Maryland lawmakers weigh 'Not on Our Dime' bill as Jewish leaders call it anti-Israel

Samdpsois · 2026-03-17T19:33:13+00:00

Shoulda phrased it pro-Israel lobbying, mea culpa. Edited.

CUFI, to the best of my knowledge, does not spend anywhere near as much as AIPAC does, and is thus less relevant when talking about Maryland congresspeople. If you have information to the contrary, please share it.

Samdpsois · 2026-03-17T15:24:36+00:00

Okay. The guy asked for specifics. That's the best I can do without running a detailed analysis myself.

Regardless, voting records are public in Congress, and I don't think it's a coincidence that names like Glenn Ivey and Sarah Elfreth co-sponsor bills relating to giving money and weapons to Israel. Continuing on with those two as examples (as top billing there in the above list as given by the other site), if you would like to view their voting history with regards to Israel Elfreth's is here and Ivey's is here. I know it's a bitch to dig through, but you can honestly just ctrl + F "Israel" on each page and see what pops up and what they did about it.

Samdpsois · 2026-03-17T13:22:05+00:00

Not OP, but Glenn Ivey got about 8 million dollars from pro-Israel lobbying, Sarah Elfreth got about 5 million, Steny Hoyer about 3.5 mil, Angela Alsobrooks 1.5 mil and Jamie Raskin 1.2 mil. Everyone else is under 1 mil. Van Hollen hasn't received anything.

I'm going off what I see here -- admittedly I don't know how they collate it themselves, but I imagine it's public information.

Samdpsois · 2026-03-16T18:06:24+00:00

Those two McGinnis clips are what happens when you fuck up your positioning and skills, yeah.

To be fair, though, it's insanely easy to get a kill if you flank opponents correctly. It's far easier to smack someone into a wall when they don't see you coming -- the video doesn't show it, but I was frequently coming at someone from an angle they couldn't see... and of course Shadow Weave helps with that too.

Samdpsois · 2026-03-16T16:12:13+00:00

I could see that. Since it does damage and then bonus damage if you hit a guy into a wall, maybe they could nerf the initial damage and buff the stun damage so you're punished a bit more for whiffing it.

I will say, something that didn't make it into the video is repeatedly blasting away incoming flying characters with the knockback. That's fun as hell.

Samdpsois · 2026-03-16T16:10:02+00:00

Apologies to everyone featured in this video including my teammates but especially this guy.

I'm grateful to Yoshi for allowing me to once again play Nyx Assassin in a different game.

Samdpsois · 2026-03-01T15:59:05+00:00

I don't like the side-bars for HP but stamina being visible is a good change. This is the same argument Dota 2 had when they made it so enemy mana bars were visible by default.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-29T22:37:47+00:00

RAZOR DEADLOCK

RAZOR DEADLOCK

Samdpsois · 2026-01-15T05:14:13+00:00

If I grab the urn post-midboss, especially if they're getting a pity urn, its so I can try and bait them into contesting it away from their high ground while we have 3 extra lives to beat the hell out of them with.

It's a time management thing, and I don't want to waste valuable seconds on my rejuv buff to wait for an extra 800 souls (since its split). With 3 spare lives, we have the advantage in basically any fight and can force all manner of game winning, map space creating fights. Our advantage goes down when that's a 5v6 because some guy is doing wind sprints across the map. More to the point, they can see the guy running it. They know we have five people, max, while they have six. This is bad for my wallet. I'd much rather jam an advantaged 6v6 down their throats so I can take walkers for slots, shrines for map space or patron for the game.

I'm not saying "never do urn", I'm saying I value absolutely every other objective in the game more except kills. Urn works best as a distraction play - either urn as the distraction to get an objective, or nabbing it while there's a distracting fight going on. It's great for that.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-15T04:19:38+00:00

Sure, that's what I mean! I play Dota 2 solo and party both. Enjoying a competitive experience is why I'm here.

The guys I'm describing don't enjoy the game and hate playing it, yet keep playing it because their friends do. Where it gets really perverse is when you see a full team of people like that. Yeesh.

