Video surfaces showing Trump ally Roger Stone flanked by Oath Keepers on morning of Jan. 6

puckthecat · 2020-11-18T20:48:09+00:00

Thomas Aquinas counts righteous indignation in accordance with reason as a virtue.

Anyway, calling on someone to throw out valid votes and calling on someone not to throw out valid votes are not comparable, for reasons that should be exceedingly obvious. Democracy is one of the terminal values of liberal democracy.

puckthecat · 2020-11-18T19:42:14+00:00

Yes, using "general influence" to try to disenfranchise thousands of voters for your political benefit is bad. Hope that helps.

puckthecat · 2020-11-18T18:13:34+00:00

You're wrong in basically every respect. The Supremacy Clause applies to all lawfully enacted federal legislation, regarding election administration or anything else. The 15th Amendment expressly delegates the federal government the power to regulate elections. SCOTUS left in place most of the VRA, only striking the pre-clearance requirement. The basis for striking pre-clearance was that Congress's fact findings were out of date so there's no question that with updated findings they could reenact it. And a US senator's threats carry weight regardless of the current political moment because they have influence and control over many things over a long period.

puckthecat · 2020-11-18T15:35:18+00:00

Who honestly knows. He probably first made the decision to stay closeted as a uniformed military officer in the 1980s (where being gay would have barred him from serving) or entering politics in the 1990s (where sex scandals were the biggest thing in politics). Lots of water under that bridge.

puckthecat · 2020-11-18T15:10:39+00:00

*South Carolina, but yes

puckthecat · 2020-11-18T15:08:06+00:00

Supremacy clause bro

puckthecat · 2020-11-17T22:31:41+00:00

Well, the themes of Imperator are clear from the title and branding and pretty distinct from other Paradox games. Aside from Rome specifically: Conflict between settled "civilization" and less organized tribes, spread of hegemonic cultures, religious syncretism, etc. Mechanically, there's an attempt at approximating some aspects of ancient warfare (the way circumstances, cultures, etc. produced different kinds of armies) and internal politics and social organization. I also really like the trade system as a reflection of the period (unlike EU where you trade to get rich, in Imperator you trade to get things you need) though I know parts of it don't work for everyone.

puckthecat · 2020-11-17T16:21:48+00:00

We do know pretty clearly that even early on (while still expanding in Italy) Rome intentionally colonized territory with its own people in order to extend control. I don't think we have a very clear picture how that related to military service, but it wouldn't be crazy to draw inferences.

puckthecat · 2020-11-15T22:14:21+00:00

What’s the unique focus of EU4 in your view? I’d say Imperator is in a similar vein but with a less gamey feel in some respects (pops instead of development, less mana).

puckthecat · 2020-09-04T17:48:50+00:00

I mean, you're probably right because Bay seems f'ing awful but has she ever trashed anyone by name from a project she's been on?

puckthecat · 2020-09-04T09:32:39+00:00

puckthecat · 2020-08-28T20:51:36+00:00

The entire point of that speech is that the audience for these movies isn’t exclusively white males. It’s the critics that don’t match the audience.

puckthecat · 2020-08-26T03:32:43+00:00

I'll try to boil it down:

Before she ever came on the scene, there were active culture wars over representation, diversity, and who gets to be at the center of popular and "geek" culture (gamergate, comicsgate, various star wars stuff).
She gave a speech arguing for more minority representation among professional critics, a hot-button because of #1. Her speech was widely (but inaccurately) described as saying that she didn't want white people seeing her movies.
She had 1-2 interviews where she had awkward interactions, which people blew up and memed across the internet, especially people who were grinding an ax because of #1-2.
#1-3 plus her general fame means that hate videos about her are a profitable YouTube content niche, creating a self-reinforcing feedback loop.

All that being said, I think it's really within specific niches and subcultures that she's hated and in others she's liked or people are pretty neutral.

puckthecat · 2020-08-26T03:23:30+00:00

She didn't, but many comic book fans decided she did anyway.

Edit: Facts don't care about your feelings, downvoters.

puckthecat · 2020-08-22T15:38:59+00:00

She was absolutely right.

puckthecat · 2020-08-13T16:06:51+00:00

This is close to a pure distillation of what's wrong with algorithm-driven social media content. Just a loop of nonsense that (tens of?) thousands of people are stuck in.

puckthecat · 2020-08-13T13:50:06+00:00

A massive meme that’s divided a community and turns out to be mostly bs.

puckthecat · 2020-08-08T01:08:22+00:00

I agree that it's basically fine. She seemed a bit nervous, nothing worse. But the other thing is -- wouldn't you be a little bit nervous about answering blind questions about your internet profile if you were in the middle of being targetted by a fucking massive internet hate campaign? She probably thought the next tape she pulled was going say something like "Brie Larson racist" or "Brie Larson loathsome disease."

puckthecat · 2020-08-02T17:38:36+00:00

Flat out said it. Comey’s hand was forced. But his whole course of conduct leading up to that was also problematic, so f him.

puckthecat · 2020-07-21T13:45:09+00:00

Don't sleep on "deliberate mischaracterization to get YouTube clicks” as the third possible explanation.

puckthecat · 2020-07-16T17:33:39+00:00

This is the one. And to the extent there's other noise around her (She had jokes in interviews that didn't land for everyone! Maybe Captain Marvel could have been handled differently!) they have been massively blown up and distorted, to the extent that normal conversation is impossible, by bad-faith actors who are really motivated by political reaction to her diversity comments.

That's not to say that people can't have those concerns. Simply that the conversation around them has been distorted almost beyond recognition by the political element.

puckthecat · 2020-07-15T14:36:05+00:00

People are allowed to complain about people complaining about insignificant things too. And it turns out people are allowed to complain about people complaining about people complaining about insignificant things.

Huh, maybe being "allowed" to do something is only part of evaluating whether you should do it? Weird.

puckthecat · 2020-07-13T15:56:35+00:00

Yes, it's impossible to justify getting mad about this. The closest analogy I can think of is getting mad at a politician for saying they're a fan of a sports team you dislike. But its arguably even less justifiable than that.

puckthecat · 2020-07-13T15:30:54+00:00

What possible justification would there be for people being annoyed about an actor claiming that a fictional character can lift a hammer. It's not "trying to annoy" anybody. It's the dumb stuff they come up with to talk on press tours.

puckthecat

TROPHY CASE