This is a factually accurate statement, but it reads like you’re encouraging someone to get into smoking cigarettes, which is (I thought) a myth invented by DARE types. Hey OP, speaking as someone with a 15 year off and on addiction to nicotine, steady on your course, bud.

I’m no legal scholar, but my read on Thomas is that he is, at the end of the day, a constitutional originalist. He is also a scumbag, but the opinions of his that I’ve read tend towards similar things: i.e. what does the Constitution/Founding Fathers say about this issue? Of course, most of the time, that ends up generating some wacko opinions because he’s generally unwilling to deviate from at 1700s era mindset. In fact, he seems to immerse himself in that mindset in order to form his opinions.

For example, if you read the majority opinion he wrote, Thomas defines the case very narrowly on Constitutional grounds. Basically, the payday loans companies argue that the consumer protection agency is in violation of the Constitution because, unlike most other federal agencies, its director is imbued (by Congress, mind you) with the power to withdraw up to a stuatory cap of funds from the Federal Reserve every year “as [they] determine fit to meet the agencies operating expenses”. The loan companies say that this is in violation with the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution, which states, " no money shall be drawn from the Treasury except in consequence of Appropriations made by Law".

So, Thomas’s approach to this disagreement is to determine what an “Appropriation” is, as it might have been defined by the people who wrote the clause. To do so, he, I shit you not, consults a dictionary from the period, like the intro to a lazy term paper ("Merriam-Webster defines appropriation as…). He also gets into the historical case law of Britain, rather extensively, as he believes (probably accurately, frankly) that that’s the best way to understand what the authors of the constitutional had conceived as they wrote the document.

After all of this, he winds up with several examples of executive agencies which do/did not fund themselves via the standard appropriations bill process (Customs Offices and Post Offices being the primary examples used). So, he concludes that it’s clear that the Founding Fathers had a broader view of how to find the government than ONLY annual appropriations bills, even if the literal text seems to indicate otherwise.

Also, he points out that the whole thing kinda falls apart in the sense that the creation of this agency was an act of Congress, with stuatory funding regulations drawn up by Congress, which was then signed by Obama into law. So, Congress made a law that said this particular agency is allowed to bypass the appropriations clause in x y z ways. Thomas has a stack of historical records which show that this was something the founders not only were aware of, but actively sanctioned via how the Post Office and Customs offices were set up at their establishment. So, he has no choice but to conclude that this agency is in line with what Jefferson et al had in mind. Thus, tough shit payday loans, bribe a congressman to change the law because ain’t shit can be done from a judicial perspective. Which, I imagine is probably what Thomas told these companies’ bag men when they showed up to secure his opinion.

Thank you for your service

As a small, optimistic caveat to the above, Biden’s pardon does work for anyone who was charged in Washington DC since they don’t have a state body representing them. So, yes, typically anyone with a federal marijuana charge is also likely the subject of many more serious charges, there is a population of people that may have received immediate relief at the time, which is good.

Biden has done what he is able to do. He proclaimed presidential pardon for federal marijuana charges in late 2022. However, the executive branch has no authority to impact state level charges, which would likely be the vast majority of people affected by marijuana policing over time. In a world where government works as intended, state level organizations should take their cues from what the federal government is doing, but, as I understand it, they are not necessarily beholden to slavishly adopt the federal posture. Perhaps someone with a deeper understanding might illuminate us further.

Man I hope the Red Letter Media boys put together a retrospective in his honor

Keep up the good work!

I overheard a conversation between two old guys at the Omaha VA discussing one of their relatives coming out as nonbinary. The sentiment was, in essence, “well, are they gay or what? Idk what these damn kids are doing anymore…” After some internal debate, I piped up and explained the sexuality and gender are two separate topics. To these guys’ credit, they seemed to take it in stride, if a little befuddled by it all. Considering the other options and prevailing opinions of many of the patients around here, I’ll take a couple of Vietnam vets’ bewildered acceptance of non-cisgendered people over ignorant hate seven days a week, and twice on Sunday.

You’re correct, HR is there to benefit the company. However, in this case, the goals align. OP wants to stop being sent objectionable material while at work. HR wants employees’ actions to not open the company up for litigation. Being able to prove that dickhead is engaging textbook harassment while on the clock should be an open and shut case.

All of this is to be taken with a heaping handful of salt, since regulations differ wildly by jurisdiction, but this seems pretty clear cut to me.

