Of course it got deleted. I guarantee she got reached out to online and people were telling her that her video was “problematic” and that “bigots and right wingers” were using it to proliferate their lies about the glorious utopia that is San Francisco. You have to remember, politics is the progressives god. They scorn traditional religion, they don’t read philosophy, and they don’t believe in love of homeland or community. The reason you are sane is because you derive existential purpose from something other than how you vote. They don’t. This is their god and like any zealot, that which suggests their faith is wrong is to be instantly discarded as lies. This isn’t a movement, it’s a fucking death cult.
This is just a formality, BioWare has been dead for sometime now. The company that used to turn out classic after classic has been slowly dying since 2012, when Mass Effect 3 crapped the bed (And no, it wasn’t just the ending. It was also the abandonment of RPG elements and terrible writing like transforming Cerberus from a shadowy syndicate working behind the scenes, into fucking COBRA from GI Joe.)
The only function BioWare served from 2012 on was giving demonstrable proof that writing and gameplay have been declining in western games. Go replay KOTOR or Dragon Age Origins right now and I think you’ll be stunned by how well the writing and gameplay hold up.
Watched the first 2 episodes with my oldest, and it was pretty good. I still think that the DCAU will never be topped but this has potential. The animation was solid, the action scenes well shot, and most of the characters were likable and their personalities matched their comic book personas well enough.
Lois wasn’t an obnoxious twat like 99% of female characters and actually has remorse for what some of the shit she pulls in the episode which was astounding to see. A female character admitting they were wrong and feeling guilt for it in 2023 is incredibly refreshing.
Clark was great. The voice actor said they were looking at Superman for All Seasons as the inspiration for this season, so that plus these episodes gives me hope that we will get the first animated Superman since the DCAU ended that embodies what Superman is supposed to stand for. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop but if this shows can run 3 seasons without shitting on Superman or interjecting a bunch of leftwing politics, it’ll join the fleischer series and STAS as a must watch for any Superman fan.
We know the truth and it would seem obvious, but remember who we are dealing with and that’s a bunch of insulated, disconnected, wealthy dickheads. This is the first calendar year it’s hitting them because:
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Not every woke project or franchise failed spectacularly or neglected to make money over the last decade. Most of these franchises had years of good will and acclaim from the audience who unfortunately put up with a lot of bullshit before realizing it wasn’t going to get better. If you’re some Harvard MBA douche who just cares about the bottom line, your numbers have been still doing great for the majority of projects. They looked at the numbers and assumed the audience was happy, when it was simply the inertia from previous movies, games, or comics that carried them.
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When “get woke, go broke” actually occurred, the company ALWAYS had something else to shift the blame to. COVID, poor marketing, franchise fatigue, claiming the franchise was dead to begin with (this was their go to excuse for things like He-Man or Willow for example) the list goes on. The last year, starting with Top Gun and ending with Indiana Jones and the Budlight fiasco, is the point where they’ve ran out of scapegoats
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The people we are discussing don’t inhabit the same reality as us. It’s the old “How did Nixon win? No one that I know voted for him?!” situation. (I think it would help to read the following segment in as douchey and pretentious a voice as possible. ”What do you mean people don’t want this?! According to real news like CNN, and reading op editorials by REAL experts, identity politics is what the people want. Why else would the news publish 1,000 articles about misogyny in entertainment if it wasn’t a major concern for the majority? It doesn’t matter what filthy plebs like that racist Carlson or that beastly Scottish man who drinks too much says. Who cares if some silly helmet man called DeadlyDick or whatever says everyone hates our product. Our Non-binary marketing director Jaquisha showed us 1,000,000 likes on Xir Twitter at the last meeting. The whole team agrees with zhem, and they all have degrees from Harvard in business and marketing! Obviously they earned those degrees by learning business and are here to make money. Why else would they be here? The film got a perfect score from movie critics and a GLAAD award. The producer says it’s because we didn’t market enough on social media and Wall Street journal agrees. Why would they lie to us about that?”
