But you see, by not supporting their company and reinforcing their stature as an art-tist, you are literally killing them! Dont you know you need to subsidize their works to prove they are cultured? I bet you just hate art!
See also: why the director made Joker 2 what it was
over a thousand missing
And lets make it even more blunt the scale of the disaster. As I was told by my dad the retired firefighter (when we were talking about that whole situation), "If they are still missing after about a week, 'missing' usually means 'so much of them burned there may not even be bones left.'"
Also, as he got particularly angry over, it is worth pointing out that the Maui fire departments were ready to roll and contain it in an early phase when it was still possible to actually fight it and not just do the wildfire equivalent of a fighting retreat. But they were denied and told to wait. Why? Because the water sources they had preplanned to use had supposedly been claimed by a local Native American tribe, and there were rituals that had to be performed before they could be allowed to use it. It took hours before these were actually done and they could start getting tankers filled and running up to the fire line, and by then it was already too late.
Malicious actions of the local government lying? Or true facts from an activist and hating whitey local tribe? Honestly, either is a likely answer.
And since it is always brought up as an example (including by Trump himself) let me tell you what happened here in Kansas.
A large amount of the state wanted to move it back from the current 24 week limit to closer to 14-16 weeks. Because despite what a lot of people think we are actually fairly reasonable around here and the Evangelical types dont actually hold as much power statewide as you would think. Legislation doing exactly that move was drawn up, but then the handful of Evangelicals that do have power used it to gradually turn it into an attempt to completely ban the practice in the state.
This then went up to a vote, and in the same election where we kept a fairly conservative State House with a veto-proof majority over the governor, and elected conservatives to every executive position except governor, the law regarding abortion flopped hard with 60-40 split. Driven largely on people like me and my family voting it down despite voting Republican for everything else. If they had just been more reasonable, they probably would have gotten what they wanted.
Which is why even as much as I listen to Ben Shapiro, him dinging Vance for "dodging the issue" at the debate is another example of Ben not seeming to realize the situation has changed (along with his "100% free trade, no tariffs ever" stance). Sorry Ben, you and other hardcore Pro-Lifers can be pissed all you want, but you have lost on the issue, and you need to fix a hell of a lot more about the culture before you can even think about banning it.
However, I would argue that Trump will probably mitigate the effect by loosening regulations so that it's simply easier to start a new business in the US
For what it is worth, he has already signaled going down that route. Not only has he talked about cutting down regulations in general, he also has said he has such ideas as a significant corporate tax cut if and only if the factory set up is in the US. Which would arguably benefit smaller startups or regional/national builders over multinationals, since they will by default be entirely US based.
Oh, I am not denying that would have hurt him once it got out. But Shapiro had a reputation (even if it is a lie) of being a "moderate" governor who did have actual popularity in PA. Unlike Walz who brings literally nothing to the table other than doubling down on the radical wing of the party.
I will admit I thought there were better picks among the field. But as soon as he started laying into the media with precise fire (I guess what do you expect from a Marine?), I immediately realized what the point was and that it was indeed a wise choice. Unlike the Dems who are now finding out that maybe rejecting Shapiro because "Der Juden" in favor of one of the most radical governors in the country was one of the worst mistakes they could have made.
had been intercepting pager and radio systems for months.
Apparently, it wasnt even that. It was...more complex.
Basically, they scared Hezbollah into giving up their Iphones by proving they had hacked them, and heard that they were going to take time to switch over to pagers and radios over the next several months. In that time, Israel had set up a legitimate company selling legitimate pagers and radios to get street cred, but there was nothing officially connecting it to Israel. Then they used their own people within Hezbollah to get them to take an order from this company, and when the contract was approve that order was sabotaged. And the sabotage was a small amount of heat-activated explosives, and when the order came down they would hack the pagers and cause the batteries to overload and therefore heat up (which would also activate the explosive) .
Quite frankly, if this was a James Bond movie, we would say it is too complex to ever work. But sometimes reality is really stranger than fiction (like when Audie Murphy had to leave out parts of his military career from his biographical movie because people didnt believe them).
Journo from Pennsylvania who got chased out by someone calling him "fake news" writing for a "communist rag":
"I wanted to learn more from him. Why was he so angry?"
If you havent figured it out by this point Mr. Media Man, I can only conclude you have been living under a rock. Would have been an excellent time for a little introspection (especially since that wasnt the first person who refused to give you the time of day, just the most aggressive), but I am sure you think it was him being "radicalized" by someone or something.
It would be one thing if the Frieren writer had done the opposite, and said demons were misunderstood and were, in fact, redeemable...and Frieren still hated them. That could create an interesting moral dilemma, and we could argue about whether the protagonist's feelings were right or wrong.
Which is one of the reasons I like Eight-Six: 86 so much. It is a more straightforward message about racism being wrong, but it also shows that both sides of the fight are wrong, and does so repeated.
