Dr. Gonzo

I loved Tropico 2! I don't think I've played any of them since Tropico 5 (which I think I last played, sometime last year). I haven't tried 6, but I'll look into it. I've just started playing Void Bastards last night, not really knowing anything about the game at all and just being recommended it. I love it though - it plays like an old school fps (I get old school Doom vibes from it, even though it doesn't really look anything like Doom 3D - I think it's because of the flatness of the enemies) but with some really simplistic stealth mechanics. Ammo's a bit rare so it sort of promotes picking and choosing when you go in shooting & when you sneak around. I think part of the fun of the game, for me, was not really knowing much about the game before jumping in. But it was recommended to me by someone who pretty much knew I would love the game after he played it for a bit... so maybe I should explain the game more. But if you just want to go in fairly blind like I did, I wholly recommend it. I think it's a brilliant little game. The way they handle the player controlled character dying/respawning is also pretty fucking brilliant. It's a very cool game, it reminds me of a lot of different games from the past... but in a way that feels really fresh and original and the game itself, imo, is very unique.

Maybe George W Bush - started the Iraq War because of Al Qaeda... when the only connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda is they both have an "a" and a "q", which then led to the rise of ISIS and further escalated tensions in probably the most tense region in the fucking world. In terms of actions with the most widespread immediate negative consequences, GWB is probably the American president in our lifetime with the claim to "most destructive." But Trump's been destructive to the idea of American democracy, as shown by his mob's attack on American democracy last week. He's radicalised shitloads of Americans and probably forever changed American politics to where extreme far right ideas are normal and socially acceptable. And he's damaged America's soft-power and ability to act through diplomacy by cozying up with autocrats while damaging America's ties with allies like the UK and EU.

Willian really has little incentive to leave. He wanted to stay in London and he’s not going to get better wages at Valencia.

Sources in the White House have said he only condemned the rioters because he was told he might face legal issues if he didn't disassociate from what happened given his speech prior to the siege of the house of US government.

He's worth somewhere between 14-20 billion, I doubt he gives a shit about losing a few millions if he truly wants a long-term change of culture at Chelsea. I don't know if Lampard is the man for that or not, but it's a big change from the way Chelsea have normally operated so you can't expect things to change overnight. But I do think there's something very wrong with the way Chelsea have been approaching their buildup this season. They look like a team with a lot of talent but not many ideas.

How about you two disagree without getting extra cunty to each other? @LFCMadLad isn't too fussed if we don't sign a CB. @Rick (and myself) think that relying on a kid who was playing in Bundesliga 2 & another who wasn't even in the football league last season makes it incredibly unlikely we'll retain our title. I think Klopp wants to sign someone, but we're not going to sign anyone in January due to availability and also the January price being higher. So it's unlikely we sign a CB until the Summer. Which imo means it's incredibly unlikely we'll retain our title - I think people that still have us as favourites are mental tbh - but if I'm wrong and we win while relying on kids that don't look ready enough... you are free to rub it in my face MadLad. Trust me, I will be delighted for you (and for Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams) and delighted that we've won another title.

I think twitter’s the worst website on the planet and Reddit’s actually great for shit that isn’t serious - like the numerous guitar subreddits are all pretty ace, learned a lot about maintaining my guitars from that site tbh. Isn’t identity politics more shite like “vote this way because you’re gay/straight/white/black/a woman”? Because the whole idea of left & right in politics existed way before the invention of the internet. 100% agree with you that in the extremes, the left and right can end up looking very similar - to where it really doesn’t matter if someone’s a communist or a fascist, it’s just oppressive authoritarianism. But I do think the normalisation of anti-democratic views taking grip of the policies of a party in a democracy is a concern. And it’s not just Reddit - we see it even in the preferred mainstream media of the right. And we’re seeing US politicians back anti-democratic and authoritarian views. So I’m not sure it’s just because of the echo chamber - if they were a fringe minority, yesterday wouldn’t have panned out the way it did.

I hope this has been reported to the FBI already, because Parler's actually an interesting social media site. Because aside from being a haven for right-wing extremists, it's interesting in that the users have to submit ID to Parler to prove it is them before they make an account. So all the FBI has to do to find this guy's location and arrest him is subpoena Parler...

I think @Eco (because he's actually in probably what was the most important state that won the election for Biden and gave the senate to Democrats, in a very very close state vote) and @Spike (in Chicago, I think... but he's also lived in the South as well) would probably give you a better and more well rounded view of what the right wing is like in America and how to better understand them. Because, quite frankly, your guess as to why they think the way they do is as good as mine. I know a few Republicans here that admitted they voted for Trump (the first time around), subsequently 2 of them have re-registered as Democrats and they all seem to have dropped their support of Trump over the last few years. But these aren't representative of other people living in San Diego that live further north or further east - where people are generally more conservative. For them, their political interests are mostly motivated by: paying as little in taxes as possible and having elected officials that are corporate friendly. And one of them isn't even scared by things like a national healthcare system, like many on the right in the US are terrified of because "socialism" - because he thinks that will be better for businesses in America (as many employers right now pay for their employees to get healthcare coverage). Also, because of where we're located and how many Mexicans there are... I do think many republicans here did feel uncomfortable with Trump's rhetoric towards Mexicans. And I think it's why so many of these people were so quick to drop Trump. I'd probably call these "moderate republicans" - even though they'd fall pretty squarely as right wing in the UK or EU. I think people like that still have repugnant political views, tbh, but I think my political disagreement with them is very different to how I'd feel about the more extremist Trump supporters. Because the people I know who did support Trump had been condemning Trump long before what happened yesterday, whereas now we're seeing more Republicans come out after an act of pro-Trump terrorism. San Diego's rural areas are far more conservative - and I think that's true all across America. But I don't really know how/why they think the way they do. They've been fed a lot of bullshit by the political media they consume (Fox, OANN) and they do seem very fear driven (fear of immigrants, fear of different religions, fear of anything different from what they're used to really). Imo, I think a lot of the more extremist positions on Brexit had a lot of the same elements of using fear to drive people to vote for it - so if you know anyone that voted for Brexit because they were afraid of immigrants from Poland taking their jobs or afraid of Muslim migrants not wanting to be decapitated by ISIS for being Shia... they can probably give you a bit of insight into how they think. Right-wing media in the US and UK is pretty fucking similar, tbh... just the UK is slightly less overt.

