I will say though: I wonder how much of this is becoming regional issues. Because obviously all of those stats do exist, I am not denying that. But at least locally for me, everywhere is hiring like crazy (with hiring bonuses and higher wages flying everywhere). There are still a lot of locally owned small businesses being founded. And while I am not going to pretend its all hunky-dorey, it is certainly not as bad as the stats claim they are. And it applies when I go throughout my local region.

So the only conclusion I can come to is that there are places like out here on the Great Plains that are actually still doing well in spite of everything, but that must mean the situations in places like New York and California (who are under direct "enemy" control) is even worse than you can imagine. With some of the stories I have heard coming out of LA and NYC, it probably is.

Yeah, I have also seen some Trump supporters doing it. Which is very strange to me because he ran hard on Culture War and it was where most of his biggest successes were. DeSantis is just doing exactly the same thing but with far more teeth, less missteps in the face of the enemy, and a whole lot more hostility toward the Media.

You're just beginning to see what it's like to have a right wing counter attack in the culture war.

And I am sure it is just a coincidence that new line I am seeing from the Left is "Oh my god, why do you care so much?! Dont you know the culture war is just a distraction? You guys are hurting your future election chances by focusing so much on culture. You guys were cooler when you were the party of economics."

I am sure that stance has absolutely nothing to do with them starting to be on the losing end of the war they started and now they want takebacks-ies. It is definitely a genuine belief, they swear.

I am sure this time it will actually work for them, and not turn into open defiance of them and their ideals as people get even more patriotic than last time. We definitely didn’t see the people of LA and Hawaii put on massive fireworks display after being told that was illegal.

Considering that is their default modus operandi, I thought it goes without saying.

At least according to the followups, it wasnt even that. It was all a thought experiment about how to deal with rogue AI. There wasnt even a simulation done. It is just that the media took him speaking about it as a thought experiment as "This actually happened."

Incidentally, the same thing usually happens whenever you hear about the US Military supposedly getting its ass kicked in wargames. Said wargames are usually so stacked in favor of the enemy force that sometimes they are allowed to defy basic physics (like units moving light speed without having to relay orders), because the point is to put the commander into an extreme situation to see how they will react or what plans they can come up with, rather than actual training.

Either that, or it is stuff that works like in real life. So for instance, I am running a sort of "sky pirate" campaign (map inspired by Caribbean during Golden Age of Piracy, except its all air ships), and so they have a very motley crew of people. Because it is a pirate ship, so they have to get along or they will be gunned out of the sky. So any racial tension is mostly just for shit talking, not actual beliefs.

Since other people are also chiming in, in my game it works like this: crippled characters and NPC are a rarity because restoration magic can heal all but the worst aliments. The only exceptions are those who are worshippers of Illmater (as the god of sacrifice and martyrdom, it is thematically appropriate they refuse to heal crippling wounds), or those who do it for an important reason.

For an instance of the later, I am running a campaign set in a "sky pirate" sort of style, and the main Pirate city has an Orc as its mayor who has a prosthetic right arm. Or so it seems, because he actually has a symbiotic relationship with a Mimic (the Mimic helps protect him, he makes sure it is fed gold on the regular), and the "prosthetic" is the Mimic.

I dont understand it either. At least in my games, everyone knows that there is racism involved, but when they get called a knife-eared bastard by a Dwarf, they say the Dwarf is a smelly alcoholic with a matty beard. And it all goes from there.

The Box Office number represent gross, yes. But theaters get a cut of the gross, and the international box office both has to have its payment converted into dollars from whatever its actual payment is, AND other countries usually take a larger cut. Hence why the actual profitability point is usually a lot higher than people think it is.

The other thing that gets left off of these things is that most of the time, it doesnt account for the cut that the theater gets. I saw from a guy who has usually been good at working out the fuzzy Hollywood math that this thing needs to make close to $500M-$600M just to break even.

At least for me, I see this as them giving their warriors another war to go fight. Because there were a ton of reports going around of Taliban fighters being upset that they couldnt fight anymore and had to actually do government things. So it makes sense that they will just go find someone else to go fight a war with to let their warriors do their thing (much like Japan invading Korea in the Imjin War because "The samurai need someone to fight now that Japan is conquered").

Anime: Kiki's Delivery Service was my first introduction to anime proper. But Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was the one that really hooked me in and never let me go again.

