A later statement confirmed: "There has been a shooting at the school. Four people have been shot. The extent of the injuries is unclear. The operation is still ongoing.

That number has since been raised to five - while police also denied local reports that officers had been shot.

The shooting took place in a campus area which includes several schools for both children and adults.

I remember when I first joined it was kind of cheeky and irreverent, and it still seemed plausible that women posted here. But it's become progressively more shallow and heartless. I mean I can't be the only one picking up on this, right? "The worst thing about DOGE is how soy it all is"? We can't just express outrage at immorality anymore, every criticism must be given through the lens of haughty indifference and framed around coolness or lack thereof. I think some people here have genuinely replaced their concept of wrong and right with cringe/not cringe and never stopped to consider how cruel and purposeless it could make them.

every criticism must be given through the lens of haughty indifference and framed around coolness or lack thereof

Quick question did you ever listen to the pod? Like even one clip or so?

People actually listen to Rspod?!

Gooooood, for the 100,000th time - this is a unique sub and one of the only decent culture/current events subs on reddit, the podcast sucks shit so most people here either never listened or stopped listening in 2019 (me). I used to like A&D but in the last five years one became a Fox News dork and the other is hawking a shit coin, they've changed. That being said, what drew me to them and this sub in the first place was their critique/thoughts on the overly woke/grifter left and establishment liberals. What I and many didn't know back in 2018 was A&D are insecure dorks who just adopt whatever ideology they currently find chic/edgy, and as soon as Bernie/progressive politics became boring they moved onto the next thing. But a lot of us here have beliefs based on morality/ethics/what we find to be true, so here we are

Tldr: "I have never and will never engage with the content this sub is about but here's how it should be run."

Anyways I thought this was a fun thread. The commenters even got OP to self delete out of shame.

!redscarepod

The face you make when the candy is ~almost~ bigger than you...😮

Shop unique (and tasty 😋 ) gifts for everyone on your list! 🎁 https://t.co/KPPKrjSLJz

📸 @.martinna.bella on Instagram pic.twitter.com/ogzigeKjPf

— Big Lots (@BigLots) November 16, 2022

Bonafide Boomer living up to the name.

Rake all the leafs

It has been revealed that this whole mess was actually a massive unprecedented attack by both Russia and China on NATO. While other disinfo campaigns in the West happened, they were basically just a warm up for this, an overwhelming sudden attack that was supposed to completely decapitate the country and wreck the whole eastern flank of NATO (we and Poland are the main NATO allies here, so with our collapse both Poland and Ukraine would fail soon). This has been prepared for years (since 2016) and failed because these r-slurs severely overestimated the whole 'Romania is a western democracy and a member of NATO and EU' while horribly underestimating the 'Romania is a semi-autocratic eastern european shithole' part

Georgescu winning with the help of some secret services (yes the conspiracy theories were right) and generals and becoming a dictator was the main part, which failed because the idea of a democratic state cancelling elections while people were voting was preposterous (too bad nobody here cares about democracy). The backup plan was to either start a violent revolution with the supporters they gathered in all these years, or to at least cause so much chaos that the whole country will become ungovernable (too bad Romania is the laziest and most cowardly country in Eastern Europe)

The coup step by step

• after communism we never cleaned the country and the institutions of russian agents and sympathisers, so they just waited patiently for an opportunity to strike and bring Romania back into Russia's sphere of influence

• the attack was carried by Russia with China's help and with the contribution of some other countries (probably third world countries bot armies)

• during the peak of the electoral campaign Georgescu became the 9th trending topic on TikTok or something (don't use TikTok dunno how it works), and since no one really cares that much about Romania, this is proof that China was doing dumb shit with their algorithms

• other disinfo campaigns that Russia is accused of (like Brexit) were basically tests to see how western countries react to online manipulations. Brexit is an important part here because of the whole 'you can't overturn the will of the people, so if a referendum passes you must honour it' conclusion. Russia was aware that they can't take over a western country, so they just focused on destabilising them, but they want to take over Eastern Europe, so the attack here was actually meant to be a coup and not just stirring shit for the lulz

• this has been in the works for years, possibly since 2016; Georgescu has been living in Austria without a job all this time where he prepared for his esoteric messiah role and slowly gathered a following of conspiracy nutjobs

• two weeks before the first elections an army of bots started to promote Georgescu everywhere on social media and especially on TikTok. Some accounts were older than the current TikTok, created when it was still only a chinese site. They got millions of people to vote for him.

• the idea was to keep everything hidden until the elections, when Georgescu will be promoted suddenly and massively, and by the time the authorities will realize something is wrong he will have already won the first voting round, at which point no one would dare to do anything against 'the will of the people' (that part worked)

• (at this point our secret services actually realized something is very funky and asked NATO for help without anyone knowing it)

• the mysterious recount happened because the number of votes given to each candidate didn't match the votes that were presented on the election website and the authorities were worried that Russia somehow managed to get involved in the election process, but apparently they just hacked the website to mess with the numbers?

• anyway, since everything was fine, the first round of the elections was validated and the election season continued while multiple secret services, both ours and foreign were taking notes

• other weird things happened in the first voting session, like lots of ballots reaching the voting booths being already pre-stamped for Georgescu, but people assumed incompetency rather than foul play

• well, it turns out that a big part of our authorities, from secret service agents to politicians to cops and army officials, tried to stage a soft coup and manipulate the elections to get Georgescu elected as president (and his other friends into the parliament). They tried to hide evidence from their colleagues, tripped up their investigations when they noticed something was wrong, distracted people, lied etc. The only reason they didn't succeed was because someone was smart enough to notify Burgerland first and only then tried to sort through all this mess

• when they noticed the scale of the infiltration, the heads of some secret services tried to resign in shame but our president didn't accept because everything was already too chaotic and destabilised

• NATO came up with the 'cancel the elections' plan which was supposed to be a last resort if everything else failed

• two days before the last election round, when the diaspora was already queued up to vote (and a few hundred people already did), the elections were finally cancelled. Coup effectively ended

• surprisingly, despite being a corrupt shithole and despite all this chaos, we survived what is now described to be the worse hybrid attack on a NATO/EU country

• (but seriously, imagine the russian guys responsible for this. People were already voting, no democracy will ever do anything to disturb the voting process at this point, all pieces were in place, your agent was two steps away from winning. All these years of work will pay off handsomely. This was supposed to be the first type of all hands on deck attack and it was a resounding success, one NATO country down, Ukraine finished, whatever else... And then, casually and without hesitation the elections were cancelled and everyone was told to go back home. And there's nothing you can do to save your hard work from being trampled )