As I said, that line of thinking has finally hit a brick wall because after a decade of this shit, normies, Christians, conservative, and even neoliberals have figured out what is going on. Without the ESG money and audience complacency, the true believers are out of lies to peddle board members and from the rumors circling the internet, they are finally starting to get pissed. It took years but the old men and women in suits are finally realizing they’ve been fed bullshit and the government/ investment firms can no longer save them.
QAnon when it first hit the media and started to get passed around Facebook, was essentially a deluded version of Pizzagate. Yeah, anyone on the net regularly knew they were different things but since when have normies or the media ever done the most basic of research? They also made a point of disseminating videos and interviews of clearly uneducated or unhinged people, that by the point your average grandma on Facebook found out about it, the plausible information had been buried under a lot of hysteria, a phenomenon which I am skeptical was entirely organic vs people creating a smoke screen to make sure nothing close to the truth makes it to the masses.
Anyway, Ballard broke ranks by saying that rather than mock or dismiss people, let’s get them involved and pointed in the right direction. For this completely logical and nonpartisan response, he was incessantly attacked by media and other anti-trafficking organizations. Which I’m totally confident had nothing to do with him being a conservative Christian and the majority of other organizations (secular and religious) being ran by leftwing women /s.
So here is a quote of the main complaints:
Anne Gallagher, "the leading global expert on the international law on human trafficking",[49] wrote in 2015 that O.U.R. had an “alarming lack of understanding about how sophisticated criminal trafficking networks must be approached and dismantled” and called the work of O.U.R “arrogant, unethical and illegal.”
The first complaint is fucking bonkers in my opinion, of the kids being “too traumatized” by armed police and forces storming the compound. Not that any of the children were hurt physically by the raids (they have a very high success rate and almost no children have been harmed during the raids) but that seeing such violence would be too emotionally scaring. Yes, seeing armed men beat the shit out of someone or putting some bullets in their torso is traumatizing, but I think being tortured, beaten, and raped blood every day is far more scarring.
The other complaint, I have no idea what she is on about. Yes, these operations are sophisticated but raiding every stash house and then wrenching information out of the people you arrest seems like a fairly efficacious method to me. I think it’s sour grapes, because these organizations (secular and religious according to the brief research I did last night) are just butthurt he’s getting better results in one year than they’ve gotten in a decade.
Of course they hijacked the film for “the Message” and that’s why it will underperform or outright fail.
The reason Hollywood still hasn’t gotten the message is that it’s one gigantic circle jerk of delusional assholes. You have two forces at work. The first half of these people are the product of the 30 years of social indoctrination, they are true believers. This is their substitute for religion and existential philosophy. In the eyes of the faithful, it is never the fault of the faith when they fail. Either they didn’t go far enough or invisible forces of evil ( Satan, white patriarchy, etc) undermined them. They will burn down the world and themselves before admitting the thing they believe is not 100% right 100% of the time. They have to. Their whole identity, sense of purpose, and feeling of righteousness is wrapped up in it. To face reality would be to admit they were made a fool and acted like a monster based on a lie. Humans would rather die on a foolish hill than feel the pain of guilt and regret.
The second group, the old school corporate greed mongers, well I figure it’s sunk cost fallacy at this point combined with the fact that the business world is still figuring out how the internet and social media affects business. They believe that the people who tweet at them aggressively about social issues are current or potential customers, who will eagerly empty their pockets if they just change X. Meanwhile, board members, HR, and PR are overflowing with the true believers, who doctor up any report and offer assurances that the massively negative response to these changes are just a handful of bots, spammers, or racists who were never your customers. The declining sales? It’s because you didn’t go far enough, there’s still too much misogyny and racism in your product! Sounds crazy but if you were surrounded by people who told you this, whose job on paper was to help you sell products and make money, can you honestly say you wouldn’t believe the same?
