Ironhold

Maybe where you were, but where I was it was very much "if you're not going on a mission or getting married, then don't bother" well through the 2000s.

Imagine the dude who *delivers* those cannisters standing next to the truck while lighting up. I noped out of there so fast...

There's a big difference between "depicting people as they naturally are" and "there's a checklist of who and what must be depicted in order to give the appearance that you're all for everyone". The church is now a global church and so the materials are trying to reflect this. It's an organic shift. What activists and whatnot have tried to push is "I don't care if it's not historically accurate; you *must* have all of these groups in your movie at once or you'll be blacklisted!".

Yeah. I'm trying to piece together a G. I. Joe RPG game, and since IRL the Texas State National Guard and other military groups are setting up "temporary" facilities near Eagle Pass I figured I could leverage it into an ostensible cover story for the construction of Joe HQ. I was refreshing myself as to what was where so I could get some maps going when I noticed that. edit - Neither Sunbow nor DiC established where the Joe base was in their respective cartoon series. Marvel US had the first base as an underground facility at Fort Wadsworth, the second base as an underground facility at The Presidio, and the third base as an underground facility somewhere in Utah, likely either Dugway Proving Grounds or Hill AFB. The game manual has the base in Utah, but posits it as being so far out in the middle of nowhere that IRL it *being* that far out in the middle of nowhere would be suspicious in its own right. (Hasbro cut a deal with an RPG publisher named Renegade to produce games based on G. I. Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony, and Power Rangers. But the "Essence 20" system Renegade is using is a flaming disaster, and the books themselves are shot through with typos & other obvious errors. Only an experienced game master should even consider running games using those manuals, as they will need to rely on their experience to compensate for how bad the books are.)

I had Google Maps up last night to reference something in regards to the city of Eagle Pass, Texas, for an RPG campaign I'm looking to do. I noted that whoever did the update changed the name of the church completely on the marker, switching it to botched Spanish that I *think* was them trying to give the name of the church in Spanish. Going to Street View, however, would show the front of the building, which very much looks like a stake center and which has the "visitors welcome" bit underneath the usual plaque identifying the church. I'm thinking that this is something that, as so often happens, will need tinkering with to get it correct.

You might want to take a look at what's going on up in Canada, where assisted self-termination is already legal. Canada's health care system is overloaded even on a good day, and there are numerous allegations of individual doctors taking advantage of assisted self-termination by "prescribing" it for people who don't actually meet the criteria but who the doctor wants to be rid of to reduce their patient load.

When it comes to writing, the adage is "give them the impossible, but not the implausible". If people go into something understanding that it's fantastic or incredible they'll put their brains on idle and enjoy the ride. However, if they see something that causes them to go "hey, wait a minute", it'll wake their brain back up and take them right out of it. This is why, for example, people can accept the entire idea of Pokemon being about 10-year-olds going out to catch all sorts of dangerous critters on their own but folks have spent the past 25 years asking how Delia Ketchum pays the bills given that she's a single mother who is not shown on-screen as having any source of income but none-the-less has money for vacations. That she refers to Ash's dad in the *present* tense all the way back in the very second episode further muddies the water, as that means his dad is running around somewhere.

It's part of the overall criticism process, a way of showing plot holes in a script and bringing to light the importance of thinking things through when writing.

It's a meme how often entire movies could be altered significantly, or even averted, within only 5 minutes' time. Like how with Jurassic Park, everything that went wrong happened because the guy spared *many* expenses when it came to his IT department despite lavishly spending on everything else. If he'd hired an actual team of IT workers and bleeding-edge tech systems instead of just trusting Nedry and a Windows knock-off the dinosaurs would have never gotten loose. Or how Harry Potter never actually *needed* to participate in the Tri-Wizard Tournament since, well, it's only supposed to be between three wizards and his was the fourth name that came up. If the authorities had investigated, or Harry had chosen to sit it out, Voldemort's plan would have been thwarted. 1987's G. I. Joe: The Movie? "Hey... Lt. Falcon is the very definition of irresponsibility. Are you sure you want him as part of the guard detail for Serpentor? Barbecue and Airtight aren't doing much of anything; let's have one of them handle the overwatch." And so on...

Got to thinking about it earlier today. How did the house pass muster with the building inspector? If everything was laid right out in the plans when the house was first built, then it wouldn't have been approved unless something hinky went down behind the scenes. If anything, the cops might have been called to pay the guy a visit. The stuff he did in that house is too extensive for one guy to do by himself in any reasonable length of time even if he had the skills to do it, and any sensible contractor would have started asking questions.

Japan's birth rate is so low that they're literally undergoing a baby *bust* and it's jeopardizing their entire economic structure. If it keeps up, Japan as a nation will be in danger of collapse. Couples are being offered tax incentives to offset the cost of pregnancy and potential lost income, while company after company - including the national rail lines - has begun offering child care services or the like in order to make it more convenient for couples to continue working even after they have children. Yes, larger rail stations are now offering day care and child care services, with certified caregivers, electronically locked facilities, and webcam access for parents.

