Lurker > Thorn

Leonhart4 posted...

NFL is about to announce multiple season-long suspensions for gambling violations.

potential all-time lol jets if it includes rodgers

it won't but can you imagine

RIP.

I'm a weak swimmer and stuff like that terrifies me as riptides can be deadly even to good swimmers.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Very cool that Elon and friends are now pushing all-around conspiracy nutjob RFK Jr

going full DEBATE ME BRO too

great platform

Off the top of my head Brookings is a legit think tank unless something changed recently.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Also for what Joe should do:

i mean that's kinda what he already did

All you can really say is he didn't cancel all of it, but he cancelled a big chunk of it. And it's currently at SCOTUS. Hell, I have a bad feeling about tomorrow because it's an opinion day and the perfect time for a Friday dump of trash opinions.

Seanchan posted...

Someone jog my memory if there were any attempts by Congress to do something about student loan debt.

Not really, if we don't count Republicans constantly trying to undo it. That's why Biden eventually tried to forgive some of the debt instead, but then GOP courts...

Outside some meme strategies (that would likely get blocked by the courts even faster) this was basically inevitable once the national emergency around COVID ended. It fucking sucks but I'm not sure what else the administration can do if Congress refuses to act and GOP-stacked courts block any action he takes from the executive.

Trump due to appear in court in about 2 hours. I think we get the mugshots from this one? NY had a law prohibiting it but I don't think that exists here. Judge has barred camera/videos/cellphones in the court today so we'll have to rely on drawings again. Says we'll get a transcript of the proceeding later today. And of course the media will be attending even if deviceless so we'll get accounts that way.

Meanwhile, high quality "not the onion" moment:

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/kevin-mccarthy-argues-that-trump-hoarding-documents-next-to-
the-toilet-was-sufficiently-secure-because-a-bathroom-door-locks/

url says it all (sorry had to break it up because character limit)

https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1667528075347730432

You could have shown me this 10, 15 years ago and told me it was cut Fallout 3 dialogue from like Liberty Prime or Eden and I may have believed you lmfao

AMERICA WENT TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT WITH TEARS IN ITS EYES

From what I know, DOJ can request her to recuse and the 11th Circuit has precedent of reassigning a judge when they have shown unusual deference to a defendant.

I'm expecting the case is reassigned away from her (sounds like the reason she got the case is because it was initially deemed related to the old one) and that even if it isn't, if she tries to pull that shit again, DOJ can challenge and go above her head again.

also cut off from that cnn photo is the most heinous crime of all - that chandelier over the toilet

As you can see there the indictment is 49 pages long but you only have to get to Page 2 for the first major "jfc":

3. The classified documents TRUMP stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.

Later on the transcript of an exchange where he showed classified info. Basically an extended version of the stuff the media had this morning.

TRUMP: See as president I could have declassified it.
STAFFER: Yeah. [Laughter]
TRUMP: Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret.
STAFFER: Yeah. [Laughter] Now we have a problem.
TRUMP: Isn't that interesting?

Indictment has been unsealed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/e6276c02-dfd0-428d-9731-8594c1f7261d.pdf

37 counts in total.

1-31: Willful Retention of National Defense Information (Espionage Act)
32: Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice
33: Withholding a Document or Record
34: Corruptly Concealing a Document or Record
35: Concealing a Document in a Federal Investigation
36: Scheme to Conceal
37: False Statements and Representations

"This is secret information. Look, look at this."

lmfao

Along with destroying his own defense: "As president, I could have declassified, but now I can't."

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1667155881090269186

never knew my keeping old console boxes would put me at risk of doj's wrath. i just liked keeping them for nostalgia purposes but that dreamcast box will be my downfall i suppose

also bold strategy cotton

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1666958156327444482

To expand on the above, though I imagine most have heard by now: Trump has been indicted by Jack Smith (the special counsel)/DOJ

DOJ hasn't publicly announced the charges yet so all the reporting comes from the fact that DOJ summoned Trump and his lawyers to appear at court on Tuesday but as far as I can tell the reporting so far has:

At least 7 charges, including under the Espionage Act, Obstruction, False Statements, and Conspiracy.

https://twitter.com/PaulaReidCNN/status/1666982802875723777

Venue is in Miami AFAIK. Presumably DOJ charging him in Florida because that's where he kept the documents and also to pre-empt Trump's legal team trying to stall by challenging jurisdiction.

https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1666528383659036672
https://twitter.com/AndrewFeinberg/status/1666528698055512079

Reports that the special counsel is prepared to ask the grand jury to indict Trump under the Espionage Act as well as obstruction of justice. Also that Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, has flipped in exchange for pleaing to lesser counts.

