Just got the new computer set up and Cataclysm downloaded and installed, then all the mods, and I’ll be out of the loop until the AM.
One note- not to make light of prison rape, but I support it for whoever thought an underwater zone would be cool.
Reader Interactions
56Comments
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Xecky Gilchrist
I think underwater zones are one of those unwritten obligations of level design, like slippery-ice levels and circus themed levels used to be for all the action/platform games.
Maybe, like those, it means they’re just out of ideas.
Mike Kay (Team America)
Great press conference today.
here’s the video: http://tinyurl.com/25g4xnp
Can anyone answer this riddle: why is “hippie punching” wrong, but obama bashing okay? Shouldn’t it be a two-way street?
JenJen
Hey kids! If you haven’t had enough of the blogs today, be sure to tune in tonight to “The Last Word” on MSNBC. Per Twitter, apparently Lawrence O’Donnell will be hosting Ezra Klein, Adam, Green and Jane Hamsher this evening.
Should be fun, if you like inserting shards of glass into your eye. I really don’t think I can take any more pundit wankery, not today, no matter how they come down. Maybe tomorrow.
Thank the FSM there’s some decent hockey on the teevee tonight.
freelancer
RIP Kim Tinkham, breast cancer victim, life cut even shorter by alt med quacks who knew better. And Oprah, who almost certainly knows better.
You know what they call Alternative Medicine that works? Medicine.
Bullshit kills, kids.
burnspbesq
@JenJen:
I can top that: tomorrow night at Georgetown, there is a forum on LBGT issues, hosted by E.J. Dionne, featuring Andrew and that crazy lady from the National Association for Marriage.
freelancer
@JenJen:
Maddow’s vexed. To be fair, I can’t blame her. She’s quite visible, and sane. It’s not like the WH can claim they didn’t see her suggestions for how they frame things. Honestly though, I’d be more livid with Congress, Pelosi aside.
jon
I want to play a parlour game: what better deal can you come up with that would pass the Senate Republicans? All answers that involve spiking the GOP’s break room’s coffee with LSD will be heard, but if anyone has a better idea I’m all ears.
JenJen
@freelancer: Oh, wow. I’ve been following Orac’s posts about Ms. Tinkham, “The Secret”, and quack medicine for awhile now, but hadn’t heard that Kim passed. Good grief. How utterly tragic.
Sure has been a shitty day, for everyone except that supreme asshole, Cancer. :-(
@burnspbesq: Oh yeah. I totally surrender.
@freelancer: Just can’t watch. Love Rachel to pieces, and I’m sure she has a lot of sane comments to make, and I’m sure she’s being fair, and I probably agree with 90% of what she’s saying, but right now my Habs are kicking the Sens’ butts 3-1, and I feel the need to stay focused on the positive, here. :-)
jeffreyw
Salad, dammit!
Jewish Steel
I just waded through 3/5ths of the comments on the Not The Upper East Side! thread. Blech. I think I need a bath. Or sheep dip.
I feel like the quality of the commentariat has taken a noticeable dip since BJ made that top 10 list about a month back. The same humorless voices artlessly whinging on and on making the same tired points.
Maybe I’m just being picky. Someone tell me it’s just my imagination.
WereBear
@freelancer: I know.
And yet, just last weekend, Mr WereBear said goodbye to a friend who had been diagnosed just two years ago, with breast cancer at an early stage. We had every reason for hope.
Quacks won’t flourish when there is hope elsewhere.
khead
If it’s an open thread and computer games are involved, I would like to pimp Empire:Total War again.
It’s as addictive as any version of Civilization I’ve played – and the battles are better.
Khead +1 more turn…..
Madeline
At lunch today on CNN, they had a story about a couple who are 99ers – they’ve been unemployed for almost 2 years. UI ran out months ago. They may have to give their children up, because they cannot afford to feed them.
I no longer care about tax cuts, all I want is UI for everybody who needs it. What a sad day all around.
JenJen
@Jewish Steel: Not your imagination.
