domain:alexberenson.substack.com
oats_son
2m ago
This is a point in favor of my thinking that video games are better now than ever. All of the video game equivalents of crack cocaine have generally released within the last 15 years. I got horribly addicted to Caves of Qud, Dwarf Fortress, Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (I think @TracingWoodgrains may have played all three of these? He had an AAQC on roguelikes on the subreddit), Escape from Tarkov, Mount and Blade Warband, and likely others that I don't remember right now. Maybe that's just my brain being different as an adult somehow, but "gaming crack" seems like it's alive and well. Plus, you can still play all the old stuff!
Crowstep
3m ago
In a civilized country like the UK, firstly something like this would never have happened as the man would have a right to argue against his deportation in front of a judge, so none of this "ambush deportation" would ever be possible
The UK, it should be noted, cannot deport illegal immigrants at any meaningful rate, and its capacity to do so has completely collapsed. To give foreign readers an idea of how farcical the system is, one Nigerian woman appealed her deportation eight times before deliberately joining a Nigerian terrorist organisation, and then (successfully) arguing that she would face persecution in Nigeria because of her membership of said terrorist organisation.
I'd rather have a system that occasionally unjustly deports a tiny number of people to one which deports almost nobody.
This is also probably the only case I've ever seen where the euphemism 'undocumented migrant' is appropriate. He literally lost his documents, as opposed to just not having them because he's in the country illegally.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
8m ago
Insofar as I've understood the specific criteria for ineligibility for asylum in US is membership in a Communist or otherwise totalitarian party, which is something that might apply to a Pinochet regime opponent but by no means was guaranteed to be the fact.
TowardsPanna
8m ago
Sounds like Civ 6? I'm still on 5. Skeptical towards 7 too.
hydroacetylene
9m ago
This was an unusually drama heavy week. I’m going to encourage you to stick around to read the first quality contributions report after your arrival and see what we’re aiming for here.
hydroacetylene
16m ago
If he was granted asylum due to fear of torture by Pinochet, then he was a communist who should have been handed over to operation condor at the time, and was ineligible for asylum under US law. Finding and deporting such cases is a stated priority of the Trump admin.
PokerPirate
17m ago
I think the great LKY put it far far better than I ever could talking about the true character of Americans
I very much enjoyed your link because I enjoy listening to historical leaders talk about how they see the world and why.
But I don't see this link as a meaningful example of America's flaws. In the video, LKY talks about how a CIA officer tried to bribe a Singaporean security official and why he won't work with America because of the fallout. This is something that all countries would do and have done on 1000s of occasions. The fact that the US did this in a hap-hazard, unskilled way I don't think reflects poorly on the US. If anything, the fact that the CIA was incompetent I think reflects well on the US for not "needing" this type of espionage for most of its history. I expect these days the CIA to be significantly more competent than the 1960s because it has now existed for 80 years instead of 20.
Tiber727
19m ago
Well yes. It's a TV drama after all. No one's going to watch a story about common problems that are easily diagnosed and solved.
It's still probably good advice for real doctors.
pigeonburger
28m ago
In the show's defense, sometimes it's not a zebra, it's horse with stripes painted on it so that they waste the whole episode assuming it's a zebra.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
30m ago
Foreman said it, House told him off for it:
Are you in first year of medical school? No. First of all, there’s nothing on the CAT scan. Second of all, if this is a horse then the kindly family doctor in Trenton makes the obvious diagnosis and it never gets near this office. Differential diagnosis, people: if it’s not a tumor what are the suspects? Why couldn’t she talk?
And it was a zebra, of course, neurotrichinosis.
(And sometimes the medical community thinks a condition is a zebra when it's actually a horse)
thejdizzler
36m ago
Maori on the classic Terra map. Got the whole continent to myself and got to play a nice relaxing dev game.
gattsuru
37m ago
Most of the Disney sequels are direct-to-video releases, so even when they're not trash, they're going to have an obvious decrease in animation quality and integration. And a lot of them are trash, or at best random TV episodes stapled together (eg, Kronk's New Groove).
That said, there are exceptions that are at least decent, even among the direct-to-video market. In addition to the Aladdin sequels, The Lion King II and 1-and-1/2 are late enough that their animation is decent, and they avoid their stories being too bad, but they're not exactly high literature.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
39m ago
This sounds less like "simple leatherworker" and more like maybe something is going on that is not being reported.
He was granted asylum because he was tortured by Pinochet, so he was probably involved with left-wing politicos there. Maybe he kept in contact.
orthoxerox
If you can read this, you're using a custom theme
42m ago
Thanks. We're fine, the neighbors will need the services of a roofer and a glazer, though.
TowardsPanna
42m ago
Filthy addicts... :P
Was it a good campaign, at least? What civ did you play?
No_one
47m ago
Interesting developments in Ukraine. Very unclear what's going on, but possibly US supported change of leadership within the near future. That's just a guess.