Funny detail. That burger plane I mentioned in my last post? The elections were cancelled just 40 minutes after it landed and most of that time was spent in traffic not in some meeting room Anyway, before that Merica also sent some specialists or something during these deranged weeks (and probably some CIA agents). Possibly the reason why the coup stated to progressively falter, there's one thing to fight our own secret services, a whole different thing to do this with CIA breathing down your neck Still, I have to give credit to our own (non-traitor) intelligence agents too, they fought with all they have and did their job well and managed to drag us all away from the cliff's edge

Yesterday evening, or night, another murican plane landed in Bucharest, probably to help us with the potential upcoming civil unrest and violence that will totes happen just because Putin wants it

The 'revolution'

Since Russia is a slav country surrounded by other slav and muslim countries they dumbly assumed that all these people that were convinced to vote for Georgescu would also be willing to get beaten up by the cops for him. Clearly they have no idea what country they're messing with

• obviously, all his supporters (and bots) were wiped into a frenzy because of the now lost elections, screaming about rights and democracy and fascism and communism and whatever

• on top of all this anger came some weird conspiracy theories: Biden wants to use Romania to drag NATO into war in order to remain a dictator forever, Moldova declared war on Transnistria and we'll join them with our army overnight, the state will start rounding up men to send them to Ukraine, martial law will be declared so our president will become a dictator etc. Anyway, lots of scary shit and these morons actually believed it

• a huge mass of angry and scared people are the perfect recipe for a nasty protest right? Add our actual nazi groups (armed and trained militias) and some mercenaries usually fighting in third world shitholes joining in and you get an actual revolution

• yesterday, the funniest shit happened, and that was the last part of this plan, the final moment before the bloodshed will start. Georgescu appeared in some livestream and said to his supporters that the elections weren't actually cancelled, because in some purely freeman of the land fashion, the decree from the Constitutional Court wasn't signed properly and wasn't published on their site therefore it's not an actual binding declaration. In fact, the globalist state is lying to them all, the elections still happen normally, just that his supporters are tricked to stay at home so he can lose the elections. So, they must all still go and vote.

• the idea here was: hundreds if not thousands of people gather in the streets to vote, they can't vote because the elections are cancelled, they get angry and the police (already tense due to the whole coup thing) panic and start beating up people, the nazis then jump to defend them with guns and swords and everything descends into violence

The actual results?

...a huge army of supporters have gathered to to vote for Goergescu! Fear them!

(notice that messed up flag)

• 20 in the country

• 100 at Viena

• 30 at Paris and Rome

They seem more confused than angry... yeah civil wars aren't exactly our thing...

In the meantime, all the hardcore nazis that came to Bucharest to fight the police were arrested before crossing into the capital As soon as the elections were cancelled the cops descended on all the known nazis (both the infamous ones and new r-slurs that posted threats on TikTok after Georgescu's rise to fame). They confiscated lots of weapons (mostly knives and swords because guns are rare here). And the ones that managed to hide have been caught now.

Even some actual militias tried to join. We have a relatively large number of mercenaries fighting in Africa and the Middle East for some reason (large for a balkan shithole that had nothing to do ever with other continents anyway). Some leader active in Congo has been arrested for trying to bring 'dozens of weapons, two guns and lots of explosives' into Bucharest during the night.

Here's the badass action hero guy:

And here is him obediently following the cops to the police station:

Mercenarul Horatiu Potra, saltat si incatusat de mascati pic.twitter.com/tBFqy1AE04

— aktual24.ro (@ak24ro) December 8, 2024

So, the whole thing was a massive failure and a huge waste of money, resources and time for Russia The authorities are still in high alert for tonight, but it seems that the worst has passed To our surprise, and delight, America reacted immediately when we called for help and held our hand throughout all this nightmare

Best part for the last In the most embarrassing turns of events ever our presidential candidates decided to all send love letters to Trump for frick knows what reason

First our nazi russian agent

Thank you @elonmusk for the "heck" you mentioned. We need peace and democracy and that's the "heck" they are upsest about, but - In God we trust! pic.twitter.com/5WG0lAvNmw

— Călin Georgescu OFFICIAL ACCOUNT (@CG_Romania) December 7, 2024

Then his gypsy nazi friend

What’s happening in 🇷🇴 is a disgrace, @DonaldTrumpJr.
Romanian people clearly chose a sovereignist, patriotic, and peaceful future. Yet, Soros globalists have other plans for us.
This spring we have one last chance.
We need your support - for #freedom! @DonaldJTrump @elonmusk

— 🇷🇴 George Simion 🇲🇩 (@georgesimion) December 7, 2024

And then our LGBT Soros feminazi candidate

President @realDonaldTrump, you have all my respect for the great things you have done, and will continue to do, to put America first and for your continuous fight for the American people. You are a true leader of the people, just like me.

I share your belief that the people and… pic.twitter.com/rEHgbHmb6w

— Elena Lasconi (@ElenaLasconi) December 7, 2024

I literally never felt such a bone deep second hand embarrassment since middle school The only parties who didn't pull such an r-slured move were our status quo parties and I think I'll vote for them next elections because they're the only ones who understand how diplomacy works in the first place

All in all, EU is pissed, NATO is worried, after all if such a hidden network existed here then other similar networks could be planted for other countries, all waiting to be activated at the right moment, and according to some diplomats even Trump is pissed. I mean, imagine starting your presidency with all sorts of ideas for your country's problems only to have to sort through multiple eastern european conflicts because Russia can't keep it's hand to itself

It also stops with trans while I was referring to Transactions 💀💀

https://old.reddit.com/r/DownSouth/comments/1idqqg9/rwanda_vs_south_africa/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78w1ze7v25o

!africans !brics

jannies mark effortpoast plz

remind me never to put effort into posting on this website again breh

I swear this algorithm is against me or something cuz none of my kanye posts (which no one else posted about) got any updanks whatsoever

A classic is on our hands

Game : Street Fighter Alpha 3 - SFA3

PRIZE POOL : 20k MB [1st place 12k; 2nd place 6k; 3rd place 2k] Graciously provided by Trap and Cammy, what a beautiful couple Feel free to donate for the cause!

Date : 22nd of February, lucky number 222

Back to fightcade games Not like that changes anything for most of you neighbors.

Alpha 3 is a classic with footsies, cute girls and... borderline TOD custom combos galore. Considered by many, including Daigo Umehara to be their favorite Street Fighter of all time . Although I must say that I myself prefer 3rd strike This one is very unique for a street fighter game, due to 3 versions present for every character, Dhalsim being top tier, and of course the hallmark of Alpha, air blocking, so there should be a taste of anime here for those of you who are deeply subhuman Hope to see you nigs this month, stream issues are hopefully fixed, praying to the cell towers.

