wanted to renounce American citizenship and move to British commonwealth (Australia).

Before, I said I wanted to move to a British commonwealth country like New Zealand or Australia or Canada. I am closer to pick Australia, because of Canadian weather. I watched Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne nightclubs and night life videos on youtube. Then I started watching the Australian Broadcast Channel news on youtube back in Wisconsin and continued in Minnesota. Australian cities don’t look like the public domain disasters like Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Vancouver ( British Columbia), New York City, Chicago, with the druggies and fentanyl, garbage, poop in the streets. Druggies half dressed and bent over walking.

These thoughts started when I played Diablo 2 Lord of Destruction on battlenet in 2001. I noticed my cousin David Hartmon would come over less often. Then in 2004, I was playing Neverwinter Nights and Guild Wars online multiplayer. Those are massive multiplayer role playing games. I had it right in 2001-2004 over 56k. David Hartmon joined the US navy in 2003 and never left. He fixes helicopter engines. I had nobody for pillow forts, no Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network partner. He was also a NES, Genesis, SNES, Nintendo 64, Saturn, Dreamcast, PS2, and Gamecube multiplayer partner. In 2010, I had like Uli Winzer, but he only came over 10 times and we eventually went to Como zoo and Mall of America in the 2010s. In the 2020s neither family members visit. In 2024, I met Mason, but he never visits. Mason is 23. I met Mason at Walgreens. He likes Switch and Xbox One. He played all the first person shooters and horror games. I played Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on N64 and Unreal Tournament, Unreal, Quake 2, Duke Nukem 3D, Doom and Quake 3 on pc with David Hartmon. Latter, it was Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal Tournament 3, and Diablo 2 with David Hartmon. Yes, even the Pierce county fair visits with David Hartmon and Uli Winzer.

I would always want a girlfriend in Australia. The women in the current soft guy era in Minnesota and Wisconsin never paid attention to me. In the previous era, I was in the River Falls, Wisconsin bars from the the 2000s and 2010s and nobody invited me to tables or was a true partner. I was in bars with Randy Peterson (boy scout troop 161) in the 2000s and 2010s. Minnesotans are really mean. Minnesota nice doesn’t exist. I bet Australians or Canadian are really nice group to know for relationships. Those countries don’t have American public debt. ~ 40 trillion and the social chaos on the brink of American Civil War 2. It’s gross!

I went to Rasmussen University for a 4 year college degree over 8 years, but no student became my friend. This tutor called Brian Sager at the learning center who also was school staff who sometimes talked to me, but was my closest college friend. I thought I had friends in college, but they all disappeared and apparently not good honest people except Brian Sager is still my facebook friend . Brian likes horror movies and wrestling. Brian Sager said he’d meet me if I trade him Earthbound for super nintendo for money. I brought a generic copy of Earthbound to his meeting place/swap meet, but never could find him there. That’s bad and made me mad!

The Corruption of Rep. Adam Schiff is Reaching a Tipping Point

It is no secret that far left Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff uses sleazy tactics to go after his political opponents. While most members of Congress usually skate on ethics charges, or receive light penalties, once in a great while their behavior is so overtly criminal that they end up prosecuted. Although Democrats are far more likely to use lawfare against Republicans than vice versa, when the behavior is so criminal, even Democrats — such as New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez who is being prosecuted for bribery — can’t escape justice. 

Schiff is getting dangerously close to this stage. When he became chair of the House Intelligence Committee in 2019, he made it a personal mission to investigate Donald Trump’s supposed connections to Russia, completely separate from and in addition to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

When Mueller concluded there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, Schiff dismissively blew off the exoneration, hinting that he would continue his own investigation. “[T]here may be, for example, evidence of collusion or conspiracy that is clear and convincing, but not proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said during an interview in February 2019.

The nine Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee called for Schiff to resign in March 2019 due to his false claims of collusion. The Center for Renewing America sent a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics in June 2023, outlining Schiff’s improper actions, including his attempts to get X to censure unfavorable posts and claiming the Hunter Biden collusion in Ukraine was a product of Russian disinformation. The letter asked for discipline up to expulsion.  

That same month, the House of Representatives censured Schiff over the Russia collusion hoax. They listed specific instances of wrongdoing. First, they cited his memo that falsely claimed that the warrant application for the FISA wiretap of Trump associate Carter Page was accurate. The application was “later found by Inspector General Horowitz to have 17 major mistakes and omissions, provoking FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer to state unequivocally that the Federal Bureau of Investigation ‘misled the FISC,’” the censure said. 

Next, the censure accused Schiff of “publicly, falsely denying that his staff communicated with a whistleblower to launch the first impeachment of President Trump.” Finally, the censure stated that “Schiff misled the public by reading a false retelling of a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.” 

Now it’s come out that Schiff paid the daughter of the judge handling New York DA Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of Trump $4 million to push the Russia collusion hoax. Loren Merchan’s hatred of Trump is so extreme that she used a photo of Trump behind bars as her profile picture on X. She runs a digital marketing agency that works with Democrats and progressive groups. 

Yet New York Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order against Trump prohibits him talking about his daughter. Merchan has not slapped a gag order on the prosecution or their witnesses, so Trump’s turncoat former attorney Michael Cohen has been blabbing endlessly about him, posting rants about the trial on TikTok every evening. 

I would predict that any guilty verdict will be overturned based on this obvious bias by the judge, but after former Trump associate Hope Hicks surprised the politically motivated prosecutors by exonerating Trump last week, there is unlikely to be a conviction. Hicks said the money allegedly paid to porn star and liar Stormy Daniels was to protect Trump’s wife Melania, not to protect the campaign. The crux of the case against Trump is that it was an illegal campaign contribution.

An ethics complaint was filed against Schiff recently, alleging election fraud and mortgage fraud. Schiff is running for the U.S. Senate in California, but has been living in Maryland while voting in California. Former Oklahoma Rep. Steve Watkins was prosecuted for allegedly voting in the wrong Topeka City Council race after listing a UPS Store as his voting address.