And to think, I thought the low point of my day would have to be, given the law of averages, my encounter with the stalky book store Republican this morning! ;-)
jeffreyw
Ok, bought one of these offa guy on ebay for $50.
BombIranForChrist
@Xecky Gilchrist:
Or, in FPS, escort levels.
Designer: “Hmmm, there’s an awful lot of fun here. I know, let’s add an escort level!”
arguingwithsignposts
@Madeline:
The sad part is there’s no relief in the deal for the 99ers. Calculated Risk had some details.
freelancer
@JenJen:
Fabulist. Like a Republican has ever been in a bookstore.
Madeline
@arguingwithsignposts: Yes, I learned that today. I have no words. Such dark times we’re living in.
stuckinred
What’s the problem with the pages loading on this stupid blog?
Xecky Gilchrist
@BombIranForChrist: Ha! Yep, escort levels = bleah.
JenJen
Since I know you all care deeply, Habs win! 4-1. Damn, do I ever love me some Carey Price in the net.
@freelancer: I know, right? So much for that urban legend.
@Madeline: Me too. Sadly, no relief for the 99ers in this deal, either.
Roger Moore
@freelancer:
You haven’t been looking at the politics section in your local bookstore recently, have you. Mine has an absurd number of trashy right wing screeds, which wouldn’t be there if they weren’t selling. I’m fairly confident that it isn’t Democrats who are buying the Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter dreck, so I am left to conclude that some Republicans visit bookstores.
Kryptik
@Roger Moore:
Remember, most of those right-wing titles are inflated on the best-sellers list by activist group bulk buys. They may be ‘selling’, but it might not necessarily be what sells best at the stores in particular.
LarsThorwald
I’m going to cut off the blogs for a couple of weeks because the big shit on the tax deal is pretty much all done, and except for punting on DADT (wait for it), there’s not going to be much done in the political world between now and January 3, except maybe a bunch of countries will physically draw and quarter Julian Assange on streaming video set to house music. So I won’t be missing much. And there’s also all that Christmassing to be done.
So i plan to curl up with Caro and learn exactly how fucking ugly it got when LBJ had to cut deals and make compromises, and I am actually hoping to see some reflections between then and now, knowing that then we got a lot of landmark, lasting accomplishments. I guess I want to see whether the progressive left’s view that Obama needs to be more like LBJ holds water. If if what they got was LBJ lite. Which may not be a bad thing, and yet may be worse. Trading the need for approval with the need for compromise? Hmmm. I’ll let Caro guide me.
But there is this before I head out: Obama has disappointed me. I am a federal worker and I went off on a rant here the other day about fucking giving away my wage increases for two years with nothing in return. And then he negotiates away the tax deal, although he did get from it a hell of a lot more than I thought he would, but I’m not sure it’s all that much. I guess I have to look at it without seeing it through the filter of the left-wing blogosphere.
But after some soul-searching, I think my real disappointment is over the squandered opportunities that may have been had Democrats been more disciplined. I don’t blame the President for that. There are, excuyse me, a lot of really soft assholes in Congress, and they are interested in Numero Uno, and that’s them, not you.
But I guess I am dissapointed in the President, too, because he looks like he’s getting rolled on some pretty big policy issues. And when he looks rolled, he looks less and less like the smart guy i know he is.
And all of this is to say that I am disppointed that our side looks disheveled and disorganized while the other side looks crisp and disciplined and sharp. And it frustrates the Hell out of me.
But any Redskins fan knows the exact feeling I am feeling right now. My emotions about the Redskins and the Democratic Party are eeriely similar.
I know what my heart tells me. My heart tells me that those more likely to be good are more likely to be Democrats. And my heart also tells me that I can never, ever, ever vote Republican again. They don’t give a shit about anyone.
And my heart tells me I’m tired. I’m as tired as the President looked tonight.
gogol's wife
@Jewish Steel:
It’s not your imagination. But I’m hoping it’s just a phase.