Sign-up link: https://www.start.gg/rDrama

LEARN THE GAME HERE:

https://wiki.supercombo.gg/w/Street_Fighter_Alpha_3

GET YOUR DOWNLOADS HERE:

Fightcade can be downloaded here --> https://fightcade.com

JSON files (Automatic downloads) --> https://lofi.netlify.app/post/fc2-json-pack-auto-download-roms-from-fightcade-2

!fightclub @Horned_waifus_shill and !g*mers

@KongEnjoyer Aevann carp pls pin

It is difficult to juggle the domestic herd and the three quarantined girls at once. Sheila has completely re-bonded with her babies. The boys eat wet food with their sisters so they're bonded.

!animalposters !cats

Years ago I ripped the DKD soundtrack off YouTube by searching various things + also took requests from people here and then I renamed the files to basic, ordered numbers because that seemed to make the most sense. You can see this here:

https://fsdfsd.net/MarseyWorld/MarseyWorld/src/branch/master/files/assets/events/DKD/music

However

I want to add the Now Playing to the bottom of the page, a really small footer with a cute lil equalizer graphic or something beside it. This will apply to all holigays. But it's DKD right now so let's tackle that.

Identify the tracks, include a link to the youtube video it came from to prove you're not full of shit. 500 per track identified. Obviously tell me which file the link corresponds to.

Do as many or as few as you want, some are actually really easy like the fricking DKC Funky's Flights theme.

Be first or be broke.

Thank you me because this is all happening as I have had a tab open since yesterday morning with some sort of Kong remix playing and I need to know what it is because it's SO GOOD.

Another gigachad with perfect genetics (5' tall fat Asian man with autism)...

Greatest President ever! pic.twitter.com/U8BuPVwSwd

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 7, 2025

It was dumb when plastic straws were outlawed, it's dumb when they're brought back in Plastic Q-tips on the other hand...

INTRO:

Greetings Dramatards

Yesterday on my father's farm, while we were busy vaccinating cows, by injecting medicine directly into their eyelids and eyeballs, I then had a moment to read an Afrikaans article about Elon Musk's incredible rise in stature, where he had managed to make powerful friends with Trump, and had managed to secure great power and influence by becoming the head of a newly created Department of Efficiency in USA - a newly created organization, which would endeavor during Trump's tenure to investigate Federal spending, and cut bloated or mismanaged funds by the American Nation State.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/13/trump-names-musk-and-ramaswamy-to-head-new-government-efficiency-department

Supposedly, this was because of Elon's cost-cutting measures which he had done, when he decimated Twatter's bloated workforce by something like 50% in the 1st week, and eventually by 80% overall by the end of the year he bought it. His appointment has been met with positivity by Magatards and the crowds, with the belief that he would endeavour to reduce the annual budget - and he had even made a campaign promise to slash the Colossal yank annual spending of 6 Trillion$, by 2 Trillion$ - video of which has been making rounds

When doubts had been raised by other rightoids of the feasibility of this grand feat, or the reliability of Elon, Magatards had just shouted them down

I'm here to explain why I believe Elon is a horrifying appointment

AMERICAN RIGHTWINGERS MISS THE DANGER OF MUSK:

The Afrikaans article was from a local Economist short paper and they like my own, have their biases to Rightwing type views. While the majority of criticism against Elon has been my lefties, communists and welfare leeches, which poisons the conversation about this significant event. Commies despise Elon for his Libertarian standing, and the fact that Billionares even exist as a concept - so the loudest people whom had opposed this announcement on Twatter had been fricking commies afraid Elon would slash their Neetbux instead of any policy or ethics criticism - which further poisoned the well of this discussion.

Now pissing off leftoids is always a GOOOOOD THING!

But many other rightwingers, like Patrick Boyle - who's a Libertarian Mick

have been criticizing Elon hard for his business acumen, his professional and public behaviour and his staggering corruption. And we'll get to that corruption.

The article I read went to such an extreme, as to calling Elon Musk's appointment, the equivalent of a Gupta appointment.

https://rdrama.net/post/162984/marseyflagsouthafrica-south-african-theme-park-racism

Basically the context is that during the infamously corrupt Safrican president Jacob Zuma's 10 years in office, he had esentiallly sold the very grounds beneath the feet of south africans, to the criminal Indian Gupta family, by giving them nationscale nepotistic appointments to their companies via tenders - and allowing the Guptas to pilfer the national resources of the country - in what was termed State Capture.

Elon Musk has similar degrees of monstrous conflicts of interest.

FEASIBILITY OF MUSK'S CAMPAIGN PROMISES:

Now there are a great of inefficiency which Musk can tackle

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/

Chances are even that it's even feasible that Musk and Trump could cut the annual 7.5 Trillion Budget by as much as 1 Trillion per year, by cutting off all of the Governmental bloat - like the top heavy Educational boards of urban schools filled with parasites, or in the very least make the Pentagon to a national audit see all the various black holes in which yank Federal funding are disappearing into (an audit alone would make Musk's new department worth it alone)

The issue is not the feasibility or the degree of feasibility of Musk curbing Government spending, but that there are phenomenal, PHENOMINAL conflicts of interest!

ARTICLES EXPLORING DEVIOUS CONFLICTS OF INTEREST:

A New York article written 3 weeks ago goes into how much US Tax dollars have been paying to various tenders obtained by companies owned by Musk's corporate conglomerates.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/us/politics/elon-musk-federal-agencies-contracts.html

https://archive.ph/kUw8W

The obvious answer would be SpaceX, Musk's space ship building organization, which has worked with, and in may ways supplanted NASA as the premier Space Rocket launching hub in the Western World - due to the fact that SpaceX has been able to organize itself in such a way as to superiorly run entity, and drive space related projects cheaper and with greater skill than the floundering modern NASA.

This world-famous and generally positively viewed symbiotic relationship, by both sides of the aisle in burgerland, between NASA and SpaceX, has been very VERY lucrative for Musk. However NASA is just one fraction of the government tenders SpaceX receives, since the Burgerland Department of Defense has come to rely on SpaceX the company, to launch all of its new military-related satellites!!

The non-space related shit in honestly not that many, but his influence on other shit, like the department of transportation is wild.

But much much more concerning that all of these tenders for !Burgers, is that over the past 10 years, Mush has been fricking embroiled in no less than TWENTY investigations from USA government oversight and Safety-Inspection organizations!!!!!