While running for the U.S. Senate, Schiff has brazenly engaged in sleazy tactics. He spent $10 million promoting his Republican opponent during the primary. Since California uses “top 2” voting, which means the top two vote getters in the primary move on to the general, he wanted to ensure that Republican Steve Garvey ended up with the second most votes instead of his two Democratic challengers. On the campaign trail, Schiff brags about his political persecution of Trump as a campaign platform. 

Schiff isn’t a principled leftist. In the late 1990s, he sponsored bills in the California Legislature which would have made it a felony to hire an illegal immigrant, and to allow minors 14 or older accused of serious crimes to be tried as adults. 

If the roles were reversed, and Schiff had engaged in this corruption as a Republican, aggressive progressive DAs put in their positions by left-wing billionaire George Soros would have begun multiple prosecutions. His law license is safe, however, since it has been inactive since 2001.  

Hinting at guilt, Schiff admitted he feared that a Trump administration might prosecute him. Trump has said that Schiff and other members of the January 6th committee, whom he labeled as corrupt, should face prosecution and imprisonment. 

Schiff wants the prosecutions against Trump to occur quickly, obviously in order to influence the voters. He complained about Trump’s immunity claim, “The claim is borderline frivolous … they’re drawing it out just enough to make it almost infeasible to try [the cases] before the election,” he said. “It’s still possible to get it done. And I think voters deserve to have that information.”

Will anything be done to Schiff other than the House censure, which is meaningless in practical terms? Maybe eventually. He shows no sign of slowing down the corruption. He’s gotten so brazen about it, since no one has intervened to stop him, that he may finally engage in criminal activity so outrageous that even compromised judges draw the line. 

Will anything be done to Schiff other than the House censure, which is meaningless in practical terms? Maybe eventually. He shows no sign of slowing down the corruption. He’s gotten so brazen about it, since no one has intervened to stop him, that he may finally engage in criminal activity so outrageous that even compromised judges draw the line. 

Thank God for Straight White Men

That headline is highly unfashionable and will not get me any job offers to be president of any university, but it’s true – straight, white men kick ass. It doesn’t hurt that I’m one of them, and it is incomplete to think ONLY people like me kick ass, we awesome people come in every flavor. But no group of people has been more demonized by the left than the people who, if we’re being honest, have done more for our species than any other.

It’s probably a hate crime at any of those “martyrs camps” on campuses to point that out, just as it’s probably a hate crime to point out just how much of the good things in life people enjoy – technology, medicine, clothes, various delicious foods – were the fruits of evil whitey’s colonization and work. True story, look it up.

That’s the reason no one on the left, while screaming bloody murder about some Kardashian sister braiding their hair being “CULTURAL APPROPRIATOR,” never bothers to hate the “colonizers” who invented antibiotics or the awful privileged monsters who created the cell phones they’re using to inform the world of just how oppressed they are as they wait in line at Starbucks to pay $10 for a cup of flavored warm water. 

If you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. 

Instead, these entitled mutants run around college campuses while personifying the best argument possible for abortion as soon as ultrasound technology can be coupled with the ability to see what their baby will turn out to be. I know, that’s a horrible joke, but that’s only if you think it’s a joke.

Those people are terrible. Anyone removing an American flag to fly that of a terrorist state isn’t worthy of American citizenship. If they were born that way there isn’t much that can be done, but if they weren’t or aren’t, measures should be taken to make it clear they are invited to leave. 

Our fences and walls are not meant to keep people in, they are meant to keep people out, despite the way our mentally underdeveloped President sees it. Go the f*ck out, you will not be missed.

At this point, I can’t imagine how any of their parents would miss them.

Thank God for straight white men. As these idiots parade around the country, claiming to be victims, it was a bunch of fraternity brothers who rallied to protect the flag. First time was a UNC, then it spread like wildfire. Now groups of normal people, men and women of all different configurations, are stepping up to tell these post-digested food exit ports what they can do with their demands and terrorist sympathies. 

For many, it’s probably the first time they’ve ever heard anyone tell them “No,” or where it is they can go, blow it out, or do before dying. They’ll call it “bullying” because they’re weak, spoiled little brats, but the average 7-year-old would learn from it that what they’re doing isn’t good and would investigate as to why. 

These demand-heavy boobs, unburdened by intelligence or self-awareness, have likely spent their lives to this point getting what they want (aside from being smart, attractive, fun to be around, not smell like feel or not look like a justification for a burqa and a ball gag). But the pendulum has swung as far to the left as it’s going to, now is the time for snap-back.

It’s not going to be fun for them, but it will be good, provided they are capable of learning the lessons from it. If they can’t, screw them. In fact, if they can’t, that’s about as close to getting screwed as they’re likely to get, which is probably why so many of them are such miserable douches in the first place. The rest just come by their miserable douchiness naturally.

 Whatever the case, and should any of them ever pull their lives together and become productive, happy members of society, they will have a whole host of people to thank for it. All those people, and the many more to come, who have and will stand up to them, tell them no, tell them off, and hold up a big, metaphorical mirror to them so one day they might realize what little disgraces to the human species they are. Imagine a few years down the road, once their brains start fully working and they get some actual experience in life – the point after you realize you do not, in fact, know everything – when they realize what they wasted a good chunk of their youth on; what they were actually fighting for and against. 

What a horrible moment it will be to realize that you were the Nazi, that you called for the extermination of the Jews simply because some terrorists propagandized you into embracing your stupid; for some likes on social media. How do you live with yourself? 

If that ever happens to any of them, they will likely embrace the furniture, the style of government, all the creature comforts afforded them as humans by those evil, colonizing white men they so desperately hated when they were younger. Back when, in the name of enlightenment, they embraced the philosophies and tactics of likes of Hitler, Lenin and Stalin. All white colonizers…

Wait, you mean they’re…yep. These people are that stupid. 

So, keep defending the flag, straight white men, it has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. At a certain point, when Democratic Party politicians refuse to do their jobs to restore order, normal people will step up and do it for them, then toss their asses out of office. You guys defending the flag are the tip of that spear. And wouldn’t you know it, the spear is another thing invented by evil whitey.

None of this matters, of course, I point it out to illustrate the absurdity of the left. I do, however, hope to at least see videos of these people when they do realize what they were when they were young, and how they wasted much of their lives. Not just to say “I told you so,” but to…ok, it’s just to say that. Screw them all. 

