Great match, even if I have no bloody clue what that ref was doing for much of it. Weird no-calls, slow to check on players on the ground, and it’s embarrassing you need VAR to see that dangerous high boot. Didn’t end up mattering in the end, thankfully.

I still don’t think there’s much likelihood this works out for Trump and his goons. Much more likely this is a big failure and he leverages it to rile up his rabid and racist base. That probably will be successful, even if it’s logically incoherent. 

All this idiocy aside, how can you look at her hairstyle and not immediately think “yeah that’s definitely a mermaid”. 

Macro radicalization like that is a bit different than individual cases, but yeah I think the theory is relevant here. It’s a nuanced issue but there’s definitely signs that Trump’s base is engaged in a continuing process of radicalization and dragging much of the GOP with them. 

Actually, I should’ve noted this is a basic part of radicalization. From white supremacists to Daesh taking transgressive (often violent in those cases) actions builds bonds and pulls people deeper. It’s why for example child soldiers are usually forced to kill in a controlled setting as part of their training. Daesh…

I doubt he could get that far, personally. Not that our institutions are holding up particularly well, I think opposition is eroding over time, but that’s a jump that’s a bit too blatant. Roberts wants to achieve his partisan goals without looking too guilty while doing so, so I think that’d be a step too far for the…

Putting out an EO and getting the GOP to defend it, leveraging all their media and PR arms, would be breaking the norm. It’s not about win or lose. It’s about asserting power and watching people fall in line. Those that don’t, he’ll mark. It’s about solidifying loyalty. If you cross the line with others, it builds…

There’s a very real possibility that all the news on this, and Trump’s posturing, is about confusing the public in hopes of driving responses down. 

What’s most likely to happen next is Trump tries to push the envelope and see just how far the GOP will allow him to go. I suspect he’ll fail here. The plain text of the law is too hard to ignore and with forms already being printed the battle is essentially symbolic now.

Amash spent a lot of time as a hard-right hyper-partisan. I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s learned from that time, for now, because this is a step that’s pretty dramatic. I can respect fiscal conservatism a lot more than much of the cultural war abuses the Tea Party he was associated with…

You’d still need immigration judges even if it was a purely civil system, as far as I understand it. But there should be far more money devoted to the issue given the backlog in cases. It’d certainly be cheaper to hire and train more judges than to detain so many people, given the costs for detention even in such…

This is a terrible idea, as anyone who has done even a tiny bit of translating, formal or not, can tell you. People have follow up questions, video can confuse people, and someone who is confused and frightened and unable to speak their native tongue is more likely to make mistakes that, in our brutal immigration…

Pop-culture medievalism. What most people get from TV shows and games is a very narrow and highly distorted idea of the period. It’s something historians are discussing more and more.

Leather armor is a fairly notorious problem. It doesn’t hold up in the archaeological record, though there is textual and likely visual evidence that suggests it was used more widely than where it survived. So I wouldn’t say it’s impossible in Europe, and in fact I’d personally guess probable in regions that had been…

Oh it’s absolutely not about historical accuracy. I looked at some screenshots. The game is very much “medieval-ish” pop culture fantasy. I saw one with a mixture of late medieval metal armor (helmet and pauldrons) and a leather lamellar chest piece. It’s not impossible that existed in the historical record, but I’m…

If the theme is inherently anti-historical, how does deviation harm the theme? You seem to have a very narrow view of the medieval period. You’ve consistency dodged the lack of realism in the game when presented with it by people who understand the historical record far better than you. 

One screenshot I saw had a mixture of 14-15 century plate pieces and leather lamellar. Looked vaguely late Byzantine though I can’t for the life of me think how or when that combination would be used in real history. Armoring your chest is usually a higher priority than pauldrons.

Yeah, I can see this passing as “smart guy on far-right forum”. I’ve seen the same types on Twitter a lot. It’s got the trappings of education and logical argument. The substance behind it is flimsy if challenged, but if you’re in circles where it isn’t there’s no problem. There was a neo-Nazi running a…

His commenting history strongly suggests he truly believes the hyperbolic bigoted assertions. There’s a lot of misogyny there, and it doesn’t take long to find it. Incel-adjacent at best. 

For fuck’s sake. Historians are an authority on history you mendacious bloody troll. It’s a shame Kotaku didn’t really ban your misogynist ass and spare us all this comedy of errors.