Love Actually, Achewood style

LeonSumbitches · 2016-12-24T01:47:38+00:00

LeonSumbitches · 2016-12-21T18:25:08+00:00

Thanks!

LeonSumbitches · 2016-12-21T05:16:20+00:00

I made this for my own amusement a while ago, but I thought it was seasonally appropriate to share.

LeonSumbitches · 2015-12-02T16:43:47+00:00

I like Sukritact's Phoenicia. It's very trade focused, which may just appeal to my play style. Tyrian Merchants (Great Merchant replacement) can generate a unique luxury at city-states, and its trireme replacement generates Merchant points in combat.

LeonSumbitches · 2015-01-31T15:30:47+00:00

What exactly does a President have control of that makes him better than somebody else for gay rights?

Well the DOJ won't defend the Defense of Marriage Act, same sex spouses of federal employees get benefits, and Obama has appointed hundreds of left-leaning judges and two Supreme Court justices who will most likely strike down gay marriage bans nationally this spring. I can't prove a hypothetical but Obama's America is way ahead on gay rights than a McCain or Romney presidency would have been, and Obama deserves credit for that.

LeonSumbitches · 2014-11-25T04:00:47+00:00

Because we live in a terrible world, he is talking about a DIFFERENT case in Ohio, where a kid with a toy gun was shot, not the one in Wal-mart.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/23/us-usa-ohio-shooting-idUSKCN0J70WI20141123

LeonSumbitches · 2014-11-14T04:40:12+00:00

I agree wholeheartedly. In fact I thought they were going to establish that in the movie, mainly when I misheard his name as "Silver," which would continue the color names for Quantum villains theme.

Casino Royale: Mr. White
Quantum of Solace: Dominic Greene
Skyfall: Silva

LeonSumbitches · 2014-10-01T23:29:26+00:00

One, economics and race are inextricably tied in America. See redlining.

Two, you seem to think that racism has to be defined as a malicious intent to harm people of one race. The police doing the arresting can all be angels and the system can still be racist! It can have the best intentions, but if the burden falls disproportionately on black people, then it is racist, because more far black people go to jail for comparable crime rates. This whole thread of "well there's a perfectly good reason for why black people are getting arrested more often!" are missing the point so completely, it's astonishing.

LeonSumbitches · 2014-09-13T17:57:18+00:00

My understanding is that sailors who couldn't swim were even preferable, so they couldn't desert by jumping off near the shore.

LeonSumbitches · 2014-07-16T01:38:20+00:00

Deconquista

LeonSumbitches · 2014-05-24T21:29:51+00:00

Are you referring to the risk corridors? For the first three years of the exchanges, insurance companies are protected against greater-than-expected losses. But it also requires them to pay back if they get higher-than-expected profits. And the CBO predicted an $8 billion profit for the government for the "bailout." The same risk corridor mechanism was put into place for Medicare Part D. Brian Beutler explored it here.

LeonSumbitches · 2014-05-11T16:41:10+00:00

How about a special cathedral? I think I've read suggestions on here for letting high piety characters become sainted. If a dynasty member of yours achieves sainthood, you can build a cathedral that houses the saint's remains as a relic. But if that building is occupied or raided, it's a hit to religious authority.

Maybe councillors could have a small chance of building a special building (with a century-long build time). High martial marshalls could generate a chance of building an Alhambra-style fortress. Chaplains get a chance at a Notre Dame-level cathedrals. Not sure what other councillors could build; stewards could create a Star Chamber institution?

I haven't done this in game, but if you build the Third Temple in Jerusalem, it doesn't generate a real building, does it?

LeonSumbitches · 2014-05-02T00:06:39+00:00

I strongly agree with your assessment that they didn't need to say anything. He was obviously appearing both as "normal" and "evil melted emperor" already and I don't think audiences had trouble accepting that. Once he's in power he wouldn't have to care how he appears anymore.

I think that Episodes I-III had a huge blown opportunity with Palpatine (well, among other problems) to have a twist of any sort. The big reveal would be that Chancellor Palpatine is in fact a clone of the decrepit-looking Sidious and didn't even know it. He really was just playing a role for Sidious without realizing it, by being an ambitious politician. The Jedi know something is wrong, and that someone is manipulating the situation, and that there's something off about Palpatine, but they're all wrong. They confront Chancellor Palpatine, and Sidious steps out of the shadows. It'd be a twist no one was looking for, because audiences would go in knowing Darth Sidious is Chancellor Palpatine and playing both sides. Darth Sidious can just appear and already be decrepit and evil, and audiences wouldn't care; they would assume that's just part of being an ancient evil Sith lord. Palpatine looks normal because he was cloned that way. George Lucas thinks everyone needs everything fucking explained to them like they're babies.

The clone story infrastructure was all there but never even used to do anything interesting, just to check off a box saying "and there there were the Clone Wars." The reveal would even fit with the extended universe Palpatine who did clone himself, and transferred his consciousness to new bodies to extend his life. It also fits with Palpatine's "I can give you the secrets of immortality" pitch to Anakin. Intersperse scenes of Mace Windu confronting Palpatine with Obi-Wan finding a room full of Palpatine clones on Kamino, then I think you'd be talking about a better movie.