The (Communist) Nerds Are the Bad Guys in This Movie

For those of us who came of age in the greatest of decades, the 80s, it’s a bitter pill to swallow to realize that we have been sold the lie by movies like “Revenge of the Nerds” that frat boys are the eternal bad guys. On college campuses today, the nerds are the bad guys, a communist collection of weirdos, losers, and mutations of heft who cry about Palestine, whine that the cops are mean to them for breaking the law and scream that they are being literally murdered by people who won’t honor their myriad food allergies. The 80s nerds were courageous rebels. Today’s nerds are pathetic conformists – they all look the same, they all sound the same, and they all smell the same. They’re not amusing nerds like Pointdexter and Booger. They don’t rock out like the ROTN nerds. These are garbage nerds, spoiled commies with stupid masks, stupid piercings, and stupid hair.

Today, the heroes fighting back on campuses are labeled frat boys, whether they’re in fraternities or not, but what they really are is a bunch of normal dudes. It’s obvious at first glance. They are mostly (but not all) straight white males, in shape, well-dressed, and free of stupid masks, stupid piercings, and stupid hair. They guzzle Coors Light instead of gulping SSRIs. They protect the Old Glory and proudly wave it. And they mock the pinko losers.

They don’t give a damn about the gentle feelz of the commie nerds. They’re rough and insensitive, cruel and hilarious. When a gigantic commie waddled up and waved her chubby finger at them, they chanted “Lizzo” and worse. It was hilarious and cathartic. It was liberating. Sure, some of it was obnoxious. Some of it was in bad taste. Some of it got called racist, but here’s the thing – these white boys are going to get called racist no matter what. They have been all their lives, so I doubt they care about one more epithet.

America’s normal young men are fed up. They’re done. They grew up in educational institutions dominated by communist females who despised them. They were always hated because of the race of the majority of them – this pushback by normal guys is multiethnic – and they were always hated because of their gender and unapologetic devotion to cisgenderism. They are told they are the problem and their oppression the solution. Their mere existence is claimed to be proof of a devotion to “white supremacy.” Their heritage is proof of their moral bankruptcy, an original sin that they can never scrub away. They are the oppressors, even though there’s no one more oppressed on a college campus than a frat boy, targeted by an administration that hates him, subjected to a double-track justice system that nukes him if he’s caught sneaking a Dos Equis, but that kisses the collective booty – the enormous booty – of the communist terror fans who take over chunks of the campuses. The normal guys are the designated villains, by the left and Hollywood too, and the rest of us are supposed to hate them.

But they’re not hated now. They’re loved. They’re loved by normal people everywhere because they’re the ones fighting back. They refuse to cede the moral high ground to these pretentious jerks. They have nothing but contempt for the leftist ruling class, and they have nothing to lose. For their entire lives, they’ve been told that they are the heavies in our cultural script, and they are sick of it. They’re done. Finished. This is only the start of the pushback.

The pushback is going to be impolite. It’s going to be mean. It’s going to lack decorum. But hey, aren’t those are the new rules, you Hamas-kissing psychopaths? As I’ve said many times before, be careful about the new rules you enact. The communists wanted to put a new rule into effect that says you can be openly hated because of your race and despised because of your immutable characteristics. They wanted a new rule that allowed the brutal exercise of power against their opponents. Well, welcome to the new rules. I hope they hurt going in hard.

The statistics tell the story – young men are sick of this crap and are turning right. Some of them have checked out of society, retreating into a haze of pot smoke and the glare of video games as an escape from an adulthood where they see the deck stacked against them. If this is privilege, you can have it. The only privilege they have is to pay taxes, die in stupid wars, and take crap from fugly commie mediocrities. But others are fighting back. And it’s glorious.

It’s toxic masculinity unbound, and the more toxic the better. Women dominate the current Kampus for Krusade Kommunism, as leftist activism is in large part a reaction by unattractive women to the fact normal men don’t want them. Their pinko male comrades are pretty much indistinguishable from the female-identifying ones. These campus trolls embody the radical version of the feminist vibe one experiences in most of the institutions in American society. Our educational institutions are feminized from kindergarten to grad school. Boys are wild and rambunctious and have a lot of energy, yet we see teachers suppressing them, shaming them, demanding they sit still, and eliminating recess and PE – things boys need and thrive in. They are bombarded with weird gender creepiness by the lefty wine women teaching them. There are few masculine role models left in the schools. The kind of ex-Marine shop teacher and the PE instructor who stormed ashore at Guadalcanal that we boomer/Gen Xers grew up with are gone. The male instructors today are anything but traditional – again, you’ve got the stupid masks, stupid piercings, and stupid hair problem. You can’t teach boys to be men if you aren’t a man yourself. And that’s just the ones who aren’t outright perverts

No, these boys grew up in a milieu that women created and dominate, and this is an overdue male rebellion. They’re saying “No,” and they’re saying it loudly and laced with profanity. In campus videos of the confrontations, you can see the communists don’t know how to react to these young men. They’ve never had anyone get in their faces before. They’ve never had anyone tell them that they’re useless, that they’re trash, that they’re worthless – all of which is true. But the frat boys have had that happen to them all their lives – and it was a lie. 

They’re not the bad guys. The paradigm of the 80s movies has changed. Those nerds were just cool people trying to get along. Today’s nerds are trying to help the people who want to kill all the Jews in Israel. That’s not cute, and that’s not funny. Thank goodness the frat boys know their enemies and thank goodness their masculinity hasn’t been so suppressed that they have forgotten their instinctive desire to destroy their foes. That is what men do. The communist trash people better hope that this remains on the level of shouting insults across the lines of cops. The stinky campus commies of 2024 won’t stand a chance when today’s Ogres sound their war cry, “Nerds!”

Joe Biden’s Plot to Halt Innovation

America has long been known as the home of innovation. Many of the most successful companies the world has ever seen were born here. In the modern era, the seven largest technology companies in the world were all founded in America. America is a beacon of entrepreneurship – whether the desires of the hopeful entrepreneur are to establish and maintain a profitable small business, or to create a multinational juggernaut, all of this and more is possible in the United States – or at least it used to be. 

