BillyClark

That’s surprising. Based on his previous behavior, I thought his most likely course of action would be to guarantee that gas prices would go down, and then to declare that gas prices had gone down, even though anyone could easily see that they went up.

I know you’re not saying it to disagree with me, but I would like to clarify that I didn’t think he was factually completely right. I honestly don’t even think his argument is necessarily sound. The thing I do like is that he was arguing from good fundamentals.

My reason for making the first comment is that I have a strong belief that we should argue against things that people actually say and do, like you’re doing bringing up Elon’s actions. Yours is a great example of an honest argument.

And I dislike all of these straw men that fly around all the time.

Few will click through, so I’ll copy the part where he actually talked about child pornography below. First of all, both times the term “gatekeeping” was used in that link were specifically connected to “censoring political opponents”. He was not talking about pornography. He was talking about censorship.

Bringing up pornography is always the bludgeon of anti-free-speech people. If I say, “People should have the freedom to express themselves,” some idiot will inevitably say, “This evil person said that everybody should be allowed to make child porn!” This sort of rhetoric is the death of thinking.

Asked if he realised “what [he was] defending” - which is essentially Grok being used to generate non-consensual pornographic or sexually explicit images of women and girls and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) - Sweeney said: “I defend open platforms, free speech, and consistent application of the rule of law. The bad stuff people do with AI, I do not defend, but I staunchly oppose the wrongdoing of a few from being used as a pretense to undermine the freedoms of all”

When challenged and given examples of Grok generating “CSAM content and doxxing people’s IP address”, he replied: "1) That is bad. 2) Every significant AI has instances of this. 3) Every significant AI company makes their best efforts to stop it. 4) All are imperfect.

One thing I forgot when talking about this episode earlier is the cliffhanger from the last episode where Wilfried is dragging Rozemyne’s bloody unconscious body across the floor. And this episode they just carry on like it didn’t happen.

I suspect that would be jarring if you were binge watching the episodes. There is more context in the LNs. Maybe they plan to do a flashback the next time Rozemyne meets Wilfried? I’m hoping at least.

So, I read the manga for this series yesterday, and I actually think the anime is better than the manga so far. I’m usually a fan of any anime with the word “Villainess” in the title, but conversely, I usually dislike the “clueless” sort of animes where the MC doesn’t realize what’s going on.

I guess I think of Bertia as the MC, even though Cecil is supposed to be the MC.

I’m not sure why the anime seems better than the manga. Maybe because I am watching it knowing how it ends. Maybe because Bertia doesn’t seem quite as clueless as in the manga. Maybe it’s because the mangaka frequently used a really stupid happy face for Bertia that I disliked.

I was surprised they spend so much time making sure that we knew Ferdinand killed Arno. Arno was previously bullying Fran, and Arno was the reason why Ferdinand didn’t respond to the attack in the temple more quickly. So, it’s sort of important to know that Ferdinand can be this ruthless to commoners, and how little grey priests’ lives are worth, but if they just mentioned that he was replaced with Zahm, I still think it would still play out similarly to the audience.

The only plot part that I’ve been disappointed with in this season is the portrayal of Rozemyne’s blessings. They’re not completely consistent with the book, whether you’re going with the original descriptions, or with those that were explained differently later. Especially the ceremony in this episode. I’m not even sure that people watching it will realize it was a marriage ceremony.

For me, the most important overall consideration is whether this season will be popular enough to continue animating the rest of the series. It’s got to be a tough problem for the animation studio. This is a critical time for character development, but I suspect they’re also trying to rush through this arc because there’s no guarantee that the anime will continue. I admit that I was pleased they left the scene with Ferdinand after the Starbind Ceremony.

Personally, I don’t think anything is all that badly done yet… But I’m a little concerned because I’ve expressed opinions like this in the past on different anime, and usually, the naysayers were right.

It is central to most major religions the need to control the sex lives of their followers.

The Bible doesn’t say that masturbation is a sin, but since Christianity is a religion, they cannot permit their followers to control their own sex lives.

As a result, most sexual expression is considered a sin, and they will use any excuses or lies possible to make sure it stays that way.

You know, it’s kind of refreshing to think that somebody tried to think of the most horrific sexual perversion imaginable, and could only come up with Waluigi hentai.

