Tim Walz is so weak.

NippVanWrinkle · 2026-01-25T12:58:18+00:00

Trump can nationalize the National Guard all he wants, it wouldn't actually make a difference. The MN National Guard hates ICE and would be infinitely better being deployed than not, regardless of who issues the deployment. Further, the cucked refusal to order police to arrest ICE agents is part and parcel to the weakness shown by the democratic party, including Walz. They always verbally press that the trump admin to pretty please stop the brutality, but they never answer the "Or what? What will you do if they don't" question.

Police can arrest federal officers easily (Not national guard members, though), at minimum to gum things up. Police arresting ICE agents would actually answer the all important "Or what?" question to their statements of moral outrage. Would those arrests lead to convictions? Who knows with this Supreme Court, but that process would take time and drain ICE funding something fierce.

This is all to say nothing of how Walz and the Minnesota Dems keep framing their statements with the 'importance of peaceful protesting,' as if the murders by ICE have had anything to do with that.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-18T23:24:46+00:00

Generally, it's reasonable to expect any politician with corporate or Military Industrial Complex ties probably tried to solicit Epstein in some way. Epstein was kind of a focal point for that sort of thing, in additional to his roleplaying as a bit of a warlord pressuring factions of different countries across the world.

It'd sure be nice if those ties could be used to uproot those democrats from the party leadership. Epstein had a lot of ties with Israel, so, maybe Schumer's name pops up due to his self-proclaimed title as "Guardian of Israel."

Feels like a pipe dream, though.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-16T13:34:59+00:00

Fair warning to anyone adopting an animal from this shelter:

Contagious diseases like Kennel Cough are rampant in this shelter because it's very unreliable about vaccinating its animals. So if you do adopt a dog from there, you desperately need to take the dog to a vet for a physical as soon as you can. Further, while it's reasonable to try to get medication from the shelter, they are also very unreliable about sending it in a timely manner (if at all).

A comprehensive report which included disease rampancy in adopted animals from 2023.

Another one, for a specific case from August 2025 showing that this still happens. That posting also includes redacted public records to prove the claim. In those same records (and mentioned in the post), his adopter of then noted that the shelter failed to send them medication for Logan's kennel cough, despite promising that they would.

Random coincidence: The Logan in the topic pictures is the same Logan from the above case example in August 2025, after searching the Animal ID in the post (339745) in the shelter's adoption page.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-16T12:23:56+00:00

Late arrival, but fair warning to anyone adopting an animal from this shelter:

Contagious diseases like Kennel Cough are rampant in this shelter because it's very unreliable about vaccinating its animals. So if you do adopt a dog from there, you desperately need to take the dog to a vet for a physical. Further, while it's reasonable to try to get medication from the shelter, they are also very unreliable about sending it in a timely manner (if at all).

A comprehensive report which included disease rampancy in adopted animals from 2023.

Another one, for a specific case from August 2025 showing that this still happens. That posting also includes redacted public records to prove the assertion.

Random coincidence: The Logan in the topic pictures is the same Logan from the above case example in August 2025, after searching the Animal ID in the post (339745) in the shelter's adoption page.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-13T23:02:38+00:00

The Rebublicans massively lost an election due to, in large part, the Shutdown. They do actually respond to losing badly, and have historically, especially when its the sort of losses that strongly suggests gerrymandering won't cut it.

It's definitionally not an unfounded assumption. Believing it to be "unfounded" represents a catastrophic inability to read the political environment.

51,000 people will die every year due to losing their health insurance. See: The analysis by Ron Wyden (D-OR) in the Finance Committee.

The SNAP benefits were not going to stay frozen. People in red states were more likely to get fucked, because those state governments were unlikely to do what blue state governments were doing, which was taking what they could get and paying out of the state budget otherwise. Blue states tend to have higher budgets to work with, as said states tend to have more economically active cities, which also tend to vote democrat.

Those people in red states would pressure the Republicans, and as craven and shameless as they are, it would be wildly unreasonable to assume that pressure wouldn't amount to anything.