And these aren't just junk no-nothing investigations, they have large impact on the wider industries they influence in which Musk's various conglomerate companies are a part of.

Example:

=====(from NYT article)

His entanglements with federal regulators are also numerous and adversarial. His companies have been targeted in at least 20 recent investigations or reviews, including over the safety of his Tesla cars and the environmental damage caused by his rockets.

But he has thrown his fortune and power behind former President Donald J. Trump and, in return, Mr. Trump has vowed to make Mr. Musk head of a new "government efficiency commission" with the power to recommend wide-ranging cuts at federal agencies and changes to federal rules.

That would essentially give the world's richest man and a major government contractor the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies, amounting to a potentially enormous conflict of interest.

........multipronged business arrangements with the federal government, as well as the violations, fines, consent decrees and other inquiries federal agencies have ordered against his companies. Together, they show a deep web of relationships: Instead of entering this new role as a neutral observer, Mr. Musk would be passing judgment on his own customers and regulators.

Already, Mr. Musk has discussed how he would use the new position to help his own companies.

He has questioned a rule that required SpaceX to obtain a permit for discharging large amounts of potentially polluted water from its launchpad in Texas. He also said that limiting this kind of oversight could help SpaceX reach Mars sooner — "so long as it is not smothered by bureaucracy," he wrote on X, his social-media platform. "The Department of Government Efficiency is the only path to extending life beyond Earth."

======

........But the Federal Aviation Administration held up this most recent test launch for weeks, in part because of questions about harm SpaceX has caused to wildlife near its Texas launch site, a delay that infuriated Mr. Musk.

Last month, the F.A.A. started the process to fine SpaceX $633,009 for disregarding license requirements related to two of its Florida launches last year that may have compromised safety, the agency said.

This was a shift for the F.A.A., which in past instances had not imposed fines when SpaceX ignored the agency's direct orders. Marc Nichols, the F.A.A.'s chief counsel, said in a statement last month that "failure of a company to comply with the safety requirements will result in consequences."

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened five investigations of Tesla, including for complaints of unexpected braking, loss of steering control and crashes while cars were in "self-driving" mode.

Tesla has tried to block at least two rulings from the National Labor Relations Board, including one punishing Mr. Musk for tweeting that factory workers would lose stock options if they joined a union.

=======

Mr. Musk in recent years has particularly attacked the Securities and Exchange Commission, which in 2018 charged him with securities fraud for a series of false and misleading tweets related to taking Tesla private. Mr. Musk had posted on Twitter that he had planned to take the company private at $420 a share, and that he had "funding secured" for a transaction. As part of a later settlement with the S.E.C., he stepped down as Tesla's chairman and Tesla paid a $20 million fine.

In a 2022 TED Talk, Mr. Musk lambasted regulators, calling them "bastards."

=====(end NYT Quote)

As you guys can see our turbo neurodivergent has been every bit the morally bankrupt billionare as you would expect.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-11-14/elon-musk-conflicts-of-interest

=====(from LA times article)

Tesla:

Trump's policies could reduce the sales of electric vehicles, but with Musk's influence, his administration's policies could boost Tesla — though not with federal funding.

For example, Trump, who tempered criticism of electric vehicles after Musk backed him, might end a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles. That would hurt Tesla's unprofitable rivals that rely more on the tax credits to lure customers.

This year, Tesla received at least $2.8 million from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation through a federally funded program to deploy EV charging stations.

From 2022 to 2024, Tesla and its subsidiaries were awarded at least $631,800 in federal contracts mainly to provide vehicles for the U.S. embassies in Singapore, Iceland and Thailand, the data showed.

The Boring Co.:

Fed up with Los Angeles traffic, Elon Musk launched The Boring Co. with two tweets in 2016, promising "to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging."

However, at Trump's urging, congressional representatives could earmark local transportation projects to the benefit of Boring Co.

=====(end LA Times quote)

SUPER PACS:

Point is his new political influence would give him the capacity to disrupt investigations into his companies, by Health-and-Safety departments and regulators, or worse and most likely enable him to inject bias into the national procurement procedures, to net tenders for only his conglomerate of companies.

Now in the past, staggering corruption has existed. Yanks have appointed business tycoons into ministerial levels of power, or bought the Departments of regulators through influential lobbying by corrupt industry political interests, often through obscuring disguise called SUPERPACS

https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/super-pacs/2024

Like fossil-fuel industries, like coal-mining or offshore-oil-drilling conglomerates to bribe politicians in congress, senate or Presidential admin, to cut regulations in their favor. (Must has also done this for Trump BTW )

https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-america-pac-trump-d248547966bf9c6daf6f5d332bc4be66

But often these corrupt businessmen would be separated by a degree of control, by the corrupt politicians they aimed to control or influence - Musk would have not even ONE degree of such separation, and likely no fricking oversight.

MUSK'S VARIOUS BUSNINESS INTEREST'S SOAR IN VALUE ON STOCK MARKET:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/11/22/elon-musks-net-worth-hits-record-high-thanks-to-57-billion-post-election-windfall/

The corruption is SO flagrant that investors on the stock market have gone crazy in investing on in his various businesses, out of the sheer EXPECTATION that Musk will now use his considerable influence and political position to favor his corporate conglomerates!!

https://fortune.com/2024/11/11/elon-musk-donald-trump-election-tesla-auto-industry-carmakers-market-value/

MUSK IS A GEOPOLITICAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST:

Other geopolitical commentators had also mentioned that Musk is by sheer virtue of his Chinese and Russian connections, an astronomical military risk.

https://apnews.com/article/spacex-ukraine-starlink-russia-air-force-fde93d9a69d7dbd1326022ecfdbc53c2

Our boi had on various occasions cut off internet access for Ukraine forces, as they had utilized Starlink in the underdeveloped internet-infrastructure of Hohol-land, which had further degraded during the war, through constant missile barrages on Ukrainian civilian areas. Starlink internet was invaluable to guide GPS areal and naval missiles, as well as connect commercial drones to drop grenades unto enemy trenches

====(from AP article)

SpaceX founder Elon Musk's refusal to allow Ukraine to use Starlink internet services to launch a surprise attack on Russian forces in Crimea last September has raised questions as to whether the U.S. military needs to be more explicit in future contracts that services or products it purchases could be used in war, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Monday.

Excerpts of a new biography of Musk published by The Washington Post last week revealed that the Ukrainians in September 2022 had asked for the Starlink support to attack Russian naval vessels based at the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Musk had refused due to concerns that Russia would launch a nuclear attack in response.

However, in the months since, the U.S. military has funded and officially contracted with Starlink for continued support. The Pentagon has not disclosed the terms or cost of that contract, citing operational security.