The Alba's who are in charge of San Magnolia would rather see their entire nation fall and their people massacred before they would ever even conceive of admitting the 86 are even human, let alone worthy of rights. And at other points in the story, you see another nation fighting the Legion who doesnt have those issues and is in a much better position to be fighting the war with walkers that are actually worth a damn instead of the walking coffins the 86 pilot. And that very much fits in with what you would expect of a hamfisted anti-racism story in the West.
But the 86 are shown to be just as prejudiced, want to see the destruction of all of those "white pigs", and will gaslight themselves over any Alba who treats them well. Even the ones who fight for their rights or those who actually come to the field to fight and die alongside them. And of course, it extends to those who had lived among them, or their children, or those of mixed ancestry.
Can you name a single modern Western work that shows that the discriminated against minority is capable of being evil and that this is shown as a bad thing?
And then there is the always fun event of trying to listen to an anti-gun politician explain how a gun works.
That very attitude is why I am putting longshot odds on Trump being able to flip Virginia, as well as there starting to be rumblings he may go Winner-Take-All in Nebraska for the first time in a while (only 1 extra EC vote, but every little bit helps). If even the most generous polls are showing them running a whole lot closer than they should be in Virginia, then he is probably running even better than that considering his tradition of the polls heavily undersampling Trump voters. And when you combine that with the fact that Youngkin actually did a fair amount to move the needle in Virginia on voting things, and the local Republican party getting fairly innovative with some of their ways they handle elections (like holding back many suburban and rural counties from reporting until urban counties do), I think a red Virginia is a possibility.
The AAA gaming industry is evolving but backwards.
Same with Gods and Generals, which actually made some of the people involved more sympathetic than they were IRL.
GAG Confederate Irish Brigade commander: bawling eyes out "This isnt right! Those Union Irishmen are our brothers. Did they learn nothing from the English? Dont they know we are fighting for a home free from English oppression? They have been mislead to their fates. Damn them! Damn them all to hell!" so emotionally distraught he cant even shoot
IRL Confederate Irish Brigade commander (based on both eyewitness testimony and his own journal): "Hey, those are Meaghr’s brigade! FUCK'EM UP!!!"
More importantly, most of the successful vtubers I have seen (especially with Hololive) actually have talent. Unlike the Twitch thots who just flash their boobs for money but have to have their boyfriend play the game and pretend they are doing it.
And as I will continue to point out, it was largely done by doctors who had no idea what they were doing, and utterly refused to believe they were in the wrong.
I know because I have a family friend who was a doctor during Covid, who was an expert on the use of ventilators to the point he had actually gone to the company that makes them to train with them directly. So when it turned out it was pretty quiet in our neck of the woods but they were getting slammed in New York, he went up there to help.
And when he got there, he was horrified to find out that they were using the ventilators with the wrong settings, that they were using them on patients who didnt need them (thus leading to lung damage and/or death), that they were using them once and then getting rid of them even though they were reusable machines, etc. He desperately pleaded with the staff of the hospital he volunteered at to tell them all of this, and most of the doctors in charge just waved him off and told him he had no idea what he was talking about while ignoring any credentials he produced.
Eventually, he left disgusted and would only respond with a bitter "I warned them" when he saw stories about people on ventilators dying.
Uboat hit its 1.0 release this year, which is a realistic focused submarine sim where you are the skipper of a Uboat (shocking I know) during WW2. You can start with older model boats right at the start of the war in 1939, and go all the way up to the end in 1945 (where you either surrender to the Allies or attempt to reach Argentina). Although as a realistic game, the odds very much turn against you and get far more dangerous after about 1942, and by 1945 your screen may as well say "Current Objective: Survive" for how dangerous it is to actually try for convoy raids.
Hasn't officially released yet, but the demo was excellent, for a game called Hollywood Animal, from Weappy Studios who made the also very good This is the Police. You are the operator of a studio at the birth of Hollywood in the 1920's, and it runs until at least the 1960's (based on some of the screenshots, the demo ended in 1931). You pick the movies that will be made, you choose the crews, actors, and writers, you choose the shooting pace, etc. And while it does have a trigger warning of sorts at the beginning, the game does not shy away from actually showing Hollywood as it was and is. And I mean that in....all the ways you think (in the demo, as part of the tutorial, when an actor on your first movie gets uppity and demands a huge raise, you blackmail him with the fact that you have evidence he slept with a 14 year old). Either way, was extremely entertaining.
And I will cheat slightly and use one that came out late last year, called Last Train Home. You are the commander of the Czechoslovakian Legion as they make their legendary run across Russia on a stolen train to escape the Russian Civil War. It is a strategy game in the actual battles, but it is very much a survival game in the overall point as you have to scavenge for ammo, weapons, food, metal and wood to work on the train, and coal to keep it running. Also, the game is absolutely not shy as showing the Red Army as being absolute monsters who butcher civilians and are terrible for the Russian people, so you can tell the developers were at least based enough to admit Communist are evil.