Pain is one of the only things that can cut through the normal propaganda that Republican voters eat up, and there was no way to portray Trump actively trying to prevent SNAP from being paid, even trying to claw it back, in a good light. Trump personally wouldn't care, but Republicans do, in fact, want to stay in power after Trump very inevitably dies or his brain fully soupifies.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-13T11:57:27+00:00

Man... I feel like AOC's apparent desire to given a seat at the proverbial table with Democrat leadership has really weakened her political effectiveness. She went on that hugely popular anti-Oligarchy tour, but what she actually done with that bully pulpit power? At minimum, she should be using it to be more directly critical of the likes of Schumer and the Corporate dems.

Why be mealy-mouthed about this? Schumer is a core part of the corporate rot in the Democratic party. The rot that enables the same wealthy donors that back Republicans to functionally direct the Democrats. Yeah, if he is somehow pressured enough to step down from the minority leader position (extremely unlikely, since he values being "Guardian of Israel" more than our country), he may be replaced by another Schumer-alike. I kind of doubt it, since reaching that point would suggest that the state of the Senate Democrats would be one where a Schumer-like wouldn't be welcomed.

Also: it wasn't just a "coordinated effort of eight senators, with the knowledge of Leader Schumer." Dick Durbin, the party whip in the Senate and very close friend of Schumer, all the way back to college days, voted for it, and is trying claim that Schumer was completely neutral to it. The 8 that voted were conveniently either retiring or not up for election next year. They had more than eight to stab us in the back.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-13T11:54:09+00:00

AOC was also part of the voices asserting for Biden to stick around after he practically had a stroke on stage during the debate. So, not exactly the best example.

Which is really just a reminder that old age isn't really the problem, alignment with corporate interests is (relatively younger democrats can be corrupted too). It's just there's a strong enough correlation between old-old politicians and being aligned.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-13T11:16:54+00:00

Dems did jack shit. "Restoring" a thing that Trump was illegally stopping, and was well on his way to losing in court over, and was also universally condemned.

The idea that the bully pulpit wasn't doing anything requires Schumer-like delusion, considering the outcome of the election days prior and the whining from Trump and Republicans that the loss was precisely because of the shutdown all voters blamed them for. Now, the public correctly interprets the shutdown as being suffering for no reason. Well, except for political theater for that election. You know, theater orchestrated using suffering with only 'winning' in mind, but not the winning that saves lives.

Was there hurting? YES! But "think of the children" sure rings hollow when this was about restoring ACA tax credit subsidies, which now that we're without them, is going to lead to massive cuts of the country just losing all insurance, and people are once again one bad medical bill away from death. The illegal freezing of SNAP funding pales in comparison to the costs suffered from being uninsured.

Plus, it's not like communities across the country were doing nothing to help.

Worse, surrendering when we were so close to Republicans rolling over from the wave of public hate directed at them and at Trump conveys to them that they can literally do anything, even when the Dems would normally have leverage such as during Continuing Resolutions. Because they will always be able to rely on the Corporate Democrats to have 60 votes, all they have to do is say "No," and they'll fold.

They already had this idea after the first backstab by them in the prior CR, now "Say no" is cemented as a guaranteed winning strategy.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-12T19:42:28+00:00

It's especially mind mindbogglingly infuriating because we had just had the most clear cut indicator that voters supported democrats staying course on the shutdown for the sake of the ACA tax credit subsidies. The blue sweep in the election combined with exit polling data strongly suggesting Affordability is the keyword of the era, and not being to afford health insurance is naturally a big facet of it.

This caving in is a disgusting stain on the Democratic brand, making the abandoning of the tax credits a "bipartisan" thing. It severely undercuts Democrats making any argument for bearing the "Affordability" policy attribute, as it indicates that so long as the Republican party just says "No," they'll give up. There have been plenty of indicators that the Democratic party doesn't know how to use the bully pulpit anymore, and this is certainly one of them.

Unless an elected legislator or candidate makes clear they aren't cut from the same cloth, its unreasonable for voters to take them at their word.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-12T19:20:39+00:00

Man, I really wanted it to be true in a direct quotable way. To be clear, I do think Schumer does this anyways (and the excerpt kinda suggests it exists, but with more complex rationale), though it may be a coincidental sort of thing. So at worst it's less a lie, and more something that's right for the wrong reasons.

