Good to know. Scalise I still think would have been the better choice, but McCarthy is....not terrible I guess? He is more steadfast than McConnell, but he does waffle a bit too much for my taste.
Pelosi hands McCarthy
Actually, initial reports that I saw are that most of the House GOP (including a lot of the newcomers) are leaning toward Scalise rather than McCarthy to be Speaker.
Which I think would be a good choice. He is kind of in the same vein as Cruz and Rubio as sort of "MAGA Missing Link". Where they were/are Neo-Con types, but they have enough political intuition to see where the wind is blowing and ride it to their own power by following the waves. He has also generally been pretty good at call out the Left and the Media for their bullshit and knows better than to let his guard down around them (I am sure being shot and nearly killed by a raging Leftoid has nothing to do with that).
As someone who runs on that side of Reddit, it is both hilarious and concerning how hardcore they are getting over it all.
Weeb is the one that would be at the top of the bell curve there.
Like I said in my original post: They are effectively the Anime equivalent to the Gamer stereotype.
They are the kinds who are always mixing Japanese in with their English. They obsess over Japan even if its ignoring stuff that is historically wrong (they are the kind who argue that the Katana is some sort of super-sword when in reality it is inferior to most European swords from the same time period...and both are inferior to polearms). In extreme cases, they are the kind that go around with the hentai jackets on. And they are usually fat with titanic amounts of BO.
But much like with gamers, they are actually a smaller portion of the fandom than you would think since most Anime fans are just normal people. They are just the loudest and most obnoxious, so they are the ones who get made fun of.
Definitely consider it my main source of non-gaming related entertainment at the moment. And I will fess up that I do have some weebish tendencies. But the hardcore weebs who do all of the cringy bullshit and scream about how much they would rather be in Japan while screaming broken Japanese? They need to shut the fuck up.
I, for one, am glad to see them dispelling the notion that they are doing what they do because they are porn-poisoned coomers.
I am honestly at the point where I am more annoyed and disturbed by the Blackpilled than I am the Left. At least I know the Left wants to kill me, so I can plan for that. With some Blackpill types, I am half expecting them to stab me in the back because my continued resistance is preventing them from feeling the sweet release of death (after all, I should be as miserable as they are).
Meanwhile, the Left are entirely able to be defeated, because they and their corporate aligned masters are fucking dumb and are making decisions now that defy even basic logic. Unless of course you think you are an untouchable god who has already discovered the secrets of the universe (which they do).
I have pointed it out in a few threads now, but I will continue to because it is so bizarre of a self-own to me. According to a business podcast I was listening to discussing Disney’s current money woes, they were talking about how Florida is apparently in talks to build a high-speed rail network between its major cities. So of course, in Orlando, they asked for bids from the major amusement parks to have a direct access rail station built. Disney’s response was to scoff at the idea of a bid, and say that if anything, the railroad should be paying them for “driving traffic” on the line. Needless to say, they lost the bid to Universal.
This wasn’t even a woke or politically motivated own-goal. Disney just thinks they are too big to fail, and are now panicking that it isn’t working. But if you asked the Blackpilled among us, they would have told you Disney was unbeatable. Meanwhile, Disney is over there saying “Hold my beer.” It just took time.
Another thing I havent seen brought up a lot (even by Styx in this video) is that the Republicans actually performed rather well at the local level. They flipped a lot of State Supreme Courts, they won a ton of school boards, and while they struggled with governors, they picked up governors in some pretty important places (for instance, I think Lombardo in NV will help it be in play come 2024).
This should help make it so that the Feds have to keep running around putting out bushfires instead of actually expanding their tyranny, and that is assuming they can even do that since a lot of states are starting to tell the Feds to piss off, like DeSantis telling the Feds to stay far away from his elections he was conducting.
I stand by my theory that we are essentially living an echo of the late 1970's, and we just witnessed 1978, where the uniquely unpopular Carter managed to hold the House and Senate despite overwhelming pessimism about the direction of the nation (between race riots, Socialism on the march in the US, intense government interference, and ChinaThe Soviet Union ascendant). And what happened? A movie actor came walking in, became the most popular president in US history, and ushered in an American Golden Age, while reducing America's greatest enemy to a pile of ash on the heap of history.
