Lurker > antfair

https://slate.com/technology/2018/12/net-neutrality-congress-house-of-representatives-one-last-chance.html

Congress has one last chance to undo the Federal Communication Commissions 2017 repeal of net neutrality protectionsbut it only has until Dec. 21 to do it. The open-internet rules officially went off the books in June, but Democrats in Congress have been organizing since the end of last year to pass a Congressional Review Act resolution to undo the FCCs repeal. In May, three Republican votes pushed the Senate over the edge to narrowly pass a bill to restore net neutrality and rescind rules passed under current FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. After that, the onus went to the House, where 218 signatures are needed for a vote to proceed. Right now, however, there are 180 representatives signed on, mostly Democrats. Its a very, very long shot, but if advocates fighting to restore net neutrality are able to gin up the votes in the next week, theres a chance to block Pais vision of an internet in which companies like Comcast and AT&T are legally allowed to shut down or slow down access to whole parts of the web.
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The deadline to force a floor vote for this session of Congress was Dec. 10, but since the congressional session has been extended to Dec. 21 over funding disputes, net neutrality supporters have a bit more time. For the gambit to work, at least 20 Republicans and every Democrat would have to get on board with the CRA resolution. (Republicans are certainly familiar with how CRAs work, because theyve used the same process to reverse more than a dozen regulatory actions since Donald Trump won the election in 2016but those were rules passed under President Obama.) If internet advocates are able to spur a quick and unexpected legislative turnaround, it wouldnt be the first time. In 2012, outrage over two obscure intellectual property bills that would have drastically changed the way were able to share media onlinethe Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Actbecame so boisterous that the number of Congress members who opposed the bills jumped from 31 to 101 after a single day of action. The legislation died. At the moment, the issue on the table is simply getting enough signatures for a vote on a Congressional Review Act to be possiblenot the vote itself.

There are currently 16 Democrats who havent signed on to vote on the Congressional Review Act resolution, according to the watchdog group Fight for the Future, and theyve taken thousands of dollars in campaign donations from internet providers like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, or the National Cable Television Association, a trade group representing internet service providers. Receiving campaign contributions from an internet service provider in no way destines an elected official to oppose net neutrality. As Vice notes, the Democratic representative who introduced the CRA petition, Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, has received donations from the National Cable Television Association. Still, choosing to abstain on an issue that the vast majority of your party supports and that the vast majority of Americans who commented to the FCC on the issue supportedwhile receiving donations from the ISPs is not a good look.

The 23 million comments the FCC collected on last years net neutrality proceeding amounted to the most public participation on any issue in the history of the agency. And while millions of those comments certainly came from concerned Americans attempting to have their say in one of the most important decisions facing the future of the internet, many did not. The process that led to the vote to undo the Obama-era rules was probably the most corrupted public comment period in the agencys history.

As many as nine and a half million people had their identities stolen and used to file fake comments, which is a crime under both federal and state laws, according to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

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What is this, a fair for ants?

There is more to this article, including the ludicrous idea that Mike Bloomberg would have won any states in 2016, but let's read a bit about the author:

Juleanna Glover has worked as an adviser for several Republican politicians, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Rudy Giuliani and advised the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Jeb Bush. She is on the Biden Institute Policy Advisory Board.

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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/11/biden-2020-running-mate-romney-222861

Now heres what Biden should do next: Pick a Republican running mate in a trans-party third-party run for the White House.

Should Trump run again, this could be a break-the-glass moment for many Americans, creating an opening for a radical departure from our malfunctioning two-party political system. By injecting some ideological innovation into the process, we can break the hidebound precedents of two narrow parties running their ceremonious and illogical nominating process to select a candidate. (Why do Iowa and New Hampshire play such outsized roles? Why do independents, who outnumber both Democrats and Republicans, have only a binary political choice?) The system certainly suffered a critical failure in 2016, with both parties producing terribly flawed candidates in a race to the bottom.