But the Pentagon is reliant on SpaceX for far more than the Ukraine response, and the uncertainty that Musk or any other commercial vendor could refuse to provide services in a future conflict has led space systems military planners to reconsider what needs to be explicitly laid out in future agreements

=====(end AP quote)

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/world/europe/elon-musk-starlink-ukraine.html

Even if Musk's pro-Putler tendencies weren't such a dangerous hot-point in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the sheer fact that a USA-based private-enterprise would balk in the support of USA allies, out of fear of commercial retaliation of USA enemies, laid a lot of concern for Burgerland military leaders.

Then there is China, which in my opinion, and many geopolitical analysts, is a substantially LARGER threat, in terms of making Musk a cabinet weakness!!

Musk has substantial parts of his collective wealth tied to Chinese Factories:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3287323/elon-musks-china-ties-profound-threat-us-national-security-senator

====(FROM scmp)

Elon Musk's involvement in the incoming Donald Trump administration is drawing scrutiny over possible conflicts of interests, with a senator warning that the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's business ties with China could jeopardise US national security.

Tesla manufactures half of its vehicles in China, which also accounts for one-third of its sales, while the US Defence Department and other government agencies are increasingly reliant on SpaceX.

Musk's close business ties with China and some of its most senior officials, including Premier Li Qiang, have prompted reports that he could be considered by Beijing as a backchannel to Trump, especially in the early days of the transition period.

"It's a very, very difficult position for Mr Musk to be in," said Fish, adding that Beijing "loves to use corporate leverage" over US companies and individuals to advance its national security interests.

"Frankly, I don't know how Mr Musk can balance the interests he has with the US government, with Tesla and with SpaceX at the same time. It's very, very challenging," he said.

====(end scmp article)

Meaning China could literally threaten Musk with actual bankruptcy (for Tesla), if they try to put the squeeze on him to get him to do something for them, or to threaten Musk directly, if they want to hurt USA directly - like saying if USA provides some stuff for Taiwan, like Starlink antennas - they would just go straight to turbo cuck Musk!

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/10/why-does-elon-musk-still-have-a-security-clearance/680434/

Anyways that's all i have to talk about. Chances are that cutting the bloated yank Budget is entirely feasible - but I personally believe Musk is at all the appropriate candidate for such an astronomically difficult undertaking, despite the vast popularity he enjoys from Libertarians, rightoids and Magatards

Must is such an extremely bad fit for his position, that I think many americans have genuinely missed his obvious and extreme conflicts of interest, and how the cultural-wars and identity politics of Kamala and shitlibs have obfuscated such possible future Gupta tiers of corruption!!!

Like i hate commies as well, and i enjoy Musk dunking on filthy shitlibs, but that sure as shit doesn't garantee he'll be a force for good for Burgerland

!effortposters !africans

no really, it bothers me but not like it does some people

i have my excuses (my spine is deteriorating haha) but it is what it is

worst part imo is how far ive come. i used to be a pure antisocial shut in, but it took until my mid 20s to become social. people seem to view me as charismatic now.

im going to ask a girl out soon. ive been on a few dates but its been way too long. i have no money and no car (of my own) so frick it why not.

but there's plenty of things in life that make me happy. my r-slurred cat is sitting on me and i love her so much, but shes making my legs way too hot, but i love her so ill endure it until i cant and then tell her i love her

of course i kinda wanna die but thats more due to the constant crippling pain. lol

its like 3am and i kinda want to kiss my self right now. haha

is it genuinely over? AMA, talk shit, give advice, manifest destiny, idc, i clearly just need attention. i just want to hold someone in my arms thst genuinely wants to be there with me. xD

Honestly, if you went back about 2 weeks ago it was quite rare to see posts like this as I mainly saw normie crap and coomer bait as most people did... But that's all changed now... it's a whole new Boomerbook world!

I mean, seriously, why show me the AVAROSA 2024 Esports thing? There's some fishy Chud antics afoot here

Everyone who soys out over warhammer funko pops love the totally epic based black soldiers becausw they kill s and r*pe strags and #resist in canon but REDDIT WOKIES WHO ARE COMMIES have infiltrated the entirety of the warhammer universe fanbase and are totally ruining everything.

Here's a bunch of twitter and reddit links that you won't read:

Twitter.com

Reddit.com

Ratchat.chat

As you can see reddit WOKIES Hate warhammer despite being in the fandom and they hate everything about my favorite funko pops. Games workshop seeing the deranged commie wokies have bent the knee and changed the black templars. They are now the DEI templars and in lore are now now all gay black and trans and now look like this:

Here's some more reddit links that you don't care to read or even look at yourselves:

Reddit.com

Reddit.com

Twitter.com

As you can see wokie reddit commies who hate 40k are celebrating because they can now play warhammer 40k as commie wokies. This is literally g*mer gate 4.0 and I can't enjoy my funko pop games anymore because of this and I am making it everyone else's problem.

This is literally how I see the average @kaamrev post

Russian is acquiring territory at a rate of 100 dead/km². Another 50 million dead, and they'll control all of Ukraine.

There are more than 50 million Russians, so it's doable.

So smart.

Yet he forgets that Ukraine is about to mobilise their 18 years old. And that Russian captured in 2024 more than in 2023 and all their big gains happened the last 3 months.

Why look at those facts if it will make things look bad for Ukraine ? I mean Ukraine is going to win any moment they get the game changer… wait he ain't talking about Ukrainian victory, what happened ?

Area taken really doesn't show the full picture. You could probably calculate that it would take something like 100 years for Russia to take the whole of Ukraine. However neither Russia or Ukraine can't keep this level of warfare up more than a few years at most. One of them will eventually collapse either from lack of manpower/equipment or due to economy.

Shut up stupid Redditor

This. One of them is going to give up because both are really, really struggling. Both are running out if people. Both are irritating their allies. Both are getting increasingly desperate.

Exactly

The difference is that Russia is running on volunteers while Ukraine is conscription. Most of those volunteers come from the most impoverished areas of Russia and even from foreign countries. Russia can keep the war going much longer than Ukraine

Shut up no truth Russian soldiers having low moral

https://old.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/1fng9wy/russian_morale_is_collapsing_now_is_the_time_to/

Well, this ignores the fact that Russia is losing its position in the world (like in Syria) and that its economy is increasingly in trouble. It also misses the fact that the motivations are dramatically different. The Ukrainians are fighting for their very survival, they have very little incentive to surrender. The Russians are fighting for pride and money, which means they just want it all to wrap up quickly. The Ukrainians are far more committed to their fight than the Russians who are just there for a paycheck.