Playing it frequently with every update, here is what has changed since then. They simultaneously made the military system both more straightforward and more annoying. It gave you more control over your army groups and what unit composition they had, which would make it easier at a glance and with less inputs to do something like make a colonial army that has cheaper/outdated equipment, or have an elite army group that gets the best gear. However, they made it unnecessarily obtuse to actually establish barracks and grow your military, as everything now has to be done through the fleet/army group. So instead of controlling your barracks or military harbors at the state level, you have to juggle them in the UI, and oh by the way there is no option to tell which one is which and if you want to downsize it will just pick one (so no longer can you make an army all made up of the most loyal pops by only building barracks in their areas). Paradox has said they are unhappy with how the military system is and it will be subject to a complete rework next year, including also making navies more impactful to fit the time period (such as ships being individual units that have to be built, in order to encourage arms races, as one example they provided of an idea).
But on the economic front, the game has gotten so much better than I imagined it would. There is now private vs. public building ownership, foreign investments being able to be done in markets so that if you really need a resource you can have your own people invest in it or build it as the state. They added "Owner Buildings" in the form of Manor Houses (Aristocrats) and Financial Sectors (Capitalist) that can own the buildings and manage them from afar so you no longer have to pull your hair out at the lack of qualified candidates to be Capitalist at your random ass sulfur mine in Indonesia. You can Nationalize foreign owned buildings but this could potentially lead to a war depending on how it is handled (or even Nationalize domestic owned buildings at the cost of radicalizing the owners), and on and on.
And now they have announced in November they are releasing 1.8, which will allow Corporations to invest in and build buildings related to their specialty, a rework of Political Movements to be more intuitive and able to be worked with, reworking Discrimination so that you can have different laws for different cultures, religions, and races instead of a blanket law. And they are making it so that you actually have to care about food availability and the lack of food causing famines, as well as adding "Harvest Incidents" that increase or decrease agricultural output to represent harvest conditions changing year over year.
Frances conquest and occupation of Algeria was appalling.
TFW you suspend the execution of several SS commanders just so they can teach you how to do the things in the name of oppressing Algeria
This week they banked hard on this Russian Tenet thing, and its basically not sticking to Trump in the slightest because they cannot fathom that "The Right" isn't beholden to celebrities and influencers entirely for their beliefs, like the Left is, so its done nothing to de-energize the base.
It also doesnt help that Lauren Chen has been extremely anti-Trump in the last year or so, and has been turning against over his policy stances. So how exactly were they expecting normies to jump on board when Trump supporters can very easily say "she had nothing to do with us."
Honestly, I can buy that Chen is the issue here and everyone else was in the dark. Considering they were all blindsided and it sounds like the money stayed with Chen, it is probably the most believable outcome. And it looks like most of the people tangentially related like Tim, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson (the three I checked) are still fine and still have their channels.
That said, on the other hand, I absolutely do not doubt that this is a political hit job. Since it seems that it is starting to dawn on the powers that be that Trump is more likely than not going to win, so they are setting up Russiagate 2.0 to try and stymie him right off the rip. But I dont think it will work as well this time around.
I remember seeing a stat before that literally every Republican candidate for president has been compared to Hitler or saying that they would empower "far right" forces since Wendell Willkie in 1940. The only exception being Eisenhower, and only because it would probably be a bridge to far for even the most smooth brained of normie to believe the guy who defeated Hitler actually liked him.
It is highly unlikely that any studio which has been turned will be able to course correct.
Not necessarily, but they need to have a publisher who will enforce a turn on them. Creative Assembly went pretty woke and tried to create an arena shooter named Hyenas that would have been on par with Concord in terms of "comically over the top woke". They poured so many resources into it it started affecting their work with Total War games, especially Warhammer 3, and then lied that they had moved people for it.
But eventually, Sega realized just how off the rails the whole process had become around the time they released a beta (which flopped) for Hyenas as well as a trailer. So Sega sent a man in a suit with interesting tattoos with orders to inflict pain upon the gaijin, Sega reorganized Creative Assembly with one studio being entirely shut down and some directors being fired, and then gave them orders that in no uncertain terms amounted to "Stay in your lane, make Total War unless we tell you otherwise." And they did indeed bounce back pretty well and fixed the reputation and quality of TWW3, as well as Pharaohs (which had also had a mediocre launch), and announced they were putting all their effort in a major historical title.
But I do agree that a studio with publishers willing to do that is fairly rare.
Additionally, the other guy who the movie starts off making him seem like just a thrill seeking cowboy who drives a truck into tornadoes for the hell of it is just as smart about tornadoes, and has to help her on multiple occasions.
EDIT: Now that I am thinking about it, her boss is also portrayed as being a scumbag seeking to profit off of tornado damage even though he is a "POC".
Considering deportations and "remigration" are entering the public sphere as acceptable answers to the issue, it may yet be solved in the end.
It gets a lot better when you do like what is done with many a franchise and remember there are only 4 mainline games (1-3+Reach) and three spinoffs (ODST, Wars 1+2). Plus the expanded lore from things like the books naturally.
Much like how there is only 2 Terminator movies, only 1 Matrix movie, only 1 Pacific Rim, only 7 Star Wars, etc.