lol

REPORTER: *asks dumb question*

TRUMP: “I don’t know what you’re talking about and neither do you. Who are you with?”

REPORTER: “HuffPost”

TRUMP: “I thought they died.” 🤣 pic.twitter.com/B14XtHkYhD

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 10, 2025

!chuds

Happy Valentine's Day ♥️ pic.twitter.com/6d7qmo7gtz

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 14, 2025

Darklands Series

1 - Darklands LP Part I

2 - Darklands LP Part II: Charles Bronson Edition

3 - Darklands LP III: Nuns and Coins

4 - Darklands LP Ep IV: Introduction to Equipment & Combat

5 - Darklands LP Part V: We finally briefly go out into the dark lands

6 - Darklands LP VI: We actually start a quest!

7 - Darklands LP VII: We reach our destination

8 - Darklands LP VIII: Raubritter confrontation & learning how combat works

9 - Darklands LP IX: I'm not giving you my goddarn alchemical materials

10 - Darklands LP X: We actually do some alchemy!

11 - Darklands LP XI: The Main Plot

12 - Darklands LP XII: Halloween Edition

Episode XIII

Welcome back. I know it's been a while. I apologize. Last time we slaughtered the Satanists at their sabbat (at least the ones we couldn't save) and found out where their base is. We now have a clearly defined mission: Assault the Fortress Monastery in Denmark and break the next seal. (Or Schleswig-Holstein or something, I'm not opening up that can of worms.)

That means hiking across the entire Empire from Teschen nearly at the border of Hungary all the way to Denmark. No doubt we'll run into a few adventures along the way.

At least that was the plan until we had to make a detour.

Long story short, I had written a whole episode but I was wondering why my guys were suddenly getting hurt so bad in fights. It turns out their armor had burned up. For most of them, it was down to very low quality. Poor Nathan was completely naked. This has got to be from the potions that the witches threw at us at the sabbat. They didn't do much immediate damage but they've derailed our plans for months. Now we've got to make enough money to replace that armor. Which means I have to grind.

All the stuff I've showed you about how the game works, I gotta go back and do more of that. Kill bad guys, make potions, travel around, learn about new saints and alchemical formulas, trade. I'm not complaining. I love doing this. But in this episode we won't be following the main plot and hitting the Fortress Monastery yet. So instead I'll focus on the random encounters.

Did I ever mention that about half of the game is random encounters? These pop up when you're traveling on the world map. There's, I dunno, at least a hundred of them. You never know which one will hit next which is what keeps you on your toes. That's why "grinding" never gets boring. I haven't mentioned many of them yet because each episode was designed to teach about specific gameplay mechanics and it would be distracting. So I guess this is going to be the episode about random encounters and the smaller less important places you run into on the map. I'm still cutting a lot out and just including the more interesting ones.

Our new goal: Go wander around and do Darklands stuff until we've got a lot of money and then go back to Dresden and buy high-quality armor for everyone.

Let's Go!

Uh oh. Looks like we pissed off the wrong people. The Wild Hunt isn't a DLC for some game about a dour gray man collecting s*x cards, it's what the witches send to hunt you down when they identify you as a threat. Those b-words are pissed off about what we did at the sabbat. I guess we'll have to deal with them eventually.

Well I'm not gonna let this sod hut just sit there looking sinister at me. Let's have Yuna ask St. Dorothy of Montau for some insight. She lived in this region, dying just recently in 1394 as an anchoress in the land of the Teutonic Order. She'll know what to do.

Well that's pretty bad. I don't consider even Yorkies and Cavaliers to be "slavering hounds from heck" but they can come pretty close when they want attention. Time to kick down this door.

She has some potions, so she might be some threat. But as we've seen before, wolf teeth can't penetrate chainmail. Sure enough, her alchemy degrades our abilities a lot but the wolves aren't able to take advantage and she goes down fast.

What would Satan not want us to do? What would really piss him off? We're going to forgive her.

Let's hope this works out better than every time I've ever tried to save a woman from herself IRL amirite.

We come across a cave. This is one of those sites where somebody sent us on a fetch quest long ago. Nathan uses his agility to climb up a cliff and throw the rope down to bring the rest of the party up. Now we've got to deal with the dwarf who has the item. I got 16 gold florins, which is a lot more than we'll get paid for the quest, but who cares? It will give me a little bit of fame which is worth more to me now. If I need money I've got a bunch of dead guys' armor and surplus alchemical potions.

Redactor is making some serious fricking money at this point. He can reliably make potions and sell them at a profit. The only problem is that the materials required are scattered all over the country so I've got to keep traveling to keep him supplied.

Ugh, one of these guys. He seems pretty sketchy to me. In the past we had to pay these guys off because they really will curse you if you don't and you can't just kill a friar because you think he's bullpooping you. But not this time, pal. You're a Dominican? Let's see what St. Dominic has to say about this.