Exactly !

Ukrainian Journ*list Yuriy Butusov confirmed that 1,700 soldiers from 155th mechanized brigade "Anna Kyivska", which was trained in France and sent to Pokrovsk deserted before the first battle. He added that the brigade commander was dismissed immediately after the battle, and…

— AMK Mapping 🇺🇦🇳🇿 (@AMK_Mapping_) January 1, 2025

Ukrainian so motivated that after half year training in France they run away from their first battle. Not the second or third but first

Majority of Ukrainian dislike Zelenskyy, don't want 18 year old mobilised are ready to give up the territory

Burgers cuts the nafo budget and all the "combat Russian misinformation" budget. Media starts painting digits that tell majority of European now want it all just end

Ahmad Al Sharaa said in an interview with Saudi Arabian state-owned news outlet Al Arabiya this weekend. "We do not want Russia to leave Syria in the way that some wish."

Al Sharaa, still better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad Al Jolani (and other simply just as Jolani), is head of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the rebel coalition that deposed Assad.

"All of Syria's arms are of Russian origin, and many power plants are managed by Russian experts," Al Sharaa further told Al Arabiya, while also highlighting the "deep strategic interests" of what he described as the "second most powerful country in the world."

@DaddyReagan

Was insisting to me that Russian run away from that base like almost a month ago. Except Ukraine and EU (that ain't even part of that Syrian party) ain't interested in Russian leaving Syria. Redditors are too stupid to understand Israel, US, Turkey and the new Syrian gov won't benefit from Russian leaving.

"That isn't entirely true Russia forces are actually expanding And that has been noted on many occasions by NATO generals 1- https://www.businessinsider.com/top-us-general-russia-growing-back-pre-war-military-strength-2024-4

2- Atlantic council talking about how Russia military is expanding and it might reach peak military production in 2025 -2026 https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/nato-russia-dynamics-prospects-for-reconstitution-of-russian-military-power/

3- https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4589095-russian-army-grown-ukraine-war-us-general/

4- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-16/putin-says-russia-recruited-more-than-430-000-to-army-this-year

Since start of the war Russia conducted a semi mobilization for reserves

Meanwhile ukraine conducted six mobilization efforts in 2014 and 2015 Since the start of the war Ukraine have conducted countless mobilization and Ukraine has been snatching people from streets for year and half now

Antony blinken said in interview that Ukraine Basically has more equipment than troops at this point of time and they need to mobilize fast and also No increase in equipments will save them

Stupid Redditor making sense

With Trump as president, Ukraine will fall. It's a sad reality but we need to start admitting it.

This is smart Redditor, despite Ukraine last victory was on October 3rd 2022 so more than 50% of Biden presidency was without Ukrainian victories. So next years you will hear from them that Ukraine lost because of Trump

Because if Biden had won then Ukrainian demographics would been fixed. Can you argue with it ? You can't because you ain't multiverse creature that can test it

russia will collapse in 2025

— HotSotin 🇫🇮🇺🇦🇮🇱🇹🇼🇺🇸 NAFO (@HotSotin) December 31, 2024

That what I am talking about ! Oh wait it's not Ukraine going to win it's Russia going to collapse because subliminally they know Ukraine ain't going to win so they are coping with Russia will callabse

My fav prokhohol last year was this guy

Two things can be true at the same time.

Russia is advancing south of Pokrovsk, at huge sacrifice. Taking monstrous casualties and capturing a very small amount of land.

Ukrainian forces there are overwhelmingly outnumbered and feel hopeless as a result.

Both are true.

— Andrew Perpetua (@AndrewPerpetua) December 10, 2024

It actually isn’t a good result for Russia to shove a division into a fight with a few battalions and end up taking catastrophic casualties while capturing not much land. No matter how hopeless and overwhelmed the defenders feel.

— Andrew Perpetua (@AndrewPerpetua) December 10, 2024

I know a lot of people are currently obsessed with Russia’s advances in Ukraine, but I personally see these advances as largely a failure of the Russian military. They are dumping entire Divisions directly into combat and advancing a few km while sustaining absolutely…

— Andrew Perpetua (@AndrewPerpetua) December 7, 2024

Writes billions words in early December about Russian are now slowing down, Russian in December 2024 had best month since March 2022. Slowing down baby

Ukraine has two extremely toxic problems that should have been addressed a long time ago, but never were.

First, there is this pervasive idea that being mobilized into the military is basically a death sentence. Which is entirely untrue.

— Andrew Perpetua (@AndrewPerpetua) December 11, 2024

First, there is this pervasive idea that being mobilized into the military is basically a death sentence. Which is entirely untrue.

Ukraine literally didn't had any demobilisation the only way you get delisted from army in Ukraine is if you lose combat capability

Second, there is this idea that once mobilized, you can no longer contribute to the economy. This is asinine. Of course they can. There are many models of mobilization that allow people to keep their jobs and continue working while also being trained.

— Andrew Perpetua (@AndrewPerpetua) December 11, 2024

There are many models of mobilization that allow people to keep their jobs and continue working while also being trained

Ukraine has shortened the training requirements and so did eu for Ukrainian

So this homo suggest that Ukraine that is short on men power and has hard time replacing loses will just for lol train some guy to send him back to his regular job ?

This homo banned me but you can see he is genius. He believes that Ukraine has 6-12 months training and will do it 2 times Ukraine officially has 8 weeks training and in reality 2-3 and he talks about 100 weeks training

Then he finish of with this

Russian government: we have manpower problems
Russian military: we have manpower problems
Russian soldiers: we have manpower problems

People on twitter: RUSSIA HAS INFINITE MANPOWER AND WILL LAST FOREVER

— Andrew Perpetua (@AndrewPerpetua) December 14, 2024

And blocks comments because he wants to believe Russian having as much problems as Russian

I mean legendary frog brigade proved this point

Remember they haven't even really mobilized yet.

— Tom Neznamy (@Tom_Neznamy) December 14, 2024

So back to the front lines

Russian forces have completed the capture of Kurakhove. pic.twitter.com/tYSzMlLmzD

— KalibratedMaps (@Kalibrated_Maps) December 31, 2024

Kurakhove has fully been captured so now Ukraine will lose whole lower half of Donetsk and fight will start in Dniper region

As one Redditor wrote in og post

Once prokovsk is taken there is only fields till Dnipro, so loosing the Donbas would lose Ukraine the war. Taking the Donbas is by far the hardest part. Just look at WW 2 mr super military genius

Donbas is the most defensible part of that whole region of Ukraine / Russia, as you said first the Germans had trouble going through it and then Soviets too when they were retaking land. The guy calling this advancement against 2014 super entrenched defensive lines insignificant just outed himself as knowing nothing about the war

Ukrainian mappers of course don't report it

Since admitting Kurakhove has fully Ben lost is admitting that black line territory will be soon lost and chances are for truth Sirsky is going to mobilise then as he did with deepstatemap

Many people have high hopes with Trump that he will come and end it all.