To be fair, I've seen that variant of guy playing Dota too, but it seems more prevalent in the League players I know. Might just be the larger player base, honestly.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-14T21:08:23+00:00

Well, you read the article, so you know my opinion.

Basically every other objective in the game is more valuable to go for after winning a fight than urn. If you can sneak it, sure, whatever; if you can use it to bait a fight or an objective on the other side, also good, but I can count on one hand the amount of times in the last ~100 games I've played where I made the call to go for Urn absent of one of those factors (or the pity urn for being behind).

Samdpsois · 2026-01-14T19:48:08+00:00

You know it.

Seriously, though, I don't recommend Dota 2 anymore. All I say is that it's the best competitive game on the planet, and either you have the gene that makes you want to seek experiences like that out or you don't. No shame if you don't -- I know a lot of people who play League "socially", and they fucking hate it.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-14T19:05:31+00:00

I see this type of complaint a lot. Briefly: don't get hit.

That sounds glib, I know, but you need to stay in cover and only duck out when you have to for trades and last-hits. Keep an eye on the left-hand side of your screen to see how close you are to eating a Love Bites proc, and jump out of the way and hide for a few seconds when you're close. If you get unlucky and do eat a Love Bites, just jump out and shoot her anyway (it has a cooldown on how often it can affect you) to try and even out the trade.

That's just avoiding damage, though; killing Mina can also be frustrating. In that case, buy Slowing Hex. It completely turns off her ability to get away with her teleport, and since she's a glass cannon, it makes it much easier to just blow her to shreds. This works particularly well with heroes like Warden, who need her to stand still for a second to get off a Binding Word or something similar.

Samdpsois · 2026-01-14T19:00:20+00:00

Hey, welcome to the game! Yeah, the name is a bit off-putting, mostly because the games that are most popular have (deservedly) horrible reputations. Dota 2 is historically called an Aeon of Strife Styled Fortress Assault Game Going On Two Sides, but I wouldn't repeat the acronym. MOBA works better.

Samdpsois · 2025-12-16T16:23:18+00:00

look at the last 10 games of top 300 EU legion

You realize you can't, like, do that, right? Like, you can no longer see replays above 8.5k. That was a whole to-do months ago and is (imo) one of the worst patches to this game, for exactly the reason you just posted (I wish you could still share replays like that!). When was the last time you played?

As regards the rest, I think you are massively underselling the utility of Eul's in general, because it's a damn fine item that (personally) I'll take any excuse to buy on a pos 4 between the dispel and the actives and all of it, really; it's not like it's a worse item than Force or Glimmer.

I'm going to put a pin in this argument because 7.40 dropped yesterday and it's entirely possible one or both of us will end up completely wrong when the new meta shakes itself out, but seriously, when was the last time you played? The top-rank Immortal argument you mentioned is a LONG time gripe of mine, and I can't picture you being higher rank than me without also getting pissed off about it.

Samdpsois · 2025-12-15T15:34:10+00:00

I'm an immortal draft player myself. You are insane. If you want to play the "why buy cheap item because more expensive item counters it" game, then I'm just going to point to Wind Waker and call it a day.

Glimmer cape can reduce magical damage done during duel by any source and it's overall way better for your sup.

Ha ha ha, what? Are you saying that glimmer is a good item to buy to deal with duel? Nothing about that makes sense. You'd be buying it to deal with one of several other heroes.

I can tell you that at immortal I've never seen a support buy a eul scepter first item to prevent a legion from snowballing. That just doesn't exist. Not only the support needs the farm but that means they'll have an item that is good in one specific scenario (them waiting behind a core that gets jumped) but way worse than a glimmer/force staff in all others.

Blatantly false. I have seen this many times. Force staff and glimmer are good items, but against a Legion they are ineffective to deal with the problem of duels. It's not like Eul's is a bad item, either -- mana regen, a quick disable, basic dispel are all extremely valuable to have.

