Harry

very strange 24 hours. Seems like he overestimated how many key players would take his side, and then cut a shitty deal to save himself.

But Putin looks bad from this... He announced publically there was no coming back from this for Prigozhin, then 6 hours later Lukashenko brokers a deal with all charges dropped and Putin is nowhere near it...

Some big developments in the last 12 hours. It seems the head of Wagner Group has turned his forces on the Russian Ministry of Defence and has advanced back into Russia into Rostov on Don and taken control of the Southern Military District headquarters.

Fighting is now reported between Wagner and Russian troops in Voronezh indicating they may have pressed on beyond Rostov towards Moscow.

Best guess from pundits seem to be that he's trying to oust the Minister of Defence and military command, rather than against Putin.

Must be hard to be sold for English next big thing prices. It rarely helps a player

On 26/05/2023 at 06:00, Dr. Gonzo said:

Higher than I thought tbh.

I think Ron DeSantis's chances of getting the republican nomination are pretty low right now after his twitter disaster - he and Elon Musk end up looking like clowns ready to take on lots of public ridicule... whereas the democrats and the MAGA idiots are getting ample opportunity to shit on him constantly. I also think his political prospects are a lot lower than they would have been had he not pissed off one of the largest employers and biggest draws of tourism to Florida, so I think him deciding to go to war with Disney was... idiotic. But outside of Florida... it seems just, very easy to attack DeSantis on the Disney stuff. "If you can't handle Disney, how can you handle China?' Is something I imagine any decent journalist would want to ask at any press conference on the campaign trail. He doesn't really have an answer that works for a question like that - it'll just make him angry and he'll try to do the Trump thing where he attempts to bully a journalist... but it hasn't really worked for him on the national level acting like that.

Yeah, he'll never be able to make a compelling case of anti Trump. He's still too scared to take him on.

3 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

DeSantis is just a moron with a Harvard degree, he could have backed off on Disney but claimed victory and the low info base of GOP voters would have been none the wiser, while he'd still retain Disney support for his candidacy most likely. Truth or accuracy doesn't matter so much to voters, as long as you say something enough times confidently enough, Trump's demonstrated that these lies just get accepted as truth by enough people. Instead he's ended up tying up millions of dollars of taxpayer money into a legal battle with Disney... a company that is notoriously good at winning it's legal battles... while costing the state billions of Disney investment and just saw Disney's plans to relocate thousands of it's white collar tech workers to Florida scrapped in an instant.

Even if you've got some high-info GOP voters out there who may have considered him... if you're a fiscal conservative, you'd likely be seeing him as a clown who's blowing his state's treasury on these idiotic battles he's picking to get national media attention. And if you're a pro-business conservative, you've just seen him go against an American business institution and one of the largest employers in the state.

This is a media created mess - treating Trump as a serious candidacy has permanently changed political discourse in the US. He has a real cult of personality (don't ask me how lol), I'd say 20-30% of voters are pretty firmly in his grasp. It's got the GOP in a race to see if any candidate can "out-Trump" Trump in primaries. And then the question has to be asked... does the Trumpiest candidate that makes it through primaries have a chance at winning moderates over with a moderate democrat running against them. Left-wing voters will hold their nose and vote against anyone Trumpy, even if they're voting for a democrat that's about as left wing as George W Bush.

I don't think America can clean up this mess without things getting a hell of a lot worse than they already are. But even then... I'm not so sure - we saw people storm the US capitol and most of the punishments we've seen so far have been a comparative slap on the wrist.

Are Americans too complacent to demand a government that actually works for them? Tbh, I think so. This was a country founded on a protest of lack of representation despite high taxes - look at California, it's got the most democrats AND republicans in the country. It's the economic backbone of the US. And for months it had just 1 senator representing it's interests in the senate. It has the most members of the house of representatives and at the same time is the most underrepresented state in national politics per capita. 12% of the US population controls 60% of the US senate.

It's a broken, outdated, and anti-democratic system of government that goes around acting like it is the bastion of freedom and democracy.

His attacks on Disney are part of what wins him support. Tbf a lot of people do hate the wokeism that DeSantis is pretending to tackle head on. His press spin his tokenistic legislation or policy as a success, regardless of the fact it will not get through the courts. The rival press spin it as a loss, and spin his book bans as Hitler 2.0. He needs the mainstream press against him to have a chance against Trump.

Most well educated conservative voters would likely consider him a neocon in disguise and vote for him knowing he'd do the usual thing of make noise about culture wars to satiate the mouth breathers whilst implementing tax cuts and deregulation.

Unfortunately not enough Republican voters care enough about the issue to change their votes

10 hours ago, Honey Honey said:

They are not set to lose power over policies or being right wing. 

In the vacuum that will ensue each faction will claim failure is the result of not following their thinking. Promoting their values. This is the story of these coalitions. That part is at least predictable. Who comes out on top I'm not sure. A lot will depend on who survives as an MP.

It wouldn't be a surprise if we get culture wars ramped up.