Jewish Steel
@JenJen:
It’s not what the zealots say so much as the more unforgivable sin of never being insightful or funny. It’s something like dehumanizing to read in copious quantities, I can’t imagine what it feels like on the inside. Maybe like a sad stalker dude.
@freelancer:
I’m sure he didn’t realize where he was until his skin began to burn.
JenJen
@Roger Moore: Given my experience earlier, I’m convinced that not only do Republicans visit bookstores with alarming frequency, they also troll the politics section for dates.
@Jewish Steel: I’ve contributed to another board that has been around since the Usenet days, and when we switched over to the web, we went private. I’ve “known” the people who comment there for a ridiculous amount of years now. Best thing about that board? It’s run by a malevolent cabal which actually temporarily bans people for the sin of not being consistently insightful, but, more importantly, funny. Oy, the pressure! Of course I think you’d fit right in!
Martin
@arguingwithsignposts: 99ers are fucked. Nothing is going to come to save them. Democrats could save them, but they’ve only got a few days to do it. They’ll never get benefits for them through a Republican House – particularly if this deal blows up, as it looks almost certain to do. I was skeptical when Pelosi wasn’t strongly involved.
I don’t know what the betting sites are saying, but I think odds are greater than 50% that the tax cuts will expire entirely, without a deal, that DADT as a result won’t get a vote, START won’t, and the debt ceiling won’t. With the tax cuts and debt ceiling still on the table, the GOP doesn’t give a fuck about the unemployed. And I think Dems are in such a mood that they’re willing to transfer the GOPs pain to the public now. It’s going to be interesting…
Jewish Steel
@gogol’s wife:
I have an imperialist streak that I try very hard to keep in check but I was delighted to see Cole brandish the big stick of banning in that thread. A list of candidates immediately sprang to mind.
All of whom, it would appear, emerged unscathed. Alas.
Jewish Steel
@JenJen:
Ha! The point of my next post.
ETA: Uh, that is prior post. I’m becoming unmoored in time.
I’m not the only Jew looking to become unmoored, amirite Zionists?
Kryptik
@LarsThorwald:
Obama has shown his greatest failure in exposing what he really is: your common, average national Dem.
And watching Maddow tonight was…yeah, I need a drink right now.
John - A Motley Moose
@JenJen: Is Ezra Klein supposed to be the sane moderate on this panel?
norbizness
I got back into WoW; there is definitely a pronounced difference in the 1-30 areas on the alliance side. A lot more mini games and more flight depots to cut down on that interminable running.
I tried a new race (Worgen), and the storyline is beyond convoluted.
Madeline
@LarsThorwald: I’m adopting a cat. But other than that, I agree with everything you said.
gnomedad
Then don’t.
Mark S.
I don’t know what the hell kids today are talking about. Did this make sense to anyone else?
And get off my lawn!
Martin
@LarsThorwald:
I can appreciate this attitude. However, the GOP looks the way they do because you are looking through a particular lens. Progressive sites show the sausage making on the left, because that’s what they can see, what they understand, and what they care about. So yeah, it pretty much always looks like shit. When you look at the GOP from the right, it also pretty much always looks like shit. Getting a clear-eyed view on things is pretty damn hard, if it’s even possible at all. Taking a step back now and then is necessary.
But there’s a particular type of game being played here that people often miss. There’s two kinds of problems – additive and subtractive. Almost everything the Dems want are additive problems. Dems are *adding* legislation, *adding* services, and so on, and in order to do that, you need to accumulate votes – that’s the only solution. Your opposition simply needs to refuse. It’s easy for them. They don’t even need to defend their refusal. You cannot negotiate with them unless they have some additive problem they need you to solve. This crew of Republicans don’t. Quite simply, with that relationship, negotiation ought to be impossible.