Joe Biden just declared war on our nation’s great entrepreneurial spirit. 

His 2025 budget calls for hiking the top capital gains rate from 28 percent to 44.6 percent. As Americans for Tax Reform laid out, “The proposed Biden top capital gains tax rate is more than twice as high as China’s rate. China’s capital gains tax rate is 20%.” Do we really want to be a nation with a higher capital gains tax rate than China?

Many were left scratching their heads after this proposal was revealed, especially given that research shows that increasing the capital gains tax destroys innovation and the reverse is also true. A 2019 study found that reducing the capital gains tax significantly increased “the amount of investment in start-up firms.” Economist Allen Sinai found that “capital gains tax reduction increases savings, capital spending and capital formation, economic growth, jobs, productivity and potential output.” If reductions in the capital gains tax rates have proven to increase the growth of the economy, why would Biden seek to do the opposite?

Our economy follows incentive structures. If you disincentivize growth, you can expect a slowdown. If you minimize the taxation penalties for those looking to invest in our economy, you can expect growth as a result. 

Capital gains taxes are a form of double taxation (and you could even argue they’re a form of triple taxation). You’ve already paid income tax before you’ve made your investment. Then there is a built-in inflation tax when you sell your investment off years down the road. Taxing the gains made on an investment creates yet another hurdle that investors have to put up with

Let’s say you invested $10,000 in company X in 1994 and you sell your shares for $30,000 today for a return of $20,000. Well, the dollar has sharply depreciated since 1994. In fact, the value of a dollar has halved in the past 30 years. 

So, your return is effectively only $10,000, and yet Joe Biden wants to take 44 percent of the $20,000 realized profit. Many are beginning to ask themselves, why should I take the risk to invest in that environment?

A higher capital gains tax will mean fewer investors. Fewer investors will mean less innovation and fewer great American companies.

Biden and his allies justify this tax increase as a way to reduce wealth inequality, but his own administration notes that there is actually a deeper racial motivation to the proposal. 

The Biden Treasury Department wrote that the current capital gains tax rate “disproportionately benefit[s] White taxpayers, who receive the overwhelming majority of the benefits of the reduced rates.”  

Racial resentment as a guiding principle for tax policy is not a recipe for success and utilizing the economy as a weapon to enforce your social goals is a dangerous game. 

Given Biden’s stated goal is to politicize the tax structure in order to punish those who he believes are a threat to his power, it should come as no surprise that there’s an even crazier tax proposal hidden in this budget plan. The Biden administration also wants to tax “unrealized gains.” Taxing unrealized capital gains means you penalize individuals for momentarily successful investments regardless of if they’d sold them or not. In other words, Americans would owe taxes on earnings they haven’t actually received yet as realized income. 

Biden will defend himself by noting that his proposed 25 percent tax on unrealized gains will only be imposed on individuals with more than $100 million in assets, but the problem is – with policies like these, why would anyone desire to accumulate that level of wealth any longer in this proposed environment? 

If Joe Biden’s policies are enacted, expect American billionaires to flee and our economy to suffer, as not only will we lose Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Larry Ellison, and many more, but importantly we’ll lose the great entrepreneurs of the future. 

Brave business owners risk everything with the hopes that they will be able to reap the rewards of their risk as they increasingly provide value to their customers. Joe Biden wants to eradicate the chances that they’ll ever be able to. 

As Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan noted in 1997 “while all taxes impede economic growth to one extent or another, the capital gains tax is at the far end of the scale.”

A serious nation would promote entrepreneurship, innovation, and growth at all costs. The Biden administration has made it abundantly clear he has no such desire. We as citizens of this great country can only hope that Biden is out of office so his goals are never realized.

Another Ivy League Says They’re Suspending Pro-Hamas Students

Columbia University threatened and has now gone through with suspending pro-Hamas student agitators setting up encampments on campus. A statement from Cornell University President Martha E. Pollack on Monday signaled that they too will go through with suspending students, as CNN highlighted as part of their live updates. 

The statement was merely titled “Update on campus events,” and never goes into the specifics of what those “campus events” of pro-Hamas encampments entail. The Israel-Hamas conflict that began after Hamas perpetrated a terrorist attack against our ally in the Middle East is never mentioned at all. 

What the statement does mention is how those facing trouble did not have to let the trouble get this far:

It is important that everyone knows the details about what has been happening here at Cornell. Last Thursday, a group of individuals formed an encampment on the Arts Quad. A student group had previously requested permission for an art installation there, consistent with our policies; however, they were dishonest in their request, stating that there would not be tents and that the art installation would be removed by 8 p.m. on Thursday.

Upon learning of the encampment very early Thursday morning, my leadership team immediately offered an alternative location between Day Hall and Sage Chapel, which would have been significantly less disruptive. With an approved permit in hand, the protesters could have remained in the alternative location, per our policies, thereby avoiding disciplinary sanctions. The individuals requested and received multiple opportunities, over a five-hour span, to consider their options, but ultimately decided not to move. They were then reminded several additional times that afternoon and evening that if the tents were not taken down, they would be subject to disciplinary action for violating the university’s time, place, and manner rules. With full knowledge of the sanctions to come, they again refused to comply, and we moved forward with a first set of immediate temporary suspensions.

We met with a group of the student participants on Saturday and again on Sunday, discussing the encampment and again offering them the opportunity to move to the alternate location. They declined. Therefore, more temporary suspensions, along with HR referrals for employees engaged with the encampment, are forthcoming.

The terrorist sympathizers could have continued on with their pro-Hamas, anti-Israel demonstrations elsewhere on campus and were given multiple chances to do so. They refused, though. 

There was also a statement with such a warning issued on Saturday, from Joel M. Malina, the vice president for university relations, about an “Update on unauthorized encampment on the Arts Quad.”

Such a statement began with a focus on free speech. “Free expression is a core value of our university, and the right to peacefully protest on our campus has a deep and respected history,” read the first sentence. The statement did close, however, by addressing just what it is that these agitators support:

“We are also deeply distressed by chants made at some of the rallies near the encampment, particularly the phrase, “There is only one solution: Intifada Revolution.” The protesting group has repeatedly stated that their protest is political and not antisemitic, but these chants belie that claim. We implore all Cornellians to consider the impact of their words as well as their intentions as we navigate the immense pain and suffering that many are experiencing.