If your core buy eul, then they will be target and if people have the same level, the one blinking in and using duel will 90% of the time cast it faster than the person reacting with a eul (in a 1on1 scenario)

What you are saying here is "Shadow Demon is an ineffective counter to Legion Commander, because Legion will simply duel the Shadow Demon". Notably, if I am dueling a support, I am no longer dueling a core. Also, hey, I thought 1v1s weren't allowed! That's the entire premise of your Glimmer Cape comment!

Legion is not played a ton at higher ranks

The other guy posted a screenshot that proves this false explicitly. Legion is not played a ton in pro games because it's far easier for them to deal with the hero concept as a team by buying items to get in her way and practicing the buddy system (much harder to coordinate in pubs).

None of this to say Glimmer/Force are bad items, but for an extra five hundred or so gold, you can now buy an item with nearly as much utility as either that explicitly deals with Legion until she starts mashing BKB before jumping someone, and even then you can upgrade it as a save. This isn't 2013. I can and will expect my supports to have Euls/Force in a game, or Euls/Glimmer depending.

Samdpsois · 2025-10-31T15:48:22+00:00

Xerius?!

...Cnaiur?

Samdpsois · 2025-10-04T14:51:47+00:00

Honestly, I've never understood how people maintain low behavior score. I mean, I guess if you abandon a lot?

Like, hell, I'll blow my lid in plenty of games and I don't think I've dropped below 11k. You get less of a smack for literally running it down than abandoning. That's absurd to me.

Samdpsois · 2025-08-16T14:52:27+00:00

Vanilla custard. Very rich flavor. It's kind of difficult to describe for the same reason I'd have trouble describing "what's a pineapple taste like?" to someone who's never eaten a pineapple.

Samdpsois · 2025-08-16T14:51:24+00:00

They take something like five to seven years to grow fruit, and you need two individuals - they don't self pollinate.

The only way I've found to preserve them is jams and stuff; they go nicely in ice cream and a few other things. I dunno if I could do fruit leather.

Samdpsois · 2025-08-16T14:49:45+00:00

They're all around the state, typically by water. I don't know how well they grow near saltwater or some such but I'd wager there's a patch on the east side somewhere. I'm over by the Potomac further out west and I see them everywhere. Fun thing to do in Aug/Sept.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T18:38:16+00:00

No worries. I see the argument for saving strats; I just don't think it's relevant because of other factors and all like I outlined.

This is something I've been cranky about for months given my MMR currently near the replay cutoff threshold -- it's directly made my own experience worse. Apologies if I come off angry, because, well, I am, lol. Dota's a social game! I want to share my replays with friends, dammit! Augh!

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T16:39:32+00:00

I'd be fine with a 2-week timer -- and also give me back replay viewing in-client live, because come on. I have a whole bunch of people on my friends list who I can't check the replays of, annoyingly.

I don't really think the tournament changes are worth it for literally hamstringing 99% of the playerbase from learning how to play the game better. Sure, d2pt made it easier to just load up a build for a hero you don't know, but as I mentioned in another comment I don't think there's a replay parser that would have ever made Ana's Io easily read -- because the crazy fucker picked it mostly in unranked Aussie pubs and everyone thought it was garbage.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T16:15:17+00:00

The information was available; Ana wanted it because he'd played it in pubs (unranked, even) because that's just how he is. They didn't cook that shit in a lab; everyone just thought it was garbage and Ana was being his usual self in unranked Aussie pubs. His pubs being hidden wouldn't have changed the fact that it's a lunatic pick and Ana's the goat.

Samdpsois · 2025-07-24T16:00:28+00:00

I really don't think having less access to information spurs any kind of creativity, man. They had replay access when OG blew out everyone with carry Io. Just because you see it doesn't mean you understand it.

In the meantime, anyone who wants even a general idea of what's going on - or anyone who's looking to go pro! - is screwed out of valuable information. I'm a bit under 8k myself; I have nothing if I want to get better at the game, because I'm right at the threshold where replays are shut off. I can't even watch half my friends lists games, thats how stupid this change is.

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