This isn’t going to stop until several big names burn to the ground. It will take the charred corpse of Disney or WB to make group 2 realize that the true believers are insane cultists with no interest in making money, just social engineering and pushing an agenda. Just look at Indy 5. Everyone admits it bombed but absolutely no one in the media or Hollywood is blaming the failure on them shitting on an established hero to push “the Message.” The lesson will not be learned until one of the titans of entertainment fall. At this point, it’s just a matter of which of the big names is going to be the example for the rest of the studios.
To address your first question, yes it’s based on real events and experiences of Tim Ballard and his fight against child trafficking. Some of the footage and photos in the film are from real life raids or recorded abductions.
To answer your second question, it is an above average action film with fantastic performances and story. The reason the left hates this film is because:
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A decent amount of people involved in the film are outspoken and devout: Catholics, Evangelicals, and other Christian denominations.
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Tim Ballard initially refused to condemn QAnon. His point wasn’t that the conspiracy was real but that the theory was helping to make people aware of child trafficking. He suggested organizations opposed to child trafficking should reach out to believers of QAnon, get them straightened out on the reality of child trafficking, and recruit them to join the fight to stop it. For this entirely reasonable position, he was smeared as a Nazi, alt right, istaphobe and shit on for about a month.
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And this one is fucking mind boggling, he was criticized by other organizations for being “too aggressive and violent” when raiding trafficking compounds, for a variety of reasons too pants shittingly retarded to list out.
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This final one is just my opinion but I’d say that given what we know about Hollywood and DC, a lot of them are complicit or active participants in this shit, so the additional attention to the subject makes them a bit nervous. They’re rightfully worried normies are going to start putting 2 and 2 together, and that’s when these people at best end up in jail, if not lynched by an angry mob.
What Hanson writes is absolutely true and it’s why they are fighting so hard, so frantically, to destroy the opposition. They assumed their ascension was now solidified and irreversible, so the left did everything needed to permanently consolidate this power and dropped every principle they seemingly had for over half a century. The next 5-10 years will only get harsher and their actions more psychotic because those at the top know that they have set a terrible precedent. I can only speak for myself but I can honestly say I have zero interest in ever seeking compromise with these people ever again. Any concession they ask for is a Trojan Horse, a way to get inside and undermine everything we stand for.
Here’s a small list of things the left used to preach and immediately flipped on once they felt they had the a slim majority of the country backing them “Don’t boycott! Separate the art from the artist! We should not impede free speech and everyone should have a chance to speak in the public square! We only want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. No one is indoctrinating your children. We just want to be married or left to the privacy of our own homes. Government enforcement agencies are not to be trusted. We should not be spying on our own people. No one wants open borders. Warhawk policies are bad and we aren’t the world’s police. Etc” Because they took the mask off prematurely around 2012, they know if they ever lose power they are boned. No one on the other side will ever believe a single fucking word they say again. People will seek to shift the law back decades on certain issues, veer hard right on others, and never budge another solitary inch as long as they live. They know this. The next 5-10 years are going to be ugly. Everything that has come before is nothing to what they are going to throw at us in the near future. They have to , because they know if they lose power, we will happily follow their example and exploit every possible advantage and system to demolish every last vestige of their beliefs. There’s a reason most sane religions and ideologies preach “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Because not following this maxim leads to people choosing “What others have done unto you, do unto them.” They are rightfully worried that most of us are now adhering to the latter option when it comes to these people and their ideas.
As a licensed teacher I can state with absolute confidence that if you cannot pass any given state’s competency tests, you do not have any business being a teacher. Typically each state has tests for baseline knowledge of reading, writing, and math, as well as a subject specific test to make sure you have above average knowledge of whichever subject you plan to teach. If you cannot pass all of these tests, you are unfit. There should be no debate on this matter. The tests are absurdly easy, to the point that you would honestly have to be lower than 90 IQ to not get a passing score of 70%.