The smoke from the wildfires in Canada has blown all the way over into the Northeast and it's almost turning it into Caelid lol. Like an orange filter outside right now.

Looks something like this to give an example:

https://twitter.com/NWSBinghamton/status/1666443478308655104

Only it's a brighter orange here. Dunno if that's because it's afternoon compared to that pic being the morning or if it's just even worse now but dang. Can smell it indoors too.

Leonhart4 posted...

Oh, it turns out going into a shrine before the blood moon just pushed it back to the next day. I guess you could keep warping to a shrine to get around it over and over again if you were willing to put it in the extra effort.

Think it worked the same way in BOTW, yeah.

fantastic

Actually, I've got a question. Those gloom hand things that appear every now and then and chase you... is there a trick to them or something? An NPC mentioned them at Hyrule Castle and while there if they showed up I just fled to some spot where they couldn't get me and they'd just... die after a short time. But they showed up in a cave while I was exploring just now and that didn't seem to work so I started trying different ideas like shooting light-themed stuff attached to arrows like the plants that light up the dark in the Depths and even the plant that can be cooked into restoring gloomed hearts and nothing. So eventually I just risked fighting them even though that seemed really inefficient and I actually took out like 3/5 of them... only for them to just start respawning. I think I had explored all that cave had so I just gave up and bailed at that point.

Is there a way to get rid of them or are they just there to make life difficult for you in places where they hang out?

Sounds like the special counsel might indict Trump on the classified documents soon.

https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1665722395095605248
https://twitter.com/helenkennedy/status/1665765022260133888

Trump's unhinged rant here mirrors how he ranted right before the NY AG indicted him before so I'm inclined to believe DOJ told him it's coming.

Yeah, I figured it was given after going to the Depths with him he said he wanted to stick around to help Josha still and talking to her she was like "go do the main quest and my quest chain will update" and I whispered "no" and ran off. >_>

Edit: okay maybe i will go to rito village. =(

after i'm done exploring the area. it will be the last spot of it i go. >_> well, technically i think it's barely in the next area over but you know

Mostly finished up my exploration of the initial area (I define areas by what's revealed by a given tower.) Well, the surface level at least. Exploring Hyrule Castle, well what stayed on the ground, was fun. It was neat solving some of the puzzles there - the jail in particular had a bunch of "aha" moments between opening the one gate by positioning a log next to it and then attaching it to the gate to hold it up to attaching whatever was around to the broken levers in order to make your own lever.

While I have absolutely zero intention of actually going to Rito village until I explore literally the entire rest of the world (unless everyone here tells me actually I really, really should) I did head off in that direction for my next area to explore since I assume the enemies will be more basic that way since the game tries to push you there.

Investigated a crop circle with Impa and oh this is the memory quest/equivalent I guess, huh. I guess Zelda was the Link to the Past all along. Also found Hetsu on my way to activate the area's tower praise be I can expand my inventory.

"And so Hyrule fell to ruin. Legend still recalls Purah's Folly to refer to the turning point in which the last hope of Hyrule was lost when the g-forces of being launched from her tower snuffed out the last light of hope and sealed Ganondorf's victory."

...paraglider get >_>

Lloyd and Rean are both a lot more uneven protagonists compared to Estelle and Kevin, IMO. The Sky duo are just consistently great as the leads while Lloyd and Rean are way more up-and-down and even then their ups generally don't reach Estelle. Peak Lloyd > Peak Rean IMO even though Rean as a character is more complex.

th3l3fty posted...

ultraviolence averted

for now

Yeah, it definitely seems like it was going to happen very soon regardless of what they did.

I didn't expect this much to discussion to arise out of me taking the time to make a joke about Link falling prey to Samus's tendency to lose all her equipment at the start of a game. >_>

MacArrowny posted...

I don't think anyone could've helped haha.

Well, no. But I'm just saying she clearly noticed all the red flags and kept going "this is fine" >_>

Which, again, in all fairness to her - had the Master Sword not jobbed maybe it works out!