The Democratic primary is shaping up to be cacophonous and chaotic. Biden should capitalize on his status as one of Americas most popular politicians, skip the risk and potential indignities of running and losing in what will be a vicious and mulish, leftward-lurching primary, and slingshot straight to the general election debate stage on a third-party ticket. Biden may not know it, but he is already well-positioned to win a three-way election outright. Heres how:

Biden could run as the major third-party candidate with a principled conservative by his side (Lieberman, a one-time Democrat, technically categorized himself as an independent at the time McCain ran for president). A number of Republicans stand out: Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, outgoing Ohio Gov. John Kasich and newly minted Utah Sen. Mitt Romney. Many past third-party bids have failed because they came from the lunatic fringesthink Jill Stein and Ralph Nader of the Green Party or Ross Perot with his quirky North American Free Trade Agreement obsession. Biden, by picking someone from the principled wing of the GOP, would instantly signal that he intends to run from the center.

And Biden, as a two-term vice president, has another characteristic past third-party candidates have lacked: enough name identification to make him an instant contender. Building the name to run nationally outside the two-party system is just too long and expensive of a process to accomplish in the 24 months before the 2020 election. Instantaneous recognition is crucial because the candidate must start out in striking distance in any three-way poll against Trumpwho has the ability to command the news cycle with a single tweetand a fill-in-the-blank Democratic nominee.

The top of the ticket needs to come from the center-left, because he or she needs to get a plurality of the vote in the blue states Hillary Clinton won (227 electoral votes), yet be moderate enough to win a plurality in some combination of Trump states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan (another 119 votes). [Antifar's note: I don't think Hillary's lack of moderation cost her these states] A bipartisan ticket might even put purple states like North Carolina, Ohio and Indiana in play. A right-leaning candidate at the top of the ticket wont work, though: He or she would meet the same fate as a primary challenger to Trump. Around 36 percent of voters wont be cleaved from Trump under any circumstances, so the deep-red states would be off the table entirely.

What about policy? A Biden-led bipartisan ticket would pledge to serve a Cincinnatus-like single term and address all of the U.S.s ticking time bombs like Social Security, Medicare, health care reform, climate change, money in politics, immigration, gerrymandering and infrastructure investment in four years.

You ever want to die?
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/opinion/george-bush-wasps.html
The New York Times
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What is this, a fair for ants?

http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/politics/elections/election-state-legislature-pennsylvania-gerrymandering-20181105.html

Democrat Dave Delloso has never run for office before. And, for better or for worse, he sometimes sounds like it.

Earlier this year, he sat down with a labor organization in hopes of winning its support for his bid for the state House.

As the president of Teamsters Local 312 in Delaware County, he felt as if he were at a "home game," and took a shot at a classic union boogeyman.

"Look, it's not like I hate rich people," he said he joked. "I'm sure they taste good with A1."

A hero for our times.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://twitter.com/Public_Citizen/status/1060297213052641280

*long, exasperated sigh*
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/2018/11/02/shooting-tallahassee-yoga-studio-injuries-reported/1862893002/

An unidentified man shot and killed himself Friday evening after wounding at least four people at Hot Yoga, according to Tallahassee officials.

City spokeswoman Alison Faris confirmed that the shooter is dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the evening shooting. City Manager Reese Goad said four people were wounded.

A short time later, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare spokeswoman Danielle Buchanan said five patients were brought to the hospital. She didnt know the condition of the patients, but they were being assessed.

Alex Redding was in the Bar at Betton downstairs when a woman ran in hyperventilating followed by a man with blood on his head. Redding said two to three other people entered the bar seeking assistance and said that a tall man with a beard was inside the Hot Yoga Studio acting strange and began shooting during the class.

The man with blood on his head told the patrons he tried to stop the shooter but was pistol-whipped before the shooter then shot himself.

The incident immediately interrupted the gubernatorial campaign of Andrew Gillum, who tweeted he was "deeply appreciative of law enforcement's quick response to the shooting at the yoga facility in Tallahassee today."