We get out of paying him a little bit. More importantly we may have saved his soul. This guy has been led pretty far astray but hopefully they can get his shit sorted out down in Rome. (You can also pray to saints who specialize in calling out liars with the same effect except the text is completely different. In that he admits that his curses are from the power of Satan, not God.)

Against the Wild Hunt we all gotta stick together. My party is pretty weak at Woodwise and especially Stealth, so I have no confidence in our ability to use subterfuge here. We are really good at fighting though. I'll just take them on head-on.

Bigfoot is from Oregon, so this is just my ordinary day to day life. We defeat the hellhounds and rescue him of course.

I've got a hunch that this fruit will permanently increase someone's strength by a few points. Who to give it to? Both of the girls are at 32 strength (we already upgraded Sasha this way) and I'm at a mere 31. This is an intolerable situation. Girls can't be stronger than me. Redactor gets the apple and a bump up to 35 strength.

I go to Prag and ask if the King of Bohemia needs me to do any quests for him. This is Wenceslsaus (Vaclvav) IV, a really important guy. Prague had a golden age when his father and him were ruling. Both were also the Holy Roman Emperor and made it their capital. This is when the famous Charles University was founded for example. But soon the situation will spin out of control. He was deposed as Emperor a few years ago. Disputes about religion, nationality, and plain old factionalism are debstabilizing the kingdom and he is barely holding on to power. His death in 1419 will be the start of the Hussite Wars.

A Hussite wagenburg. Wagons were lashed together into a defensive wall and defended by guys with crossbows and guns. Apparently it was a pretty effective tactic because they repeatedly defeated the combined forces of all of Europe.

(One part of the game that never ended up getting implemented but still has vestigial traces of it in the data files is the Hussites. They're suspicious of you because you're German, but if you can talk them down from violence they'll warn you about the Knights Templar. I guess we're all on the same side after all. The game's designer told me that there was supposed to be a lot more regional content like this but they didn't have enough time to include much of it, so the whole game world is pretty much based on the mythology of western Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe. It's too bad. There's so much more you could do with this setting.)

Anyway, the Emperor's aides at least consider giving me an audience before telling me to frick off. I guess at 123 fame ("slight reputation") it's hard to get a face to face meeting with one of the most important people in the world.

After a lot of grinding I get, I dunno, maybe 100 florins from quests and selling dead people's armor. Back to Dresden. It's enough to finally get everyone fully fitted with 34-quality chainmail. Nathan is even strong enough (barely) to wear partial plate armor without encumbrance penalties, at least if he's not wounded. I've got some backup armor in case ours gets burned up again.

We can carry that around because while Darklands has harsh penalties for weighing down your people with equipment too heavy for them in battle, outside of combat you can carry as much as you want. I routinely end up carrying around 30 sets of armor after a jaunt through the countryside killing a few people as I go along. It might seem surprising that this is allowed given the extreme attention to detail and realism in other parts of the game, down to measuring the time of day using medieval units instead of hours. But I'm not complaining.

Compare it to Bethesda games. In Bethesda games I spend probably 1/3 of my time either hauling loot back to the store to sell or deciding which loot is worth picking up. And of course you can't just go directly to the store. You go to the city and then walk down the same goddarn street you have a million times before to go to the store. Why? What in God's name would justify wasting my time like that? Why can't I just walk up to a city and immediately access the trading screen? This isn't cutting edge technology. Betrayal at Krondor came out a year after this. In that when you reach a city it switches from 3D mode to a picture of the city and you just click on the shop and bam, you're there. Why can't that evil little leprechaun Todd Howard do the same for us 30 years later?

Meta

Anyway, I think we're ready for the Fortress Monastery now. TBQH it's been many years since I actually played the game to this point. (It's taken me something like 50 hours to get this far.) So I can't remember how tough the Monastery is, but I believe it's supposed to be mid-game content.

There's a couple big mid-game quests that I wanted to show you first, but they only spawned in distant places like Aachen, so if I tried to go there it would probably have disappeared by the time I got there. I guess I'll do those after the Monastery.

BTW I am playing pretty much optimally here using every trick I know. I'm trying to go into everything way overpowered because if I lose it means I have to savescum and that wastes a lot of time. There's a lot of stuff that I'm skipping over because the game has so much content and so many features that I'm afraid I'd die of old age before I got to the end. My plan is that after I win I'll go back and show you this stuff, at least if @kaamrev badgers me enough.

Lots of beautiful lush grass and thousands of people!

Is that someone pretending to be a wizard? How can anyone take any of this seriously?

https://old.reddit.com/r/pitbulls/comments/1iqozi2/someone_called_her_vicious/

Schizophrenics should be medicated

https://old.reddit.com/r/BanPitBulls/comments/1iqqyuv/since_when_did_animals_have_more_rights_than/

This is actually pretty strange. Maybe he's just some turbo neet addicted to the janny life. I'm not sure how he'd be making money from this. But it's creepy how these jannies weasel their way into more and more control.

