domain:acoup.blog
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
6hr 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
7hr ago
Thanks. We're fine, the neighbors will need the services of a roofer and a glazer, though.
TowardsPanna
7hr ago
Filthy addicts... :P
Was it a good campaign, at least? What civ did you play?
No_one
7hr 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
7hr 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
7hr 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
7hr 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
7hr 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
7hr 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.
Mantergeistmann
7hr ago
The grandpa's brother had a contact in the Chilean government? This sounds less like "simple leatherworker" and more like maybe something is going on that is not being reported.
To be fair, I am no high-class fellow, and yet in a governmental crisis, my family could probably make calls to contacts to contact their contacts to contact their contacts and, eventually, find someone who might have heard something.
quiet_NaN
7hr ago
I think this his is straightforward a "can you believe the bad thing $outgroup has done?!!!11" comment, e.g. waging the culture war. The reporting quoted is certainly partisan. There is a slim chance that the other side had a point for this deportation beyond "we have a quota to meet and non-Americans do not really have rights here", not that I will cut them much slack here, because the part where they could sell their arguments for deportation would be a court hearing, which they decided is too much of a hassle.
Still, this is the kind of story which smells like it could end up being fabricated or misreported (say my subjective p(substantially correct)=0.7). If BC had made more of an effort to aggregate similar stories to make the -- imho highly plausible -- point that ICE is just deporting anyone they can get their hands on, I think this post would be ok.
Still, I think that with no prior record BC would have gotten a warning for that post, but one straw has to be the one which eventually breaks the camel's back.
Rov_Scam
7hr ago
Moving on, I've seen a few rumors floating around that these firings are due to the officials in question approving the Moderna COVID vaccine while RFK jr was on vacation. If this is true, and that's a big if, it's interesting for a few different reasons.
Do the officials in question even have that power? The FDA is under the aegis of HHS, but they have a separate review team that handles these things. I doubt Kennedy's Chief of Staff has veto power over FDA decisions.
HereAndGone
7hr ago
The first one is obviously a scammer, lots of these come out of the woodwork to offer help (at a hefty price) to families whenever there's something newsworthy like a tragedy reported.
The grandpa's brother had a contact in the Chilean government? This sounds less like "simple leatherworker" and more like maybe something is going on that is not being reported. If any of this is true and not a story being peddled around by "Nataly" to make bank off the outrage about deportations. Sometimes people do make up fake stories to sell, shocking I know!
oats_son
7hr ago
Yes, for me, video games are straight up just the best they have ever been. More than ever are releasing and they are excellent in so many ways. I wanted to hedge this by saying that there are some tradeoffs, like hardware being more expensive, but that's not a factor if you don't want it to be. You can remain an herbivore gamer and just play indie games that run on anything and those are still head and shoulders above most stuff from 30 years ago. We've figured out a lot about how to make things fun since then. And everything is way more accessible now, since you can buy games without leaving your house. I suppose you could say that there is less nostalgia now, if you've been playing games a long time, but that wouldn't be a concern for some kid starting to play video games right now. Also,
Everything else has tradeoffs, at best. Medicine is much better now, but the average age of the United States is much older, and healthcare costs have ballooned. You can reach so many more people with your effortposts and read whatever you want, and that would be great, but it's turned into such a double-edged sword, with echo chambers forming and subcultures within subcultures growing ever more toxic and distanced from reality, and in the last year, we seem to be seeing a return to ideological terrorism. Movies are stunning, but shallow, lacking the balance and variety that the 90s (and 2000s, probably) had. Pop music seems to be more vulgar to me now, and will never be a shared cultural touchstone as it had been in the years before the 2010s, though you can listen to anything from across the entire world now. College is probably actively worse than it was in the 90s, it costs more, there is rampant leftist ideology influencing many classes (though not all, I had plenty of great history courses, the art ones were where I really ran into it), and the degrees seem less useful.
You already mentioned most of that, but if many people thought the 90s was close to the peak, I wonder, had smart phones been invented in the 90s, would the same trends we saw in the 2010s happen, with people widely critiquing lack of healthcare and historical oppression of women and minorities? Would they fail to recognize the golden age they were living in? Probably, if you ask me.
Mantergeistmann
7hr ago
Nataly — who has asked her surname not be used to protect her family
... as opposed to her Grandfather's surname?
According to Nataly, a Chilean government contact of Leon’s brother was able to reach an official here who told him Leon had been taken to Minnesota, then to Guatemala.
I mean, that should have been easily verifiable - can't be that many flights, commerical or otherwise, from Minnesota to Guatemala.
Yeah, there's a lot going on here, but admittedly, the resources of a small-ish local paper are not going to be that great for pursuing stories, as opposed to just going by what they're being told. At some point, they're probably hoping a large outlet can pick it up and do the investigation, since it's outside their bailiwick.
quiet_NaN
7hr ago
I think that for theguardian, such a story might simply be too good to risk ruining it with a fact check.