What you're describing is roughly what happened in Australia after our right wing party lost the election last year. Despite all the seats lost belonging to moderate MPs, and being lost to left wing candidates the remaining MPs and Rupert Murdoch's media empire settled on the root cause being that the party wasn't conservative enough. 

1 hour ago, Whiskey said:

I really want to watch Super Mario, everything about it looks perfect but the fact that Mario doesn't speak with an Italian accent is unforgivable and I can't look past it.

His voice sounded pretty "it's a me! Mario!" to me.

Saw the Super Mario movie.

10/10.

Made me feel like a kid again.

Absolutely loved it

I've just been busy so haven't posted much. Need to rebuild the habit of checking the forum webpage, which I stopped doing when we moved to discord.

I don't think I ever figured discord out tbh. In mafia wars I did, because I could wrap my head around the size of that section and number of topics, but for me discord left me constantly feeling lousy and confused. Imo it doesn't suit someone who has less time to post, and is constantly coming in late to a topic, or trying to figure out what topics I want to engage with. It's more "in the moment" and bring in a very different timezone I felt like the guy rocking up just after the party finished.

Either way I'll roll with whatever solution we land with because I like the community.

Awesome to be back on here

On 01/04/2023 at 04:51, Rab said:

Tbf I didn't really think about it but I could set it up for the year too if that's your preference.

Yeah I'd prefer that

Working my way through Cunk on Earth, and finding it thoroughly amusing.

Such a costly error. 

21 hours ago, Devil said:

The stage shows on their parks are always brilliant and of the highest standard.

I watch a lot of Disney having two young girls and Encanto was one of the more enjoyable ones.

I don't know if any others, but if there are any I'll definitely need to watch them with the kids. They loved this Encanto one and have watched it a bunch so far

It might be easier to get 5 sane Republican votes for Hakeem Jeffries rather than 16 insane Republican votes for McCarthy.... Possibly if the dems swapped Jeffries with John Kasich or a Cheney type Republican.

I had no idea that was allowed. What a terrible law. I'm sure it would be stamped out in most other countries but will have no hope in America

On 01/01/2023 at 22:11, Stan said:

How old are they mate? 

I would say it's scary for a very young child because of the faces and skeletons. But perhaps a bit older, maybe around 6+ and they'd be okay? 

I wouldn't say there's anything particularly scary or jumpy. Despite the faces, they've got a soft touch to them.

My neice is nearly 5 and I think she'd be similar, finding it scary at the start and losing interest. 

On 01/01/2023 at 22:12, DeadLinesman said:

Honestly mate, there’s nothing scary in this film. Watched with with the kids loads. It’s a bit sinister towards the end before it’s all nice again but your kids may not even understand that aspect of it. Sabrina’s been watching it since she was 3 and loves it. Loved it so much this was Halloween this year….

 

Ages 7 and 4. The 7 year old is keen to watch it, but the 4 year old is playing the veto card at this point.

On 01/01/2023 at 22:21, Devil said:

Just watched this with my youngest, it was brilliant.

Disney really do a brilliant live production.

Agree. They really use the lighting and special effects very well.

It's not common for them to do a live show like this... I reckon they might have been testing the waters for doing an Encanto musical, as they did with the lion King, etc....

That'd have potential imo. It's got a great score, and the Latin flair makes it colourful, and fresh for the average viewer.

33 minutes ago, Stan said:

Coco. 

Watched it again last night. Great story and love the animation. It still gets me each time when the picture of Mama Coco is put up on the memorial

Love the film. 8.5/10

I've wanted to watch this for a while but my kids have seen the first 5 minutes and deemed it too scary... Is there anything specifically scary in the movie or just the everyone's a skeleton aspect?

Just watched ENCANTO LIVE AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL. 

Shocked how good it was.

Must watch if you have kids that like Disney movies.

https://www.disneyplus.com/movies/encanto-at-the-hollywood-bowl/7CUSfUjGHZW3?sharesource=Android

It's really fucked. This will be big news throughout the country and play in the banks of the minds of many parents considering whether they'll take the family to a game, or consider it too dangerous.

54 minutes ago, Toinho said:

The league decided to move the grand final to Sydney for 3 years instead of the best side in the comp and through playoffs having a home final. 

Yep. Exactly right mate. No doubt the executives were all hyped up on a promotional slide deck based around analogies to the FA cup at Wembley and AFL Grand final at the MCG. there's a great deal of fan concern about it. But only the clowns that ran on will know whether the decision to invade the pitch was spontaneous and based on anger about the flare seen coming towards them, or was a planned event they'd come up with earlier in relation to the protests... I hope the former. 

That doesn't justify anything, but it was a bad move

5 minutes ago, Tommy said:

Holy shit. That poor keeper. 

What isn't shown beforehand is that immediately before that occurred the keeper picked up a flare that had been thrown onto the pitch and lobbed it back into the crowd.

This is super shit. Does so much reputation damage for the code in Australia.