Local news outlet WENY reported that four students were suspended over the encampment on April 26, including PhD student Momodou Taal who has lamented that pro-Hamas agitators on campus have had their visa status threatened. “They have deliberately targeted students with precarious positions such as visa status,” he whined, even though he notes he was given “a grace period.”

His post also contained telling language about the university, such as how “It is clear that they are more concerned with appeasing their Zionist donors and keeping their hands drenched in blood than over the expressed refusal of their students and workers.”

Cornell University has temporary suspended me alongside 3 other students/grad workers. They have deliberately targeted students with precarious positions such as visa status. They have given me a grace period but I am no longer permitted on campus. I know they have done this as a…— Momodou ✊🏿 (@MomodouTaal) April 26, 2024

Cornell has recently made headlines in other ways over such concerning protests. Recall that Cornell Professor Russell Rickford shouted over a megaphone that he found the October 7 attack to be “exhilarating” and “energizing.” This took place days after that attack resulted in 1,200 Israelis killed through unspeakable means, including babies and Holocaust survivors. Victims were also tortured, raped, and taken hostage, with many still in captivity. 

Rickford was placed on leave, but the New York Post reported on Monday that he was back on campus last Thursday to encourage the agitators. “The liberated territory is a concept. The liberated territory is in your head,” he was quoted as saying at a rally by the Cornell Daily Sun. “Anytime you are ready, you can become a resident, an inhabitant, a member of the occupied territory, of the forces of liberation.”

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“The university did not comment further on Rickford’s presence on campus or if it violated any rules,” the report mentioned. 

Why is anime special? Expert finally at bluray.com forums

Bluray.com forums saved my life. It gave me a purpose in the abyss! I reached 700 posts and am an expert. https://forum.blu-ray.com/

Why is anime special?

Part of that, I think, is because you’re not watching someone act, so it’s easier to identify with the animated character because part of your brain isn’t always focused on “Oh, that’s [fill in an actor’s name here]”.

Also, the animation is often more expressive because it uses anime-shorthand. Is a character acting childish? Suddenly they’re presented as chibi. Are they steaming over something? Suddenly smoke is pouring out of their heads, or that ominous purple haze. You couldn’t get away with this kind of thing in live-action. It would look silly. In anime, it’s par-for-the-course.

And animated characters don’t age, as humans do. No one is ever going to see Lum or Inuyasha with a bad face-lift, trying to look 25 years younger than they are.

In addition, things can be animated that simply can’t be achieved with special effects, no matter how sophisticated they are. In a live-action film, if what we’re seeing gets too far away from reality, it gives away the game and you think “oh, it’s special effects. Yawn.” In anime, nothing is real, so nothing stands out as less real than anything else – ironically, making things easier to accept as a viewer.

You can also portray things in anime that, because we’re always aware that it’s not real, you couldn’t get away with in a live-action film. The scene with Riko’s arm in Made In Abyss, for example, would be too intense for live-action – and can you imagine a live action Strike Witches? No, no, no. Don’t even try.

Finally, there’s the sheer artistry of the images put before us that (when they’re at their best) beat anything a live-action film can offer. Just imagine a live-action Monogatari … I sure can’t. The art is an integral part of watching anime, and our appreciation of the artwork is part of the overall aesthetic appeal, quite different than the appreciation of the cinematography of a live-action film.

I feel Anime in the 70’s-80’s with a 50/50 hit and miss from 90-94ish was special…mostly everything that has been pumped out since sucks…I think the version of Anime they have today along with stuff like Pokemon is more geared towards people who are not that great at drawing so they put out extremely easy to draw art with over simplified structures so that it’s more inclusive for a less creatively inclined youth…current anime (at least what i’ve seen advertised since the late 90’s and on) seems extremely sex filled and fetish driven. I personally much prefer Unico, Akira, Blue Force, and Ghost in the Shell style artwork. New stuff like say Avatar (not James Cameron) is excellent so the genre isn’t a complete waste but man oh man is the anime landscape a stark desert of craptacular pencil work.
Japan for decades has been showing what animation is truly capable of and how certain things work because they’re animated. Interestingly, they did at first view animation similarly to the west where it was seen as something for children, but then things changed (From the booklet included with the first Patlabor movie DVD LE.). Granted, Japanese animation has its own limitations (Ex: Adult casts are rare, high school is a very common setting), but it’s not as limited in scope as what is done in the west, especially theatrically (Ex: Kids CGI movies is all you get in theaters most of the time, we lost the option of 2D in the 2000s, which is a shame)

There’s also of course the crazy and interesting plots and characters in stuff, the tropes, as well as the infusion of Japanese culture in lots of works.

Why insanity system in Dungeons and Dragons sucks

If a character’s Sanity score drops to 0 or lower, she begins the quick slide into permanent insanity. Each round, the character loses another point of Sanity. Once a character’s Sanity score is reduced to a point below zero equal to her Wisdom score, she is hopelessly, incurably insane

Mechanics

Let’s talk about madness and insanity in role-playing games. This is a pretty controversial topic, and to make sure I get this right, I’ve been in touch with my friends in the Mental Health field as well as some close friends who live with their own mental health conditions.

Some systems give purely mechanical detriments to make characters “insane.” This is how the D&D 5e DMG does it on page 259-260. Congratulations, your character is now blind for 3 hours! However, the D&D system is built on powering up your character. This is epic fantasy. Some people like it when their characters suffer horrible mental trauma, and those people play Call of Cthulhu. So, my first problem with the way mental health conditions are included in the game is that it goes against the basic upwards flow of the system.

Additionally, the PHB and the DMG emphasize that people can play the game and role-play at whatever level they feel comfortable. Just want to hack some orcs? Good for you. Want to write a novella for your backstory? Go for it! But that leads us to another problem: in the DMG, the “indefinite madness” table manifests as a new flaw gained by your character. This means, if your character was just a simple hack-and-slasher, there’s no consequence to the roll. This works against the idea that a player should be free to role-play at any level with a given mechanic.