Iran is teaching Pete Hegseth (and Trump and Netanyahu) the meaning of FAFO.

According to the ranking Democrat on the committee, the subpoena was for Pam Bondi by name, not specifically for the Attorney General. The subpoena is completely valid and legal, and her testimony could be crucial to understand the issue at hand.

She is still legally required to testify, and that’s why they’re still asking for the subpoena to be withdrawn, instead of simply saying it’s invalid.

Imagine if things worked this way in the real world. Your boss notices that all of the money is missing from the cash register, so they report you to the police, but when the police come to conduct an interview, you just say, “I quit that job, so you can’t do anything to me.”

The GOP always puts party before country.

But the unfortunate truth is that if you look at all serious presidential impeachments, the votes went almost exactly down party lines. Regardless of the party. Fortunately for the left, though, this time it’s Republicans who are clearly in the wrong.

IIRC, no senator had ever voted to convict an impeached president in their own party until Mitt Romney did against Trump.

It’s just weird to think that they have this big trial, and present tons of evidence, and the most important factor in how you judge the case is which side of the room you’re sitting on. Nothing to do with the actual trial.

So, unless Republicans actually start doing their jobs and follow the Constitution and start working to benefit their constituents and stop breaking their oaths of office, the only chance America has for justice is if there is a massive blue wave in the elections this year.

2½ years’ jail for man wanted by FBI for facilitating oil supply to North Korea

One of the most awkward headlines I’ve seen. How can he already be sentenced if he’s still wanted?

So this guy, Kwek Kee Seng, is a 66 year old Singaporean. He arranged for ships to transfer 6.9 million USD worth of gas oil to North Korean ships in 2019, and he did it remotely.

On April 7, 2026, Kwek, 66, was sentenced to 30 months’ jail and fined $80,000 after pleading guilty to three counts of flouting UN sanctions, one count for receiving the criminal benefits, and another for obstructing the course of justice. Twelve other charges of a similar nature were taken into account.

So since it’s UN, I guess he was sentenced in The Hague and never came to America, so the FBI never had jurisdiction to arrest him? I’m honestly not sure what the hell the FBI has to do with this situation.

In other news, Pope Leo releases an official press release stating that he is, in fact, Catholic.

Yeah, the joke doesn’t really work, does it? Any decent programmer will have a better shot at fixing a printer, because any decent programmer is good at finding information on the internet and then following the instructions.

Programmers complain about this situation because once people know that we use the computers, they expect us to fix everything for them for free. So, it’s just annoying. But I wouldn’t sacrifice my life to avoid a minor annoyance, so the joke doesn’t really work.

If you’re a programmer that doesn’t generally know how to find instructions to fix things like printers on the internet and then follow them, then I’m on the side of the guy who wants to shoot them.

If you feel like this summary sort of buries the lede, I skimmed the article, and long story short, this is a controversial sect that is known for some severe practices and severe abuses.

Pope Francis started to act against Opus Dei just before his death, and Pope Leo seems to want to stop or otherwise curb or work against them, as well.

I always thought that a small part of the reason that we, as a nation, try to respect our military and veterans is that it’s a bad idea to train people to be good at killing other people, and then to antagonize them.

The higher ups wouldn’t want to create a situation where they might become a target. But lately it seems like the civilian government has become much more abusive to the military and veterans. It’s so foolish.

“There’s an old saying in Tennessee - I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can’t get fooled again.” - George W Bush

I loved the live action drama of Liar Game, but I don’t remember it precisely since it came out something like 20 or more years ago.

I looked up the currency conversion, and in today’s money, 100,000,000 yen is about 625,000 USD.

As for this first episode, maybe it’s because my expectations were higher, but I didn’t like it at all. My memory of the drama is that it’s a lot of psychological trickery and puzzle solving, but this episode had very little of it, and felt very cringey how easily Nao was fooled.

Now that I think about it, the first episode of the drama was probably the same. Like I said, maybe my expectations were too high. Or maybe my tastes have changed in 20 years…

Anyways, I think they probably should have released the first two episodes at the same time. I want to know whether this is just the way the show is, or whether it’s more puzzley like my memory suggests.

I got one a few years ago that had a setting to automatically go to a specified input when the TV started (similar to how normal TVs used to work).

My only mistake was leaving the TV connected to the network, as it updated and caused some hassle recently.