There are also subtractive problems – getting rid of legislation, getting rid of services. These are easier to accomplish – just blow them up, refuse to fund them, or if a clock is ticking, let them run out. There’s lots of strategies here depending on the item. The tax cut expiry is a subtractive policy. In other conditions, the Dems would have the rare for them ability to do nothing. Let them run out. What can the GOP do? In this case it should be impossible to negotiate, except that reasonable Dems want some of these tax cuts – not out of principle but out of necessity. If the economy was better, this wouldn’t even be a debate – they’d run out the clock, deficit problem is at least 1/3 fixed without lifting a finger. And worse than the cuts that the Dems want to extend are all the additive things they want – START, unemployment extension, stimulus, which leads us right back to where we started.
Dems aren’t worse at this than the GOP. It’s that the rules of the game make their goals much harder to achieve than the goals of the GOP. That’s simply the way it is, because that’s the nature of the things each party wants. If you want a fairer playing field, you need to choose goals that are simply easier to achieve. Democrats see solving differential equations as a victory, Republicans see peeing in the bowl as a victory. One group should fail more than the other, but that doesn’t mean they’re worse at this – it just means they chose harder problems to address.
Take a breather. It’ll get better. Dems pretty much always win the long game. You can delay progress, but you can’t stop it.
JMY
@Kryptik:
Obama has governed they way he said he would. So I don’t know how he’s been exposed.
Martin
@BombIranForChrist: Heh. Googling ‘escort level’ lead to me learning something new – something (presumably) totally unrelated to what you are talking about.
I think the law of Google is that the probability over time of all searches leading to page of results about sex approaches 1.
debit
Yeah, I’m walking away from Countdown and TRMS for the near future. Love ’em both, Rachel especially, but I can’t take it anymore. When I saw Keith promoting his Special Obama Ass Tearing Comment, I knew it was time to walk away. I’m sure I’ll be charged up and ready to fight again eventually, but I am so fucking tired right now.
Meanwhile, I am muchly enjoying Homebrew on my Wii. I loaded up the SNES rom of a game I haven’t played in years and am having a blast.
BethanyAnne
The goblin beginning is so nifty! Plus, you mentioned Worgen Freeman? I just saw a “Fleaopatra”, tee hee.
Kryptik
@debit:
If that game isn’t named ‘U.N. Squadron’, ‘Super Punch-Out’, or ‘Super Metroid’…well, I won’t do anything, but you better check those out some way. :P
debit
@Kryptik: Actually, it’s Secret of Evermore, a quirky little RPG put out by Square America. I don’t know why, but I love grinding in this game. After this, I’ll probably put in Chrono Trigger and try to get all 15 endings. Again.
jon
I’d like to make a comment on prison rape. The way my state interprets the Prison Rape Elimination Act is to make any sex between inmates into rape. That makes sense on some level, since there’s no way prisoners can, as wards of the state and not free individuals, freely consent to sex. But on another level, it makes all homosexuals (or very lonely heterosexuals who just want a fix) into rapists whether they consent or don’t. It just doesn’t comply with human nature to suggest that there’s no way adult men can consent to have sex with other adult men. Yeah, coercive sex happens and outright brutal rape occurs as well. But in many instances, it’s the criminalization of something that just plain happens.
I’m not unsympathetic to those who demand that I, as a prison employee, have to report anything I see as a sign of sexual activity or even joking about it. But I see it as a criminalization of homosexuality as much as I see the reporting requirements as a necessity to end a cycle of rape that has been part of prison life for far too long.
In summation, I’m still not sure how I feel about the issue. I know some men have relationships. I know some men see submission to sex as a better way out of debt than a beating or worse. And I know rape happens, too. The Prison Rape Elimination Act is good policy and a damn good idea, but I have a hard time seeing how it works in practice as a realistic response to a real problem. It seems to have blended in with a desire to punish homosexuality and it ignores the reality of sexuality in general. Rape is awful, but not every awful decision to consent to sex is rape. Or is it?
I know what I have to do if I suspect something or see something, but knowing what the consequences are has made me avoid asking much more than it’s made me want to investigate. I don’t have to report what I don’t find out.
Comrade Luke
@Martin:
I give you credit: you’re one of the only people here who have been consistent since the beginning that without a vote all of this is speculation.