And I have a good news, he won't

2025 will be year of legal battle. They talking about peace deal but what peace deal if nether Russia nor Ukraine are fighting each others ?

For a peace deal there must be a legal conflict and there just no conflict on paper. Russia wants that Ukraine side says that those 5 oblast are Russian territory. That something Ukraine side won't do since its defacto killing Ukraine, they of course don't have power to recapture it but they need cope that one day they will be able to do it. US offers no nato for Ukraine for 20 years. So every side wants to come out as victorious. But what West and Ukraine is offering Russia is just a draw and not fixing the reasons why Russia invaded. Why would Russia accept it after it survived all the giga western weapons. Aid for Ukraine is now around 500 billions that's inflation adjusted is 3 times more than lend lease to Soviet Union. And Biden created lend lease for Ukraine but never used it, you wonder why ? Because he was giving everything for free to Ukraine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_Democracy_Defense_Lend-Lease_Act_of_2022

Lend lease was such pathos moment

So after all the epic pathos moment how Russia will be defeated by united west

The scary tanks and long range missiles, Ukrainian are on their back foot without any ability to regain balance, west is offering Russian a draw

So you see it's ether Ukraine recognise that those 5 oblast are Russian or the grind will go on

As I mentioned before Zelenskyy is dead if he recognises those 5 oblast as Russian and he already against elections since now even republicans ask it and he still says no

So don't worry bros Slavshit won't end in 2025

Have a good year, see you again around February, need to study, will have exams about how bad and evil Trump is. Had to listen like 2 hours about how Trump is facist but you can't call him facist

Most Based Comments

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔥🔘🔘

Teslas are shit cars (look at their error stats) and Elon is a shit human being. I'm German, and I know a fricking Nazi Sieg Heil when I see one!! (667)

You're the original nazi. Takes one to know one. (-93)

Basedness: 🔥🔥🔘🔘🔘

Your friend is ignoring the facts because they make her uncomfortable. Elon is a total Nazi, he's defending the AfD, a neo Nazi party, in Germany right now and telling Germany to get over the Holocaust. He bought Twitter so Nazis would quit getting banned and censored. They just ignore those facts because it makes them uncomfortable and it doesn't directly impact them...yetQuit trying to defend Nazi shit in my comments. I'm gonna tell you you're defending a Nazi and then block your ignorant butt when you continue to try and act like THIS isn't the same darn thing https://giphy.com/gifs/gJJ8ZV3xVonUU4vcXwETA: Longer paragraphs defending Nazi shit doesn't all of a sudden mean I won't block you when I see it, so you can quit trying to convince me to give Nazis a chance to speak their mind...frick Nazis and frick their opinions, their Nazi butt opinions are rooted in bigotry, they're trash and I don't discuss things with garbage. (318)

He is saying my heart goes out to you!! I am high jacking your top comment to clearly point this out. Quit making something into what it isn't. He did not do the salute. He was throwing his heart out to the crowd. Whatever other agenda y'all have with whatever he has done is not needed in this. Pretend he isn't Elon.. he is just some person throwing his darn heart out to the crowd!!! OP threw out a friendship because they are so blinded by just who the person is that they didn't want to see what was actually being said with the hand gesture! FFS get over yourselves! (-45)

Basedness: 🔥🔘🔘🔘🔘

No, he's literally done the "my heart goes to you" gesture by making his hands into a heart.He ALSO literally JUST told Germany to get over the Holocaust If it honks like a goose and steaks like a goose, it's a fricking Nazi (30)

Lmao this is beyond wild. He did not say "get over the holocaust" like the other comment says he said it's over and no one is to be to blame anymore don't blame someone for their ancestors! Geez (-23)

Angriest Comments

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Teslas are shit cars (look at their error stats) and Elon is a shit human being. I'm German, and I know a fricking Nazi Sieg Heil when I see one!! (667)

this comment isn't all that good. not all that interesting or good really. double plus bad. it's not really 'top comment' material is it? it does really conform with what's popular though. fascists everywhere. i feel faint... where am i.... is that guy doing a bad thing? i hate that man. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hats. i mean hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. hate. (-1)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

People can be upset by more than one thing at the same time where I come from. Not good at multi -tasking? (4)

No, I'm neurodivergent. I don't need to see a clip of Elon being a moron to know that Trump is a fascist and I feel that this particular thing is rage bait. It's a bad look, but it's not an executive order that is going to get thousands of trans people killed. There's so much destructive angry energy going around and I feel like it's not even worth it to keep dwelling on Elon's Nazi salute. The salute and the response are amplifying all of the nasty energy that's already in the country. And the salute isn't even killing anyone. (1)

Angriness: 😡😡😡😡😡

Pretty sure bro bought the car before elon supposedly seig heiled anyways. (10)

Yeah idk what OP's angle is here. Like are they demanding they sell their car just because op doesn't like Elon after he did something stupid? The fact op is literally being an butthole, forcing politics into the group chat then getting angry they don't automatically hate whoever op hates, then getting more angry that they happen to own a Tesla, is unequivocally an butthole move and sentiment but Reddit is so anti Elon they'll ignore all of it just to take another stab at that dumbass (2)

Biggest Lolcow: /u/The_Rad_Knight

Score: 🐮🐮🐮🐮🔘

Number of comments: 6

Average angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

Maximum angriness: 😡😡😡🔘🔘

Minimum angriness: 🔘🔘🔘🔘🔘

NEW: Subscribe to /h/miners to see untapped drama veins, ripe for mining!

autodrama: automating away the jobs of dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

(This is a continuation of my reply to the recent thread about the Civilization series.)

It's got some issues with, for lack of a better term, historical accuracy. There's some weird dodgy stuff in the tech tree. You may try to scoff and say that it's just a game, it's not meant to be accurate. Yeah, of course not, to a certain point. Old Man Redactor once saw me playing Darklands and pointed out that if you just changed the data files you could use the same engine to make a game about running a laundromat. What elevates games over spreadsheets is that there's some kind of story that it's telling you where the numbers mean something. In Civ, that story is history in general, so it had darn well better at least feel like it has to do with history.