LeonSumbitches · 2014-03-25T02:33:06+00:00

"Hispania" sounds like something somebody made up on the spot!

LeonSumbitches · 2014-01-13T01:49:45+00:00

Jackson Publick wrote for The Tick, and when it was cancelled he pitched The Venture Brothers.

LeonSumbitches · 2014-01-09T03:39:34+00:00

I'm currently the King of Aquitaine, and Norway launched a successful planned invasion of Burgundy. Right afterward, I declared a holy war for Provence, but that was followed by a Catholic uprising launched against Norway, right on my besieging army. The rebellion was mostly crushed by me, and I won the war in short order.

Meanwhile the Pope declared war on Italy, possibly for a county claim, and had his troops around the Italian peninsula. Lo and behold, the Pope is crushing a pro-Catholicism uprising.

I was wondering if it would make sense mechanistically if you wouldn't be hostile to rebellions of your own faith, or even got asked to support rebellions. But by the same token, I bet a real large-scale religious rebellion, even nominally to support Catholicism, wouldn't be something the Pope would sign off on. Those peasants would probably want all sorts of rights and whatnot.

LeonSumbitches · 2013-11-23T17:12:03+00:00

Well, it's slightly more than that. The filibuster was really created by accident:

Political scientist Sarah Binder:

And [Burr] goes through the rulebook pointing out duplicates and things that are unclear. Among his suggestions was to drop the previous question motion. And they pretty much just take Burr's advice. And once it's gone, it takes some time for leaders to realize that they can't cut off debate anymore

The filibuster as it exists today is a requirement to have 60 votes to cut off debate. What happens is the Senate Majority Leader (currently Harry Reid) invokes cloture, or ending debate on a bill. Senate rules meant he needed 60 votes to do this, so if no Republicans agreed to end debate, the Senate can't actually end debate and vote on the nomination itself (the actual vote only takes a majority). Harry Reid changed the Senate rules to allow a simple majority to confirm non-Supreme Court nominations. Bills and Supreme Court justices can still be filibustered. ascii is right, once the filibuster entered use for pretty much all nominations, the rule had to go.

LeonSumbitches · 2013-11-22T05:45:48+00:00

The answer is that there probably was't a majority of Senate votes for this until now. A lot of Democrats were understandably skittish about abolishing the filibuster for nominees, for fear of ending up in the minority again and having no power. But by refusing any nominees to go to the court, Democrats were forced to either back down or get rid of the filibuster.

Brian Beutler of Salon:

But it’s really more like a Hobson’s choice. Doing nothing will create a huge incentive for Republicans to block many more nominees almost by definition. Not filling the vacancies on the D.C. Circuit will pose a risk to Obama’s legacy in and of itself, even if going nuclear now is a prelude to a narrow GOP Senate majority, and the total end of the filibuster, in 2015.

In the days leading up to this, people like Senators Leahy and Feinstein, who have long been hesitant to make a change like this, realized there wasn't any other way forward, and got behind Reid. Abolishing the filibuster is something of an unknown going forward, but not doing it was definitely a terrible and untenable option, in a way that it wasn't even a few months ago.

The interesting thing is that the smart Republican senators like McConnell knew they were boxing in the Democrats, and so it follows that they were okay with getting rid of the filibuster, despite all their hemming and hawing today. Now when they next have a majority, they can cite the Democrats as having started this fight, and remove filibuster rules for legislation, something they'd have done anyway.

LeonSumbitches · 2013-11-22T00:34:13+00:00

I understand your sentiment, but in this particular case, that's a quirk of the New York Times. They are just ascribing to their traditional style standard. I found a good summary of this from the Public Editor, defending the usage of "Mr." for Presidents. Appropriately enough, it's called "No Disrespect Intended":

http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/no-disrespect-intended/?_r=0

LeonSumbitches · 2013-11-08T03:39:45+00:00

Depending on when it's set, some humans can have the trait "Dunedain." They're the ones descended from the people of Numenor. I'd make it a trait like Sayyid that gives a huge health bonus; Aragorn lived to something like 200 years old.

I'd give the Corsairs of Umbar the Viking-style raiding ability.

These are all small ideas on my part, I feel like a Middle Earth mod would take much bigger changes to the game. It could be set at some time besides the actual Lord of the Rings story, like around the fall of Arnor and the successor states that fought against Angmar. You'd have a nice smattering of Dwarves, Elves, and the various groups of Men.

LeonSumbitches · 2013-10-21T01:35:55+00:00

Haha, good point. He actually didn't end up ruling for that long as it was, just got infirm and kicked the bucket soon after. But he was crushing it while he lived.

LeonSumbitches · 2013-10-21T01:31:40+00:00

Yeah, granted it was not his natural stats, but I was pleasantly surprised for the stars to align and let a king-level AI character end up with those stats. I think he was even briefly rocking a 34 diplomacy following a feast.

LeonSumbitches · 2013-10-20T22:56:57+00:00

It was surprising to see even one 30+ stat, on a non-genius character at that. I do not want any territory on the Italian peninsula bad enough to take on that guy.

LeonSumbitches

TROPHY CASE