An interesting phenomenon is that while the majority of students suffer from an ever increasing deluge of unqualified idiots, the Catholic and Private schools across the country are reaching out and poaching any remaining qualified teachers still in the system. With the rise of tuition for such institutions and the fact that courts often undermine state initiatives for choice in education, which would allow lower and middle income families to receive state sponsored tuition assistance towards such schools, I wouldn’t call a man crazy if they suggested this was by design. I’m sure many feel as I do, that there is a concerted effort to create a new aristocracy and reduce the other 99% of the population to becoming a bunch of fucking Morlocks.
The pic is from HBO’s Rome and if you haven’t seen it before, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Season 2 is extremely rushed as budgetary reasons made HBO pull the plug far earlier than the envisioned 5 seasons the creator wanted, but that being said I still think it’s tied with Deadwood as the best show HBO ever put out.
Cynic in me thinks this is an order from the top to veer back to the center on certain issues and throw some wings of the party under the bus. We are in an incredibly precarious position right now with being on the cusp of a major economic downturn and our global enemies/competitors flexing their muscle.
They burnt conservatives, Christians, Caucasians, and libertarians too fast and severely, and are now trying to reverse the results as there are still enough older progressives with the foresight to realize a shitstorm is a-brewin. The collapse of military readiness, the legions of young people dropping out of society, waves of immigrants who refuse to assimilate, and more than half of the population saying they have no love for this country, or would feel called to defend it if a war was to break out, is not something anyone outside of AOC would consider an ideal situation to be in.
My guess is entitlement programs, the whole trans-children movement, and policies on crime will see an overall shift to the right, as these issues are starting to blowup into full blown political and social catastrophes. Also, Corporations and Politicians will start plastering flags and soldiers in their ads, all in the hopes that normies fall back in line for a few years before they start another big push.
I just finished replaying Xenogears the other night and it got me thinking how 1998-2008 really was the sweet spot for gaming. The golden age you get in every entertainment industry, when the enthusiasts who grew up loving the medium come of age and technology/techniques improved enough that they could make their visions materialize, while normies/ corporate suits hadn’t completely wormed their way into every facet of the industry in the name of clout or money. Doesn’t mean that no great works of art can come after, but It really is a lightning in a bottle moment that will never happen again. Kind of like how Marvel comics has never managed to recreate the magic of 1981-1991, or horror movies are still trying to reach the quality of the masterpieces from the late 70s- early 80s. Kind of sad how you may know times are good but you never truly realize how great things are until they’re long gone.
Last GREAT game? Elden Ring. As for GOOD games, there are a handful of AA titles that are enjoyable with minimal woke crap. For example, Focus Home Interactive produces consistently good games that aren’t preachy diatribes on leftist politics. Vampyr, Greedfall, Styx, the Surge, are all fun games that are meant to entertain and not proselytize. Even the Plague Tale series, which features a teenage girl as the protagonist isn’t the standard “I am women hear me roar” bullshit, as the game is stealth based and getting too close to an enemy is instant death. It was very refreshing to see a game acknowledge that a grown man would beat the living shit out of a 15 year girl in an actual fight. The main enemy is the Inquisition but the game makes a point of showing they are actually a cult hiding in the Church, and there are multiple monks, priests, and bishops you encounter that are decent and honorable men. What’s more of a shock is that Focus Home is based in France of all places, yet their games are pretty apolitical and fun.
Basically for mainstream gaming at this juncture, if the game comes from: From Software, Focus Home, or Japan, it’s most likely worth checking out. Otherwise? Anything after 2016 is probably going to be trash. Though that’s true of all entertainment and art. The rot became pronounced in 2012 but the trash completely takes over by 2017.
