Recent posts

#41

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by The Brain - October 14, 2025, 01:01:56 PM

Pirates! was the shit. Great manual too.

#42

Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic

Last post by The Brain - October 14, 2025, 01:00:24 PM

How much can EM jamming fuck up controls of modern aircraft?

#43

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by crazy canuck - October 14, 2025, 12:43:16 PM

*maybe before/after having most of the current administration arrested for corruption/malfeasance/abuse of office.

I take it for granted Trump will issue a mass pardon, so one less thing to do.

Yeah, sadly I think that will become the new tradition.  General pardons on the way out for everyone involved.

FDR had trouble expanding the court to bring in all the legislative changes he wanted to make. I am not so sure the Democrats will be able to do it now.

#44

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by celedhring - October 14, 2025, 12:40:52 PM

*maybe before/after having most of the current administration arrested for corruption/malfeasance/abuse of office.

I take it for granted Trump will issue a mass pardon, so one less thing to do.

#45

Off the Record / Re: TV/Movies Megathread

Last post by crazy canuck - October 14, 2025, 12:36:25 PM

CBC Gem has a new 10 episode series about János Hunyadi.  I am 6 episodes in, and really enjoying it.  I think it is on Netflix in other countries.  I recommend watching it with subtitles, and no dubbing.  It is important to know who is speaking what language to catch some of the nuance of the story being told. 


Edit - sorry it's called Rise of the Raven

#46

Off the Record / Re: Israel-Hamas War 2023

Last post by Iormlund - October 14, 2025, 12:32:54 PM

Even dead Israelis, apparently, are far more important than living Gazans. 

"The fragile ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war was tested Tuesday as the slower-than-hoped return of deceased hostages from Gaza prompted an Israeli military agency to declare a "violation" of the truce agreement that it would respond to by halving the number of trucks allowed to bring humanitarian aid into the devastated territory."

https://apnews.com/article/gaza-israel-hamas-hostages-ceasefire-10-14-2025-665a1cbe249f08c8513ceceaa04db201

Without DNA proof the hostage might still be alive.

#47

Off the Record / Re: Youtube Recommendations

Last post by Syt - October 14, 2025, 12:24:49 PM

A look back at Pirates! on C64, Pirates! Gold on Sega Genesis and Pirates! Live the Life on Windows:

I spent so much time with Pirates! on C64 - the first time I encountered an open world sandbox game. And with its lack of in game references I became very well acquainted with the locations of ports in 17th century Caribbean using my dad's atlas.

(And I could tell what ship I was encountering, based on the sound of the 1541-II disk drive when loading the graphic. )

#48

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Tonitrus - October 14, 2025, 12:18:39 PM

But even then, one of the first practical acts* of a theoretical new Democratic administration (and lets also assume a Senate majority) will have to be to expand the membership of the USSC.

*maybe before/after having most of the current administration arrested for corruption/malfeasance/abuse of office.

#49

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by crazy canuck - October 14, 2025, 12:17:44 PM

Concentrating power just concentrates power - you concentrate power in a few hands with no checks in balances to fight the rich and suddenly you have created your own enemy.

Checks and balances are annoying when your guy is being checked and balanced but the best system invented so far to maintain a democracy.

Where are the checks and balances to which you refer? Sounds great in theory - it's in practice that it starts crumbling.  Take the US as the most recent tragic example.

Sure but no matter what system you build (and this is in reply to Sheilbh as well), anything beyond sheer physical coercion requires the consent of the ruled and the powerful to accept the rules.

First stop is the ones in power agreeing implicitly not to use their power to diminish other branches of power. If they try those other branches should push back before it is too late. Failing that, the electorate should step in to stop those efforts.

Obviously if all those steps fail then the system fails but this is not something you can remedy except by giving up and just going straight for your preferred form of autocracy.

Again, that is a very American centric view if the world. A parliamentary system does have competing branches of government.  The flaw in the US system is it did create competing branches and hoped each branch would be a check on the others. 

The Parliament system encourages cooperation.  For a third time (because you keep ignoring this point) a non confidence vote, like a budget vote, means there is a new general election.  That tends to focus the mind on what compromises are possible.

It also gives a lot of power to back benchers if someone like Trump (or Vance) were to arise.

A parlamentiary as opposed to presidential democracy is better no argument there, but just from my limited knowledge I can raise Hungary as a parlamentiary democracy that has failed. It even had a very modern two-rounds election system which was far superior to something like the British first past the post nonsense but once an actor like Orban got a constitutional majority it all went to hell.

Yeah, that addresses the other part of what makes a Parliamentary system work. It's not just the way the rules are drafted (again very much an American perspective) it's all the Parliamentary traditions that go with it.  In Canada we have drifted a bit toward the American legalistic model (as has the UK) and so I am not sure how strongly I can now make this argument as a generalization.  But I think a lot of MPs still view their primary allegiance to the riding that elected them.

And as I think about it, that is another strength of the Parliamentary system.  There is no national election for Prime Minister.  Politics is still intensely local.

I am outside what I know for sure now, but my impression is Orban took control gradually by changing the rules of the game.  In Canada that would be near impossible given our amending formula for constitutional change.  Another safeguard in our Federation (thank you Quebec ) Also, I think it is fair to say Hungarians were doing their best to figure it out as they went, rather than being able to fall back on deeply ingrained traditions.

[the past 6 months]

#50

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by Tonitrus - October 14, 2025, 12:13:23 PM

At this point, I don't think Supreme Court decisions can be taken as precedential.  No one thinks that the holdings the Court has been announcing over the past 6 months expanding executive power will be honored if the Democrats ever retake the White House. 

Let's make that at least 1.5 years (to encompass the immunity decision).