Pattern Ghost

39 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

I know that rage and conspiracies aren’t unique to the right. During my litigation career, I frequently faced off against the worst excesses of the radical left. But never before have I seen extremism penetrate a vast American community so deeply, so completely and so comprehensively.

This is the scary part. Even if we get rid of Trump, he loses the election, gets tossed in jail . . . this is his legacy.

3 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

PG, you are aware that the ST6 example was posited by one of the panel judges and not made up by Beau? It was a reductio ad absurdum argument to show that the presidential immunity is not absolute.

But my point is that this wasn't how it was presented by Beau. He goes on about it as if it's an actual possibility. That was my read on it. I may be being over negative due to lack of sleep b/c of my back. I do find the guy grating in the first place (no fault of his to be sure), so that doesn't help.

Boeing was always the negative example in every HR law textbook I had in college.

1 hour ago, Clonus said:

The president  could hand pick the members of a unit for their willingness to do such things for him.  I don't believe it's credible that the court will increase the president's already considerable protection from legal consequences for anything he does, but a president who really had total immunity for anything marginally related to governance could do such things.  

That's the first part of where this fantasy breaks down. Beau using Seal Team 6 instead of random radicalized nutjobs is simple click baiting and fear mongering. The president doesn't. First, a court would have to decide that political murder is in the President's line of duty. Then said president would have to commit such a murder. That's a big step from overreaching clown projecting his temper tantrum onto a bunch of semi-organized morons to being able to rewrite or ignore our foundational laws to becoming Putin. The whole thing requires so many improbable things to happen to become true that it's unlikely with Trump. Keep in mind, this whole shtick is exactly how Putin operates (more poisons than bullets I suppose), and it is coming to a head for Putin. Trump is already on much thinner ice than Putin at this point, and his world is also closing in around him. It's simply not a realistic bit of fear mongering. If he was positing it as an argument ad absurdum, then yes, yes it's a thing that Trump has shown us we must be wary of, that we're not immune from.

The biggest threat Trump poses to the country are further acts of violent civil unrest from his followers as they echo his temper tantrum once again in 2024, or worse, that he should somehow be elected in 2024. In 2016, the world was shocked we could elect him, because polls were skewed. I gave it a 50/50 split because Democrats were overconfident, and complacent. That lead to low voter engagement. I suspect, and hope, that voter engagement will be higher in 2024 if Trump gets on the ballot.

That's not at all what I said, and Beau's click bait is full of holes. 

4 hours ago, Cygnia said:

So was the idea of Trump actually winning the presidency back in the halcyon days of 2016...

I stand by my statement. Click bait.

4 hours ago, unclevlad said:

You're echoing the rhetoric of one of Trump's lawyers on Fox News.

No. I can think for myself. I don't need Beau to do it for me. And aren't personal attacks off limits in this thread?

Yeah, Beau's looking for clicks. Assassinating political rivals is far beyond a lawful order, and would be ignored by any command. This is Hollywood-level BS, beyond moronic.

There aren't a ton of servers, but they're pretty busy. The busiest is very active.  It seems more lively than Champions Online was the last time I peaked in there, around Halloween-ish. The game seems to be run well. There aren't a lot of glitches. It'd be cool if they got a cash infusion big enough to do a graphics and UI update, since it hasn't aged well in that regard, but they rely on donations, so unless a fan hits the lottery that seems unlikely. The gameplay is pretty much the same as it was when I played live. It has its quirks, and in most ways WoW is the better tab targeting combat system, but once I got back in the groove, it's been decent. The tremendous variety of builds and character costume designs are intact, and  in fact more robust. They've both unlocked all of the VIP stuff for free, but have updated and added several power sets. It's been a good experience so far.

"Alex: I'd like 'Things that I don't have the authority to do' for $100 please."

Sheesh. It's like the alleged law and order party doesn't really think those laws apply to them.

This news just . . . floored me. NC Soft has actually licensed City of Heroes to one of the private servers, Homecoming. I found out yesterday, been making heroes since. It looks like Homecoming doesn't have any major changes over the old live version. It's essentially the live state, with the planned issue updates implemented. Not a huge problem getting back into it. The old cash shop is now a "P2W Store" which lets you buy things from the old cash shop for Influence (in game currency instead). The game always needed an influence sink, so that's a win win. I snipped the announcement post from their forum, but there's also a FAQ and more info in the thread linked:

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/47223-ncsoft-homecoming-license-announcement/

I hope we get more T'Pring next season. The T'Pring/Spock episodes are some of my favorites.

Merry Christmas! Hope everyone had a great day today!

Finished my shopping tonight.

That was a different timeline. He changed it when he retired and went back in time to be with Peggy. Still works.