Yes, for tax purposes, which then implies such a metric can be used for income reporting, as is this case with this chart. After all, if you and a platonic roommate were sharing an apartment, you probably wouldn’t want to include their income on your filings to the IRS. For one, the illegality of falsely claiming a dependent, but also simply because the last thing you want the government thinking is that you made more money than you actually did.

I think you’re being glib, but my assumption is they are using household in the IRS sense, I e. A household consists of any one taxpayer and whoever they can claim as dependents.

For sure. My impression is that to focus on character work in the same way as BG3 (i.e. voice acting, mocap, cinematics, etc) would have been an impossibility for the studio that made Solasta. I would guess they did not have the financial support to make that happen.

Personally, I think of it as being of a piece with the old Infinity Engine games. There was the Baldurs Gate series, which, in classic CRPG fashion, was all about player choice and character. But, side by side with those games, you had the Icewind Dale series, which was almost completely devoid of the story focus of the BG games and entirely focused on dungeon crawling and seeing how far the ruleset can be pushed.

Fair. I felt I should jump in and provide some more context than the other poster for exactly that reason. The worst thing a movie can be to me is dull, and those sequels qualify, in my opinion.

Only do so if you have high tolerance for bad filmmaking. I’ve seen the live action sequels, and they are BAD. The second film feels like an unrelated script that got attached to the IP for name recognition. As I recall, it’s dull, poorly acted, ugly, and cheap. The third film does lean into the IP, complete with satirical propaganda gags and, yes, mech suits make an appearance. However, my recollection of the rest of the movie is that it is dull, poorly acted, ugly, and cheap, but less so than the second.

If you enjoy Sci Fi Channel original movies from the early 00s, these movies are birds of a feather with those.

Allow me to introduce you to Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It was the OTHER CRPG releases based on the DnD 5e system. Much smaller budget and team, but a pretty faithful recreation.

Including the fact that the game opens in a tavern with your party throwing back beer one of them might refer to as a donkey piss (depending on which personality archetype you selected for them) while they wait for their quest sponsor to show up and tell them what’s going on. In the meantime, each character introduces themselves to the others by discussing the adventure they had on the way to the present location (as an excuse to run through some tutorials). Doesn’t get much more classic DnD start than that.

Grim Dawn is the most fun I’ve had with an ARPG in years. The class system is very interesting and, as far as I know, unique to this game. Rather than just being a barbarian or necromancer or whatever other typical ARPG class you can think of, your class is determined by selecting any 2 archetypes. For instance, maybe you like being a pet class like necromancer, but you want to have a slightly more active play style than just watching your skellingtons paint the map red. So, you mix in the Nightblade (melee rogue) class at level 10. Your new, combined class is called a Reaper, and you have access to both skill trees, free to mix and match as you wish. Very interesting playstyles can emerge from creative pairings.

I am a casual player so I can’t offer any perspective on the endgame or anything like that, but if you’re looking for something to scratch the Diablo 2 itch with a fun twist on classes,you cant go wrong with Grim Dawn.

Don’t let her shitty politics get in the way of doing something you enjoy. Death of the author and all that. If you’re worried about fiscally supporting her, I’m certain you can find the whole series at reasonable prices in any secondhand bookstore.

I’ve definitely gone through the Harry Potter series a couple of times at different phases of my life. Definitely had a different experience with every reading. Not always positive, but at this point it’s part of the tapestry of my childhood.

file770 article written by two journalists who reviewed the committee’s emails after one of said committee leaked them to atone for her role in the controversy.

Feel free to read the whole thing. It doesn’t take long. If you prefer primary sources, the work-product they refer to is linked within the report. The conclusions the authors draw seems sound based on the evidence. Sure it’s possible that the CCP meddled “off-the-record”, but to assume that in contrast to what the evidence states seems like hunting for a Boogeyman to confirm our prejudices.

Fwiw, this is not a case of China stepping in and censoring anything about the awards. Rather, it’s a case of the Hugo administration in the West self-censoring their nominees because they feared China might step in if they didn’t get ahead of the curve.

Of course, that doesn’t really change the situation, but we shouldnt get the story twisted here. The blame falls on the administrators who were so afraid of a threat that they imagined that they caved to non-existent demands, rather than the Chinese (at least for direct fault, since you could argue the Chinese government’s policies indirectly led to this situation and I wouldn’t fight you on that).

I barely know anything about Static-X other than the music video for Pushit, but that’s one rad picture there.