Yeah, Twitter is just a hellscape now. Sorry you had to deal with what. Not that I often looked at Twitter replies before but occasionally there'd be some interesting/useful discussion. Now I only ever look at them if I'm feeling masochistic.

~~~

Thorn posted...

Also happening:

https://twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/1663999624930050048

Special Prosecutor allegedly has Trump on tape acknowledging he had classified info taken at his golf course in NJ. CNN, WaPo and others cross-referenced the description of the tape with all the post-administration books people released and think it likely refers to a meeting described in Mark Meadows's book where Meadows describes Trump "recalling" a report written up by former Joint Chief of Staff Milley about how to attack Iran - including a massive troop deployment.

Update:

https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1664664483053092866

Trump's attorneys got subpoenaed over this document back in March and turned over material related to it but couldn't actually find the document itself.

...that sounds like that might be a problem for them

Zelda started and the tutorial area beated.

I'm torn between thinking this is Zelda's fault for continuing to press on as things got more and more ominous instead of turning around and going "okay yeah this might be a bit more than we bargained for, we should get some more help down here" and thinking she should have been right it just so happened Link jobbed like Samus at the start of a Metroid game. >_>

so did rauru just dump link inside the cave of awakening after cutting his arm off and replacing it? didn't seem like the most sanitary surgical environment he could have chosen

Ultrahand is pretty fun. Think my highlight so far with it was getting extremely stubborn when I walked down to one side of a cold water river and saw the other side had a bunch of premade rafts with fans and being like "fuck this i am not walking back and getting there the 'right' way i am going to cut down every fucking tree on this bank if need be and patch together a chain of logs that can get me close enough to those boats to steal one and cross over that way" and i did

Jump scare highlight was when I didn't realize the mine cart railway was partly broken on that one section of rail and all of a sudden we derailed and fell to our death LOL.

Fuse seems pretty cool so far. Not sure where I stand on Ascend. It just never is intuitive to me that it is the solution to a problem. I'll end up looking for something with Ultrahand first and even Rewind before going "oh yeah I can use Ascend here"

Stopped once I left the tutorial zone and landed in Hyrule Field. I almost may have sequenced broken too. I saw that strip of bridges behind the Temple of Time because before I went through it the right way I got to the top of it with Ascend and tried to climb down to it but fell and died to fall damage and was thinking about seeing if I could get over there with a Zonai Wing but decided to go through it normally first to see if I'd get a new ability or traversal method first.

Read through the SCOTUS opinions and yeah the majority is just legislating out of their asses here and KBJ is the only one who makes a rational case in her dissent.

The law is extremely clear that if it is even arguable that the Union is protected by the NLRA then the courts have to sit back and wait for the NLRB to investigate the case before proceedings continue - a clear statement of intent on the part of Congress that the heavy lifting and fact finding is meant to be handled by the NRLB and not the courts.

What the majority does is go, "Well, fuck that. We'll hijack the fact assessment from the NRLB so we can fuck over labor." They decide to accept the company's allegations while simultaneously dismissing the Union's rebuttals re: what actions the Union took regarding the wet concrete in the trucks and therefore conclude "Well, the Union didn't do enough to help the company out" and just start theorycrafting things they could have done instead - despite KBJ pointing out not only does precedent continuously show that workers are perfectly protected in their right to strike even if it's known that the company would lose perishable products because of the timing chosen.

Like the majority keeps coming back to, "But the Union just left the concrete in the trucks and oh my god those poor trucks, the company had to do miracle work to save them and jesus those trucks were innocent so fuck labor" and when presented with the Union stating they brought the trucks back to the company and left the barrels rotating to extend the amount of time the company had to act they go, "Well, why the fuck should we trust you? The company said not all the trucks came back and they seem like honest blokes." Meanwhile KBJ points out that - again - workers have a right to withhold labor and that the limitation of, "Workers can't affirmatively destroy property" refers not to things such as perishable goods (whether they be food, livestock, or in this case concrete) being lost because of a work stoppage and that again there is precedent on this - but that it instead means that the Union employees can't double back after striking and start sabotaging and says that unprotected actions would be more in the vein of slashing the tires on the trucks or just dumping the concrete themselves at random. And also that by the company's very nature there's basically never going to be a "good" time for them to strike under the majority's asinine view and points out the company had advance notice of two months that a strike was possible because it was required by law and they knew the bargaining talks had broken down so it's not like they could credibly claim to be blindsided by a strike.

