Comrade_Cat

I see a whole lot of words wasted about how much revenue tobacco brings in and how newer generations are pushing back against smoking, but what about the thoughts of the older population that does smoke? How do they feel about the habit? Could it be a situation where disrupting these old smokers is just too much trouble to be worth it? China thinks in decades so if the assessment is that in two decades a majority of the smoking population will have passed then maybe it’s just a matter of waiting for a population tipping point and then increasing funding for anti-smoking campaigns, raising cigarette prices, and preparing the tobacco industry with suitable agricultural and industrial replacements.

I liked them when I was a teenager, but I skipped the entire console generation that 4 was on and I’ve tried to play 5 twice and bounced off both times. The sandbox part is excellent but their gameplay isn’t and the story is way too edgy in all the wrong ways for me.

That said I am tentatively excited for 6, purely because it’s giving me Red Dead Redemption 2 vibes which had an absolutely phenomenal story. So if GTA can even hit half the highs of RDR2 story wise I’ll pick it up. Otherwise I’m good.

As a Canadian, I have always taken pride in my country’s commitment to human rights, due diligence, and evidence-based foreign policy. We are a nation that prides itself on “peacekeeping,” not warmongering; on diplomacy, not hyperbole.

Damn, I guess Canada must treat its native population really well right?

Right?

I’ve put his stream on in the background before when Big News is happening because for all my disagreements with Hasan he’s significantly more tolerable than any mainstream news outlet in the US.

In my vast expertise of reading a few books and listening to probably too many podcasts about the event it seems to me that Allen Dulles was the ringleader, but JFK and his brother speedran pissing off all of the most powerful and well entrenched political factions in their short stint in power that Allen didn’t have to try very hard to keep things under wraps and convince the rest that they’d profit from it not being an issue.

Learning about Fred Hampton and Salvador Allende, who they were, what they accomplished, and what they were trying to achieve, was the watershed moment for me. Learning how the USA crushed them with such unrepentant enthusiasm shattered a lot of the narratives I’d internalized and allowed me to confront my biases and assumptions and move beyond them.

Can’t wait for the bailouts.

As someone who is only vaguely aware about f these fandom factions I can’t help but feel that pro-ship is used to defend people writing the most heinous fanfic imaginable. Like the whole thing is artificially created because some weirdos are turning kids shows into Lolita and when called out they invented this pro-ship nonsense to equate heinous shit with horny nerds writing boring horny nonsense.

Maybe it’s just me, but growing up during the height of Harry Potter nobody declared sides in the Great War of shipping Harry and Hermione or whatever. It wasn’t until people rightfully started calling out pedo shit that all of a sudden you’ve got this great ideological battle between freedom and cancel culture or what the fuck ever.

And reacting to this the anti-ship crowd picked up all the puritans, contrarians, perpetual finger-waggers, and people mad that their ship isn’t popular.

I’m tired and rambly, but to summarize this all feels artificially created to defend creeps and pedos. This debate always surfaces when someone writes something fucked up but nary a peep otherwise.

Goes perfectly along with his recent rants about how the USA invading Greenland would be good because it would be Americans killing Europeans. Despite the fact the almost 90% of the population of Greenland is Inuit.

That whole story is quite the intense read. Thanks for sharing!

I really enjoy the vibe of Returnal, but it is absolutely too difficult for me. I’ve never been great at quick reaction games. I don’t mind the difficulty, I love Dark Souls and Elden Ring, but in those games patience and being able to make a tankier build make up for what I lack in twitchy reflexes.

I still haven’t beaten Returnal, but I did find a slate of mods for the PC version that help with the difficulty without being flat out godmode cheats, so I absolutely plan to jump back in at some point using them.