Video games: Super Mario Brothers on the Gameboy Color. Still remember that Christmas fondly.

The problem is he thinks the only people who would be in favor of those bills are religious right people. There are plenty of people who are not actively religious or even on the right who are in favor of those bills because they dont like people fucking with their kids (in multiple meanings of that word as we are figuring out).

It's a failing strategy and like always, puts a gap between those that share a lot of the values and morals of the right but don't like being labelled as degenerate or childish because they like to play COD after a day at work and then watch some Demon Slayer after.

Additionally, it puts us right back into the position we started in where the Progressive will have a stranglehold over the culture and use it to try and push their own values.

What we need is Conservatives making movies, games, and pseudo-Anime (think stuff like The Last Airbender or Teen Titans), that provides a counter. Not even open Conservative messages, as that will probably fall flat. But something as simple as a main who fights for his family and his country against an invading force would be a step back in the right direction.

The Matt Walsh's of the world would have us all playing cards and reading ancient literature while the Left continues to wield everything everyone actually cares about as a weapon, because to actually be interested in entertainment is "childish" you see.

I suppose. And I have heard that it makes sense for reducing wind resistance when running at the absurd speeds they do. But it was odd to see a show that was actually pretty good at taking what were actually reasonable depictions of Viking fight styles and weapons (...and running them through the Anime machine, but still) then have a character start doing that when it was a character I was already not a huge fan of.

Tail end of Season 1 into Second 2 is what I have been told. To be honest, I only just started picking it back up because I had other stuff in my backlog I cared about more before it. It is just what I am hearing second hand from people I generally trust in terms of taste.

It sucks, because there were several Netflix made movies that I love (Wheelman, The Highwaymen, All Quiet on the Western Front), as well as other things. But then I dont want to go and subscribe because they do stupid shit like you described.

It probably will be, regardless of the story quality.

No, as in the running style. Where they run with a forward lean and their arms back, which at least from everything I have ever seen is just referred to as "Naruto-running" regardless of the medium.

It is a different author.

EDIT: Just in case you need a visual idea of what I am talking about, this is a "Naruto-Run".

It was the episode where they got hired as mercenaries to attack a fort, and ended up running the boats overland to attack it from the lake (?) side. But he was sent in ahead to attack from the front because Askeladd promised him a duel if he brought the head of the enemy commander. At least from the angle, it looked like a Naruto-Run, where he was leaning forward, arms behind as he was running as he ran at the wall.

I almost noped out when I saw Naruto-running Viking Thorfinn. It took recommendations from other people insisting on how good it was for me to actually get back in and give it another shot.

Since he is also my favorite Villain of all time, it works on both fronts: Iago from the Shakespeare play Othello.

At least to me, he is the definition of "That bastard" because he manages to kill everyone he wanted and achieve his plan, and he literally didnt have to lift a finger. All he did was say a few words to the right people, and they did it all themselves. And his "How am I then a villain?" monologue is probably one of my favorite speeches from a villain in any medium. Then you figure out he did it all because of some petty jealousy, instead of some grand revenge plan? Bastard indeed.

Even as someone who leans heavily toward the Loyalist, Peter Turbo is someone I actually like and respect (even as an Imperial Fist main). It is basically only him and Angron, and then most of the Loyalist. Every other Chaos Primarch I would gladly gun down with a smile on my face.

I mean, on the hand though, the Dollar is still one of the more stable currencies in the world right now in terms of inflation (even if it is on the grounds of "everyone else is worse" rather than "we are better"). And while the Middle East is technically accepting trades in Yuan, most people dont because the dirty little secret is the Chinese place a ton of restrictions on how you can use Yuan that make it obnoxious and impractical to use for trade compared to Dollars. Which is why you typically only see one deal or two and then the trade goes back to Dollars.

Your overall point about ESG running out is true though. Companies were more than willing to cover their losses with ESG loans when the interest rate was 0%. But now that they actually have to pay interest, the ones who have loans are scrambling to figure out how to cover the cost and other companies just arent bothering in the first place.

It is a lot like how the Hollywood studios who cheaped out on writers (coughDisneycough) are now starting to suffer the consequences of that action where a ton of their movies are bombing and they are losing money hand over fist, while those who actually put effort into good writing and stories are seeing billion dollar movies.