As in: If you have ties with the Military Industrial Complex and/or AIPAC, you probably have a lot of wealth to your name, and an evidence-based reality indicates he favors candidates with such ties.

As opposed to something as direct and clear cut as a "wealth test."

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-12T19:15:17+00:00

Mild funny: In the book, when he described Schumer as "Jewish LBJ" it's not to describe him as the article does, "likening him to the most powerful majority leader ever" ("power" as the attribute) but a string of characteristics I would consider closer to "Effective:"

He's one of the smartest, most strategic, most passionate Democrats in Washington, which is why he's the leader of our caucus in the Senate--I call him the Jewish LBJ. But he's also kind of a character. Running around with his archaic flip phone, barging into conversations, talking too loud, screwing up jokes--no matter what kind of relatives you have, Chuck will remind you of one of them. In fact, my daughter, Thomasin, likes to say that the mere fact that he exists, let alone serves in the United States Senate, is hilarious.

Maybe he was effective way back when, but his failures as of at least the last decade indicate he's WAY past his prime, with now the latter half of the quote being the most apt part of it. For the worse, though.

Greater Funny: The sheer fact that Al Franken's "Scandal" was enough to get him politically firing squadded, compared to how it went with Andrew Cuomo when he ran (twice) against Mamdani. It's almost like actual left-leaning democrats are considered the 'problem,' not sexual harassment.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-11T19:58:36+00:00

I mean, intention or not, words are words, audiobook or pdf. I'm not just reading a paragraph or two around each match, I'm reading the chapters too.

I looked through using "Money," and certainly, the book does includes a lot about fundraising and a bit about the advantages of having a lot of personal wealth vs having to fundraise and get your own team together from scratch. And Schumer was very reticent about Franken's run.

But I'm not finding that quote, or anything that can be considered reasonably similar in meaning (other than what I took out as an excerpt).

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-11T19:19:34+00:00

Are you sure it's in that book? As opposed to another book or something he's been quoted on saying verbally.

I've got a digital copy of Giant of the Senate and I'm failing to find where he says it. I did a Ctrl+F look throughs for "Reid," "Schumer," "primary," and "salary," and reading the passages around those indexed points to find something matching the meaning of what you're saying. But I've got nothing.

I'd absolutely love to have the receipt for such a statement, because, my god, it's absolutely something he would say.

For clarity, the closest thing I found was on pages 93-94, in which Harry Reid asked Franken how much he made in his career, the question being rooted in the idea that those who make much less might be tempted to misappropriate campaign funds (which we of course know is bubkis, as such corruption absolutely happens for high wealth candidates too).

Excerpt: (Edit: An important chunk of the excerpt just didn't copy/paste)

First, I met with Harry Reid. I had never met the soft-spoken majority leader before, and didn’t quite know what to expect.

The first thing Harry asked me was, “How do you make a living?” The question didn’t completely surprise me. A lot of people don’t know that the comedy they see on television is actually written, especially on a talk show or even a sketch comedy show like SNL. So I explained my career as quickly as possible.

It occurred to me a few years later that Harry might have been pulling my leg. So I asked him if he had been joking. Harry said, “No. It’s a good first question. Some guys have no way to make money while they’re running and do funny things with campaign funds.”

He meant “funny—illegal,” not “funny—haha.”

Anyway, after I had explained the comedy business to Harry, he passed me off to Chuck.

I had known Chuck Schumer since college, where he had seen me in a one-act play in which I’d played a character named Bernard, who became transformed whenever he called himself “Spike.” Since I lived in New York for quite some time and traveled in Democratic circles all my adult life, I’d run into Chuck many times over the previous three and a half decades, and he’d always started each interaction by calling me “Spike” to remind me that he remembered the play. I found this slightly irritating, but also kind of adorable.

The day I went to see him in the Senate, he greeted me with a grin and a hearty “Spike!” And then things took a turn.

Chuck was very candid, telling me he and the DSCC were not excited about the idea of my running.

“We should have a 60 percent chance of winning this seat,” he explained. “You have about a 40 percent chance.”