Now that said, I still think DeSantis is the smarter choice for 2024. But IF, and only IF, he is able to Out-Trump Trump. He has done plenty of good work as Governor, and shown he can even do better than Trump in some areas (like Executive appointments that actually listen to him and are dismantling the Woke infrastructure). But if he starts letting the GOP get their hooks in him and start whispering in his ear like Wormtongue, then he will be less Ronald Reagan and more Boris Johnson.
Also, insert obligatory "Fuck blackpillers"
We had no idea how many bombers they had, meanwhile...Venona chronicles...Hollywood...New York Times...Civil Rights Movement...anti-war movement...anti-nuclear movement...FBI...
Incidentally, this shit is why I am not as blackpilled as all the others on here. We went through all of that, even up to the point that in the 1970's you had Carter and the Dems all but saying they were going to surrender the Cold War and pave the way for the Soviet future and allow America to fall, and even keeping the House and Senate in the 1978 election (sound possibly familiar?).
And what happened? The American people shook themselves out of their stupor, said "FUCK! THAT!" And elected Reagan, who not only became one of the most popular presidents in US history, he gain a jump in approval when he joked that he was going to nuke Russia because "Commie Scum, LMAO". If you look at US History, we seem to actually do this more than you might think and seem to keep bouncing back from situations that have killed greater nations (something, something, Bismarck's quotes about America).
So why shouldn't I believe it will happen again, with the right amount of work.
Isekai is fun
I know it can be. I think I have just been funned out on it after watching too much, and seeing a lot that was basically just "Author self insert with completely OP powers and a harem of women throwing themselves at him."
I know I have heard of plenty that would be fun and break that mold. I just have other stuff I am more interested in higher up my watch list at the moment.
I second Konosuba. I also agree that yes, it does behave more like how me and my friends actually play DND (doing dumb shit that shouldnt work but it does anyway) than most other Isekai does.
It is the genre name for when the main character is, by one means or another, transported to another world, where they then have to start interacting with the new world. Sometimes using knowledge from their own world to make themselves absolutely overpowered (ie: "I am in a medieval world, but I know how to make a gun, so now every fight is trivial to me.")
Have you seen the videos of the Ukrainians using Humvee's as for, all intents and purposes, cavalry doing behind the lines lighting strikes.
God, it has been glorious to watch all this shit be used for what it was actually supposed to be used for and see that it can still clap cheeks. Which I dont know if it says more about US military equipment, or Russian military equipment that 40 year old gear is smoking their asses.
If you don't count the second season.
Eh. It wasnt as good as the first season, but I didnt think it was that bad. Although we will see what happens with Season 3, since that goes over stuff that is more interesting and consequential to the later plot.
EDIT:
Nah, we need more.
You do you, I guess I am just Isekai'ed out. For me, my recent time has been SpyxFamily, Eighty-Six: 86, and getting caught up on some older anime like JoJo and Fairy Tale. The one exception on the Isekai wagon is getting caught up on Overlord.
There is a conspiracy going around that Elon owning Twitter is basically just a meme that went to far and now he is in over his head and trying to find a way out.
I dont buy it. It doesnt matter if you are the richest man in the world. You dont blow tens of billions of dollars on a meme. I think Elon had a plan, got a lot more pushback than he was expecting, and is now trying to adapt the plan to make sure he can actually pull off his whole "Turn Twitter into a free-speech platform" and be in a secure position before he draws the Eye of Sauron upon him.
If we are being more honest, I think him talking to groups like the ADL at the same time they were killing his advertising, and then using them killing his advertising as an excuse to yeet the ADL and say "I am not working with them" while looking reasonable to the average Normie.
Shield Hero at least has a gimmick that can make it an interesting enough story. Not a masterpiece like FMA, but still better than 90% of Isekai at least.
