RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
Married to a tomboy, so I have that going for me, which is nice.
User ID: 3756
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
I would call it a whopper because it sounds like a music blurb written by Patrick Bateman. That's supposed to be dialog from a teenager?
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
I still have all my old MTG decks
What era(s)?
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
I was too old for Pokemon. I sold off my MTG collection in 2004. I occasionally look at the current prices on cards I had and suffer the agony of knowing I could've bought a luxury car had I kept them and sold in 2015 or later.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
otherwise you’d have to discard 90% of the franchise including the prequels too.
Your terms are acceptable.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
28d ago
The relevant original intent is the original intent of the framers and ratifiers of the 14th amendment, and this is hard to work out because the Jim Crow-era SCOTUS rendered the Privileges and Immunities clause nugatory in a way which was almost certainly not compatible with the intent of the Reconstruction Congress.
There are some law review articles arguing why Slaughterhouse was correctly decided, which even if not persuasive, marshal some interesting evidence against the now-common position that Slaughterhouse was beyond wrong.
Rehabilitating the Slaughterhouse Cases by Maltz
Privileges or Immunities by Hamburger
The Fourteenth Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities of American Citizenship by Lash (book, not article)
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
30d ago
It can't help itself but to include prominent cleavage in all the female sprites, which... could be acceptable, were again, its art style not so distractingly detailed. But you end up with these perfectly spherical breasts contoured with perfect curve-following grids, which look like they belong in a calculus class. Beautiful! But distracting.
It sounds like the training material was the 1992-2002 corpus of Image Comics.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
30d ago
I haven't noticed recent increases besides gas/diesel, which seems to be about $4.50/$6 around me.
About 4 months ago, most dry goods at the grocery store went up at least $1, with many of them going up $2 (there is only one grocery store, yay rural living). There has not (yet) been another big increase that I've noticed.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
It's not just you. It's the top story on APnews this morning. It's been one of the top stories on there for the past week.
And one of the stories this morning is alarmism about the CDC not getting involved, which is a nice 2-for-1 of virus and Trump alarmism.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Also has to avoid the widespread welfare fraud the feds used to pursue a bunch of the FLDS.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
In that case, you should like the Archer novels. The plotting and writing are generally better, but the overall noir vibe isn't quite as good as the Marlowe novels.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
That somewhat describes the Marlowe novels by Raymond Chandler, but it definitely describes the Lew Archer novels by MacDonald. Archer is dedicated to doing the right thing, which tends to be dragging into the light the secrets of the rich and corrupt. Pulpy, but high grade pulp, and 100% earnest.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
It’s not aliens. It’s the remnants of technologically advanced civilizations that rose and fell in earths antediluvian past.
I like it. I always thought that the badlands in southern Utah (like the Bentonite Hills for one of many examples there) always looked like slag heaps of long-departed civilizations.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Just need to start your own fundamentalist Mormon cult to get those extra Scottish wives. Lure those missionaries in and convince them coffee and polygamy and definitely no divorce are your newest revelations.
This plan worked out well for the FLDS for a number of decades, but the wheels have come off in the past 10 years.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
I do believe that your current explanation is idiosyncratic, in the sense that the typical Mormon wouldn't see caffeine pills as an acceptable way of dodging their nominal religious obligations.
I know many LDS members, and quite a few live on energy drinks, full-sugar caffeinated sodas, or caffeine supplements of some kind. They strictly abide the "no coffee or tea" but are quite happy to get synthetic caffeine sources. The Word of Wisdom prohibits coffee and tea, not caffeine itself.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
I've been listening today. Pretty cool. The first 2 times I tried yesterday it was playing something I would associate with being dragged to a terrible club, but I hit a good streak today starting with a Skip Spence song. I'd say it's about 1/4 songs I think are particularly good or interesting, 2/4 that are okay and have something about them I like, and 1/4 I find almost unlistenable. For a free station with no commercials, I can live with that.
Have you already raided the AOR Disco archives? The site is defunct, but it's still possible to download some playlists or find them through soundcloud or bandcamp. Some super rare 70s stuff there only released on 45s, for example, and fun yacht rock mixes, weird remixes and edits, and more.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Along those lines, but I guess it's more of a phrase than word, "based and [blank] pilled," where the [blank] is ridiculous will always get a chortle from me. Like a schizo rant I saw that mentioned only eating one meal every other day and one comment was simply "based and snakepilled."
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Especially when it's contrasted with shape rotator.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Howling Mutant is one of the funniest people on X, but you're not going to feel good about it.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Seconding Fagles. I found those to be enjoyable and comprehensible without feeling like I was reading Homer for Dummies (which they might be, for all I know, since I haven't read other translations).
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Also, at some point I'd love to hear from someone who knows better what the grounds were for removing his defense attorney and assigning him a new one, apparently of the court's choosing.
I started looking into this, and the short answer is that it's going to take a bunch of research to figure out how defense counsel are assigned to indigent defendants in that jurisdiction.
From reviewing news articles (for his state case), it appears he could not be assigned someone from the Public Defender because one of their employees was in the crowd. That's a straight forward conflict of interest that would keep the office from taking the case (and also why it's a bad idea for PD employees to attend protests and such).