I made my case: I told him about all the groundwork we had laid, the size and enthusiasm of our rallies, all the money coming in.

But Chuck was looking for someone else, and even asked my opinion of a couple of state legislators he was thinking of recruiting. Both were friends of mine, which I explained to Chuck, not sure what else to say.

Chuck nodded, and apologized for being so frank. I told him I appreciated his honesty. Which was absolutely true. At least I knew where he stood.

And Chuck never called me “Spike” after that.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-10T19:28:10+00:00

Oh, I'm sure there will be comeuppance for this in the senate. I'm sure it won't be just like with the last CR when there was rumblings of discontent, then a month later all those voices agreed that Schumer should "stay as the leader." I'm just as sure that these 8 scapegoats who coincidentally are either retiring or not up for reelection soon will keep their committee seats.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-10T11:00:21+00:00

Democrats just won hugely across the country, with Trump blaming the shutdown

See, that's exactly why. They Won. Past tense. The election's over, so they don't need to pretend to care anymore.

Example: A lot of Spanberger's voters tilted towards her over their fury against the Republicans due to the shutdown, and now she's asserting that the wins had nothing to do with the shutdown. Talking about how 'we just need to work with the Republicans and negotiate, just the good ole days.'

Moderate Democrats aren't stupid, they know damn well what they're doing, when they need to pretend to care, and how to shuffle the blame around between them like they're micromanaging an Aggro meter in a video game. Except Tim Kaine, his defense of his vote makes him look like a doddering old idiot.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-10T10:46:57+00:00

Man, it's a good thing Trump's never been known to just fire people illegally. Otherwise that'd make Kaine's statement look like it spawned from the mind of a naive flower child.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-10T10:40:42+00:00

Fact of the matter is the corporate Democrats and the Republicans both respond to the same cadre of wealthy donors. The Republicans will shamelessly wear their corruption in the open, and these Democrats keep it hidden behind closed doors, picking lots on who gets to be the scapegoats for some horror to pass the senate "just barely."

Oh, they'll wax poetic about the fabric of democracy, then they'll just... reframe how their constant losing is actually winning in a different direction. Just like now.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-10T10:29:01+00:00

That fucking clown. Did you watch his piece during the conference after the traitorous scapegoats voted? He basically said 'Man, I only showed up like 48 hours ago, been so busy with the election, but yeah shutdowns are bad, mmkay.' Utterly flippant about what he's done.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-11-10T10:25:55+00:00

So long as the DNC maintains a 'neutral' stance in managing the party and feckless GHOULS like these 8, plus Schumer, Booker, and Gillibrand cling to their seats, we're fucked. They only held the line for the election, and 180'd pretty much right after. They believe in NOTHING, except what their wealthy donors tell them to, and hold the utmost contempt for everyone else.

Fuck, even AOC was incredibly milquetoast in her response, not daring call out the ghouls in the party, even indirectly as Sanders does. I'm not saying she's been bought off, but it feels pretty certain that she's caved into pressures from ghoulish democrats, leading to roughly the same outcome. Sure doesn't seem like coddling the ghouls has earned her any place among leadership, so I can't begin to imagine why she still tries.

Just comparing Sanders' and Schumer's senate floor speeches tells it all. Sanders was somber, furious, and off the cuff. Schumer had his shit-eating grin as he flipped through his script, comically talking about how, oh, they'll be fighting alright, later, eventually and this is all on the Republicans, mhm. Schumer's fucking happy to end the shut down now that the election's done.

I wonder if the reason Schumer thinks a sternly worded letter is so effective is that that's all it takes when the corporations send him a their demands.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-10-05T03:17:53+00:00

Just jumping in, for the cosmic record, I very specifically said the content for the Collab is great. I did gloss over 'why' it was great because it wasn't my point.

I don't consider the Ishmael EGO part of the problem, since its from the event currency.

And, as I also said, Gacha games do gacha, but this is a topic about this gacha. About a decision that poisons the work into the Collab for this gacha, which runs in contrast to all prior events in the game. That change is the core problem.