Meanwhile Thomas and Gorsuch just want to gut the NLRA even more than the majority was willing to and Alito essentially writes a separate concurrence specifically to threaten the lower court now getting this case back that if they listen to KBJ who points out why this case should still be dismissed even taking into account what the majority said today that he (and implies the majority) would be willing to overturn them in record time so don't you dare listen to her.

Also happening:

https://twitter.com/cnnbrk/status/1663999624930050048

Special Prosecutor allegedly has Trump on tape acknowledging he had classified info taken at his golf course in NJ. CNN, WaPo and others cross-referenced the description of the tape with all the post-administration books people released and think it likely refers to a meeting described in Mark Meadows's book where Meadows describes Trump "recalling" a report written up by former Joint Chief of Staff Milley about how to attack Iran - including a massive troop deployment.

I liked Renne after SC but it wasn't until the later games that I thought she was a top-tier kinda character.

Estelle at 1 or riot.

https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1664005386649628672

Debt ceiling deal makes it out of the rules committee and clears one of the last (I think) procedural votes. These are usually straight party line votes, but the Dems had to bail the GOP out since enough Freedom Caucus people tried to kill it hence the wacky seeming vote splits here.

I think the actual final vote is expected some time tonight. (Where I expect the vote will be more bipartisan, as this was just a procedural vote)

got over the barrier (Trails to Azure beated)

ya go my crossbell

And with that I should be able to start Zelda... soon. Maybe tonight, if not, almost certainly tomorrow.

oh no first the contests ended
now the poll of the day has too

I stand corrected. Apparently it really is only a $1.9 billion reduction from the original $80 billion lmfao

https://twitter.com/doug_sword/status/1662876896596566017

Also lol:

https://twitter.com/caitlinzemma/status/1662981982576427010

As someone who has had to do a lot of "tech support" for my parents... oh god she has my sympathies.

Details are still fluid but I've seen several numbers now on the IRS number: $1.9b (apparently McCarthy used this on Fox), $10b (the NYT had this when the details broke), and $20b.

I'm tentatively thinking that NYT just fucked up/details changed last minute and it was a $20bn reduction (So $80b increase dropped to $60b) spread over 10 years which would explain why the $1.9b number is around as a per-year thing.

Also seeing reporting that the changes to TANF and food stamps isn't new work requirements but moving the existing age restriction on the already in-place ones from those age 49 and below up to age 54 and below. Which still sucks for those people but is not quite as bad as I feared.

Also seeing that Sinema blew up a good deal of the permitting reform that ended up in the final deal (as in, it's still there but in a much reduced form) because of fucking course she did. (how did she eve get in the negotiating room for this when it was House GOP and Biden?)

Though, naturally, until we see the bill who the fuck knows. But this is my current understanding of what the deal entails.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Welp I guess I wont lose my health insurance at least!

Same, but I'm not counting that yet until the text is out and the bill passes.

Tentative agreement in principle reached on debt ceiling between McCarthy and the White House.

https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1662615601200734209
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/us/politics/debt-limit-deal.html

Details are sparse right now (McCarthy says we'll get the text tomorrow), but NYT reporting that part of the deal includes:

2 year raise of the debt limit (so past the 2024 election)
New work requirements on TANF and food stamps

• Specifically it seems it limits the time people under 54 with no children can benefit
• Also expands the program for vets and homeless

IRS funding to crack down on tax cheats reduced from $80bn to $70bn
Speeds up environmental reviews of certain energy projects

Kenri posted...

weird of kavanaugh, of all people, to act like he has any issue with someone doing this

yeah it is, but honestly it almost always feels weird when one of them defects because it's almost never about principle based on their previous votes

Only exception I can think of offhand is that Gorsuch and Native American rights where he seems to be pretty consistent on that. Well, some of their rights, I guess.

Yesterday felt like a sneaky big news day. First day in a good while where there like 3+ stories I felt were worth posting here.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/25/trump-classified-documents-mar-a-lago/

Update on the classified documents at MAL. Trump's employees were moving boxes of documents the day before the FBI arrived to seize them and they find that suspicious. Additionally it came out that even before the subpoena that led to the seizure that Trump and his aides carried out a "dress rehearsal" for moving the classified documents. Finally, it appears prosecutors have gathered evidence that Trump kept classified documents in a visible place and showed them to others.

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/25/supreme-court-clean-water-act/

SCOTUS decides 5-4 to gut the Clean Water Act by overturning a decades-old previous decision that defined what counted as protected under the law. While all 9 agreed that the EPA went too far in the specific case of an Idaho couple they were deciding, the Court decided to go further than that and just eviscerate the law.