"No act of gun violence is acceptable," he wrote. "I'm in close communication with law enforcement officials and will be returning to Tallahassee tonight."

It is unclear the extent of the injuries of those wounded.

TPD investigators and emergency medical technicians were seen working near the entrance to Hot Yoga, 1950 Thomasville Road.

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What is this, a fair for ants?

TheKentster posted...

Lol no you don't. That's a funny excuse for losing elections. We outnumber you.

You don't.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

tremain07 posted...

one side embraces facism
the other side embraces communism

They do not.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

KiwiTerraRizing posted...

We have the voters to control every branch forever but these b****es wont get off the couch.

Sounds like you don't, in fact, have those voters.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

Foppe posted...

that are direct opposites of each other.

They aren't.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

Think of how much money he could have donated if he didn't spend so much putting a car in space
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What is this, a fair for ants?

It is an album that carries a musical or thematic concept all the way through. Postmodernism has nothing to do with it
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1043278255740973058
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1036681588573130752
"law and order"
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://twitter.com/revrrlewis/status/1034801623732764672

ah,
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What is this, a fair for ants?

Reminder that George W. Bush beat McCain in 2000 in part by spreading rumors in South Carolina that McCain had an illegitimate black child.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/msn/%E2%80%98ray-tracing%E2%80%99-could-bring-the-biggest-graphics-jump-in-a-decade/ar-BBMbqgN

Ray tracing. Its a term youre going to hear a lot now that Nvidia has announced professional and consumer graphics cards that use this technique to produce some of the most life-like simulations possible in games and other animations. So, what is ray tracing exactly, and how does it differ from current graphics rendering techniques?

The oversimplified answer is that ray tracing models the behavior of light in real time as it intersects objects in a scene.

Its a feature that could lead to spectacular new graphics, but has been very hard to pull off because of the computational requirements. But Nvidia is tackling several issues facing ray tracing with a new graphics architecture known as Turing.

Turing is the biggest jump in graphics since CUDA arrived in 2006.

First, its tackling the problem of ushering in the next generation of computer graphics. Ray tracing is only one of many rendering techniques, but its where Nvidia is pushing hard because its especially suited for adding realistic, real-time lighting and effects.

The second issue is computational cost: the best Turing card for professional production costs $10,000, but it was even costlier to use ray tracing before. Whats new here is Nvidia is ready to bring ray tracing tech to consumer-level GPUs; that hasnt been done before.

Nvidias current graphics tech and most of the industrys simulates light and how light behaves in a given scene in a much simpler way, using something called rasterization. Like a painter painting layers upon a canvas, objects are rendered from back to front, so those in the front obscure the objects in the back.

This makes it hard to model a mirror, for example, because rasterization techniques cant track and model light itself. Its used often in real-time scenes because current-generation hardware cant keep up with the demands of simulating a complex scene in motion for something that requires it (say, a game or 3D animation).

Ray tracing models the behavior of light as it intersects objects
This next generation of light simulations can model light in much more detail, without as much computational cost as before. Ray tracing models the behavior of light as it intersects with surfaces, materials, and moving objects.

A path of light that travels through a scene can be rendered more intricately now. With ray tracing, you could simulate how rays of light interact with objects, producing realistic reflection, refraction, and scattering effects in real time. Ray tracing can even detect and render mirrors, refract glass, figure out where light in a scene originates, and even determine the color of light as it passes through objects.

Heres an example of ray tracing working in real time during a Star Wars demo, using Nvidias professional Volta RTX graphics cards:

*shrug*
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/17/middleeast/us-saudi-yemen-bus-strike-intl/index.html

The bomb used by the Saudi-led coalition in a devastating attack on a school bus in Yemen was sold as part of a US State Department-sanctioned arms deal with Saudi Arabia, munitions experts told CNN.