However, I think both of these points are missing a bigger issue.

The symptoms of actual mental health conditions are often portrayed as the problem, but often they are a coping mechanism for a larger problem. The best example is OCD: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It’s not just “being a neat freak” or “liking things to be organized.” It’s because your brain is obsessing over something that makes you anxious and unable to focus on the rest of your life, and you begin to practice a repetitive activity (a compulsion) in order to calm down your brain.

Many mental health conditions are actually the brain doing its best to adapt to unusual situations. Hearing a voice that isn’t yours in your head is unusual. Talking to yourself in your own voice and convincing yourself not to listen is the brain’s way of adapting.

I do want to note that some people’s minds deal with trauma differently, and I think that’s beyond the scope of this post. I can’t claim that these ideas apply to people with chronic mental health conditions.

So, instead of taking the usual route of “here’s how your character is worse now that you’re insane”, I wanted to give the players an ability they’d want to use: a power of the mind, with a drawback.

Essentially, the character experienced something traumatic, unusual, horrifying, or mind-bending. But that doesn’t really change who they are. The brain just has to take the time to adapt back to an understanding of reality. So, each ability listed below has a drawback (how the brain is adapting) and a time limit (how long it takes to heal).

But if we just gave people a drawback and a time limit, that’s no different than what the DMG does. we want the player to accept the ability, because the character’s brain would want to heal. So every ability has a benefit as well.

As these are temporary benefits, they won’t affect the game too much, and the drawbacks are small enough that a character can continue their upwards growth while they work through the problems. This is also useful from a session planning perspective: if you’re in a dungeon and you expect to get through about 4-5 hours of in-game time, what about the character who just rolled a long-term madness and is unconscious for 7 hours?

With all of that in mind, here are some of the abilities I’ve devised for how a PC might adjust their mind after a traumatic event.

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Mental Reactions to Trauma

Circumspect:

• For the duration, you can never have disadvantage on an Intelligence-based ability check
• You cannot regain HP on a rest unless you spend at least an hour of the time away from your allies, talking through the events that lead to you gaining this ability. This becomes the only action you can take during a short rest if your are using hit dice to regain HP
• Ends after 30 days

Daydreamer:

• Once per day, you may automatically pass an Intelligence-based skill check
• Ends when you have used the ability 30 times
• For DM: roll 1d10 when the player uses this ability and modify the information they receive accordingly

d10 Roll	Information
1-4	False information, that the PC would have no way of knowing
5-7	False information
8-9	Truthful information, that the PC would have no way of knowing
10	Truthful information

Destructive:

• While not in combat, you regain 1 HP whenever you permanently and intentionally destroy an object that is small or larger
• Whenever you regain HP with this ability, all non-hostile creatures within 30 feet (including other members of your party) must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw of 8 + your character level or be frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat this saving throw at the end of their turn to end the effect.
• Ends when you have healed 300HP from this ability

Distracted:

• Whenever you are targeted by an attack roll, roll 1d8+12. Treat the number rolled as your AC against that attack
• Ends when you have been hit by 30 attack rolls

Facade:

• For the duration, you have advantage on Charisma ability checks and saving throws made to influence hostile creatures or avoid effects from hostile creatures.
• For the duration, you have disadvantage on Charisma ability checks and saving throws made to influence indifferent or friendly creatures or avoid effects from indifferent or friendly creatures.
• Ends after you have made 10 Charisma saving throws with disadvantage

Hampered:

• For the duration, whenever you take damage, that damage is reduced by half. Any damage prevented this way must be tracked on your character sheet as Delayed Damage.
• At the end of a long rest, you may choose to take all your Delayed Damage as hit point damage. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. If you elect to not take your Delayed Damage, you must instead add an amount of damage to your Delayed Damage equal to your character level.
• If, at any point, your Delayed Damage reaches an amount equal to 10 x your character level, you take the damage immediately. The rules for instant death due to massive damage (PHB pg. 197) do not apply to this damage, and if you are reduced to 0 hit points in this way, you are unconscious but stable.
• Ends when you have taken 200 Delayed Damage.

Heartbroken:

• Choose a PC or NPC related to how you gained this ability.
• Whenever the PC/NPC is within your line of sight, you have disadvantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma ability checks and saving throws.
• Whenever the PC/NPC is out of sight, you have advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma ability checks and saving throws.
• Ends when you have made 15 Wisdom saving throws with advantage (not necessarily due to this ability)

Hyper-Aware:

• Your passive perception score increases by 10
• Whenever you make an attack roll, whether ranged or melee, choose the target randomly among all available targets within the range of the attack
• Ends when you have made 50 attack rolls

Moody:

• Each day at dawn, roll 1d20:

d20 Roll	Outcome
1-10	You gain disadvantage on all rolls made for the next 24 hours
11-20	You gain advantage on all rolls made for the next 24 hours

• Ends when advantage rolls equal disadvantage rolls, with a minimum of 3 days

Nervous:

• At the beginning of combat, make a Wisdom Saving Throw of 15
• On a success, take 20 on initiative
• On a failure, you are surprised for the first round of combat
• Ends after 30 initiative rolls

Obsessive:

• For the duration, you can never have disadvantage on a wisdom-based ability check
• You cannot regain HP on a rest unless you spend at least an hour of the time in quiet, methodical contemplation. This becomes the only action you can take during a short rest if your are using hit dice to regain HP
• Ends after 30 days

Phobic:

• Choose a creature or creature type, preferably one related to how you gained this ability
• Whenever you kill a creature of that type, you may spend hit dice to regain HP as if you had finished a short rest
• You have vulnerability to all damage dealt by those creatures
• Ends when you reach 100 points by the following system:

Creature CR	Points Gained
2 or less	1 point per kill of that creature type
3-8	2 points per kill of that creature type
9-13	5 points per kill of that creature type
14-17	10 points per kill of that creature type
18-23	25 points per kill of that creature type
24+	50 points per kill of that creature type

Prescient:

• Once per day, you may receive a clue about a future event related to a person, location, or item
• Ends when you have used the ability 30 times
• For DM: roll 1d10 when the player uses this ability and modify the information they receive accordingly

d10 Roll	Information
1-4	False clue, the event is against the party’s goals
5-7	False clue, the event is beneficial to the party’s goals
8-9	Truthful clue, reveal an irrelevant future event about the target
10	Truthful clue about a relevant future event

Rapport:

• As an action while you have this ability, you may touch an ally and heal them for an amount of HP no greater than your maximum HP – 1. When you do so, you take damage equal to the amount healed
• When an ally within 5 feet of you takes damage, make a Wisdom saving throw of 15. On a failure, you take that amount of damage instead
• Ends when you have taken 150 damage due to failing the Wisdom saving throw of this ability

Repressed:

• During a short rest, you may permanently remove a skill, weapon, language, or tool proficiency in order to fully heal your HP.
• Ends when you have used the ability 5 times

Restless:

• Choose a creature or creature type, preferably one related to how you gained this ability
• You have advantage on attack rolls made against those creatures
• If you fight a creature of that type, you cannot gain the benefits of a long rest for 24 hours. If you stop to rest for the night, you will only gain the benefits of a short rest
• Ends when you have missed 15 long rests due to this ability

Rude:

• You have advantage on intimidation and deception checks, but disadvantage on all other charisma checks and saving throws
• Ends when you have made 15 Charisma saving throws

Temperamental:

• When you make a Charisma-based Ability Check or Saving Throw, roll 1d6. On an even roll, treat your Charisma modifier as if it were that number. On an odd roll, treat your Charisma modifier as if it were that number, but negative. Your Proficiency bonus still applies normally to the roll if applicable.
• Ends when you have been forced to make 10 Charisma saving throws

Unease:

• Choose an environment or room type (e.g. arctic, swamp, close quarters, open field, etc), preferably one related to how you gained this ability
• Whenever you finish a combat in that environment and have at least 1 HP remaining, you may spend hit dice to regain HP as if you had finished a short rest
• You have vulnerability to all damage dealt to you in that environment
• Ends when you finish 30 combats in that environment, whether or not you gain the benefit from this ability

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Modifying these abilities to fit your game might be necessary. For a game focused on dungeon crawling, 30 days or 15 long rests might be quite a while, whereas a wilderness travel game might find them too short.

I think the sweet spot is to let the player feel the effects of the ability for just a little longer than they might like. Reinforce the idea that this is something they are doing subconsciously, that it ends when it ends, not when they want it to.

I’m looking forward to trying these out in my sessions. Some of them are pretty cool mechanically, and I think my players will really take them to heart. That definitely wouldn’t be the case if I was just using the purely negative effects in the DMG.

The museum wants me to play Dungeons and Dragons after I asked staff what they do for hobbies. I said what’s better?….Nintendo or DnD or Magic the Gathering or pickups, or campers? Maybe they knew the insanity system in Dnd and commit me to the St. Peter state hospital. I collected the books. I find it weird that Dork Den never buys used DnD books and charges $50 new on all of them. Then the dork den managers cooks the books on Magic the Gathering packs. I saw a $39 MtG pack off amazon priced at $139 at Dork Den. Lots of magic the gathering packs are over $100 here. At least they play commander compatible with star city games.

Iran’s Nightmares

Details of the recent limited Israeli retaliatory strike against Iranian anti-aircraft missile batteries at Isfahan are still sketchy. Nonetheless, we can draw some conclusions.

Israel’s small volley of missiles hit their intended targets, to the point of zeroing in on the very launchers designed to stop such incoming ordnance.

The target was near the Natanz enrichment facility. That proximity was by design. Israel showed Iran it could take out the very anti-missile battery designed to thwart an attack on its nearby nuclear facility.

The larger message sent to the world was that Israel could send a retaliatory barrage at Iranian nuclear sites with reasonable assurances that the incoming attacks could not be stopped. By comparison, Iran’s earlier attack on Israel was much greater and more indiscriminate. It was also a huge flop, with an estimated 99 percent of the more than 320 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles failing to hit their planned targets.

Moreover, it was reported that more than 50% of Iran’s roughly 115-120 ballistic missiles failed at launch or malfunctioned in flight.

Collate these facts, and it presents a disturbing corrective to Iran’s non-stop boasts of soon possessing a nuclear arsenal that will obliterate the Jewish state.

Consider further the following nightmarish scenarios: Were Iranian nuclear-tipped missiles ever launched at Israel, they could pass over, in addition to Syria and Iraq, either Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, or all four. In the cases of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, such trajectories would constitute an act of war, especially considering that some of Iran’s recent aerial barrages were intercepted and destroyed over Arab territory well before they reached Israel.

Iran’s strike prompted Arab nations, the U.S., the U.K., and France to work in concert to destroy almost all of Iran’s drones. For Iran, that is a premonition of the sort of sophisticated aerial opposition it might face if it ever decided to stage a nuclear version.

Even if half of Iran’s ballistic missiles did launch successfully, only a handful apparently neared their intended targets — in sharp contrast to Israel’s successful attack on Iranian missile batteries. Is it thus conceivable that any Iranian-nuclear-tipped missile launched toward Israel might pose as great a threat to Iran itself or its neighbors as to Israel?

And even if such missiles made it into the air and even if they successfully traversed Arab airspace, there is still an overwhelming chance they would be neutralized before detonating above Israel.

Any such launch would warrant an immediate Israeli response. And the incoming bombs and missiles would likely have a 100% certainty of evading Iran’s countermeasures and hitting their targets.

Now that the soil of both Iran and Israel is no longer sacred and immune from attack, the mystique of the Iranian nuclear threat has dissipated.

It should be harder for the theocracy to shake down Western governments for hostage bribes, sanctions relief, and Iran-deal giveaways on the implied threat of Iran successfully nuking the Jewish state.

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The new reality is that Iran has goaded an Israel that has numerous nuclear weapons and dozens of nuclear-tipped missiles in hardened silos and on submarines. Tehran has zero ability to stop any of these missiles or sophisticated fifth-generation Israeli aircraft armed with nuclear bombs and missiles.

Iran must now fear that if it launched two or three nuclear missiles, there would be overwhelming odds that they would either fail at launch, go awry in the air, implode inside Iran, be taken down over Arab territory by Israel’s allies, or be knocked down by the tripartite Israel anti-missile defense system.