On the other hand, nothing in it seems implausible given my knowledge of the Trump administration. The only thing mildly surprising is that there is no allegation of excessive violence during the arrest.
The goons of ICE are likely working on a quota basis. Trump wants that many people deported per months, he does not care who it is. They know that Trump does not give a rats ass about following proper procedure, that guy had his mob try to stop the certification of an election before, and has shown a great willingness to pardon any deeds done by his side in the culture war.
If the courts overturn the deportation decision, that is still a win for Trump, because he can paint himself as following campaign promises to the best of his ability while being hampered by the cuddly justice system.
Deporting armed gang members who might prefer death to spending the rest of their life imprisoned without judgement in some hell in El Salvador is obviously a dangerous occupation. But luckily there are plenty of harmless immigrants which you can deport instead, and they will count just as much for statistical purposes.
Because of the CW, there is also zero consideration to the individual's case. Either you are MAGA and support all deportations, or your are left-wing and support none. The moderate position that deporting someone who came to the US age 15 and has served multiple sentences for assault is fine but that deporting an elderly man without a criminal record is bad is not shared by either side, because both see it as a slippery slope towards their enemies position.
phailyoor
7hr ago
Hmm interesting, I kind of beleived the story at first, but now I could see the entire thing being a lame hoax and entirely the figment of one person's imagination.
A woman claiming to be an immigration attorney contacted the family unsolicited a few days after Leon was arrested and claimed to know where he was, though she wouldn’t say where. On July 9, the woman called to say Leon had died in detention, offering scant details. The family has since been unable to reach her.
According to Nataly, a Chilean government contact of Leon’s brother was able to reach an official here who told him Leon had been taken to Minnesota, then to Guatemala.
Like come on, this is like saying a fairy came and told her where he was.
birb_cromble
7hr ago
I hadn't considered how Congress fit into all of this. Thanks for giving me something to ponder.
Mantergeistmann
7hr ago
No one says “shame on all doctors” or “shame on medicine as an institution” just because thousands of people die from medical errors yearly.
"I often say a great doctor kills more people than a great general." -- Gottfried Leibniz
Wohlfe
7hr ago
Based on my experience working in the government and large organizations, it's #4. Leadership is so far removed from where the work is actually done that intent and desire doesn't matter, you have to make clear updated rules and guidelines for the low-level managers and employees to follow. If I'm FDA reviewer #123456 and a vaccine approval comes across my desk, am I going to cover my ass and follow the official guidelines my bosses constantly tell me I have to follow to the letter, or stick my neck out and do what I assume RFK Jr. wants me to do?
This possibility (#2) is interesting because it makes me realize that I don't actually know what the stated purpose of agency officials is. Is their highest goal to serve the purpose of the agency, or the will of the electorate? Even if they claim one or the other, what processes do we have to ensure that's true?
I think the answer to that one is that the electorate, at some point, willed the agency into existence with a mission statement, and thus their job is to follow this mission statement, period, until the electorate amends the mission statement or closes the agency. In theory, of course, it shouldn't be up to government employees to do political analysis to try and figure out the electorate's wishes. Still, I think this arrangement gives them a lot of leeway, especially with a disfunctional legislative body that is unable to direct these agencies, at that point everyone kinda hopes for and turns a blind eye to agencies stretching their mission statement.
hanikrummihundursvin
8hr ago
Perhaps after the end of Trump, the USA will be in a position where it can apply for readmission to the human race...
I'm no fan of the USA, but considering the rest of the world, that statement is not serious.
roystgnr
8hr ago
Also, the music is much better IMO
The music in Frozen 2 is better
Am I taking crazy pills? "Non est disputandum" and all that, but still, really?
Frozen (1) was entirely supported by "Let It Go", which was so amazing (though the plot played it too straight in the end) that the flaws in the movie's plot and characterization were nothing compared to the zombie-apocalypse-level infectiousness of that song. I'm sure "Into the Unknown" managed most of the same technical feats of clever key modulation and whatever, but the lyrics and melody weren't nearly as interesting. For like a year afterward teachers were complaining that you couldn't put five kids in a room together without one of them starting to sing "Let It Go" and turning the whole group into an impromptu choir.
But even aside from the tentpole song? Frozen 2 had nothing as funny as "In Summer", and nothing as heartwrenching as "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?". I admit "Lost in the Woods" was impressively mature for a kids' movie, but I think "Love is an Open Door" would have been up there if only its irony had been a little less subtle. (of course, that time the plot managed to drive the irony in later, with a sledgehammer; modern Disney can show the problems with "love at first sight" more clearly than with "girl power leads to monologuing like a supervillain")
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
8hr ago
Right. No one says “shame on all doctors” or “shame on medicine as an institution” just because thousands of people die from medical errors yearly. Complicated centralized operations are bound to result in errors, especially in a country with a lot of stupid people. This is also just a general issue with importing stupid people into your country, and why it’s good to deport any who make it in. Imagine an operation like this, done by people with an even lower IQ?
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.
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