Working with local Yemeni journalists and munitions experts, CNN has established that the weapon that left dozens of children dead on August 9 was a 500-pound (227 kilogram) laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin, one of the top US defense contractors.

The bomb is very similar to the one that wreaked devastation in an attack on a funeral hall in Yemen in October 2016 in which 155 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. The Saudi coalition blamed "incorrect information" for that strike, admitted it was a mistake and took responsibility.

In March of that year, a strike on a Yemeni market -- this time reportedly by a US-supplied precision-guided MK 84 bomb -- killed 97 people.

In the aftermath of the funeral hall attack, former US President Barack Obama banned the sale of precision-guided military technology to Saudi Arabia over "human rights concerns."

The ban was overturned by the Trump administration's then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in March 2017.

As the US-backed Saudi-led coalition scrambles to investigate the strike on the school bus, questions are growing from observers and rights groups about whether the US bears any moral culpability. The US says it does not make targeting decisions for the coalition, which is fighting a Houthi rebel insurgency in Yemen. But it does support its operations through billions of dollars in arms sales, the refueling of Saudi combat aircraft and some sharing of intelligence.

"I will tell you that we do help them plan what we call, kind of targeting," said US Secretary of Defense James Mattis. "We do not do dynamic targeting for them."

The latest strike has left the community in Yemen's northern Saada governorate reeling.

Zeid Al Homran visits the graveyard where his two little boys are buried every day. On this occasion, he brought their five-year-old brother along. He is all Al Homran has left.

"I was screaming in anger and all around me women were throwing themselves on the ground," he told CNN. "People were screaming out the names of their children. I tried to tell the women it couldn't be true but then a man ran through the crowd shouting that a plane had struck the children's bus."

The bomb's impact as it landed on the bus full of excited schoolchildren on a day trip was devastating.
Of the 51 people who died in the airstrike, 40 were children, Houthi Health Minister Taha al-Mutawakil said last week. He added that of the 79 people wounded, 56 were children.

Eyewitnesses told CNN it was a direct hit in the middle of a busy market.

"I saw the bomb hit the bus," one witness said. "It blew it into those shops and threw the bodies clear to the other side of those buildings. We found bodies scattered everywhere, there was a severed head inside the bomb crater. When we found that, that was when I started running. I was so afraid."

Some of the bodies were so mutilated that identification became impossible. Left behind were scraps of schoolbooks, warped metal and a single backpack.

Images of shrapnel filmed in the immediate aftermath of the attack were sent to CNN by a contact in Saada. Subsequently, a cameraman working for CNN filmed footage of the shrapnel after the cleanup operation had begun.

Munitions experts confirmed that the numbers on it identified Lockheed Martin as its maker and that this particular MK 82 was a Paveway, a laser-guided bomb.

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What is this, a fair for ants?

I'm not generally one to agree with Krugman, but I do think there's an element of this at play:
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1029008916984881152
The GOP spent 8 years calling Obama and his policies socialist. He isn't, and rejected the label. But they might have been hustling backwards in labeling a president that most people basically like a socialist.

Even DSA folks can be iffy as to what actually constitutes socialism; I imagine it's much the same among Democrats at large.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

I went to college in Boston, majoring in journalism but taking classes in economics and political science. Marxism was in no way part of our curriculum.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-10/american-workers-just-got-a-pay-cut-in-economy-trump-calls-great

President Donald Trump has presided over an accelerating economy and the lowest unemployment in years, but American workers still arent seeing it in their wallets.

U.S. average hourly earnings adjusted for inflation fell 0.2 percent in July from a year earlier, data released on Friday showed, notching the lowest reading since 2012. While inflation isnt high in historical terms, after years of being too low following the 2007-2009 recession, its recent gains are taking a bigger bite out of U.S. paychecks.

Inflation has been climbing and wage growth, meanwhile, has been flat as a pancake, said Laura Rosner, senior economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives LLC in New York. In a very tight labor market you would expect that workers would negotiate their wages to at least keep up with the cost of living, and the picture tells you that theyre not.