You know how every June there's a parade of companies and organizations that alter their logos on social media so that they appear to be pride flags? About 2 - 3 years ago, someone got curious and began looking at companies that had both overall social media accounts *and* individual regional accounts. BMW and a few others got busted for *not* changing their logos to the pride flag in places like China and the Middle East where homosexuality is still stigmatized or even illegal, with people rightly calling out the fact that this meant they were likely not actually supporting the rainbow but just after more green. Ever since then, every June people now start checking to see who does or doesn't flake out.

It *used* to be that several companies, like Disney, Hasbro, and Activision - Blizzard were perpetual "buy and hold" stocks, with their down periods being more than overcome by their up periods. Nowadays, even I'm hesitant to invest in any one given company due to corporate negligence and corporate incompetence.

If Twitter, Facebook, and a few other social media platforms hadn't been pressured or gamed into quashing the laptop story in 2020 there's a real chance Trump would have won. It's one of the few October Surprises I recall that had a real chance of overturning a presidential election.

"Hey folks - these are the trends I'm seeing and the sentiments that I've noticed are flooding across social media. Based on this, I suspect that these are the key issues to watch out for and the key concerns that need to be addressed. If they're handled promptly and deftly, the Democrats can potentially quell the unrest and lure voters back to their... oh for the love of... *who thought it was a good idea to let Tim Walz hold a shotgun?!* Did you learn *nothing* from Dukakis?" - the general gist of how I was looking at things. At every step of the way the Harris campaign snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They could well have won if they'd have run a competent campaign and given square answers to the public instead of waffling.

I've been trying to explain to some Democrats I know that Trump's win was functionally a foregone conclusion, but *only* if you paid attention to what people were actually saying, which in turn meant turning off the mainstream news networks and engaging with people both in person and on social media. Anyone who did so realized that large swaths of multiple demographic groups were feeling alienated by modern society and unheard by the Obama / Biden / Harris machine. For example, there are a *lot* of people, men and women alike, who saw those trendy "The future is female!" t-shirts (et al) and asked "if the future is female, then what place will men have in that future?". Or whenever people brought up their concerns over inflation, Harris (et al) would frequently punt or offer a non-answer instead of giving a concrete solution. Cue various individuals coming in, seeing this void, and offering themselves up as a way to fill that void. This has led to a backlash against not just the Democrats but the larger progressive movement, which Trump was able to tap into. I - and others - tried to warn those we know who are Democrats that this was coming, but far too often they refused to listen or just presumed themselves the betters of anyone who didn't vote as they did.

Oldest brother's wife made a hard left swerve at some point, and it caused a bit of friction in the marriage. Ever since then, we've all tried to be careful about discussing politics whenever she's around, as she's not the type to admit defeat regardless of the circumstances. It's possible that she's moderated herself back out over the past few years, but none of us are willing to take that risk.

No, it was an actual bit that looked like a bone screw or surgical rod, and we see the villain extract it from her bicep after feeling around for it. If they had explained it *as* a bone screw or surgical rod, then that wouldn't have been an issue. But the villain *literally* declared it to be birth control and went for her bicep as if he knew it would be there.

It's a plot point that one of the sisters has an IUD in her arm. Think about that...

Saw it. Basically, it's the kind of thing that a UC Berkeley philosophy major would come up with after a night of illicit substances. It's got anti-Mormon, anti-Christian, and anti-capitalist sentiment all thrown into a blender. Even though it's the exact same things we've all faced for decades now, whoever wrote the movie thought they were producing something absolutely incredible and unique.

Fuentes is, from what I gather, *not* someone that either side of the aisle enjoys dealing with, to the point that those who know about him and know what he really is don't take kindly to his various "hot takes". Sadly, it's entirely possible that he's deliberately saying things just to provoke, not realizing that provoking people is generally not a good idea.

For some time now, various leftist, progressive, and Democrat groups have tried to paint the narrative that if the GOP wins and makes large enough gains then everyone who isn't a straight white male will somehow be either made a slave or eradicated. This has led to a considerable amount of fearmongering and terror among various groups.

It has to do with the jaw structure itself. A lot of people simply have jaws that are too small. Mine actually stopped developing prematurely, and it's now to the point that I would need my jaw surgically broken and reassembled to fix how bad my overbite is.

This is actually what he's saying Musk's purpose will be, to evaluate various government agencies in order to determine what is or isn't still needed as a federal-level function, what can be transferred to the states, and what is basically obsolete. When Musk took over Twitter, one of the first things he did was to go over the company's rosters and determine who was actually working. He discovered that a large percentage of employees were basically hiding out in the company's recreational areas rather than actually doing their duties, and got rid of them. IIRC he slashed the headcount in half this way. Things were a bit rocky at first because a small number of these people were specialists who were only needed intermittently, but past a certain point Twitter got sorted.

The big thing that people need to be confronting, but likely won't, is the fact that Harris and her people fixated on niche issues that the moderates & undecideds considered lower priority and then tried to use shaming tactics to keep the discussion from drifting away. Prices are up by levels that are making it hard for the lower and middle classes to get by. There are fears that any further US involvement in Ukraine would lead to war with Russia. An entire generation of young men feel left behind because of the intense push for DEI and often radical feminism in the name of "equality" that isn't. Entire sectors are underperforming. These issues, and more, are key concerns for everyday people, but Harris wanted it to be about abortion and how anyone who didn't vote for her was a bigot. That's not how these things work.