Messages

1

Apple Talk / Re: Suu demands to know what you are listening to!

« on: June 20, 2022, 03:40:00 pm »

Alpha Blondy - Amour Papier Longueur

Some Ivorian reggae never hurts

2

Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only

« on: June 20, 2022, 11:42:57 am »

I saw the picture on Facebook! How's the (lack of) tooth feeling?

3

Principia Discussion / Re: How much one hates hippis

« on: June 11, 2022, 07:51:11 pm »

I'm sorry, I'm sure it's a really angry screed he wrote there, but I can't get over how he typed angrily in ALL CAPS only for his phone to change it to caps at the start of the sentence instead.

4

Apple Talk / Re: Banned on FB again.

« on: June 08, 2022, 07:06:24 pm »

That's pretty much exactly what is going on. I suspect they have some kind of very narrowly defined criterea where it can get kicked up to an actual human, but since everyone except bots wants their disputes viewed by a human they have to keep it narrow or else they'd be overwhelmed (or they could hire a proper content management department, but that would involve committing to spend money long-term).

I suspect they also don't really want to moderate content effectively, because as soon as they start showing they can they'll have to justify keeping all the bullshit artists, bigots and bots on the website.

5

Aneristic Illusions / Re: UNLIMITED American gun slobber thread.

« on: June 08, 2022, 07:00:42 pm »

How else will you protect your children when 30-50 feral prarie dogs invade your yard?

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Aneristic Illusions / Re: UNLIMITED American gun slobber thread.

« on: May 26, 2022, 08:23:23 pm »

American exceptionalism is when more children die from gun deaths than any other single cause. And the more children are dead, the more America is exceptional.

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Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only

« on: May 26, 2022, 11:38:35 am »

Sounds like just everything that could go wrong doing so. Glad to hear she's doing better though!

8

Principia Discussion / Re: RAW, Leary, and all the rest... Why did they think aliens contacted them?

« on: May 23, 2022, 06:07:31 pm »

That almost sounds like a sleep paralysis episode. Some of those it's very obvious that you're awake - which lends a terrifying quality to it all, especially if you don't know what's going on (I imagine), but I've had at least a couple where I'm fairly sure I wasn't fully conscious at the time. That "fear impressioning me to think the dream was real" sounds very much like those experiences.

Might not be, but I thought that I'd throw it out there. Especially since there has been a suggested link between sleep paralysis and some abduction reports.

9

Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only

« on: May 06, 2022, 01:30:49 pm »

While Covid psychosis (which I'd never even heard of until today) obviously isn't great, it is better than the alternative.

And yeah, Roe v Wade is just the opening move in a plan to obliterate the Federal state. Note I'm not saying they're not doing it because they don't hate women (they obviously do), just that it's both a goal in and of itself and a stepping stone to further judicial revisions. Gay marriage, LGBT protections in general and very possibly even mixed race marriage will all be in the crosshairs.

10

Apple Talk / Re: Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only

« on: April 13, 2022, 11:42:37 am »

Howl, you have to read this shit. I swear to god. The phrase "if my baby gets sick I will commit Zamboni Crimes" is in the opening fucking paragraph.

https://billshaner.substack.com/p/an-insane-person-for-an-insane-job

 

I was sold by the third paragraph, but I especially enjoyed these ones:

Look, I understand that wealthy people reading this are rightfully scared. You know you didn’t earn your horde. But let me put it this way: Either you let us kill some rich people, or we burn down society and kill you all. That’s exactly the same offer capitalists extend to workers. You might even stand to benefit!

Since my cruelty will be focused only upon the richest of the rich, mid-level rich fuckers stand to benefit the most from my cruel reign of hilarious terror. Just like in the forest, when a mighty oak falls, the sunlight is quickly lapped up by treacherous social climbers willing to sell out bastards they don’t even like in exchange for a chance at their now-empty throne.

11

Apple Talk / Re: Seriously, NOW where is the Youtube thread?

« on: April 05, 2022, 02:13:35 pm »

Oh dear.

12

Aneristic Illusions / Re: Picking Cain's Brains

« on: March 26, 2022, 02:20:24 pm »

Hey, Cain. How much of an issue do you think the food/grain/fertilizer/etc shortages are going to be?

In combination with a lot of other factors, it's not pretty. Uptake from Canada, Australia and China is helping offset a significant loss from the Ukrainian and Russian markets but it only goes so far and China in particular will likely be struggling due to harvest conditions there. I'd say further price rises are all but inevitable at this point.