U.S. unemployment at 3.9 percent in July was near a 50-year low and a core measure of inflation that excludes food and energy prices has pushed to 2.4 percent, the highest reading in almost a decade. But wages are just not keeping up and part of the reason is probably a lack of bargaining power on the part of U.S. workers.

Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moodys Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said given that inflation has been low in recent years, the sense of urgency hasnt been there to negotiate for higher wages. In the post-recession labor market, workers have forgotten how to bargain.

As the labor market came back, workers were just happy to have survived, Sweet said. They value their job security more than asking for a higher wage.

What will determine real wages in the coming months is not inflation as much as what happen to wages, he said. I do anticipate nominal wage growth picking up which should help drive up real wage gains over the next few months.

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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/19/work-less-get-more-new-zealand-firms-four-day-week-an-unmitigated-success

The New Zealand company behind a landmark trial of a four-day working week has concluded it an unmitigated success, with 78% of employees feeling they were able to successfully manage their work-life balance, an increase of 24 percentage points.

Two-hundred-and-forty staff at Perpetual Guardian, a company which manages trusts, wills and estate planning, trialled a four-day working week over March and April, working four, eight-hour days but getting paid for five.

Academics studied the trial before, during and after its implementation, collecting qualitative and quantitative data.

Perpetual Guardian founder Andrew Barnes came up with the idea in an attempt to give his employees better work-life balance, and help them focus on the business while in the office on company time, and manage life and home commitments on their extra day off.

Jarrod Haar, professor of human resource management at Auckland University of Technology, found job and life satisfaction increased on all levels across the home and work front, with employees performing better in their jobs and enjoying them more than before the experiment.

Work-life balance, which reflected how well respondents felt they could successfully manage their work and non-work roles, increased by 24 percentage points.

In November last year just over half (54%) of staff felt they could effectively balance their work and home commitments, while after the trial this number jumped to 78%.

Staff stress levels decreased by 7 percentage points across the board as a result of the trial, while stimulation, commitment and a sense of empowerment at work all improved significantly, with overall life satisfaction increasing by 5 percentage points.

Helen Delaney, a senior lecturer at the University of Auckland Business School, said employees motivation and commitment to work increased because they were included in the planning of the experiment, and played a key role in designing how the four-day week would be managed so as not to negatively impact productivity.

Employees designed a number of innovations and initiatives to work in a more productive and efficient manner, from automating manual processes to reducing or eliminating non-work-related internet usage, said Delaney.

Andrew Barnes said he would take the results of the trial to the board to open up a discussion on how a four-day work week could be implemented long-term in his company.

If you can have parents spending more time with their children, how is that a bad thing? asked Barnes, who believes the new work model has the potential to profoundly impact society for the better.

Are you likely to get fewer mental health issues when you have more time to take care of yourself and your personal interests? Probably ... if you have fewer people in the office at any one time, can we make smaller offices?

New Zealands workplace relations minister, Iain Lees-Galloway, said the results of the trial were very interesting and he was keen to encourage businesses to trial new and improved work models.

Im really keen to work with any businesses that are looking at how they can be more flexible for their staff and how they can look to improve productivity whilst working alongside their staff and protecting terms and conditions, Less-Galloway said.

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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/corey-stewart-abdul-el-sayed-tweet_us_5b6d847fe4b0530743c927f4

Virginia GOP Senate candidate Corey Stewart attacked Michigan gubernatorial candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim, as an ISIS commie in a since-deleted tweet.

Michigan almost elected a far left ISIS commie, Stewart wrote Wednesday, the day after El-Sayeds defeat in the states Democratic primary.

This guy wants to abolish ICE & won 300,000 votes. Dangerous stuff. Dont let wimpy @timkaine bring this dangerous, far left communism to VA, Stewart continued, referring to his Virginia Democratic opponent, Tim Kaine.