I do agree though that the amount of Isekai right now is too damn high. At least in more recent times it has started to move toward more types (if my anime watch list is anything to go by at least).
why don’t you neck yourself
Because my continued existence fills you with rage you fucking Communist.
There is also something to be said that Disney and many companies like it are making a bunch of stupid choices off of the idea that they will never fail.
There was a business podcast I was listening to where they were talking about how Florida is planning on building a high-speed rail network to all of its major cities. At Orlando, the rail company decided to look into building stations at some of the major amusement parks. The railroad went to Disney and asked them for a bid. Disney scoffed and said that if anything, the railroad should be paying them for driving traffic. Negotiations stalled, right up until Universal Orlando walked in and said they would be willing to pay for that station, and the railroad agreed.
That is something that won’t be noticed immediately, but in a few years when Disney is losing business because people go to the easier to access Universal, they will scratch their heads and say “what happened?” All because they thought they were hot shit that would never lose.
Not going to lie: I got a good belly laugh out of that. This is why I love Dank.
There was a comment I saw elsewhere that made the point that the Right is despondent and demoralized because they didn’t win hard enough, and the Left is currently gloating about how they didn’t get absolutely blown the fuck out. I can easily see it on here.
Worth remembering this isn’t even unprecedented. Carter actually narrowly held on to the House and Senate, which let the 70’s get as bad as they did, and he was still followed by the Reagan golden age. I am happy that even as much as there are debates about going forward with Trump or DeSantis, it’s on the basis of “who is the better fighter” instead of “who is the more moderate.”
In the interest of steelmanning positions, I will say that it seems Vance feels abandoned by Trump. He is still pushing the same policies, but when he was giving his thank you’s, Trump was not on the list. Could be nothing, but still a data point to consider.
Not that The Turtle and RNC helped much either. They deserve the lions share of the blame, but Trump is not innocent either.
Kansas proved that direct democracy abortion votes are being treated in strange and inexplicable ways by people who use them as an outlet to shout that abortion should be legal.
Tell me about it. I live here, and it has been hair-pulling frustration to see people talking about it. There is state-level support for pushing the ban limit back from the 22-weeks its at now to be closer to 15. But there is no support for a full ban. The wording of the amendment left open the option that the legislature could institute a full ban if they decided to. People decided they didnt want that. And I saw people say this was a sign the state was going blue and we were going to all die.
Then yesterday, the Dem governor barely managed to hold on (and only because she has actually been a moderate thus far), the Republicans blew out the State House and Executive offices, and many of those who won supported the amendment, and won by overwhelming votes.
Almost like, our issue was with the amendment itself, and nothing else.
The fact that you don't even know means he hasn't done any pro-Ukraine virtue signaling.
In the interest of fairness, DeSantis has spoken about how Putin is effectively an "authoritarian Gas Station owner", how Biden is making us look weak by being wishy-washy with Putin and Russia, and that Europe, especially France, would fold if Russia decided to invade without the US backing them up (which is honestly kind of based).
The issue with that example is: thats not the dunk people on this board think it is. Being Pro-Ukraine is an extremely popular stance and one of the few bipartisan ones out there. Its only the strange, internet-poisoned weirdos here who think that is somehow a bad thing.
And stats like this are why I am coming around to the theory I have had on the backburner since 2018 of "Trump as Nixon, Biden as Carter, DeSantis as Reagan" for the coming political age.
DeSantis has shown that he has the same sort of beliefs and policies as Trump, is more effective at implementing them, and does so without being offensive to a lot of people you need to win. He even got the college vote while being one of the leading spearheads in the Culture War, which I have already seen some Republicans try and say is a lost cause and we just need to focus on the economics.
What is to be blackpilled about? I am fired up, and the path forward is now clear.
Like the other comment said (and I guess my initial info was wrong or unclear on), it looks like McCarthy will be Speaker and Scalise will be Majority Leader. Like I said, not great, but it could be much worse. The House at least has less RINO's in it than the Senate, so I think them playing obstruction will be fine for the next few years.