Add it all up, and the Iranian attack on Israel seems a historic blunder. It showed the world the impotence of an Iranian aerial assault at the very time it threatens to go nuclear. It revealed that an incompetent Iran may be as much a threat to itself as to its enemies. It opened up a new chapter in which its own soil, thanks to its attack on Israel, is no longer off limits to any Western power.

Its failure to stop a much smaller Israel response, coupled with the overwhelming success of Israel and its allies in stopping a much larger Iranian attack, reminds the Iranian autocracy that its shrill rhetoric is designed to mask its impotence and to hide its own vulnerabilities from its enemies.

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And the long-suffering Iranian people?

The truth will come out that its own theocracy hit the Israeli homeland with negligible results and earned a successful, though merely demonstrative, Israeli response in return.

So Iranians will learn their homeland is now vulnerable and, for the future, no longer off limits.

And they will conclude that Israel has more effective allies than Iran and that their own ballistic missiles may be more suicidal than homicidal.

As a result, they may conclude that the real enemies of the Iranian nation are not the Jewish people of Israel after all, but their own unhinged Islamist theocrats.

Former Rolling Stone Editor’s Biting Attack on the NYT’s ‘Adults’ Piece About Speaker Johnson

Matt Taibbi once again proves why he needed to go independent regarding his reporting. This article, like most, would never have passed the quasi-politburos that have sprouted up in establishment publications. He zeroed in on The New York Times’ ‘adults’ piece, where Gail Collins and Bret Stephens apparently praised Speaker Mike Johnson for eschewing the “MAGA” factions of the GOP to pass Ukraine aid, FISA renewal, and government funding. 

On the conservative side of things, yes, Johnson’s actions made the case over the weekend to boot him. The problem is there’s no one else who would do better. Who would want the job is another issue. It’s one of those situations where I would agree to pull the trigger on this, but it’ll devolve into a circus that could hand a Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, the gavel. 

The FISA reversal is one of Johnson’s most disappointing developments. He was dead-set against it but got a briefing from the spooks and then reversed course—it doesn’t get swampier than that. Taibbi also noted the correlating pieces in The New York Times that backed FISA, juxtaposing that with the “adults” piece, noting that it takes a special entitlement for one to call those with whom one disagrees children. However, one can make the case that Democrats make that argument with their silly positions, but he tied that to what he sees as this absurd notion of being an “adult” in the political world. To Taibbi, the adults in the room aren’t revolting a la Johnson to the conservative wing of the GOP base; they’re ingraining a new ethos of being against being on the public’s side and being woefully unaware that this supposed special club has been at the forefront on truly horrific policy decisions (via Racket News): 

We’re creating a class of “adults” who believe it’s their patriotic duty to be above taking the public’s side. A nominal liberal in the Bush or Obama years could feel safe objecting to an intrusive state on behalf of, say, a converted Muslim like Brandon Mayfield. Mayfield was a veteran who’d never been to Spain, but was arrested after a faulty FBI fingerprint match linked him to a Madrid train bombing. Federal snoops used FISA to sneak undetected into Mayfield’s house and office repeatedly and take DNA swabs, nail clippings, and cigarette butts, even fiddle with his 12-year-old daughter’s computer. “I became very paranoid that someone was going into my room,” the girl said. 

[…] 

The concept of “adults in the room” assumed central importance in the Trump years. After his election, citizens were assumed to be incapable of correct choices, so no more looking at things from the vantage point of little girls’ bedrooms. Adults must be allowed to keep us safe. Who are the “adults in the room”? The numbers are probably like Orwell calculated in 1984, with a political establishment led by the 1% (Orwell had it at 2%, calling them the Inner Party) and administered by a nomenklatura of educated loyalists comprising a little over 10% of the population (the “Outer Party”). The Inner and Outer Parties Orwell described as the brain and hands of the state, surrounded by childlike prole-deplorables who make up the remaining 85% of the populace. 

[…] 

When James Mattis resigned as Trump’s Secretary of Defense six years ago, not-yet-Substacker Matt Yglesias seethed in Vox that this wasn’t the end for “adults in the room,” just the end of the myth that any ever existed. After all, “The only real grown-ups in American politics are in the Resistance,” and “the real grown-ups are the ones who’ve been outside the room trying to get him out of office.” 

With Trump out, the dynamic is inverted: the only adults are those on the inside, working to keep the Beast out by any means necessary. The Times, CNN, the Washington Post (which slobbered over Johnson in a piece called “Mike Johnson showed courage and rose to history’s call on Ukraine”) and others just made it crystal clear that this dividing line is about sides and nothing else. While Russell Brand, RFK, Jimmy Dore, Dave Chappelle and countless others are pilloried as right-wing grifters, we’re defining as “adults in the room” everyone from Cheney to Michael Hayden to Bill Kristol to David Frum. The latter ten years ago invoked outrage from self-styled progressives everywhere with his amazing Orwellian defense of FISA… 

[…] 

America’s “adults in the room” have been on a remarkable streak in the last twenty-odd years of not being right about really anything at all, including what policies to avoid (e.g. disastrous Mideast wars or inequality-accelerating bailouts) if you want to keep the public from flocking to someone like Donald Trump. Saying “Transparency is Bad” and “Surveillance is Good” and expecting people to salute your adultness is a particularly potent formula for losing audience, which these types unfortunately don’t tend to see as a problem…

 …Why can’t people just agree with us adults? Well, no matter if they don’t. If they can get enough people like Johnson to turn, they can make disobedient blocs like the Freedom Caucus “irrelevant to the governance of the House of Representatives,” as the Times put it today. That’s the dream, isn’t it? Making the right voters irrelevant? Isn’t that what being “committed to democracy” means? 

Forget the next speaker, Mike Johnson sucking, although he is, and the state of the 2024 race; it once again circles back to how there is a political class who hates us. Who has allies deep within the security state to ruin us, which ironically makes the case to produce more Donald Trump-like candidates? Voters, Left and Right, would likely want this system, this swamp, busted up, right? The problem is this side knows they can turn people on a dime and make them proper adults.