I'm fairly confident I've posted this a while back in this same thread... but it's probably my favourite Children of Bodom song. And Alexi Laiho was a guitar hero of mine so... RIP Alexi

Talk is Gini has rejected the contract and has made up his mind to join Barca in the summer I’ll miss him, he’s a LFC legend for the last few seasons and the numerous massive performances he’s put in. And this season he’s been one of our best players imo.

They took people for mugs, but were they wrong to do so? It seems like there’s way more stupid people in the world than we like to pretend there aren’t. Maybe it’s a failing of others in politics that they treat voters as though they’ve got the base intelligence to vote in their own interests. Maybe we need to start having people start using the same manipulation tactics to get people to vote in ways that are more logical. I genuinely think all problems Tory governments face will scapegoat the fuck out of the EU, as always. And the voting public will gobble it up.

They deleted my posts because that subreddit is censored like Stalinist Russia But if you ever want to see what it’s like being surrounded by racist morons that’ll never have sex, check out r/Conservative

According to racist cunts on the internet that’s not the Georgia flag it’s the Knights Templar Flag. I then showed a picture of the Georgia flag and was banned from r/Conservative

I mean you and I both know he probably should have been impeached very early on, as he immediately violated the emoluments clause upon taking office. Everything thats happened since then in US politics has taken us to this point. So yeah, they SHOULD get him out before he incites more insurrection. But it’s happened now and he’s done so much to radicalise his base. It’s happened now, it’s too little too late. I think autocrats around the world will have seen these images and use it to inspire them for YEARS. You can see online, these US domestic terrorists do seem to have quite a bit of support in what they did today. It’s a situation the US government has done nothing but throw flames upon for the last 4 years. I don’t think there’s an easy fix for the US now that fascism is being accepted as a legitimate political view by so many. It also begs the question, why did the capitol building get so much protection during the BLM protests, when really there was no indication there was any threat? Whereas we knew there was going to be a rally there by people who said they would be breaking the law and bringing guns to a rally in a city where openly carrying guns is illegal (as it fucking should be everywhere, lol what the fuck).

Every country's got corruption, imo. You can go look up the corruption index though, it's not necessarily great reading for Colombia in terms of a country with "minimal" corruption - though it shows that the government acknowledges and has made steps to address the corruption issues.

Is that cherry picking? It's an article about widespread corruption in Colombia, and widespread corruption is not a hallmark of a robust democracy. It's why the US has looked less and less democratic over the last 4 years. Honestly, I think recent history has been really unkind with democracy all around the world. It's really the public's fault. Apparently the Senate is meeting to reconvene to certify the votes now that the rioters have been cleaned out from the building. I hope they seriously consider impeaching Trump and removing him just so we don't have to deal with 2 more weeks of his bullshit anymore - but like I said earlier, I think that's very unlikely.

Ehhh... it's a country. It's got good bits of it's past, it's got very fucked up bits of it's past.

Press X to doubt: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/colombias-inspector-general-corruption-is-the-new-cartel/ Don't get me wrong, I don't think the US is some bastion of democracy either. But emerging democracies where corruption has been king generally have issues in dealing with smoothly transitioning over. Let's also not forget, this is central America - if a democracy steers too far from US interests it usually gets subverted by the CIA lol. And if anything, the last 4 years have been really eye opening as to how fragile stability in the west really is. Especially when a demagogue can subvert democracy and incite a riot without any shred of evidence to support his claims at all. As a Brit in the US, I find it worrying the Tories are on the path of completely Americanising our politics - because I think this is the end result when you treat politics like sport.

This is probably the biggest reason anyone comes to the US. Just speaking from personal experience. Also loads of people leave unstable environments for places they might not necessarily agree with the politics just because those places offer more stability and opportunity. And in a few situations, like people in my family who were too left-wing for the Shah's Iran but just left-wing enough for the UK... people do actually move because of the political freedom/not getting persecuted for political beliefs (which tbf, is probably a lot of people who've come to the US as refugees from the third world). Btw it blows my mind how long it's taken the US Government to regain control of it's capitol. It's not something you'd expect from a super power. Then again, you also wouldn't expect a superpower to be led by Donald Trump... so I guess I should temper expectations.

Tbf it's not that long ago Colombia was a very unstable country ravaged by the USA's "war on drugs" with tons of instability and... civil war issues. It might have been ignorant of how Colombia is now, but it's not all that offensive that a reporter would compare it with a place that's had noted instability (and noted US influence and presence). It does show that the big talking heads on the big news networks are full of fucking shit. To me, though, the biggest similarity is with the Middle East. Particularly, America's projects in Iraq and Afghanistan where we've seen US buildings attacked and sieged by radicalised militia groups which... actually look a lot like the people attacking US buildings in the US itself.

Trump belongs in prison for this

If they were Middle Eastern, they'd be called terrorists. But this should still be called terrorism, because that's what it is.

a bit late for that

Pretty sure there's a Rage Against the Machine song all about cops that are "secret" white supremacists... seems true as fuck