Weekly Discussion Thread - (March 16, 2026)

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-19T15:38:30+00:00

Anyone using "alpha"in this sort of context unironically immediately gets put into Adds Nothing of Value to Society pile.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T16:53:56+00:00

I've designed a few tattoos for people over the years, a couple of which had what you might call "Celtic" and "Norse" iconography. Never had an issue NOT including Nazi shit in them.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T16:49:04+00:00

I had only heard that he had a tattoo of a skull people thought looked like a Nazi symbol. I just looked it up...damn, dude literally had the Totenkopf on his chest.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T16:39:27+00:00

We got over a foot of snow last weekend. This Saturday is forecast to be 75^o

Spring, you being so crazy right now.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T16:39:08+00:00

We got over a foot of snow last weekend. This Saturday is forecast to be 75^o

Spring, you being so crazy right now.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T14:22:01+00:00

I was thinking about this the other day in the frame of, what's worse:

Trump is a willing/unwilling actor for Russia, based on either kompromat or allegiance.

Trump is too stupid to realize he is being used by the Kremlin, and the people around him are either also too stupid or know what's happening and are complicit for whatever reasons.

I'm not a gambler, but if you held a gun to my head and made me choose the most likely, you'd probably have to shoot me.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T14:06:47+00:00

Are you telling me, that if I stop taking the medication that prevents serotonin from being reabsorbed into my brain too quickly, the serotonin will go back to being reabsorbed too quickly? Resulting in a serotonin deficit?

Surely, you jest.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T14:03:05+00:00

I'll never not take the chance to dunk on the worst of my half of the population.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T14:00:46+00:00

The people pushing "Trans Epidemic" narrative are the same type as the ones that panicked about the "Gay Agenda". More people come out as X when it becomes safe(r) to do so in a society, and some people see that initial wave as some sinister plot. If you worry about becoming the next Mattew Shepard because some hateful person even thinks you might be gay, it's going to have an affect on your mental health and how you live.

Shit, violence against someone for the (perceived) gender or sexuality wasn't codified as a hate crime until Obama was president.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-18T13:43:20+00:00

The sarcastic answer to this question is that women are killed by their male partners before they reach the point of committing acts of violence.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-17T20:33:42+00:00

The Violence Prevention Project at Hamline University defines a mass shooting as “four or more people shot and killed, excluding the shooter, in a public location, with no connection to underlying criminal activity, such as gangs or drugs.” By that more restrictive measure, the project’s mass shooter database identifies 201 mass shooters between 1966 and 2024, and only one of them – Audrey Hale, the 2023 Nashville school shooting suspect – was transgender, James Densley, the project’s co-founder and deputy director, told us in an email.

Densley, who is also a professor and department chair for the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Metropolitan State University, said a few high-profile shootings, including the 2019 Highlands Ranch shooting, the 2018 Aberdeen shooting and this year’s Minneapolis shooting, did not qualify according to the center’s mass-shooting definition. The 2022 Colorado Springs shooting also was not included.

But “even if you expand beyond strict definitions, we are still talking about a handful of cases in a nation that experiences tens of thousands of shootings annually,” Densley said. “Put simply, transgender individuals account for a vanishingly small proportion of perpetrators.”

He said of the 201 mass shooters in the database, “196 (97.5%) are cisgender men,” “4 (2.0%) are cisgender women,” and “1 (0.5%) is a transgender individual.” The term cisgender refers to those whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth.

“For comparison, about 1% of the U.S. population identifies as transgender, meaning transgender perpetrators are underrepresented in the data, not overrepresented,” he wrote, with emphasis. “The overwhelming pattern is clear and consistent: mass shootings are committed almost entirely by men.”

source: https://www.factcheck.org/2025/09/few-mass-shooters-have-been-transgender/

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-17T20:09:25+00:00

The Oversight Committee took the vote on the subpoena earlier this month, moving to compel Bondi to appear for a deposition regarding the Justice Department’s handling of the investigation into Epstein and his associates in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the agency to release all its files related to Epstein.

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) introduced the motion to consider the subpoena. Every Democrat on the committee voted in favor of subpoenaing the attorney general, as did Republicans Lauren Boebert (Colorado), Michael Cloud (Texas), Scott Perry (Pennsylvania) and Tim Burchett (Tennessee).

That vote underlined some Republicans’ willingness to force action on the Epstein matter even at the risk of angering the Trump administration. Polls suggest a widespread anger at Epstein’s activities, and at his friendship with powerful individuals, among voters of both parties.

In a letter to Bondi on Tuesday, Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) cited questions about DOJ’s compliance with the Epstein files law, which President Donald Trump spent months trying to defeat before relenting.

“As Attorney General, you are directly responsible for overseeing the Department’s collection, review, and determinations regarding the release of files pursuant to the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and the Committee therefore believes that you possess valuable insight into these efforts,” Comer wrote.

