Impeachment Prediction

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Wednesday January 13, 2021 · 8:06 AM PST

2021/01/13 · 08:06

This is going to be short and sweet and I’m writing it mostly to get it on the record.

Prediction: When the vote on impeachment is held later today 20-30 GOP reps will vote for it and another 30-40 will abstain. I may be underestimating the number of abstentions as I suspect there are a large number of Republican representatives who want him impeached but are too scared of the cult to vote for it.

Mortality and Morality

aisb23

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Wednesday May 01, 2019 · 2:39 PM PDT

2019/05/01 · 14:39

I am not sure which is more depressing. The fact that someone I went to high school with just died of natural causes (we’re both 52, so hardly old) or the fact that his obituary asks that in lieu of flowers please make donations to Trump’s reelection campaign.

Is it just me or is asking for donations to a politician — any politician — incredibly tacky?

GMT Games, The Scramble for Africa and RWNJs

aisb23

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Monday April 08, 2019 · 10:21 AM PDT

2019/04/08 · 10:21

I've been an old school hex map and chit wargamer for about 40 years. It's a hobby I enjoy and therefore one that I pay fairly close attention to. GMT Games is, in my opinion, one of the best companies in the business today producing not only many excellent simulations but also Euro style board games. They are also the people who make the Cold War game Twilight Struggle which has been called by several people the best board game ever made.

About a month ago GMT proposed a game for backing called Scramble For Africa. European colonialism in Africa is a subject the industry has generally avoided. Excepting games that simulate specific battles between colonizers and natives I can only think of two that have looked at the subject from a large scale point of view, Avalon Hill's Source of the Nile, which was more of a white-man-stumbles-around-Africa-and-'discovers'-things-while-trying-not-to-die game, Victory Games Pax Britannica a diplomatic/economic game which treated all colonies, not just African ones, as pawns in the game European power politics.

Where GMT's proposed game differed from these was that it was put out there as a Euro style game of conquest and exploitation that treated Africa as a literal playing board and the native populations at things to be exploited with no reference to actual history. They could have just as easily made a game that involved fantasy races divvying up the continent of Blobbica with the same mechanic. Needless to say this proposal was met with a large outcry because of how it handled - or more appropriately didn't handle - the subject of European colonialism and it's effects on Africa. GMT then wisely decided to pull the proposal and cancel the game.

The problem with the hobby that I enjoy is that many of the others in it tend to skew politically to the right and there are now many blog posts and YouTube videos out there (none of which I am going to link to and give oxygen) screaming about how GMT has given into "political correctness" and that the company has just written it's own death warrant for giving into the SJWs.

In short the Gamergaters and Sad Puppies have finally raised their ugly heads in the wargaming hobby. I suspect it will create a lot of sound and fury but in the end will signal nothing. There are a lot of wargame companies out there but there are darn few that are continually successful like GMT and the reason they are is because they have a good sense of what will and will not work in the hobby that doesn't have much in the way of a profit. However in the short term, I do suspect GMT is going to feel some pain as orders are canceled while some people have snits. So if you are thinking of buying a board game in the near future, please give GMT a try. And if you want some suggestions about what to buy, please feel free to ask me, I've got a lot of their games.

I have to do something

aisb23

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Friday March 15, 2019 · 9:13 AM PDT

2019/03/15 · 09:13

I just sent an email to the local mosque offering to stand watch outside for troublemakers during Friday prayers today or in the future. I don't know if they will accept the offer but I needed to do something of a practical nature. I can no longer sit by idly as Muslims (or Latinx immigrants or my fellow Jews) are targeted by white supremacists. If they want to cause trouble, they can go through me.

I know the Kavanaughs of this world

aisb23

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Thursday September 27, 2018 · 8:32 AM PDT

2018/09/27 · 08:32

I am not watching Christine Blasey Ford's testimony and I have no plan to watch Brett Kavanaugh either. It would make me too angry.

Part of this is because I have basic human empathy for Dr Ford as the victim. Another part is that I have many women friends and I know that they have suffered similar or worse attacks in their lives and hearing about them has angered me.

But a very large part of this has to do with Kavanaugh himself. Like him I attended a private school in the early 1980s and dealt with way too many privileged assholes who thought they could get away with anything (up to and including grand theft auto) because of daddy's money and connections. As a lower middle class Jewish kid at an upper class Catholic high school they made my school life miserable and while I don't personally know of any of my female classmates being attacked like this at drunken parties I would not be surprised because many of the guys at my school had the exact same attitude that it was okay to party hard, drink to excess and try and fuck any girl they took a fancy too. They disgusted me then and they still disgust me.

Forts named for Confederates

aisb23

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Thursday August 17, 2017 · 9:44 AM PDT

2017/08/17 · 09:44

While we are on the subject of honoring the Confederacy there is also the issue of the large number of Army installations named after Confederate generals. In the past the Army has tended to name its facilities from famous generals and/or heroes from the state where the installation is located so in the past it may have made sense. But nowadays it's not that good of an idea to perpetuate these people who were in fact rebels who violated their oaths as officers in the US Army. Now while I don't expect anything to happen while this administration is in charge, I think this is something that will need to be addressed in the near future.