Are we looking at a situation where millions of impoverished people die of starvation? That bad?

Potentially. Any price instability when people are on thin margins is always going to carry that risk, and this disruption is significant (low double digits of global trade, but that's still a big plurality given we're talking about...well, global trade).

The countries I would worry about most are Afghanistan, which is already suffering a starvation crisis partially created by the freezing of assets by the US State Department, Ethiopia and Yemen. All three rely primarily on a mix of Russian and Ukrainian exports and are also suffering from ongoing fighting, and so are extremely exposed to this kind of thing. To a lesser extent Egypt, Syria and Iran are also heavily affected and there may be increased domestic instability as a result of this

13

Aneristic Illusions / Re: Picking Cain's Brains

« on: March 25, 2022, 10:52:48 pm »

Hey, Cain. How much of an issue do you think the food/grain/fertilizer/etc shortages are going to be?

In combination with a lot of other factors, it's not pretty. Uptake from Canada, Australia and China is helping offset a significant loss from the Ukrainian and Russian markets but it only goes so far and China in particular will likely be struggling due to harvest conditions there. I'd say further price rises are all but inevitable at this point.

14

Aneristic Illusions / Re: Picking Cain's Brains

« on: March 23, 2022, 09:18:28 pm »

Anyone who says “mainstream, media-backed position” as a serious response to the regulars of this forum has made a serious mistake. I’d wager that if people here aren’t sure of what to think but have the fear of saying “I don’t know,” they’d go with the goddamn contrarian position for fucking kicks. Get real, please.

I'd love for some actual discussion of the propaganda stream.

I hear a lot about Russian military casualties and destroyed materiel, and there's a lot about Ukrainian civilian casualties (and footage of blown-up apartment buildings), but there's practically nothing about Ukrainian military losses.  I understand that broadcasting information on the state of your troops isn't exactly good practice, but the lack of even casualty numbers is conspicuous to say the least.  Just how bad is it?

The videos of Ukrainians towing Russian tanks and disarming bombs are great for morale, but doesn't say much about the real situation (and I think the bomb disarming one may have been staged).

And what's up with Russia deciding to break out the hypersonic missiles?  It's nifty tech and all, but... those things have to be stupidly expensive, they probably don't have many to spare, and if they provided a path for Russia to wrap this up quickly, they'd have done so long ago.  Is this just Putinesque dick-waving?

Honestly? The casualty numbers look worse for the Russians right now, though of course any hard data is tricky. Estimates put Ukrainian military casualties between 2000 and 4000 at the moment. I assume this excludes paramilitary groups like Azov, because no-one cares about them.

At the same time, Russian military casualties are estimated to be between 4000-10,000. Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-Putin outlet, reported a casualty number of 9,861 from Russian MoD sources, but quickly scrubbed it from the internet.

What we can say with some certainty is that Russian tactical intelligence sucks on the ground, while Ukrainian intelligence seems very much on the ball. Five different Russian generals have been killed by the Ukrainians since the start of the conflict, some with service records going back to the Chechen conflicts. That's not sheer luck, I can assure you.

As for the hypersonic missiles, while a psychological shock factor certainly can't be ruled out, the Pentagon believe it's because Putin is running low on precision-guided weaponry. Ukranian air defence has denied Russia the air superiority it needs to turn this campaign around, and so this could be a case of throwing everything that has a chance of getting through at them, and hoping it's enough to put a dent in their defences to allow that.

15

Aneristic Illusions / Re: Picking Cain's Brains

« on: March 02, 2022, 10:13:23 am »

It doesn't even matter at this point. NATO all but just collectively agreed to shoot down Russian planes in their air space. Because backing a solipsistic nut job with Nuclear Launch Codes, who's just humiliated himself in front of the entire World, even further into a corner is sure to work out well for everyone.

I mean, seriously? Is no one else getting "Don't Look Up" vibes right now? What in the actual fuck is going on?

"All but agreed?"

NATO is not going to send the troops into Ukraine or move planes into Ukrainian airspace.

Gentlemen, as Secretary General has now said, we are not sending any jets to Ukraine because that would open a military interference in the Ukrainian conflict. We are not joining that conflict. NATO is not a party to that conflict. However as I said, we are supporting Ukrainians with humanity aid. However, we are not going to send any jets to the Ukrainian airspace.