On Friday the 18th, there were two hit pieces on Zelensky, one in FT and another in Spectator. TL;DR on them is: West is disappointed with Zelensky because he appears to be using the cover of war to attack people who were fighting against corruption in Ukraine and using authoritarian means to go after politicians who aren't seen as fully loyal to him.
That's not new - Ukrainians have been muttering about precisely that for years. But Westerners are reading it now, and as has been pointed out, if you're reading it, it's for you..
There were some Ukrainian and one older Politico.EU articles with a similar tone but all much lower profile. Now the Man wants us to know Zelensky is not the greatest hero since Churchill. Why?
Then, on Saturday, in a surprising move, Zelensky called for negotiations. Here's Guardian reporting on it..
Looking at the previous round of negotiations, those were futile. Without concessions that Ukrainians, especially the nationalists find unthinkable, Russians aren't stopping. In addition last week Trump gave Russia some sort of '50 days' ultimatum.. No idea what that means- threatening tariffs on a country that has had 20 rounds of sanctions imposed on it seems odd.
The last time(end of may '25) they tried negotiating there was no agreement (Russians wanted the 4 oblasts, a little land in them they didn't have yet and ofc Crimea), which Ukraine didn't want to agree too even though they have, at present, a snowball's chance in hell of regaining any territory and are inexorably losing more at an escalating pace. Mind you, this is pretty much 'minimalism' on the Russian side. Ukrainians, just to start proper negotiations wanted an 'unconditional 30 day ceasefire', to which Russians were unwilling to agree because they thought it was just a stalling tactic to get time to build more defensive lines.
There's no reason to believe Russians are going to be in any way more amenable this time -they've taken more ground, their forces are being sustained, unlike the Ukrainian ones.
Town of Pokrovsk (~70k before war) whose supply lines have been interdicted for months now & ofc town itself has been under constant attrition is getting ever more cut off. Russians have massed forces to actually cut off the town and Ukraine doesn't have any reserves to counter that, so there's risk of the city getting wholly cut off.
So what to make of it? Seymour Hersh claims that US wants to replace Zelensky with Zaluzhny. A regime journalist calls that 'Ukrainian disinformation'..
But Hersh also claims US is trying to reach an agreement with Russia while it's still possible. Russians who are confident they can see it through obviously don't want to make any deal that'd be less than full recognition of conquered territory & Finlandization of rump Ukraine. So, why even attempt to negotiate? If Zelensky were to make peace, he'd have to fight the nationalists who won't give up this easily, go against his western sponsors who don't want the war to end either. He clearly doesn't have support to end the war.
It looks like desperate flailing from Zelensky's side. Or is the army personnel/ammo situation so critical that he expects it to be close to collapse within a month? Very little is known about how bad it is for AFU (it's all secret and they rarely say anything). About the best report is this Polish one, which says Ukraine requires 300,000 soldiers to fully staff its combat formations, and that presently there are cca 300,000 men in the trenches.
Chrisprattalpharaptr
Ave Imperaptor
49m ago
Contra Whinning Coil: somebody flaming out because Whinning Coil was allowed to express racist views.
Oh, come now. I could just as easily frame it as Turok and Count were banned because someone was allowed to criticize MAGAs and their feelings were getting hurt. Or are you going to argue that Whiningcoil (and many others!) is habitually more charitable and 'arguing to understand, rather than wage the culture war' than either of those two? I can provide receipts if you like but I assume we can both find better things to do with our time.
pigeonburger
49m ago
but the medical one goes by "if you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras".
This one makes me laugh because I heard it first on an early episode of House MD (maybe even the first episode?), and then the show is the biggest zebra parade you ever saw.
birb_cromble
53m ago
Do the officials in question even have that power?
TBH, that's part of why I posted this. My experience with the federal government is largely limited to contract compliance. Once you get into questions of who has the power to do anything, I rapidly get out of my depth.
Would the recent supreme court decision about independent agencies have any impact on that power?
thejdizzler
55m ago
Just reminded of why I cannot play video games (at all). Whole weekend and part of this morning were taken up by civ, when I should have been doing other things.
gattsuru
57m ago
I'll second that. The first Rescuers was a work of love in a lot of ways and better from a matter of pacing, it has to fight a lot with the story it was using being originally intended for a novella format. Down Under has its faults and was a commercial flop, but the difference in animation quality a decade makes is vast, and the story, while more Topical for its time, avoids the ten thousand coincidences problem in the original.
A lot of that era also just benefits from the new technology (and, to a lesser extent, 'kids movies' developing enough demand to get a sizable budget). For a non-Disney example, Fievel Goes West is a much more marginal improvement from An American Tail, but the clarity of animation, audio quality, so on is massively improved, entirely downstream of technological advances. There's a few scenes in American Tail that are amazing efforts for what could be done, and what got Bluth his name and reputation... and also are just muddled and muddy by modern standards, with Scooby-Doo-level matting. Fievel Goes West still isn't as clear as modern-day techniques, but it's night-and-day.
Civ 6 is currently free (including expansions and DLC) on Epic, for anyone who doesn't have it yet.
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