Mid Journey v6 (alpha) is here:

On 12/15/2023 at 7:53 AM, Cygnia said:

so, together, they can hand Europe’s largest country over to Russia.

Technically, this says they want to hand Russia over to Russia. 🤔

As someone who served during the Cold War, I find all this cozying up to Russia by one of our political parties disgusting.

Finished Neon Genesis Evangelion. Apparently all I have to do to get the whole story is watch another movie and maybe play a video game and read a manga. After further research, it seems the studio ran into budgeting problems, so the project suffered from that. Essentially, there's a pretty interesting bit of world building done here, but not quite enough of it made it to the screen in the original series, leaving anyone interested in the events of the plot hanging at the end. The story was very much driven by the psychological journey of the main character, so with the lack of funding, the focus seems to have been shifted to focus there, leaving many questions unanswered. I guess I'll watch The End of Evangelion, which is purported to offer a better realized ending, and see if it offers any satisfaction. 

Let's see, with the wife, I've been watching The Gilmore Girls. Just started season 7. We watched it for about four seasons when it was originally on, but work schedules and life made us lose track. Wouldn't make it past the PC police today, and the characters are so flawed as to be downright unlikable at times (but rounded humans, who also have their good sides). It's one of those love it or hate it shows. 

Been watching some K-dramas and Anime also.

Uncanny Counter: Recently finished Season 3, which may be the final one. The show chronicles the adventures of a team of humans, empowered by higher powers to hunt down evil souls escaped from the underworld. These souls possess and empower their human hosts. The method of exorcism involves beating the possessed human to a pulp, then extracting the possessing spirit. Mostly lighthearted adventure that doesn't veer as much into darker subplots as a lot of Korean shows, though it has its moments. (Thinking of all the cute K-drama romcoms with scary a** serial killer subplots.)

Sweet Home: An apocalypse where people are suddenly monsterizing. Just finished Season 2, which was much different from Season 1. Season 1 was OK, but took a hit from its brevity, as it mostly ignored the psychological angle of the monsterizations. Season 2 was a confusing mess, adding a ton of new characters without much time put into giving them any distinctiveness, odd time jumps, a lot of lack of spotty plotting. Season 3 is coming, and Season 2 did end up with a reasonable launch point for it after much zig-zagging. Hopefully, Season 3 will return to the somewhat serviceable storytelling of Season 1. Overall, thin fare. 

Alchemy of Souls: Brings over the actor from Uncanny Counter who played the gruff but lovable middle aged guy, reprising  his stock character. (I can't recall the name, but I like the actor. Must watch with subtitles, b/c the American dub actor does not at all capture his vibe.) It's a world of kung-fu wizards, turned upside down by the forbidden sorcery of the Alchemy of Souls (body snatching by soul swapping, and other dastardly soul manipulations). Season one was decent, with a great female lead and great supporting cast. Season 2 diverges quite a bit from Season 1, and is pretty lacking in internal consistency, but was serviceable. It's a romance with some decent humor and some fairly dark subplots. (Still not as dark as those serial killers in the Park Bo Young romcoms -- and I recommend anything with her in it, though the quality varies a little. She's great as a romcom lead.)

Good Night World: Anime based on a manga that was apparently much better executed. Virtual reality game shenanigans, with plot points that are all over the place and zero internal consistency and poorly realized tech elements. (As in, the writers no bupkiss about tech and online gaming.) The worst thing about it is that it was short. It tried to cram 52 issues of a manga into 12 episodes of anime. The best thing about it is that it was short, so your suffering will also be short if you watch it.

Neon Genesis Evangelion: Just started watching this classic, which I haven't seen before. I'm about 8 episodes in and liking it. Watching the dub, because the dialog flows better than the subtitles. Voice acting quality seems good. Netflix has re-voiced this edition, apparently.

Barbie: We laughed all the way through this one. Another win for Margot Robbie's production company, IMO. You'll probably like it if you're not a member of

29 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Not sure Keanu is a good match for him though.

Well, I did specify Cyborg Guardian. IIRC, that one didn't do much emotion, so seemed like a fit. 😀

Let's see, for Keanu: Ghost Rider (he's expressed interest, and he's into motorcycles), The Shroud (stoic guy with martial arts and darkness powers), or maybe Guardian (James Hudson, cyborg version) from Alpha Flight.

Happy Log Day, Birthman! (

On 12/2/2023 at 1:01 PM, Ternaugh said:

That was where my mind went when I first heard of his passing. 

Mine went to "Only the Good Die Young."

Well, we all know Fox News anchors are paragons of manliness, so it's not surprising.

Made it to triple digits!

I'm mostly familiar with her from some appearances in the X-books from the late 80s, early 90s, where she's shown to be a competent team player. Granted, the character has been around for a very long time, and like many characters has a garbage back story, but I'm sure there are several incarnations better than what they put on screen.