Learning from his Silicon Valley backers I see.

The “locust” bit is getting far too little attention. The history of comparing undesirable populations with vermin is long and filled with horrific violence.

First, I wouldn’t assume that there isn’t anyone planning to assassinate Harris.

Second, let’s not pretend that there hasn’t been political violence coming from Trump’s side of the aisle. For example, does the phrase “where’s Nancy” ring a bell?

Third, Trump has positioned himself as an authoritarian strong man who will not be restrained by laws, facts, institutions or norms. He has embraced extremism and excused violence. He promotes hatred, division and conspiracy theories. He attacks law enforcement and courts when they apply the law to him, while simultaneously threatening to wield them as a political tool to persecute his enemies. He has managed to get the Supreme Court to declare the president to be above the law up to and including being able to order the assassination of political rivals. He has rejected democracy, attempted to steal the last election, and incited a riot at at the capital in order to coerce congress into going along with his coup attempt. When that failed, he called for the constitution to be thrown out, and stated that members of his own administration that didn’t support him should be executed. He’s wielded his influence in the Republican party to undermine the defense of Ukraine and support for NATO, and has single-handedly weakened NATO by threatening to withdraw and sowing doubt as to whether the US can be counted on to honor the defensive pact at the heart of the alliance. He encouraged opposition to basic public health protections during a pandemic simply because they looked bad politically, fanning the flames of an anti-science and anti-health movement that significantly increased the death toll. He has promised to be a dictator, and wants to purge the federal government of anyone who is not loyal to him and his agenda. He has a base full of rabid nutcases who routinely threaten violence and intimidate those that get in the way or try to enforce the law. He uses Nazi rhetoric and is supported by neo nazis, white supremacists, and other militant groups. He also has the backing of numerous billionaires that wield disgusting amounts of power and influence, and he’s made no secret that he is willing to sell policy in exchange for contributions.

And that’s not even an exhaustive list, just the first things that come to mind. Quite frankly, Trump is so toxic and such a clear threat to basically everything that America and liberal democracy is supposed to be about that it’s not a surprise that someone would take a shot at him.

Great, this will probably dominate the news for a while and give Trump a breather after he spent the last week alienating voters. That said, while he might be able to milk this for a brief bump in the polls, I doubt it would last. He doesn’t have the ability to not loudly proclaim insane bigoted nonsense.

Hopefully this will cause him to either get overly cautious (unlikely) or become even more nuts and repulsive to anyone that isn’t a die hard loyalist already.

Not exactly in this case. The title is framing his comments as being about making it hard to vote. While that’s absolutely what the bill he’s talking about will do, he isn’t presenting it that way. He’s saying that the SAVE act will “secure” the election and that the strategy of forcing it through by tying it to government funding will be a winning one for Republicans. Both these statements are false (voters don’t like government shut downs), but that’s still his argument.

The quiet part is still quiet here, because you have to already know that the bill he’s pushing is about voter suppression, not election integrity.

At this point, I’m not sure if he’d lose even 1% in the polls if a recording came out showing him with Epstein, explicitly stating he’ll take the 12 year old girl, then dropping his pants. Most of his supporters would claim it was fake, some would claim it was out of context because they didn’t release any footage of actual sex, and at least a few would argue that there’s nothing wrong with sex with 12 year olds.

Hawaii

Dems are crazy cat ladies that just want kids. So they take your kids, and no longer need the cats. Cats then feed Haitian immigrants. They thrive and produce more Haitians, who then go to school where they are indoctrinated to become Dems, and are given sex changes until they have all been turned into the next generation of cat ladies, perpetuating the cycle.

It all makes sense now.

I think you can very easily see the progression of KOTOR -> Jade Empire -> Mass Effect - > Dragon Age Origins. It’s not all straight lines, but you can see the things they keep, the things they tweak, the things they cut, and the things they bring back.

I love Jade Empire. There are a lot of things I think could have been better, but I do really love it.

The combat was cool, and I liked the different styles, and the fact that you were not going to learn them all in a single playthrough. It also incentivized switching between hand to hand, weapons, magic, support and transformation in ways that still allowed each type to feel like it was useful and filling a niche rather than being the kind of samey rock paper scissors bullshit that many games use. That said, the balance was not great, and some options were significantly better than others, to the point of making some things seem almost useless. Most of them are usable, but if you try them all out you’ll find that there are some you will probably never use again. That said, on replays I would always pick white demon for my martial style even though objectively it’s the worst choice because I found it more fun and challenging than the other two.

Story-wise, the companions were fairly standard for Bioware games. I don’t hate any of them, but I also can’t say I have as much of a connection to them as I have to HK-47, Jolee and Canderous, or Garrus, Wrex and Tali, or Alistair, Oghren, and Morrigan. It’s not that there’s something wrong with the characters, as much as there’s just less opportunity due to the way Jade Empire handles them in gameplay. Unlike those other games, you only get 1 companion in your party at a time, so there’s no banter between them while you walk, and just less interaction with them overall.

