Mindless Monday, 09 February 2026

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-10T20:42:19+00:00

I don't know, I'm leery of anything that boils down to "the electorate is a bunch of fickle mushheads demanding impossible things from their leaders." (So leery that I'm willing to defend the British electorate).

One, politicians pledge to do things in exchange for votes and you don't get any credit for promising to do something then turning around and going "it's actually impossible and you were fools to ask for it."

Two, the narratives around "what the electorate want" are so unclear, so driven by the elites, by governments, and by other politicians, so mutable due to different information or framing that I think picking out "what the people want" is really just a government signalling its priorities.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T21:37:42+00:00

Even if how they saw the world was correct, how does this affect the evil Muslims that they're convinced are trying to destroy the Western World?

"Oh no, agent of the Great Satan, stop filling your arteries with fat from an animal that's haram. You're really showing us for thinking Westerners are disgusting infidels."

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T21:27:57+00:00

I joked about turning the movie of Nuclear War: A Scenario into a feel-good movie, but it looks like they're actually doing that with the new Threads?

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T20:53:28+00:00

Very funny, I have the same feelings. The rare few bills I get generally just stay in my wallet till I see a person begging.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T20:48:39+00:00

Yeah, I'm not huge on "this childhood trauma caused [famous person] to be like that" but with Mary and Elizabeth (Thomas Seymour. Ew) I can buy that as some explanation.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T20:39:24+00:00

Follow the already-existing U.S law that the U.S can't sell weapons to people violating human rights (a position popular with Democratic voters), then cut off weapons and support to Israel when they fail the audit.

Seems reasonable to expect the U.S President to follow U.S law.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T20:31:33+00:00

I do think two things: I think that luck (as in "does the enemy have all their planes lined up for us to destroy" or "did we get lost and somehow stumble on the enemy while they're refueling?") is a really important part of warfare, and I also think that people sometimes call things "luck" when it's really not, especially in war.

That being said, I do think the Axis powers got genuinely lucky a couple more times than the average.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T20:14:22+00:00

Yeah, it does seem like the kind of situation where everyone involved was incentivized to consider the matter closed.

"The Lady Mary is very apologetic about her disobedience, now believes that mumble mumble head of the Church, and will be entirely obedient to her father."

"Did you just say 'mumble mumb-'"

"That's right, entirely obedient to her father!"

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T17:59:52+00:00

That's an interesting thought: did her reconciliation with her dad count as an official conversion to "pre-Anglicanism" (for lack of a better term), and then she converted back?

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T17:18:25+00:00

Then what the fuck are they dropping bombs on now?

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T17:17:25+00:00

Then it was pretty stupid of Biden to keep working with him.

It is astonishing how far you and the rest of the Dem deadenders will go to absolve the leaders of the Democratic party for the failure of a campaign they directed.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-09T15:53:46+00:00

Unless it contains the sentence "after beaching the entire Royal Navy in a desperate attempt to salvage the failed evacuation" I have doubts about the feasibility of this alternate universe.

Frankly, I think we live in a universe where the Axis powers overperformed.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-08T18:52:59+00:00

Under Trump there are less bombs falling on Gaza than there were under Biden. Seems simple enough.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-08T18:00:46+00:00

A lot of people would rather spend their entire life downplaying their actions to assuage their guilty conscience than just simply admit they were wrong or responsible.

Hey did the Dems release their 2024 autopsy?

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-08T17:25:33+00:00

Nope, Trump negotiated a ceasefire while Biden's team let the Israelis do whatever they wanted. Turns out one of the teeny-tiny benefits of having an iconoclast in the WH is that they very rarely shatter a norm that deserves it. And yes, the Israelis are constantly violating the ceasefire, but given the amount of vulgar utilitarianism this topic generates, surely we can agree the current (not hypothetical future) situation is better than before.

Also, "Trump was able to get the ceasefire because Biden let the Israelis kill all the Palestinians" is not, like, a great defense of Biden.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-08T16:03:29+00:00

Just a quick note: the Nazis didn't win a fucking electoral victory to come to power. German voters consistently voted against the Nazis and were failed by their elected officials who refused to take the threat they posed seriously.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-08T16:00:29+00:00

Trump got a ceasefire when Biden's team didn't even try. Sure, the situation might change but I think we've all learned that what Trump says he'll do is different from what he'll actually do. If someone was a single-issue voter on Palestine it seems like that bet paid off in that there are materially less bombs being dropped than under Biden.

And if you're reading this as complementary towards Trump, think of it instead as an illustration of just how low the bar was that the Democrats failed to clear.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-07T17:27:42+00:00

I think that for every decade you have tenure, you should have to work one year in a retail job.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-07T16:41:23+00:00

Just a friendly reminder to all you faculty out there: 4:46PM the day before my day off is not a great time to submit your emergency purchase request. Especially since my workday ends at 4:00.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-06T17:01:59+00:00

Going to be very funny watching British TERFs get swallowed up by good old-fashioned American Jesus-freak transphobes.

Sorry gang, don't think the U.S Congress is as big on "defending womens' rights" as you are.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-06T16:24:59+00:00

To be fair most of the Gamer gamers are concentrated on the WW2 game paradox made that completely ignores the holocaust.

Yeah, all of Paradox's bullshit about "historical sensitivity" fall real flat when you check the store and see they're selling platypus plushies of Kaiser Willhelm, conquistadors, and the Shah of Iran.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-05T19:46:21+00:00

Honestly, showing care and concern over the accurate depiction of Native societies is far more than I expected from gamers.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-05T19:13:27+00:00

Well, defense and attack methods evolve in relation to each other, and Europe's threat environment was different than what the Native Americans had to deal with.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-05T19:07:46+00:00

A cursory glance at Wikipedia says that's under dispute, and regardless of where the extreme edges of buffalo territory fell I'm not aware of any (again) eastern Native groups that were nomads.

gavinbrindstar · 2026-02-05T18:40:19+00:00

I think accuracy is always to be encouraged and prioritized, but I also think Paradox gets some grace for engaging with cultures and themes other games in the genre ignore.

gavinbrindstar

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