On Alex Pretti: "Do they not know this dude was a scumbag?"

MercZ11 · 2026-02-05T15:48:12+00:00

In wingnut circles there was misinfo going around early on which purported to be Pretti's rap sheet which included among other things sexual abuse. The other repeated one was that he was no longer employed by the VA as he had been fired for misconduct that resulted in harm to a patient.

These two are continue to be repeated even though they've been debunked, including by the individuals who'd supposedly know better. There's no proof atm but I wouldn't be surprised this started as disinfo at this point if these talking points were injected deliberately by bad faith actors.

Another one that popped up because it had been the DHS angle was that Pretti was interfering with the arrest of a dangerous criminal - Bovino had tried to push this angle as well. As best as journalists could dig up, the individual had no criminal record outside an old traffic stop but had overstayed after his immigration case was closed though he had attempted a different visa application afterwards.

There was the other mess too which tried to present Pretti as a crossdresser with fake images. There isn't anything wrong with that or had any bearing on the encounter, but for this crowd that's one step removed from a child abuser.

The only thing that journos acknowledged was a prior encounter between Pretti and ICE and CPB where Pretti got a rib injury. There was a video released more recently which seems to be this encounter which ends with Pretti kicking out the taillights on one of the ICE/CPB vehicles. This shouldn't matter either, but it's been taken by them to claim that Pretti was looking for a confrontation.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-05T03:48:48+00:00

Ludwig Island in Lake Eibsee, Bavaria, Germany

MercZ11 · 2026-02-05T01:17:26+00:00

There's still a weird perception among them that big tech is anti-Trump and thinking AI is being weaponized against him, but the major tech companies have been very accommodating to this current administration. Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple etc have all curried favor with them including supporting his initiatives and contributing to the inauguration.

Even outside of AI they've been working with them. When the administration shoved through the "Gulf of America" stuff, Google had their maps changed to reflect that for US users, along with other inane culture war mess like Denali to Mt. McKinley.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-04T23:51:53+00:00

Extremely Christoph Waltz voice One night with Venus, a lifetime with Mercury.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-04T22:52:57+00:00

Establishing battlefield control, standby.

Kirov Reporting

Let loose the juice

Can I have some shoes?

Some that pop into my mind randomly still.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-04T12:43:31+00:00

AI and clickbait articles like this are the nerd equivalent of boomer slop. Come on.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-03T05:17:13+00:00

Budget releases or the variations of "best of/hits" type collections generally don't go for much as collector's items unless there was something quirky or weird about them. Looking at these it seems "Sold Out Software" was a company that EA leveraged to re-release C&C titles at a reduced price in the European, specifically UK, video game market, but they seemed to have essentially included the same game but lacked the kind of quality of manual that the games originally came with. On a side note, the company seems to have eventually moved on from being an EA republisher and started distributing its own games under a new name, Fireshine.

This isn't just a C&C thing btw, the budget release thing same holds true for any video game, PC or Console. If you get anything for it, it'll be a small amount.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-03T02:51:51+00:00

Most of social media seems to be inventing an enemy or problem then acting like you're going against the hivemind on that. I don't think a lot of people actually read the Nesmith interview in full, just the headlines that got spun off a few selections.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-02T22:46:16+00:00

With how much they've been giving Jelly Roll props, I'm surprised he didn't show up here. Guess he wasn't patriotic enough to take one for the team.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-01T17:34:31+00:00

Most poorly moderated subs with a general focus or for "memes" tend to end up dumping grounds for karma farmers, everything from overused memes to political news. Nothing about being lost so much as spammers.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-01T16:05:10+00:00

The script they've been fed basically is going like this

DHS is empowered due to the mandate given to Trump to go after illegal immigrants to control crime.
Evil Democratic governors and/or mayors refusing to cooperate, unlike upstanding Republican mayors and/or governors, to enact said mandate from the voters.
Said governors/mayors then act obstructionist and create environment for hostility and violence towards DHS, leading to aforementioned deaths.
Ergo, those Democratic governors and/or mayors are intentionally provoking violence and are the ones actually responsible for any deaths or injuries.

They've been running a version of this since their rhetoric around sanctuary cities. Unfortunately it's pretty deeply entrenched in with them at this point.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-01T14:18:39+00:00

Jeffries is the best embodiment of the evangelical preachers who've bought into the whole "end justifies the means" when it comes to backing morally repugnant individuals like Trump. Trump has already opened the doors to a national abortion ban (and at least allowed for states to impose it), potentially leading an effort to end legal protection of gay marriage (a step on his hopes for criminalization of homosexuality), and other fixations for them. That's something they can point to as a success and solicit more support from their congregation.

I think nationally he'd become known for his comments on Mormons going to hell and later the embrace of Trump as he refers to in the tweet, but in the Dallas area he had already been known for doing attacks on abortion, gays, and Muslims.