I saw him on the front page earlier here

https://old.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1ie3wnc/severance_2x03_who_is_alive_episode_discussion/

Just a discussion thread, nbd. But I found a bunch of posts about him.

Sardines discussed him 2 weeks ago (removed of course)

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1i495u2/head_moderator_for_rtheboys_uloretitv_flagrantly/

That's a flagrant repost But he mops hard on any post that calls him out.

Not sure the rDrama rules here , but there is a private social media account with the same reddit username

sardines?

This redditor explains what he's doing

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheseFrickingAccounts/comments/1i19jjc/this_moderator_is_using_their_own_subreddit_as_a/

OR they have some sort of mental illness that drives them to see their fake internet points go up.

I'm leaning toward that, but I'll make a poll at the bottom.

Anotha one

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheseFrickingAccounts/comments/1i1dnd3/uloretitv_the_top_mod_of_rtheboys_reposts_their/

Couple more posts

https://old.reddit.com/r/exposingbadmods/comments/1hwd21b/loretitv/

janny making redditors seethe? Or cringe janny?

https://old.reddit.com/r/HOTDBlacks/comments/1hwz9h3/pathetic/

https://old.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/1e48xav/hardest_album_in_the_riverlands/

Redditors, I mean dramneurodivergents, discuss:

I slept with 600 men in 2024 — now I’m looking to settle down and find love https://t.co/2DD0JSJyvJ pic.twitter.com/3qHnawZPnc

— New York Post (@nypost) February 17, 2025

https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1itweig/report_muslim_community_leaders_blocking_women_in/

!asians

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3130060/Move_Out_Manor/

The game that the post is about.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3336610/Ghostly_Acres/

The new game.

Going on visuals alone this is actually a significant upgrade that they should be happy about. I can't say much about the rest though. It's a little sad that the talent they have is being funneled into the trash. There's talk of "market research." Surely asking anyone in their life if they'd be willing to spend any amount of time or money on a puzzle game where you push boxes around would get them the results that it took nine months to find.

"We did all the things you're supposed to do: Steam page launch, Next Fest, festivals, but still have minimal sales." When they say minimal they're talking less than 100 sales. Likely less than a dozen genuine. It has one real review. The other isn't even a friend, it's a small youtuber who received the game for free. Not a single associate of this team was willing to play and review this game.

When I started making these posts it was to point and laugh. Now the thought of multiple people spending their free time producing content that likely didn't even cover the $100 steam submission fee makes me

I wonder if a Caleb Hammer-type show where "legitimate" devs pitch their idea to a flamboyant host would go well. Ideally the content would have a biggest-loser "where are they now" segment but almost every time it would be - "faded away into obscurity, released nothing."

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

Bonnie Blue, known for sleeping with 1,057 men in under 24 hours is reportedly pregnant pic.twitter.com/w1Pv3aSARp

— FearBuck (@FearedBuck) February 19, 2025

🐞 #BeriArt @beribug.bsky.social

— thernz (@thernz.bsky.social) 2025-02-10T01:45:35.559Z

Shit butt FRICKING BUTTON MAKING ME STRESS AND ALMOST TAP WHY DOES THIS EXIST WHY IS IT AT THE TOP OF THE FEED AAAAAAAAAAA

Telling on myself here, but I mostly only listen to true crime podcasts, and almost exclusively when I'm running or working out. I like them because there's a built-in element of drama and kind of trashy gossip of digging around in the refuse of someone else's life. Also a little tiny bit of fear/danger element that gets me amped up when I'm running, especially at night like what if I have to run away from a psycho???

I don't generally like sort of hang-out-and-shoot-the-shit interview podcasts, but I see that so so many people do. Is it a parasocial thing? Like if you like the hosts and you want to imagine being friends/lovers with them? Or maybe you are not a funny and clever person yourself / you have no inner monologue, so you need a podcast to fill your head with other people being funny and clever on your behalf?

Anyway, what do you look for in your podcasts? What should I start listening to?

Or this is an open thread, just chat about whatever. I got a new breadmaker and it fricking sucks. How do you know if a breadmaker is bad or just the recipes or maybe you suck at pouring four ingredients in a pot and pressing the "start" button correctly? Someone told me I should use the recipes off Bread Daddy instead of the ones in the book that came with the machine. Anyone here tasted the Bread Daddy's dough?

76 percent of British converts to radical forms of Islam are ginger. pic.twitter.com/DVa3KGUzXy

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 1, 2025

Muhammad had a red beard, it's the religion where gingers can be the main character.

Hollywood jews replaced all the gingers with blacks so they had to retaliate