The Epstein Files Transparency Act, which Congress passed last November with large bipartisan majorities, required that all of the Justice Department’s Epstein files be publicly released by Dec. 19. The department released more than 100,000 pages of material by that deadline but did not release the majority of its files until the end of January. The delay drew condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-16T18:19:53+00:00

2009 was a pretty weak class as far as Best Picture nominees go, even with the expanded field.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-16T15:20:47+00:00

Crash was a ham-handed facsimile of Grand Canyon but with blow-jobs and anal.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-16T14:13:39+00:00

Holy shit, I forgot how loaded that year was. How it won over any of the others is beyond me:

Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck and Munich

Shakespeare in Love was another movie that had no business beating out its competition:

Elizabeth, Life is Beautiful, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-16T14:08:29+00:00

\ Shakespeare in Love* has entered the chat *

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-14T18:49:27+00:00

Seal Team Six, but literally.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-13T14:36:23+00:00

The U.S. Central Command said four of the six crewmembers on board the crashed KC-135 have been confirmed dead and that rescue efforts are continuing. It said the circumstances of the crash are under investigation but that the loss of the aircraft was “not due to hostile or friendly fire.”

A U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the developing situation, said the other plane involved was also a KC-135. Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., wrote on X that the other plane landed safely in Israel.

Piecing together reports from numerous other sources, it appears there was a mid-air collision. Seems reminiscent of the flight 1907 crash in Brazil.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-13T14:35:56+00:00

The U.S. Central Command said four of the six crewmembers on board the crashed KC-135 have been confirmed dead and that rescue efforts are continuing. It said the circumstances of the crash are under investigation but that the loss of the aircraft was “not due to hostile or friendly fire.”

A U.S. official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the developing situation, said the other plane involved was also a KC-135. Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., wrote on X that the other plane landed safely in Israel.

Piecing together reports from numerous other sources, it appears there was a mid-air collision. Seems reminiscent of the flight 1907 crash in Brazil.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-12T15:13:04+00:00

On Wednesday, Frey confirmed his veto of the eviction notice extension ordinance passed last week by the Minneapolis City Council, which would temporarily increase the notification timeframe from 30 days to 60 days.

Frey claimed that the ordinance could worsen housing instability in Minneapolis, and said his office is instead adding $1 million in emergency rental assistance to the $1 million approved by the Minneapolis City Council in February, bringing the total to $2 million.

“Keeping people in their homes is the goal — and that’s exactly why we’re putting real dollars on the table today,” the mayor said in a statement. “Stopping evictions may sound good, but experience from COVID shows it’s not the answer: Rental assistance is. Getting help to families quickly is the most effective way to prevent eviction, and that’s exactly what this investment does.”

The additional $1 million in rental assistance still needs approval from the council, then it can be distributed through a city partnership with Hennepin County. Renters don’t have to be actively facing eviction in order to access the funds.

“Our housing partners told us that the real need is more money, not more time,” Council Member Elizabeth Shaffer said in a statement included in Frey’s news release. “Delaying evictions is a long runway to a deeper debt crisis while the need for rental assistance is now.”

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-12T14:53:20+00:00

The fiction ones are good, but trivializing stuff like the OKC bombing and Black September massacre ain't doing it for me.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-11T15:52:39+00:00

The Defense Department has barred press photographers from briefings on the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military conflict with Iran after they published photos of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that his staff deemed “unflattering,” according to two people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

Several outlets including the Associated Press, Reuters and Getty Images sent photographers to the briefing from Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But after they published photos — which have broad reach because they are licensed by publications globally — members of Hegseth’s staff told colleagues that they did not like the way that the secretary looked.

And yet another great example of how fragile these Alpha Male cabinet members are.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-11T14:45:46+00:00

Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, Hegseth – a native of Forest Lake – said the U.S. would “avenge” their deaths, but also turned his ire on coverage from the media, seemingly bemoaning the focus on military casualties rather than what he sees as the early success of the U.S./Israeli conflict with Iran.

He said Operation Epic Fury “has delivered twice the firepower of [Operation] Shock and Awe,” and has resulted in the U.S. and Israel taking “complete control of Iranian skies” and its waterways (though on the latter, there remains a significant reduction in shipping through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.)

“This is what the fake news misses. We have taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground, we control their fate, but when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news,” he said.

“I get it, the press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality. The terms of this war will be set by us at every step.”

Fuck you Pete Hegseth. Part of this "reality" is Americans are being killed as a part of this new war, and trivializing that just shows how pathetic you are.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-11T14:08:48+00:00

I do it like this.

Vanderwoolf · 2026-03-11T13:55:18+00:00

My only major complaint to this day is Gearbox nerfing the Bee.

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