I gave up after the 1st season as the only character that seemed even remotely authentic to the source material was Geralt. Yennefer and Triss, 2 characters I absolutely loved in the games, weren’t just unrecognizable in appearance but also in personality. Yen from the games and books was a fascinating character, and offered an interesting commentary on power, what is desirable in life, and reflecting on dealing with having things taken from you.
I have no doubt that a contributing factor is denial that millennial women are in, about feeling regret for choosing to remain childless and/or unmarried. Now that many are entering or past the twilight years of their ability to bear children, you are starting to see the weight of that decision push down on them. But since we are in the age of narcissism and hedonism, anything that makes someone feel bad about themselves is taboo and forbidden to discuss.
Remember how Joss Whedon, who was once a darling of the left, got shit for Age of Ultron because Black Widow lamented she felt like a monster because the Russians removed her uterus during the Black Widow program/indoctrination? The modern leftist is a gargantuan bag of insecurities and mental issues, so no other person (real or imagined) is allowed to regret having a thing taken away that they ,the leftist woman, gave up willingly.
I try not to revel in the suffering of others, but I won’t be able to suppress a smirk or two when the Sex and the City generation meets the same and inevitable end as the creator of said series. A withered and lonely spinster, alone and unloved. The life of sex and pleasure they embraced a distant memory as their looks have long since melted away. Perpetually drunk on box wine and handfuls of pills, trying to numb the agonizing wish that they had chosen differently. Surrounded by cats, desperately hoping their niece or nephew calls, if for just a moment to feel the joy they denied themselves, of having a child in their life. Until they suddenly and unglamorously pass away. People that can be authentically happy and fulfilled without a spouse and children are a very small minority, and even they have expressed moments of contemplative regret from time to time. Combined with all the other unaddressed mental issues and social problems in the 22-40 demographic, there is a bomb of depression and despair that is going to go off in our lifetime. It’d be fascinating to watch if it wasn’t going to completely fuck the country I live in.
I’ll field this one. So while the Bible never explicitly mentions abortion, there are multiple reference in the Bible about how God forms us and knows us from the moment we are in a mother’s womb. Jeremiah 1:5, multiple Psalms like 22:10, etc. Most Christians point to these passages, and our knowledge of human development/biology to come to the conclusion that life starts at the moment of conception, and since Exodus 20:13 condemns murdering another human, abortion is always inherently wrong. There have been of course debates in the history of Christianity as to when the spirit enters the child but most err on the side of caution.
Look at it this way, there is near universal ethical agreement that “it is always wrong to purposely take an innocent life.” So philosophically there are 3 options a person can hold in regards to abortion: A human life starts at conception, we don’t know exactly when human life starts, or Human life does not start at conception. Unless someone can prove the last position by definitively providing evidence and an exact line as to when a human life begins, the most logical and ethical decision is to ban it in the name of caution. Since most Christians hold the first and second positions, they cannot in good conscience allow what either is, or could potentially be, state sanctioned murder.
Anyway, that’s the abridged version. Also, to clarify what the previous poster said, the Immaculate Conception is a Catholic Dogma that states Mary, through the intercession of the Holy Spirit, was born without Original Sin. Just figured I’d break that down because a lot of people thinks that it refers to the Virgin Birth, but the 2 events are separate. It’s why you’ll never see the term Immaculate Conception in Protestant theological writings
Yes. They’re fun and the characters are, for the most part, likeable and memorable. The original trilogy, and the Ralstan and Cameron books are extremely fun reads. Its funny because the archetypes and trope characters of yesteryear have been gone so long thanks to deconstruction and subversion, that a knight in shining armor like Sturm Brightblade is incredibly refreshing.
I’ve stopped reading any fantasy, horror, or SciFi published after 2012 and it’s caused reading to become my go to hobby again. Stuff like Dragonlance, Dragon Riders of Pern, Book of Swords, Book of the New Sun, Heroes Die, and the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons absolutely destroy anything published in the last decade. Reject modernity, embrace tradition.