Kavanaugh was the one conservative who joined the liberals this time. In his dissent he points out that the majority is literally just ignoring the text of the law and redefining words as they please to push their agenda. (At issue is the text of the Clean Water act uses "adjacent" and the majority just goes "fuck it" and decides it actually means "adjoining" to which Kavanaugh points out they are different words with different meanings. And that by deciding to ignore the text and insert their own version from their asses they are having millions of acres fall out of protection of the Clean Water Act with potentially massive consequences.)

The majority barely responds to his point, and the tiny paragraph they address him with you can feel their disdain dripping from it. I'm barely paraphrasing when I say their response is, "But how can a wetland count as water? who is redefining words now? checkmate libs."

3. https://twitter.com/VanityFair/status/1661763458843529216

Is it really "saying the quiet part out loud" at this point? I kind of feel like it's not quiet anymore that the GOP puts the party before the country. "A default would be bad for America but good for us politically."

Picked up Tears of the Kingdom (and Disco Elysium too but lol backlog)

Crossbell Status: Final Chapter. Duvalie experienced her first canonical bullying and I defeated Arianrhod. Stopped right after that last time though. Getting close to the final stretch. *laughs in Ao no Kiseki*

ZeldaTPLink posted...

has a badass coat

and the best sprite in the game imhotbqh

To defend Loewe a bit (I am among that "holds him in the Top 3" group you reference) part of the reason he joined up with "the nearest maniac" is because Joshua went catatonic after Karin's death and said maniac (Weissmann) said he could get him out of it... and technically he did! But probably not how Loewe intended. At which point bailing on Ouroboros would mean bailing on Joshua (and later Renne.)

LightningStrikes posted...

Hopefully it will lead to better protections from surveillance for US citizens data

*laughs*

also: lol, lmao even

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1661071702795915264

DeSantis to announce his run for President tomorrow night with Musk on a Twitter Spaces event moderated by David Sacks. (Tech billionaire who funded people like Vance and Blake Masters and co-authored a book with Thiel where he downplayed date rape and asked why men were the only ones blamed)

A little late, but congratulations!

ZeldaTPLink posted...

this boss's song is amazing

The Merciless Savior is a strong contender for best Trails song. Love it so much.

And yeah, the reason Agate/Kevin is my preferred dialogue team for the endgame is pretty apparent after the fact but there are a lot of cool dialogue combos, both with Loewe and Weissmann (more Loewe though IIRC). I think Olivier and Mueller (as in specifically that combo) actually have a slightly modified version of their dialogue with Loewe for instance. Olivier himself would probably be the next one up on my dialogue recs but unfortunately you can only take 4... well 2 really and between Agate's connection to Loewe and the war and Kevin's role in helping Joshua outplay Weissmann along with his final reveal at the end they're the clear winners IMO.

Totally understand why you need a break after playing FC and SC back-to-back even if I'm a little sad because 3rd is my favorite Trails game. It's kind of a bridge between Liberl and Crossbell and while I'm not sure I'd agree it's better played closer to Crossbell than SC I also don't think that's a bad statement either.

Luciola also just goes "Well, bye then" and teleports out if you fail to bring Schera to the fight. LOL at least Falcom mostly learned going forward and generally required relevant party members to future such climactic fights. Though there are still some party choices in later games that end up being highly recommended because their dialogue is just way more interesting.

Edit: Oh, right. Next boss fight is the point of no return so bring your preferred endgame team if that matters to you. Like mentioned above I do think certain party choices yield more interesting dialogue but nothing remotely like the other Enforcer fights. Personally my recommended "dialogue" team would likely be Agate and Kevin but everyone gets something this time.

I don't know what the right strategy is here though it's hard to believe it's the one that the administration has taken thus far. To be fair, this was never going to be a great situation once the GOP retook the House. The ideal case was always going to be that McCarthy couldn't pass anything out of the House but enough of them decided to show vote for it (literally saying they didn't support the bill but wanted to just get something out there to worsen Biden's hand by pretending they're serious actors.)

I think there's a compelling case that says that had Biden simply declared he was going to mint the coin or any of the other options he has that it would remove any possibility the GOP could be dragged along to pass an increase because they could just sit back and let Biden assume all the responsibility for it, including any instability that might ensue once they just sued against whatever action he took.

OTOH, I don't think you can at all take those options off the table because otherwise you cede all the leverage so idk.

LordoftheMorons posted...

but I am very mad that Dems could have just unilaterally raised the debt ceiling last year and decided to punt instead

That's on Manchin and Sinema IIRC. The two of them came out ahead of it and said they refused to support such a thing and as a result there was never 50 votes to do it. There had been talk among Senate Dems of doing just that but that killed it because it no longer had the votes.

Yeah, if you don't bring Zin to that fight then afterwards IIRC Walter just goes "nothing personnel kid" and teleports out. Been a while since I Youtubed it.