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Fez

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About Fez

  • Birthday 11/18/1987

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  1. A lot. They substantially reworked the narrative of Act IV, with new quests, changes in flow between existing quests (to better tie events together), and more companion reactivity to events. Apparently over 150,000 words of text were changed and 130,000 new words were recorded by the VAs per https://www.neoseeker.com/divinity-original-sin-ii/guides/Definitive_Edition_Differences They also made a bunch of balancing and leveling changes throughout the game.
  2. Yeah, honestly as much as I love the game overall, Act 3 completely kills my interest in the game. The last time I played, I managed to plough through Rivington but once I hit the lower city I just had no desire to keep going (it also didn't help that Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth just released and is incredible). It's actually too open-ended, and too disconnected from everything you've been doing up to that point. Act I is open-ended, but it's also very tight in that everything you do relates to learning about your tadpole and possible options for getting rid of it. Act II is extremely focused. And then Act III is open-ended again, and not really in service of anything specific. I hope a director's cut eventually changes it as much act IV of Divinity Original Sin 2 got changed.
  3. There was a real chance of it happening in 2004. Kerry lost the national popular vote by 2.5%, but only lost Ohio (my how things change) by 2.1%. And if he won Ohio he'd have won the election. Then, in both 2008 and 2012 Obama won the tipping point state (Colorado, in both cases) by more than his national popular vote margin. In 2008 he could've lost the national vote by up to 1.7% and still won the election, and in 2012 by up to 1.5% Up until 2016, it was more often Republicans talking about abolishing the electoral college to erase the assumed Democratic edge there. Although it was only Democratic states actually passing the national popular vote compact to do so. In general, the electoral edge has bounced back and forth between the parties. And the current Republican edge isn't even the worst it's been, it's just that elections used to more frequently be blowouts so it masked the issue.
  4. I'll also chime in to note that Biden is certainly old enough to remember the 1968 election. LBJ was actually eligible to run for another term, decided not to, and the Democratic party split into several major factions immediately. The result was a chaotic Democratic convention and Nixon beat Humphries in an election that was actually close in the popular vote but was an electoral blowout. The conventional wisdom is that LBJ was so unpopular from the Vietnam war that he would've gotten blown out in the election and so he decided not to run to spare himself the embarrassment and to hopefully improve Democrats' chances that year. However, the limited polling at the time suggests that LBJ actually was in a good position to win and there's a variety of theories as to why he ended up not running. I think Biden thinks he can win and he doesn't want to be another LBJ.
  5. I disagree. The problem is that Republicans are still in an excellent position to takeover, and hold significant amounts of power as is; especially at the state level. I do think this is despite MAGA, not because of it. But the harms of MAGA to their political aims hasn't been enough to make them risk pissing off their base yet. The only way I see MAGA starting to break is if Biden wins re-election AND the 2026 midterm resembles the 2022 midterm (especially if Democrats have the senate after 2026, and there are a few decent pick-up opportunities there). I think that, and pretty much only that, would lead to a 2028 Republican primary where MAGA starts getting ditched. And the problem is, that's a really tall order. Even if Biden wins, I think there's a very strong chance that 2026 is a more regular midterm incumbent bloodbath.
  6. It was always an open secret in DC that most of his colleagues (and most reporters) think McCarthy isn't that bright. Entirely independent of ideological leanings, he just pretty dumb. And it shows. Here's an Op-Ed from Politico in the summer of 2022, making the case about the reporters knowing it but it being taboo to directly say: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/03/kevin-mccarthy-washington-media-taboo-intelligence-00036894
  7. If it's false, it's noteworthy that the group felt the need to make the accusation. Just like liberals share the weird, false accusations that Trump, MTG, Boebert, et al make all the time. And if it's true, it's obviously a big deal in it's own right. Either way, it garnered enough attention that the media orgs felt the need that they had to respond. https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/11/09/cnn-ap-photographer-hamas/
  8. What's the point of posting anything? Just fodder for thought/discussion. And I sure haven't seen such complaints about not fully vetted Palestinian claims.
  9. That's a rather odd way to describe Israel, considering that there were 10 parties that got seats in the latest election; 5 of them with at least 10 seats and Likud itself only got 32 of the 120 available (and Labor got 4). Things have gotten more polarized since 2019, but Israel historically has been well-known for having a huge number of parties that make it into the Knesset. And a lot of them don't just fall onto a left-right spectrum; e.g., there's the party for Ashkenazi Haredi, the party for Sephardic Haredi, the party for Russian-speaking Jews. Also, 4 Prime Ministers since 2001 haven't been from Likud (or Labor), and not just the two briefly last year. From 2003 to 2009, Kadima was the dominant party in government; swapping out Likud and Labor (among other parties) as junior partners as needed. Further, Labor and Likud have formed a government together that wasn't a "national emergency" government. After the 1984 election the math was basically impossible to make a government that didn't involve both parties, and they didn't hate each other as much back then, so they made a government. Lastly, the most recent Likud government (pre 10/7) was the first time there was such an ideologically cohesive government. E.g, Labor governments regularly included the religious conservative parties, and Likud governments used to regularly include single-issue liberal and moderate parties.
  10. It's not. Israel uses a nationwide party closed list proportional representative system with a 3.25% electoral threshold. It's like what Spain uses for it's lower chamber, only the entire country is one giant district.
  11. There's a hell of claim out there today, albeit not from an unbiased source, claiming that Gaza-based photojournalists employed by the AP and Reuters were actually embedded among the Hamas terrorists on 10/7. If true, it means that journalists (and perhaps, although not likely, their employing news agencies) knew of the attack in advance and didn't alert anyone. Or, alternatively, the "journalists" are actually members of Hamas. Either way, it would call into question the accuracy of quite a bit of reporting coming out from the ground in Gaza. https://honestreporting.com/photographers-without-borders-ap-reuters-pictures-of-hamas-atrocities-raise-ethical-questions/
  12. As great as the outcome of last night was overall, there are still some warning signs for Democrats: First of all, in Virginia Republicans won every senate district that was less than Biden+8 in 2020. In a lot of ways last night was actually pretty similar to 2021, it's just that the lines favored Democrats a bit. And yes, they won back the state house, but the district lines there were different than in 2021; overall voter preference seems pretty similar to what it had been. And secondly, New York Democrats continued to lose ground in and around NYC. When abortion isn't on the ballot (and, in fairness, the Long Island suburbs of NYC are probably the one place left in the country where there are still a large number of pro-choice Republicans— including some of the local candidates who won last night) things can get bad quick. If Republicans are in some way able to make the economy the main focus of 2024, it'll spell big trouble.
  13. Him vs Polis vs Whitmer seems like an awesome primary. Meanwhile, I'm very thankful for the VA state senate results. I really didn't want to live in a red state hellhole. Hopefully Democrats even flip the state house, which seems like it may very well happen.
  14. Fingers crossed! It's just a shame that I'm in such a blue part of NoVA that my vote basically doesn't matter since there's no statewide offices up. We do have a kinda competitive county board vote, but I think my state delegate and senator are running unopposed. Still gonna go vote in a couple hours though of course.
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