El-Sayed, Detroits former health director, won about 30 percent of the vote in Michigans three-way Democratic gubernatorial primary, behind Gretchen Whitmer, who garnered 52 percent.

Shawarma trucks on every corner. And Medicare for All, El-Sayed tweeted in response to Stewarts provocation.

El-Sayed, a progressive favorite endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and New York congressional nominee Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, campaigned on universal Medicare, the abolishment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and raising the minimum wage. If elected, El-Sayed would have been the first Muslim governor in the U.S.

Stewart denied that he posted the tweet himself and said he removed it when he saw it.

One of my vendors put out a tweet last night that attempted to link a Michigan gubernatorial candidate to ISIS, because he apparently received support from purported extremists, Stewart said in a statement. I dont believe in guilt by association I have been the target of very similar smears, and I dont believe in using such tactics against others.

Stewarts Virginia campaign has been dogged by controversy. He is a neo-Confederate who says the Confederacy was on the correct side of history, defends Confederate monuments and has alleged ties to white nationalists.

Kaine leads Stewart by 23 percentage points, according to a Thursday poll from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.

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https://kotaku.com/doom-eternal-will-let-you-invade-other-players-campaign-1828256635

Offering the traditional hype of making a sequel that is bigger and more badass than the game it follows, the makers of the forthcoming Doom Eternal today showed the game in action to the public for the first time. And they offered a surprise: Demons Souls-style player invasions.
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In a game design twist that riffs on the likes of Demons Souls, the developers said you can take control of a demon and invade other players games. Players can team up when invading, and the developers say that those who dont want to be invaded can turn that setting off.

I think Watch Dogs 2 had a similar feature where if your wanted rating (or its equivalent to that) was high enough other players would come in to shut you down alongside cops.

What's your opinion on stuff like this?
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What is this, a fair for ants?

DarthGravid posted...

Black, silver, green.

Dragons

Kajagogo posted...

Jade and Silver

I split the difference on these two; jade and silver sounded like Dragons to me anyways


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What is this, a fair for ants?

I'll be using Super Mega Baseball 2 and would like you guys to select 3-5 colors that you think would look good together. I'll pick one that sounds interesting and come back to show you what I came up with.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

AlephZero posted...

it will once again be her turn

Bet you my account it won't.
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What is this, a fair for ants?

1. That's the point of a primary process
2. This is what people were writing four years ago about the GOP

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/01/rand-paul-is-the-2016-republican-frontrunner/283258/

So if Christie is no longer the candidate to beat in the 2016 Republican race, who is? Believe it or not, its Rand Paul.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-gop-already-has-a-2016-front-runner-for-vice-president

Ask any two Republicans who their choice is for president in 2016 and youll get three answers; but when it comes to the GOP choice for vice president, theres an emerging sense of agreement, especially in the establishment wing of the party: Senator Kelly Ayotte.

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2014/04/07/why-rands-the-current-2016-gop-front-runner

But one thing that cant be questioned is Pauls polling consistency, which has earned him the tenuous title of front-runner.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-ted-cruz-could-win-in-2016/

Ted Cruz is the current front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

https://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/republicans-2016-elections-111644

The message from Republican officials has been crystal clear for two years: The 2016 Republican primary cannot be another prolonged pummeling of the eventual nominee. Only one person ultimately benefited from that last time Barack Obama and Republicans know they cant afford to send a hobbled nominee up against Hillary Clinton.
...
At least 15 Republicans are weighing campaigns, with no clear front-runner. Contrast that with Clinton, who has solidified her Democratic support to a deeper extent than any candidate in recent memory.

https://newrepublic.com/article/120517/republican-party-has-no-frontrunner-2016-presidential-nomination

In fact, that represents the state of the Republican primary at this moment. Since the beginning of November, right-winger Ben Carson, Senator Ted Cruz, and Senator Rand Paul have all been called the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. After Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker won reelection, he was often talked about as the leading Republican. Many other conservatives are in the mix as well. In other words, its hard to say who really is leading the primary, and that message is echoed in the contradictory articles in Tuesdays papers.

https://www.cnn.com/2014/12/28/politics/bush-leads-gop-field-poll/

Jeb Bush is the clear Republican presidential frontrunner, surging to the front of the potential GOP pack following his announcement that he's "actively exploring" a bid, a new CNN/ORC poll found.