I only realized later that actually my father is a Satanist who was trying to drive me away from good Christian games. One day on the solstice he made carry a bunch of 1-gallon milk jugs full of blood (I dunno what kind) from the garage to the trunk of his old Honda. Then he got in and it flew away into the night. That's when I put two and two together.

The way religion is handled I think is pretty butt-backwards. In the original Civ, it's all abstract. You build a temple and that's it, it's assumed that it's a temple for whatever these people believe in. It doesn't really matter what religion it is because, for the purposes of the game of Civilization, people from different religions act pretty much the same for the most part because we're all human.

The other approach you can take is what they do in Europa Universalis. (I dunno if they still have the guts to do this but they did when I played it.) Where you decide which religions are good or bad and give them bonuses and penalties. This obviously has some disadvantages. Like it's really fricking obvious what's going on when the game is made in Sweden and the good religions that get bonuses are in northern Europe. You can't get away with that if you're making a game outside of an extremely ethnocentric culture like Sweden.

Swedes always score themselves as the happiest country on Earth when they make those rankings, yet all the Swedes I know complain about how their husband just drinks all day and won't do anything even though she physically beats the shit out of him. Curious.

Civ IV tried to have their cake and eat it too but you end up with nothing and you're still hungry. The religions use the superficial trappings of ones from the real world but in gameplay terms they're completely generic with nothing differentiating them except which tech activates them. If they're generic why do we need them? Why not just leave it completely abstract like in Civ I? If we're assigning them to real world religions, why don't we give them their own special bonuses like we do with different civilizations?

The approach in Civ IV is kinda stupid both in terms of gameplay and theme. You might as call the religions pokemon because you're best off just collecting them all. Each one in a city adds happiness and gives you the opportunity to build more improvements. Honey, please. This is a stupid gameplay mechanic where you're encouraged to build missionaries to convert all your cities and build the same improvement several times for each religion. I consider this to be what Soren Johnson (designer of Civ IV) himself called a "degenerate strategy" in his seminal piece "Water Finds a Crack". You're doing something that's stupid and not interesting because the game rewards you for it. There's no interesting choices going on here. The other gameplay impact religion has is that basically it makes some of the AI civilizations hate you for no reason. This was obviously intended to stop you from just turtling and being friends with everyone, but it's annoying when you're left with fewer options to pursue in diplomacy.

In terms of history, this is all really stupid. Religious diversity works in America because the Founding Fathers designed our nation around it. In the rest of the world in the rest of history, having many different religions in one city is not a recipe for everyone to love each other. Let's look at the late 1500s, when religion was perhaps the most important in history that it's ever been. You had stuff like Protestant mobs surrounding the convent and yelling lewd suggestions of what the nuns should do. Today in Beirut they've got 15 religious sects and it's not giving them +15 happiness points. It's giving them continuous simmering animosity. Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad, great cities that have "stood the test of time" like the ones represented in Civilization are not finding that diversity is their strength. By ignoring these real issues, I feel that Civ IV is demeaning both to America, where we actually solved them to some extent, and to the poor bastards living in those shithole countries where they have to deal with sectarian bullshit on a daily basis.

In 1976 the Lebanese decided that their happiness bonus from being multicultural society was so great that they asked the Syrian Army to come and violently put down sectarian violence experience it for themselves.

Also, what do you do with the Jews and Hindus? If you're putting real world religions into the game they're incredibly important so you have to include them, but they're not like the other ones featured in the game. They're not sending missionaries around trying to convert people. So what do you do? Write special rules for them? Who's gonna do that? You'd need to hire some guy from Hebrew University who also loves 4X to do any justice to it.

Now this is a nice campus.

The way that religion affects diplomacy in the game is stupid in the other direction. Countries won't make alliances with the "infidels"? How fricking naive do you have to be? Are like 4 fricking years old? Let's look at the late 1500s again. I don't have the book at hand at the moment, so this is from memory, but there was an alliance against the Hapsburgs that was something like this: Sweden, Denmark, England, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, various parts of Italy, and the Ottomans. They'd have added the Moros in the Philippines if they had better communications technology. In Lebanon they've gone through every possible combination of different sects allying with each since 1975. Most hilariously the Druze who have been both allied with and fought everyone else at least once since then. The elites running the country or the faction usually don't give a shit about sectarian hatred except as a tool they can use to manipulate the plebs.

Sana'a Mehaidli. Carried out a suicide bombing against the Israeli occupation force in 1985. I guess nobody ever told her that as a Christian she wasn't supposed to be on the same side as Muslims.

Which takes me back to my original point about how Sid Meier did it with generic temples. It's not because he's some atheist who hates religion. (He's actually a Christian of the actually going to church kind btw.) It's because trying to fit too much low-level detail about religion into a 4X game is really tricky and probably won't work in terms of gameplay or theme. I've always had a strong impression that this feature was basically put in because there was a feeling among (mostly atheist) 4X fans that religion was a big thing in history so we need a gameplay mechanic for it. And my feminine masculine intuition is rarely wrong.

After all this time I spent writing this I really feel like... starting up a new game of Civ IV. It's a great game.

!crossword

LA Times, Sun, Jan 26, 2025 - "Quality Time"

https://downforacross.com/beta/game/6898590-swug

SOLVED

NY Times, Sun, Jan 26, 2025 - "Letter Openers"

https://downforacross.com/beta/game/6898597-vosk

SOLVED

LA Times, Sat, Jan 25, 2025

https://downforacross.com/beta/game/6898606-glaff

SOLVED

NY Times, Sat, Jan 25, 2025

https://downforacross.com/beta/game/6898604-glemp

SOLVED

rDrama themed crossword

https://downforacross.com/beta/game/6793417-jisk

SOLVED

NY Times, Sun, Jan 3, 2010 - "Antique Finish"

https://downforacross.com/beta/game/6898609-plusk

SOLVED

NY Times, Sun, July 4, 2024 CRYPTIC

https://downforacross.com/beta/game/6898623-vosk

SOLVED

THANKS FOR PLAYING EVERYONE

As you can see, this week we will do the usual Sat & Sun crosswords, then our special drama-themed crossword made by @ShriekingGeek , then we will do a Sunday NY Times crossword from 2010 which was uploaded this week, and then we will finally end on a cryptic crossword printed last year in The NY Times and uploaded this week, which was fortunate for us since we are going to start adding some cryptic crosswords to line up.

If you are not familiar with cryptic crosswords, I highly recommend you familiarize yourself with how they work if you want to help us solve them. Otherwise, the clues will look like gibberish. Here is a guide from The New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/puzzles-and-games-dept/articles/a-starter-pack-for-the-cryptic-crossword-curious