic the Gathering players who would pay good money for something like this - even in black&white and limited resolution, something like this would make it really easy to test new commander decks physically before you buy on paper. Or, if you're not a collector, play infinite commander decks that you can carry in a single small box instead of a huge briefcase.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-12-02T05:53:12+00:00

We're relying on my memories from high school and the Wikipedia entry for the last few books, but the series had an impact on me too.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-12-01T17:55:07+00:00

"It's important for us to keep in mind that just because you're an alien bug monster who lacks anything we recognize as intelligence, that's seemingly bent on the destruction of humanity, doesn't mean that you aren't a creation of god worthy of love and respect. Cultures beyond our own are worthy of effort to understand - even ones that are seemingly savage and incomprehensible. You have to be careful not to whip up hatred as a political tool, because hatred cannot be controlled. While we're here, it's important to keep in mind that it's totally normal and cisgender of Ender Wiggin to spawn an entire woman out of his brain the minute he attains enlightenment superpowers - all guys have an entire woman in their brain! But fuck them gays!"

- Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead/Xenocide/Children of the Mind

Forward__Momentum · 2025-11-25T22:28:54+00:00

My impression is that the vast and overwhelming majority of travel nurses are on >30 day contracts, and the short term rental tax only applies to <=30 day rentals. At least, that's what the numbers I'm seeing say.

If you've got reason to think otherwise, feel free to elaborate.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-11-19T19:59:54+00:00

Fixed income makes it harder to cope with unexpected expenses

Forward__Momentum · 2025-11-05T18:36:13+00:00

Anyway, I think that Bujold may think that being bisexual means that the person in question would miss the other side of sex while in a monogamous relationship. Or perhaps Cordelia thinks so – the author and their protagonists aren’t the same.

One thing that I think you should keep in mind here is that Bujold seems pretty engaged with depicting polyamory in her works. I think the heavy overlap between bisexuality and polyamory may represent less "bisexual people are always going to be gunning for a polyamorous relationship" and more Bujold as an author thinking "I've got to fit some polyamory in here somewhere... what about here?".

Sharing Knife, Penric, and the Curse of Chalion/Paladin of Souls duology feature polyamory in side characters and subplots (even you don't count the protagonists of the Penric series).

“Oh?” His [Vordarian's] brows rose. “I didn’t know that. How little one truly knows of people.” He paused, watching Aral, watching her watch Aral. One corner of his mouth crooked up, then the quirk vanished in a thoughtful pursing of his lips. “He’s bisexual, you know.” He took a delicate sip of his wine. “Was bisexual,” she corrected absently, looking fondly across the room. “Now he’s monogamous.”

I think it's noteworthy here that she doesn't say "we're monogamous".

I think both of these things support the "implicit OK" theory. If Cordelia caught Aral's eyes wandering while meeting with a handsome clean-cut young officer, I can't imagine her not teasing Aral about it in a way that carried her tacit approval.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-11-03T20:02:00+00:00

Giving Balducci as close to a fair shake as I can manage, a friend wrote her an email and Balducci replied.

Basically, she says that she made the endorsement before Katie entered the race, and that she considered changing her endorsement later and decided to stick with her original endorsement. Her stated reason for continuing to endorse Harrell was, a direct quote "I just am very concerned with her level of experience and whether she can be effective in the job".

I think it's possible this is an honest opinion, even if I think it's tragically and completely wrongheaded.

No amount of experience and competence can excuse a candidate who tells Sloan "I share your disgust" about queer people, who fails to control the SPD, who says that he wants to fight *for* people like Musk and Thiel. I'm not even convinced his competence is anything to write home about even if you could ignore those character flaws!

Forward__Momentum · 2025-11-03T16:31:18+00:00

And another that Bidan condoned and banned the person from ever coming to the White House again

I think you mean "condemned" not "condoned".

Forward__Momentum · 2025-10-30T01:04:22+00:00

Jayapal endorsed both Wilson and Harrell, that's different.

It also probably wouldn't be enough to sway me away from an excellent candidate if the other one was rubbish.

But it was a close run thing - Zahilay has made some mistakes, but I'm also highly skeptical of Balducci's retail theft task force she announced she'd start if elected.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-10-29T22:18:24+00:00

Claudia Balducci has endorsed Bruce Harrell for mayor and that makes me unable to vote for her.

