- Surging Chaos
- Registered User
-
Member for 18 years, 11 months, and 25 days
Last active Fri, Feb, 2 2018 02:09:55
- 16 Followers
- 14,110 Total Posts
- 385 Thanks
-
Jul 24, 2008Surging Chaos posted a message on What "strictly better" truly means: A challengeWhen I compare cards, I look at them from a game theory point of view. I don't take expansion symbols, rarity, or any of that into account. I look at the functionality of the cards (ie what it says on the card).Posted in: Surging Chaos's Realm of Ruination
-
Jul 24, 2008Surging Chaos posted a message on What "strictly better" truly means: A challengeBoth elves are the exact same at what they do. The only thing different are their names (which is irrelevant because Meddling Mage can equally block either one from being played).Posted in: Surging Chaos's Realm of Ruination
Tyler Durden, saying Ashcoat Bears is strictly better than Grizzly Bears is just plain incorrect. Maybe you won't come across a crazy Mindslaver situation over the course of a game, but the fact of the matter is, that situation is possible in a game of Magic and it exists. This throws the 100% better in every single situation out of the window, and it completely invalidates the argument that Ashcoat is strictly better than Grizzly.
Mindslaver makes sure that "strictly better" doesn't exist in Magic. It still boggles my mind how people haven't grasped onto that concept yet.
BTW, Murganda Petroglyphs makes it so Grizzly Bears is better than Ashcoat Bears. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The Reform Party actually could have taken off. They elected Jesse Ventura to governor of Minnesota in 1998 which was a massive coup as far as third party victories go.
The problem was Pat Buchanan joined the Reform Party and took over, using the federal funding to pay off previous campaign debts from his failed 1992 and 1996 presidential runs. Once Buchanan secured the Reform nomination he then ran no meaningful campaign to kill the party. It was essentially an act of sabotage to make sure the Reform party would not affect the GOP.
The funny thing was Trump was trying to run for president back then under the Reform party at that time. He detested Buchanan. Now Buchanan is one of Trump's most ardent supporters... which actually makes a lot of sense in retrospect despite their quarrels in 2000.
What will likely happen is that the GOP will simply yank their funding from Trump's campaign and divert money to downticket races in order to preserve the House, Senate, and state level offices. At this point most of the sane GOP officials realize this election is lost. Trump refuses to pivot (as seen in his hiring of the Breitbart exec and demoting Manafort), refuses to keep his mouth shut, and does not want to work with GOP officials in building critical campaign infrastructure. Barring a complete disaster or unfounded revelation or scandal to come out of Hillary's campaign, Trump is facing down the barrel of a blowout on election day.
Trump will still be the official nominee but it will become a zombie campaign. He'll still hold his rallies and continue to dominate traditional and social media, but he will be getting no support from the GOP higher-ups and donors. There already is precedent for the GOP doing this -- this is exactly what happened to Bob Dole in 1996. The GOP pulled his funding and diverted it on preserving Congress. Dole got wiped out on election night to Bill Clinton but the GOP still controlled Congress. The real fun will be what happens after the election. There has been talk that Trump wants to start his own cable network and considering the context of what he's done since the conventions ended it makes a lot of sense. Trump is self-destructing, but he's also solidifying his base at the same time so he can lay the groundwork for a news channel. I would not be surprised to see Trump News Channel become a thing in the next year.
Except the GOP is anything *but* united. TIME actually had a very good article a few days ago showing just how much Trump has pissed off the GOP because he can't stop making gaffes and shutting up since the conventions ended. (If it weren't under a paywall I would link it) He is majorly behind in a lot of national polls that have been released and he is causing normally red states like Georgia, Arizona, and even South Carolina to be in danger of being won by Clinton. Even Utah isn't safe. There was an internal poll that was released a few weeks ago showing that Gary Johnson is at 26% in Utah, mere percentage points from Trump who only had 29% (and Clinton with 27%). For a state that should be a very easy win for any GOP candidate, that is an unmitigated disaster. To make matters even worse, there is a good chance that Mitt Romney will endorse Gary Johnson soon (he and Bill Weld are huge friends and has said he is looking into supporting the ticket). Given that he's highly respected in Utah, if Romney endorses Johnson, Trump is done in Utah.