This is made worse by the way the game handles combat for them. Followers can be set to fight or support, where they meditate to give you a bonus but leaving you to fight the enemies alone. A neat idea in theory, but the problem is that fighting really just translates to them distracting one or two minions until they get knocked unconscious. They can’t stand up to anything tough, and they will not be dispatching enemies, just acting as a momentary distraction before they fall (even the two that are combat only and are supposed to be incredibly strong). In support they will each give you a different bonus. One scatters bottles around that temporarily let you use drunken master style… which is not better than what you already have so it’s just a novelty. Two others slightly increase your damage with either weapons or martial attacks. And the remaining three each refill one of your resources (health, focus and chi). Since Chi is able to heal you and increase your martial damage, and powers your magic and transformations, that chi restoring character is by far the most useful, with the focus restoring guy being a distant second since it allows you to slow time and is needed for using weapons.

If I had one suggestion I could send back in time it would have been to allow 2 or 3 followers at a time, with a dedicated combat slot and a dedicated support slot so that you can have a larger party and less incentive to just pick one character to the exclusion of everyone else.

The morality system was a great idea, but like Mass Effect, there is a clear disconnect between what they describe it as and what it actually is in practice. The way of the open palm is supposed to be altruistic, while the closed fist is supposed to be about strength and growing through conflict and adversity. They aren’t intended to simply be good and evil. The problem is, you get lots of pointlessly evil options that don’t correspond with that philosophy they describe, and yet they still give you closed fist points. In fact, I struggle to think of a single time in the game where you couldn’t just replace the open palm and closed fist points with light side and dark side points and get the exact same result. It’s a shame, because it would have been great if they had more of a focus on the competing philosophies, with times when open palm might seem less than ideal, and times when closed fist comes across as respectable in its own way. In fact, I would have loved it if they’d had open palm, closed fist, and a third hidden stat for just being a dick, and had people react to all three.

One other big difference is the pacing of the game. The others all start in tutorial town, then move on to a second area which launches you on your quest, then opens up the map and lets you pick which order to do things in, before taking you to the endgame. Jade empire technically follows that description, but the part where it opens up is basically just letting you choose between 2 options, so it’s not nearly as dynamic. And based on the number of places which are frequently mentioned but never seen, I suspect there were multiple areas which were cut from the game.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there’s nothing wrong with the pacing, it’s just notable once you’re familiar with that classic Bioware formula.

Overall, I highly recommend Jade Empire. It’s fun, it has an engaging story, an interesting world, and a lot of that old pre-EA Bioware charm.

Also, I think Trump benefits from the assumptions that low information voters have about Republicans, and their tendency to blame the incumbent party for anything bad that happens, particularly in the economy. Harris laying out specific policies to help families, small businesses etc. is just in one ear and out the other, but Trump being vaguely pro-business in any way reinforces their biases.

And to make matters worse, most people aren’t all that rational. They aren’t paying close attention to what’s being said and analyzing it coldly and logically. Hell, they may not even be paying attention, and just check in every once in a while. This also benefits Trump because his strategy is to spew lies, false promises and emotionally charged rhetoric which is most effective on the uninformed and unthinking members of the audience.

That said, there’s just always going to be 20% of the people who would say Trump was better in every way no matter what happened. Some of that is because they are treating every question as a proxy for Trump vs Harris/Democrats/Commies/Whatever, and part of this is because they are so far gone that they can only interpret the debate through a right wing lens that will uncritically accept whatever Trump says, and which rejects any good point Harris makes.

“I wonder if there’s beer on the sun”

The Canada Song lives rent free in my head.

So, Trump is “God’s Chosen” and has divine backing. But despite God being on his side, a little witchcraft can completely overpower him. I would have thought God’s power would be stronger than whatever dark sorcery the Demoncraft party could invoke, but apparently I was wrong.

Yeah, it must be that. It can’t be that their orange messiah is just an elderly narcissist with no discipline or self-awareness, a rambling imbecile who can be easily manipulated by anyone that threatens his fragile ego. That would be crazy.

Obviously it must be God’s will that Trump become President again, why else would He have told a small minority of believers to follow some rich asshole who embodies all of their most extreme political views? I mean, if he wasn’t specifically chosen by God, he wouldn’t have a divine mandate that negates the need to be moral or abide by any of that “love your neighbor” shit, and his deeply religious followers would have to choose between their faith and owning the libs.

Since they don’t feel bad about their politics overriding the teachings of Jesus, it must be OK, which means it has God’s blessing. Therefore, God is on their side and endorses their political views, and their preferred presidential candidate. Which also means that the other side must be working for the devil.

“We put our faith in BLAST HARDCHEESE.”

Final Sacrifice.

Wrestling with the hardest decision since cake or death.

On that stage we saw the two things most capable of utterly destroying Trump: A prosecutor, and Trump.

She gives it one thumb up. Then down. Then up. Then down. Then up. Then down…

Apparently they don’t want to talk about it. The only post since the debate is an unrelated article fearmongering about Haitian immigrants.

I would expect the Trump supporters that are posting (particularly the ones posting as they watch) to post their support and approval for everything Trump says and does. Any that are disappointed or discouraged by what they saw are probably more likely to say nothing. People are quick to express the knee-jerk reaction they want to have, but it often takes time to process when they feel let down.

I mean, yes, absolutely, there have to be people who nodded in agreement at everything Trump said, who were excited when he brought up the immigrants eating pets, who felt that Trump was the only sane one there. But there also had to be some that were frustrated with what they were seeing, and who now have a little less energy to devote to the election. Will the latter group be large enough to have an impact? We’ll have to wait and see.