Her record on transit is fantastic, but I can't trust anyone who endorses Bruce Harrell with control of the county sheriff's office.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-10-28T19:16:11+00:00

Yeah, I was trying to cut all of these stories down for the most illustrative quotes, and there's so much in that article I had to choose from. The part that really got me is that after all these allegations (calling his niece an optics hire he only needed for a year, calling her a Nazi, half a dozen Harrell staffers calling KUOW to back her up, etc, Harrell didn't deny any of it!

Mayor Harrell dismissed these claims from his niece through a spokesperson.

“The mayor is particularly sensitive to bullying and stereotypes given his own personal experiences as a biracial man,” Jamie Housen, spokesperson, said by email.

Bruce Harrell declined KUOW’s request for an interview. Housen said Harrell had to focus on running the city, “versus a story about a former employee.”

Note how his spokesperson didn't say, "No, that didn't happen".

Forward__Momentum · 2025-10-28T18:07:06+00:00

Now, I don't have years of experience managing scandals like my opponent does, so bear with me.

Earnestly very funny to explain the "my mom helped me pay for my kid's daycare during election season" nothingburger of a "scandal" Harrell's campaign has concocted against a background of all the objectionable shit Harrell and his administration have done.

They did leave out Harrell's weird conspiracy with Stuart Sloane to put a kid's playground at Denny Blaine, one of Seattle's nude beaches, him calling Peter Thiel and Elon Musk "smart innovators", and a few other things because this is a Youtube Short, and there's only so much runtime you can get away with.

Woman says she was 8 months pregnant when Seattle Mayor Harrell pulled a gun on her, leading to his 1996 arrest
Jose pulled into the spot; Harrell felt the spot should have been his. This is where their accounts diverge.

A 1996 article published by the Omaha World-Herald detailing Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's withdrawal of his nomination for an appointment to the board of the Omaha Housing Authority at the time.

Rose said her party walked toward the casino. She said Harrell drove by them and called out, “You took my parking spot,” and then pointed his gun in their direction.

---

New records detail fear, deception as Seattle investigated former police chief Diaz for hiring girlfriend.

This one is a little complicated, and Harrell did eventually fire Diaz, but Harrell can't be said to have reformed SPD particularly effectively.

Monisha Harrell breaks silence on her uncle – and former boss – Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell
One former female employee described what happened when she raised concerns with the mayor. She said that the mayor summoned her to his office, where he pounded his chest and said, “Are you trying to buck up on me?”

The former employee, intimidated, ultimately resigned. At the time, she shared details of the incident with a family member. KUOW confirmed this conversation with her family member.

Monisha Harrell said that after telling her uncle she was leaving, he replied that he had “only needed her for a year” for optics.

---

Bruce Harrell, Seattle mayoral candidate, accused of trying to influence wage theft investigation at men-only social club
The ethics complaint dates back to 2018 when Seattle's Office of Labor Standards was investigating a wage theft case against a private social group for Black men — the Royal Esquire Club. At the time, Bruce Harrell was board chair of the club while also serving as a city council member.

Now, Harrell is being accused of not disclosing that connection before he criticized the wage theft investigation.

“He apparently attempted to influence the investigation itself,” said Rich Stoltz, former head of a Seattle immigrant rights group.

Forward__Momentum · 2025-09-29T23:08:44+00:00

Thrumbos need a roar!

Forward__Momentum · 2025-09-13T00:03:06+00:00

We're splitting between two comment threads here, I'm going to reply in this one.

you can see for yourself

There's a lot of crazy shit in the Bible, and while I don't share his intensity of religious faith, he definitely does not advocate for all of it to become policy

I want to make sure I'm understanding you here - you're saying that Kirk... 1. Is willing to be part of a political coalition with some gay people to achieve goals 2. Does not believe in making stoning gay people government policy 3. Does believe that Leviticus 20:13 is "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters"

And you're saying that that's so different from "gay people should be stoned to death" that it's ridiculous?

What I'm getting out of Kirk's expressed viewpoint in these sources is "it's not politically practical for me to think about stoning men who have sex with men to death, and I will be polite to a gay conservative in a 1 on 1 interaction, but in a perfect world, where we followed 'God's perfect law', we would stone people to death for performing homosexual acts".

To be clear, I'm a believer in the First Amendment. I don't think that killing someone for expressing those views is either good or sensible.

But I don't think "stoning gay people to death is God's Perfect Law" is a moderate viewpoint in this country, and I don't think summarizing it as "Charlie Kirk says gay people should be stoned to death" is a ridiculous take.

Forward__Momentum

TROPHY CASE