It's gotten to the point where they are just about ready to pull the plug on Trump's campaign and focus on downticket races to preserve the House and Senate. Obviously the GOP does not want to see Hillary become president, but they can stonewall her into oblivion for 4 years and make it so that she cannot do anything at all. I don't really understand the Reagan comparisons because Reagan wasn't anything close to Trump in terms of his attitude and ability to get people behind him. If anything, Trump is going to go the route of Bob Dole, or, dare I say it... Barry Goldwater.
A lot of it boils down to studio interference. The execs want one cut of the movie and the director prefers his own vision. They apparently had two different cuts of the movie and tried to mash them together for horrible results.
Also doesn't help that the reshoots for Suicide Squad came in the 11th hour.
To be fair, this is only her second run at President. (Same with Johnson)
She is definitely extremely crazy and the Green Party needs a more pragmatic approach similar to what the Libertarian Party has done ever since they got Johnson to defect to them in 2012. This is especially true as the Democrats continue their transformation into the white-collar, cosmopolitan party. Greens have a big opportunity to pick up working class individuals.
Many people who believe Nader spoiled the election miss two critical factors that were beyond Nader's sphere of influence:
1. About 12% of Democrats in Florida voted for Bush. That is roughly equivalent to over 200,000 votes, FAR more than Nader's total in Florida. If even just 1% of that group votes for Gore, he wins Florida.
2. Al Gore failed to win his home state of Tennessee, which was won by Bill Clinton in the last two elections. If Gore won Tennessee, the election would be over right then and there.
They can significantly influence and reshape the party even if they don't win elections. Barry Goldwater and William Jennings Bryan were "anti-establishment" candidates and both were responsible for shaping the Republican and Democratic parties largely as they are today.
Suicide Squad had a lot of production troubles. This article here goes into more detail about it: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/suicide-squads-secret-drama-rushed-916693
As you said, DC is in catch-up mode right now. Suicide Squad was greenlit back in October 2014, literally right after Guardians of the Galaxy was a huge success. DC never gave it time to materialize. Everything they've done so far has been trying to copy Marvel's success without doing all the heavy legwork needed to make a cinematic universe work.
The script was written in just 6 weeks and boy did it show. Editing and pacing were very bad, likely just as bad as in Batman v Superman, villain was very forgettable and lame, and I wasn't digging Leto's performance as the Joker. He felt too much of a try-hard in the role.
Suicide Squad is probably going to pull a Batman v Superman where it has a huge opening weekend but the bad reviews and bad word of mouth cause it to collapse at the box office. If that happens, DC is in huge trouble. I actually think they will pull the plug on their whole cinematic universe if the Justice League movie doesn't break $1 billion.
If ordinary Republicans really cared about the platform, they would have submitted to Jeb, Rubio, Kasich, or maybe Cruz.
People didn't gravitate toward Trump because he was promising tax reductions and cuts in government spending. No, the base went for Trump because of trade deals and "build the wall". That's why all the movement conservatives and think-tank types are freaking out over Trump. That's why the 2012 autopsy blew up in the face of the establishment. The people at National Review and Heritage Foundation (among other institutions) are finally coming to grips that the voters they court really don't care as much about the platform as they do. The voters want a more European style of conservatism that is much more nationalist and economically liberal than what the think-tanks approve of. There's a reason why Trump refuses to touch SS and Medicare, for example. His supporters would instantaneously revolt if he laid a finger on those programs, despite those supporters being life-long Republicans.
It's not cognitive dissonance. Libertarians support gay marriage under the guise that people should be allowed to make voluntary decisions in their life. Democrats support gay marriage to score political points. It's a critical difference.
My understanding is that Johnson supported civil unions as early as 2001 and kept his true support for gay marriage largely hidden because he feared being exiled from the GOP. Bill Weld also was also blocked from becoming the US ambassador to Mexico back in 1997 because a fellow Republican did not approve of Weld's socially liberal views.
Libertarians as a whole have been ahead of supporting gay marriage for quite some time. Democrats really didn't care for gay marriage until they could use it as political leverage. Obama opposing it in 2008 and then suddenly changing his view in 2012 is a good example of this, as well as Hillary's sudden reversal on the issue as well.
Honestly you should check out Gary Johnson. He and Bill Weld (his running mate) both supported gay marriage LONG before Hillary and most Democrats did. Libertarians tend to be naturally liberal on social issues, but not because of opportunistic reasons. Johnson also has a history of building his own construction business from the ground up. From a business perspective, Johnson is a guy that I can relate to more than Trump, on a personal level.