Here is a list active US Army and Army National Guard installations named after Confederate generals:

Installation	Location	Named For	Link
Camp Beauregard	Louisiana	General P.G.T. Beauregard	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._G._T._Beauregard
Fort Benning	Georgia	Brig. Gen. Henry Benning	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_L._Benning
Fort Bragg	North Carolina	General Braxton Bragg	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braxton_Bragg
Fort Gordon	Georgia	Maj. Gen John Brown Gordon	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_Gordon
Fort A.P. Hill	Virginia	Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._P._Hill
Fort Hood	Texas	General (Brevet) John Bell Hood	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bell_Hood
Fort Lee	Virginia	General Robert E. Lee	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Lee
Camp Maxey	Texas	Maj. Gen. Samuel Maxey	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_B._Maxey
Camp Pendleton	Virginia	Brig. Gen. William Pendleton	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_N._Pendleton
Fort Pickett	Virginia	Maj. Gen. George Pickett	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pickett
Fort Polk	Louisiana	Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_Polk
Fort Rucker	Alabama	Brig. Gen. Edmund Rucker	https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Rucker

NOTE: The Camp Pendleton on the list is not the USMC base in San Diego but rather a Virginia National Guard facility.

This is largely an issue with Army installations. The Air Force names most of its air bases after pilots so there is no worry about events from the 19^th century. The Navy and Marine Corps prefer to just name most of their facilities after their geographical location, the aforementioned USMC Camp Pendleton and Camp Lejeune excepted.

This is all something to keep in mind once a more rational person is in the White House. When that occurs an organized letter / email writing campaign should be organized to bring the issue to the fore.

Don't be distracted by the statues.

aisb23

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Wednesday August 16, 2017 · 8:04 AM PDT

2017/08/16 · 08:04

I’m going to keep this short and sweet. The statues aren't the point.

While I am happy to see efforts being made to remove statues of Confederate leaders being removed (Good work, Baltimore) and I am gobsmacked at Dolt45's inane attempt to create an equivalency between Civil War traitors and monuments to the Founding Fathers, in the end the Fascists don't really care about the statues. They are just a convenient rallying point. If every statue of Robert E. Lee, et. al., were to magically disappear over night they would still keep pushing their agenda, keep having rallies and keep inciting violence.

Opposing evil is the point. Statues are an irrelevance. Keep your eye on the prize.

Writer of "Benghazi Mom" speech can't vote for Trump

aisb23

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Wednesday August 17, 2016 · 3:57 PM PDT

2016/08/17 · 15:57

In an op-ed in today’s Baltimore Sun, Richard Cross, the speechwriter of the infamous “Benghazi Mom” speech at the Republican convention said that he cannot in good conscience vote for Trump. Indeed, he leaning towards voting for Clinton:

Despite what I wrote in that nationally televised speech about Hillary Clinton, I may yet have to vote for her because of the epic deficiencies of my own party's nominee.

Cross doesn’t even think voting Libertarian, whom he calls “kooky” is an option.

The whole column is well worth the read. Cross may be suffering from rose-colored glasses when it comes to recent GOP history but he’s still clear headed enough to recognize that Trump and Trumpism are a threat to America.

His final lines are particularly evocative:

But the only prospect more terrifying than voting for Hillary Clinton is not voting for her.

The reality of American politics today is, she is the only choice.

When you can’t even get your own propagandists to support you, you may be in serious trouble.

British Labour MP Jo Cox dead after being shot

aisb23

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Thursday June 16, 2016 · 9:23 AM PDT

2016/06/16 · 09:23

Details are still scarce but the BBC is reporting the Labour MP Jo Cox has died in the hospital after being shot three time earlier today.

Ms. Cox was meeting with constituents when a man shouting “Britain First” shot her.

This occurred one week before the Brexit vote on the UK leaving the European Union. Ms. Cox was campaigning for the Remain vote. National campaigning on the issue has been suspended in light of today’s events.

RIP Sir Nicholas Winton, saved 669 children from the Holocaust

aisb23

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Wednesday July 01, 2015 · 11:25 AM PDT

2015/07/01 · 11:25

Proof once again that the good do not necessarily die young.

Sir Nicholas Winton died today at the age of 106. In 1938-39 he organized eight trains to carry 669 Czech Jewish children from Prague to Britain just before the outbreak of World War II. He died on the anniversary of the largest train load that saved 241.

Even more amazingly, he never said anything about it for almost 50 years when his wife found a scrapbook he had kept with the names of the children he had saved in the attic of their house.

aisb23

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Thursday June 18, 2015 · 2:00 PM PDT

2015/06/18 · 14:00

[NOTE: This is a re-post from my blog,In Which I Geek, about last night's domestic terrorism in Charleston. My blog is normally about geek culture related items, but this morning I was too irate to write about anything so shallow.]

I am back from my trip to San Diego and though I was having a hard time thinking about something to write I figured it would be about LEGO Land or the San Diego Zoo. Today is also the bicentennial of the Battle of Waterloo, which for a Napoleonic history geek like me is very important and also a good subject for a blog post.

Instead I am sitting here practically vibrating with rage over last night's shootings at Charleston's Emmanuel A.M.E. Church. The details are all over the television and the internet so I don't need to do more than summarize that last night a white man, identified as Dylann Roof, entered the church and sat in on a prayer meeting and bible study for about an hour before pulling out a pistol and opening fire, reloading five times in the process. Nine people died including the church's pastor Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who was also a South Carolina state senator.

(More below the squiggle)

aisb23

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Wednesday June 03, 2015 · 8:06 AM PDT

2015/06/03 · 08:06

On the front page of today's Nevada Appeal there was an article that after months of saying that he isn't interested in the job that Governor Brian Sandoval (R) may now run for the senate seat of retiring Majority Leader Harry Reid.

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/...

More below the orange squiggle.

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Impeachment Prediction

Mortality and Morality

GMT Games, The Scramble for Africa and RWNJs

I have to do something

I know the Kavanaughs of this world

Forts named for Confederates

Don't be distracted by the statues.

Writer of "Benghazi Mom" speech can't vote for Trump

British Labour MP Jo Cox dead after being shot

RIP Sir Nicholas Winton, saved 669 children from the Holocaust

On Hate

NV Senate: Gov. Sandoval may run (updated w link)