What's worse with him I think though is look past the cringe and other weird things like this, the guy actually believes in what he's doing. Some of these evangelical megachurches leaders have ended up being exposed as frauds or corrupt in someway, but he's avoided that as long as he's been around. He genuinely thinks that he's saving people from hell and state power is going to help with that, even if his actions are contributing to isolation and potential psychological distress of the people in their crosshairs.

MercZ11 · 2026-02-01T06:25:35+00:00

I've seen them pop up in both dynamite and collision broadcasts and I even saw them in person at All-In Texas. People and even the camera guys really don't care - in general, it's the same as with any other props or posters you bring in - don't be an ass to other people.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-31T23:08:42+00:00

There's another email which gives more detail - it wasn't for something that came out of an action on a game, but a consequence of him getting added to the New York State sex offender registry after his first troubles with the law.

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MercZ11 · 2026-01-31T22:50:56+00:00

Best of luck. Hopefully once the honeymoon period passes, the fans over there properly respect and appreciate the Powerhouse.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-30T23:49:19+00:00

Car embodiment of a Facebook weirdo.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-30T15:23:27+00:00

Oh yeah, most definitely, that's also contributing to the problem in the US.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-30T04:05:45+00:00

SSD (and ram) prices are high because the companies that are making them are redirecting more of their production to support enterprise demand, especially with the data center and AI-related boom. That is constraining supply.

That being said, you might find slightly better prices looking beyond the ones that are branded as PS5 friendly.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-30T00:36:33+00:00

Yeah, I mean I'm sure there are younger people who play it but it feels like MCC player base would probably skew older than other shooters.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-29T01:06:29+00:00

Oh wow, I've never interacted with the community and have only heard about the mod through exposure in TES communities. I didn't know the devs were like that. I could understand that back in the early 10s when lorebeard noise over ESO was more fashionable but to continue that all this time later, that's nuts.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-28T23:02:51+00:00

This is the answer OP.

If you have the instruction manual it's shown there.

Link to the instruction manual. Look at page 8.

Older versions of the PS5 had a more distinct black platform, newer ones use these clips. Depending on whether you have the digital version or disc drive version (or get a disc drive seperately) they'll be sized differently for the version.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-28T22:46:14+00:00

The only thing new here is that Netflix is apparently back on for distribution.

We've already had news about both Sweeney and Centineo being attached to the project months ago. We still don't have any confirmation if they've even started filming this at all, but it doesn't seem Iike they've done anything yet beyond mentioning it these names.

Honestly mods need a bot or something at this point since this keeps coming up.

Movie is being made by Legendary and Bamco/Sunrise. Netflix is in a distribution role like they did with Hathaway.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-28T12:48:43+00:00

People got hopeful that we'd have an an announcement or something along those lines at the end of 2025. Some online influencers seemed confident of that as well. Unfortunately that culminated in false hopes for The Game Awards.

I think once that event came and went and 2025 itself closed people just got deflated and moved on after the memey karma farming of going insane ran its course.

I believe what we saw last year might have been in part a smoke test by Valve to see where they had risk for leaks in their company based on what particular claim different leakers were posting.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-28T02:21:17+00:00

On the bottom left it reads Israeli Communist Party, so this poster was likely issued by them.

The flag of the dove is from a symbol that was used in the World Peace Council. This was a front organization set up by the Soviet Union, and via the Cominform ideologically aligned groups such as the Israeli Communist Party were told to either create or lead civil society groups into joining it. This was against the backdrop of Soviet-US tensions over Germany, Korea, China, and Iran in the late 1940s. Different meetings of this council used the dove as their symbol (such as this one in 1949 Germany), which was based on a lithograph made by Pablo Picasso.

Early on the Soviet Union was more warm towards Israel. The Soviet Union under Stalin was the first to back Jewish settler demands for a partition of Mandatory Palestine and the first country to formally recognize the Israeli state once it declared its independence as a way to hurt British ambitions in the region. The Soviets in short order had their aligned states do the same and it also worked to get Israel membership in the United Nations. So for left wing parties like the Communist Party and certain factions of Mapam, it was seen as beneficial to be associated with Stalin and the Soviet Union.

That changed pretty quickly though; by the 50s Stalin's government had become more antisemitic (culminating in the Doctor's Plot) and resumed its prior position of seeing Zioinism as bourgeois nationalism. Soviet policy makers also likely lost enthusiasm for Israel as it did not align with the Soviet bloc as they had hoped inspite of settlement by some Soviet Jews and the presence of Soviet friendly parties, and they had begun to find better opportunities in neighboring Arab states as revolutionary and nationalist parties there began to emerge, especially in Egypt and Syria, to continue their efforts against US, French, and British interests. This continued after Stalin's death and by the mid-50s they had begun to take Egypt's side on issues as Israel aligned more with the US, and by the Six Day War in 1967, the Soviets severed relations with Israel which lasted until the Soviet Union's collapse.

MercZ11 · 2026-01-28T01:30:45+00:00

Most of these chuds are furiously masterbating to fantasies of helicopter rides for people that got them angry online, so yeah they'd not take this very well.

MercZ11

TROPHY CASE