He takes nearly one-quarter 23% of Republicans surveyed in the new nationwide poll, putting him 10 points ahead of his closest competitor, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who tallied 13%.

I also came across this opinion piece, which seems oddly prescient now
https://www.sentinelcolorado.com/opinion/dupuy-new-gop-frontrunner-2016-vladimir-putin/
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http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/399831-gop-illinois-state-lawmaker-allegedly-released-nude-photos-of-ex

Illinois state Rep. Nick Sauer (R) is being accused by an ex-girlfriend of publishing nude photos of her on a fake Instagram account to lure men into graphic discussions, according to Politico.

The news outlet reported on Wednesday that Kate Kelly made the accusation in an official complaint filed with the Illinois's Office of the Legislative Inspector General.

The complaint, which was obtained by Politico, says Saur used the Instagram account to catfish other men using my privately shared naked photos. Nick would use this account to direct message men with my photos to engage in graphic conversations of a sexual nature.
"The men believed they were communicating with me and Nick shared private details of my life.

Kelly also said in her complaint that she filed a police report with the Chicago Police Department and that there is an investigation into her allegations, Politico reported.

Kelly told Politico that she began a long-distance relationship with Saur in 2016, but that they broke up in 2018 after Kelly discovered he was dating other women.

Kelly added to Politico that Sauer reached out to Kelly in June to apologize over email. Kelly says Sauer then transferred $2,000 into her bank account to pay the travel expenses she had taken on during their relationship. Shortly after that, Kelly said she discovered the fake Instagram account.

Kelly claimed in her complaint that a man she did not know said he had been communicating for four months with someone pretending to be her. Kelly also said Sauer admitted to creating the Instagram account.

He came to my house & confessed to catfishing men with my photos for 2 years to at least 8 men," she said, according to Politico. "He was unable to provide the names and begged that I let it go."

Kelly said that she contacted Instagram after her discovery and that the company took down the account. Politico notes that no charges have been filed against Sauer, who is running for reelection to a second term in the state's 51st District.

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What is this, a fair for ants?

Also Epic Mickey 2

You should really get FH2 if you don't already have it
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What is this, a fair for ants?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/henry-kissinger-pushed-trump-to-work-with-russia-to-box-in-china

Henry Kissinger suggested to President Donald Trump that the United States should work with Russia to contain a rising China.

The former secretary of statewho famously engineered the tactic of establishing diplomatic relations with China in order to isolate the Soviet Unionpitched almost the inverse of that idea to Trump during a series of private meetings during the presidential transition, five people familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. The potential strategy would use closer relations with Russia, along with other countries in the region, to box in Chinas growing power and influence.

Kissinger also pitched the idea to Jared Kushner, the top White House adviser whose portfolio includes foreign-policy matters, one of the sources briefed on the discussions said.

Inside the administration, the proposal has found receptive ears, with some of Trumps top advisersin addition to officials in the State Department, Pentagon, and the National Security Councilalso floating a strategy of using closer relations with Moscow to contain Beijing, according to White House and Capitol Hill insiders. But the idea has been complicated by the presidents deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has caused countless domestic political headaches.

Both the White House and the National Security Council declined to comment. Kissinger's office did not return a request for comment.

The mere fact that Kissinger was given an audience to make his pitchhes met with Trump at least three times since the 2016 campaignis a testament to his tremendous staying power in top political circles, despite a controversial foreign policy track record that includes numerous accusations of war crimes. It also is a reflection of how dramatically geopolitical relations have changed during the course of his lifetime.

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What is this, a fair for ants?