Also, as a pretty vocal critic of what Obama’s done with this, I do wonder what impact the progressive punditry – and by that I mean the ones in the media – would have had it they used their TV time better. They have the megaphone too, why aren’t they talking about the GOP blocking everything when they’re on TV instead of how Obama is caving?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Jewish Steel: So John’s no better than Obama?
/snark
4tehlulz
@Comrade Luke: Because hammering on Obama is how they got on TV in the first place.
You don’t bite the hand that feeds you that sweet, sweet face time.
Yutsano
@Comrade Luke:
To give Rachel credit, she has been screaming this. She’s also thinking she’s advocating for better policies when in fact she’s giving harsh criticism at a time when the President needs support. A time and a place for everything.
Mark S.
I’ll try again: can anyone explain what an underwater zone in WoW has to do with prison rape?
Martin
@Comrade Luke: Thanks.
I rely on two things:
1) The media, in its entirety, needs stories to stay alive. So trust that big stories are really small stories at the time they are written. They might have big impacts or develop into big stories, but not due to any kind of merit in the story itself when written. They always overreach – at least some.
2) Determinism is oversubscribed when people are involved. No matter how certain an outcome looks, if people are involved, it’s never that certain because they have a chance to react to that perception of certainty.
This ties in with 1) above. Knowing that the media will report fucking anything, and will report it with more conviction that is deserving, participants in the process can present a perception that an outcome is vastly more certain that is really is. ‘Congress and the WH are close to a deal’ means that they probably aren’t half as close as it sounds, but someone wants the narrative moving that a deal is done so they oversell it to the media and the media further oversells it to the public. The blogs get all excited (or pissed) and everyone starts making decisions based on the assumption it’s done. Lobbyists lobby. Activists activate. Hamshers hamsher. And anyone in Congress not in line with the program either looks clueless or a dick. Just look at the reports today – everyone who is opposed to it are being presented as having gone rogue. Fuck, none of these people were involved. Nancy wasn’t even in the room most of the time. There was no ‘deal’. There was a concept with some provisional agreement on both sides, but no input from either caucus. They called it a deal because they were selling it hoping it would take, but legislators fall in line when it’s in their best interest to do so. For 1/3 of the House, there is no best interest. They’re out. They’ve got new jobs lined up. They’ll tell Obama or Nancy to eat a bag of dicks unless they think they’ll need them soon, and most won’t.
A few reasons. One, it’s whiny and boring. Boring is bad for TV. Two, it’s not going to change much. I know there’s an attitude that the Dems are at war with the GOP, but we can’t completely disregard the fact that those Republicans were elected. Call the electorate stupid, underinformed, whatever, but they were elected, and you can only push back against the democratic process so hard before you look like the asshole you’re trying to paint the other side as. Three, and I think this leads back to the most valid point raised by those angry with Obama – eventually you’re going to need to devise a strategy to deal with full intransigence. And the truth is, they don’t have any better solution to the problem as anyone else. Dems can demand all they want, but if the answer is reliably ‘no’ then what? So they turn inward blaming the other guy for not having a solution that they themselves don’t know how to solve. There’s airtime to fill, after all.
Suck It Up!
@Comrade Luke:
if all they were going to do is trash republicans they would never get invited on tv.
NobodySpecial
I dunno, in EQ, Veksar was technically underwater and pretty frigging cool. Maybe it’s the alien cows make it bad in WoW.
Ija
Soylent Green is people. That’s why it’s so delicious. That is all.
(The tagline people. I’m not drunk.)
JenJen
Wow, I totally take back my pre-show feelings about Lawrence O’Donnell’s lineup. Had the repeat on in the background, and suddenly, It was like watching a professor school a group of freshman. Hamsher and Green simply did not have their shit together. Pretty fascinating segment, really.
And I don’t think I’ll get over how “all grown-up” Ezra Klein seems. He was practically a kid when most of us started reading him.
geemoney
@Martin: That’s an excellent way to look at the problem.