He was assigned Charles Weber as defense counsel. However, Weber was one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Charlottesville trying to prevent the removal of the Robert Lee statue, which is the same thing the Unite the Right rally was ostensibly protesting. This is one of those potential ethical conflicts that crops up whenever an attorney is doing general practice law (including suing local governments) and also getting assigned criminal defense cases as part of an indigent defense contract. At some point, the attorney is going to be suing some part of a government that's also prosecuting one of the attorney's clients.
Weber's situation is probably an ethical conflict, but it's one of those that would appear on a legal exam because it can be argued either way. The interests of the attorney aren't contrary to the client, for example. But he's not acting as an attorney in the lawsuit about the statue, he's a plaintiff. That's maybe a little different for the ethical analysis. If he filed a motion to withdraw due to that conflict, every judge I've ever appeared in front of would grant it. It's too risky and getting the attorney off the case is easier for everyone. I don't know from news reports if Weber asked to be relieved.
The judge deciding on his own to relieve Weber due to a conflict? That would be extremely unusual in my state. The judges leave it to the attorneys to determine any conflicts and it falls on them if they make the wrong call. Maybe in VA it's normal for a judge, on their own, to decide to get involved in addressing a potential conflict without either party raising it. I don't know.
In my state, if one court-appointed attorney is removed, the usual procedure is that it goes back to some office for determination of new counsel. That office hunts around to find some new attorney who can take it. This might be by routine assignment or calling around to say, "hey, there is a big murder case with lots of media attention that needs an attorney. Can you take it?" Once someone says yes, they alert the court and the court issues an order appointing that new attorney. The judge doesn't pick the attorney, but it can look that way because there's a specific order from a judge appointing a named attorney.
If the assignment of court-appointed counsel is anything like that in VA, then that's how the defendant ended up with a new attorney that appears to be of "the court's choosing."
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
Asking for alimony from a wealthier ex-wife is humiliating.
I don't know, Cernovich seems to be getting along okay.
All this hantavirus stuff is strange. When I first heard of it 20+ years ago (I think a death on the Navajo Nation in NM or something), it was clear that it took close inhalation from an immense amount of mouse fecal material (like being in a filthy crawl space without a ventilator mask for hours). Now between Hackman's wife and the cruise ship outbreak, that no longer seems to be the case.
edit--I was off by 10ish years, it was the 1993 outbreak I remembered.
Their initial recommendation was to name the pathogen Muerto Canyon virus, after an involved area on the Navajo Reservation. The Navajo people reacted strongly against any further association with the disease that had led to so much initial prejudice, and tribal elders appealed to officials to reconsider. Ultimately, the new agent was officially named Sin Nombre virus (virus with no name).
A deadly new virus came out of a place called Cañon del Muerto. C'mon man.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
I am going to be maximally cynical and say this is how justice works in our brave new diverse society.
I agree with the interpretation by @Rov_Scam that this case is probably a conviction for involuntary manslaughter at trial, at most. It would also be a total media circus.
The incumbent DA is a Dem who was appointed in 2021 and won a “non-partisan” election in 2022 over a Republican challenger. He’s up for reelection this year but I don’t see any news stories about a challenger. The filing deadlines have now passed.
This is the DA. Does this look like a man who wants a series of attack ads from a non-white lefty Dem challenger calling him a vicious racist who’s persecuting a poor oppressed immigrant for exercising his first amendment rights? The DA is the son of Ukrainian immigrants (talk about an American success story), but that won’t save him from being called an oppressor and racist.
He wouldn’t stand a chance against a non-white challenger who could credibly signal that he’d never prosecute a Muslim for killing an old Jew an oppressed immigrant who was exercising his first amendment rights and advocating on behalf of other oppressed peoples when a rude counter-protestor caused a scuffle that led to the counter-protestor’s accidental death. He’s safe for the 2026 election, but does he want to deal with a recall petition? Especially when his “victory” in this case might be a conviction for involuntary manslaughter where the judge has heavily signaled that he’ll be lenient?
Judge Malan won his election in 2024. He won’t need to run again until 2028, but does he want a media circus from this case? I doubt it. How'd that work out for the judge in the Brock Turner case?
The series of continuances that pushed this case (over 2 years old) out past the filing deadline for a challenger to the DA? It doesn't take much cynicism to see the motivation behind that.
With this outcome, the defendant gets what he wants. The prosecutor closes the case and gets to make a fuss about the judge being too lenient but whatchagonnado (and conveniently avoids riling up a loud segment of the Dem base that might cause him to face a recall or lose the next election). The judge gets to avoid a media circus in his courtroom and avoid generating bad publicity for his next election.
The victim’s family and friends and ethnic group are going to be mad about it, but what are they going to do? Vote for the non-existent Republican?
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
1mo ago
if you went for lunch you could get biryani, the curry of the day, some boneless chicken appetizer, naan, and gulab jamun, all for only $12 or so.
Unfortunately they went out of business,
I'm not a restaurateur, but I think I can draw the line between these two statements.
How much emergency cash do people keep around?
and where precisely so I know where to lookI don't mean uninvested money in a checking account or whatever, I mean literal cash not in a bank.I have a few thousand, which might be too much, but zero feels like too little.
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