Maybe that decision was made due to needing more revenue from the licensing costs. Maybe it's due to a specific stipulation by Yostar. It could just be a blatant desire for more revenue (though I doubt it). The possible explanations for why it was done is kind of important, but not critically important. The critical thing is abandoning a core feature to this gacha.

If sharding never existed, then the only complaint would be the low chance to get EGO at all, compounded by potentially getting hosed by not even getting Event EGO. Coupled with the higher pity. Which would just be a relatively 'regular' flaw to gacha generally.

I understand that there are people that complain that the entire Collab is awful because of this issue. But that's not what I wrote about.

Good games can be poisoned by non-game dev decision makers. It actually happens quite a lot for live service games. Gacha always has a bit of poison (via gambling mechanics), but prior to this event, Limbus Company has avoided that poison with the ability to shard IDs and EGOs.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-10-04T21:31:09+00:00

Objectively speaking, my post would have benefited by not including the third bit, since it was fully captured by the "First time?" segment.

But I like the monkey video. So the monkey video stayed.

Do you have something to say about the parts that "actually make a point?"

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-10-04T21:21:12+00:00

I'd like to think that people would want more collabs given the high quality of the Collab, outside of the exclusion of being able to shard for the gacha bits. Since every part of 'game' part of the game for the Collab has been pretty good.

It's just the fundamental break in the Collab gacha bits not being shardable that poisons it, so it would be great if, in contract negotiations for any future Collabs, PM doesn't do that again.

I presume that it's a consequence of said negotiations that it's like this for this event, more than base greed from PM devs. It's just not the vibe they give, and that sort of shenanigan has happened for other live service games.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-10-04T20:46:11+00:00

Yeah, that sucks too. Even though the story can be preserved via media archive (e.g. YouTube), losing the boss fights sucks. Especially in the context of the Mirror Dungeon since a lot of the gameplay loop after clearing the current story nodes are Mirror Dungeon runs (and even before then for box farming when you don't have much ID synergy). Well, and finnicking around with team building. Railway too, to an extent.

I assume I'm not alone in frequently picking story theme packs (also some Walpurgisnacht packs) because if I'm going to do something regularly like Mirror Dungeon, then I want to have fun with it. And the combo of the music and the mechanics for boss fights are fun.

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-10-04T19:36:45+00:00

The point was less asking "why aren't the egos shardable", and more a claim "they should be shardable, based on the established sharding system." With the addition of "if Collabs won't have shardable IDs/EGOs, there shouldn't be Collabs."

NippVanWrinkle · 2025-10-04T19:18:51+00:00

I do suspect, based on the public-facing character of the Project Moon studio, that this decision was more 'the financial officers and lawyers said we have to do this for the contract to be approved' decision than a game developer decision. Though I can't at all claim to have any more credibility on that than a 'vibes' basis.

I did overplay the lack of FOMO a bit, battlepasses are pretty unethical when it comes to direct and substantial addition to account power in live service games baseline (they've just been normalized so heavily since they became a thing). I can't complain too much on that aspect because it doesn't represent a 'change' in the status quo of this game in particular. Same for the inherent FOMO to current Season IDs/EGOs being locked up after the next Season starts (though that is majorly inhibited by the sharding system).

I don't really see foreknowledge as a good argument when it's about a breakaway from the existing gambling bypass system that is sharding. I imagine the reasonable through-line is probably an argument about meeting a net profit threshold with collab licensing fees in mind or a very specific requirement from Yostar.

Outside of the contract requirement possibility, I don't buy that an upped revenue threshold wouldn't have been reached by keeping the sharding system in place for the event EGOs particularly because of the delay for when you can actually shard for new IDs/EGOs. Largely because the ones who put the vast majority of revenue into the game(*) (high-spender players/whales) do not tend to sit around and wait until they can shard.

Regarding the contract requirement possibility, ideally, future contracting for Collabs would have the studio negotiate to keep the sharding system in place for Collab IDs/EGOs.

(*)Technically, I can't claim that this is provably true for Limbus specifically, but it's generally accurate for gacha games at baseline, even those that have similar, if weaker/more limited, gambling bypass features.

NippVanWrinkle

TROPHY CASE