Hot takes & reviews: pop culture, gaming, politics, music, history. Weekly streams on X, YouTube, Kick, Twitch. Father-daughter team, mostly family friendly.
Michigan, USA
Joined May 2023
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Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
A bunch of mainstream left politicians around the world praised Lula yesterday.
They don't actually believe in "norms."
Flávio Bolsonaro says he was ordered to hand over his passports after 'losing' the runoff election in Brazil.
Bolsonaro says he went to visit his imprisoned father, who is the former president of Brazil, and was confronted by "Lula's Federal Police."
"I went to visit my father... As I was leaving, Lula’s Federal Police were at his front door, and right there in the middle of the street."
"I was served an order to surrender my passports; I am also prohibited from leaving the country..."
"This is a sign that our democracy has failed..."
"I will surrender my passports and defend myself against this travesty, which is a clear attempt to intimidate me. But no one will silence me..."
Bolsonaro is calling for the election to be annulled following a last-minute voting extension made by Lula's former personal attorney.
The New York Times reports that confusion over Justice Cristiano Zanin's last-minute voting extension could lead to the election being annulled.
When Zanin made the last-minute decision to extend voting hours, some polling stations had already closed and shut down their voting machines.
They could not reopen.
"Fernando Neisser, an electoral law professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas, a Brazilian research institute, said the election could be annulled if the margin is very narrow and it is shown that polling stations stayed open longer in areas that strongly favor one candidate," the NYT reported.
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
Brazil is an example of a first world population emeshed amongst 3rd world savages
Not as dysfunctional as South Africa
But never going to be 1st world either
Demographics are inescapable
如果你去南美第一大城市巴西圣保罗出差，抬头会看到全世界最魔幻的阶层隔离奇观
城市上空注册着超过 400 多架私人直升机，市中心两百多栋写字楼和豪宅顶层全焊着停机坪，每天有上千架次直升机像出租车一样在天上嗡嗡穿梭！
圣保罗的亿万富豪和跨国高管为什么宁可花几千美金包机飞 15 分钟去上班，也不肯坐劳斯莱斯走地面道路呢？
这是因为地面交通不仅堵成死水，更因为贫民窟与富人区犬牙交错。在地面红绿灯前一旦被堵死的话，骑摩托车的持枪劫匪可能会随时冲上来敲碎车窗抢劫甚至绑架！
这直接把巴西逼成了全球第一大民用防弹汽车（Blindados）市场，全国有超过 30 万辆私家车把车门和玻璃全改造成了能挡住 9 毫米手枪和左轮子弹的防弹装甲壳。
这可真是顶层在天上飞，中产在防弹铁壳里躲，底层在街角抢，拉美式折叠其实比科幻片还真实🌚
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
"There is no better way to celebrate the sixth anniversary of the Artemis Accords than to welcome its 77th member. I’m also thrilled to see Secretary Rubio including space diplomacy as a regular part of broader geopolitical conversations per the dialogue with Uzbekistan and other Central Asian nations.
Moreover, having recently returned from IAC in Turkey and the U.S. Space Forum at the United Nations in Vienna, we are seeing the Artemis Accords not just broadened but deepened by the administration offering real opportunities to become a part of the NASA-led Moon Base, send delegates to the Space Academy, and participate in establishing vital norms of behavior.
The dream of the Artemis Accords is coming to fruition and the momentum toward a better future for all of humanity is palpable."
Mike Gold, President, Redwire Space
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
A British government minister should be fired immediately for saying this
It means that most of us cannot trust the government any more
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
Many hate this performance. I would have to see this whole thing in context.
I offer though there was in fact a miracle that takes place afterwards, and channeling “Hal,” and having hanged his friends, and put down a conspiracy, and having engineered the politics in the house of commons to compel the Church to assert a casus belli under rather dubious rationale from the book of Numbers, a big “rah rah” inspired moment might actually be OUT of character — he *thinks* he’s gonna lose. Machiavellians (with virtu defined therein), and the mirror of the Christian monarch, do not succumb to delusion if they’re doing it right.
But if in context the performance doesn’t build to this, then it would be bad. Would need the full context.
Probably my favourite version. It's much less bombastic than Olivier's or Branagh's.
#StCrispinsDay
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
Sylvester Stallone says that having his daughter in a major role in ‘TULSA KING’ Season 4 is absolutely nepotism.
“First they go, ‘Nepotism is terrible. I said, ‘Oh please, you’re not a good parent if you haven’t performed a little nepotism.' Then obviously you don’t care about your kids, because they come first.
Of course it’s nepotism, you idiot. That’s why we’re parents. We want the best for our children. So obviously, we let them have every advantage.”
(Source: usatoday.com/story/entertain…)
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
This will happen in the USA if the democrats get elected again.
Please look at what is happening all over Europe. This is very serious.
We seem to have forgotten that the communists still want to take over the world, and treat it as some kind of silly fantasy.
January 6th and Covid should have woken people up, but there is still this malaise and thinking that we are in normal times.
They tried to kill the president multiple times. They have harmed children and tried to normalize it’s they have dismissed illegals murdering and raping our women.
Wake up. This is not a game.
And do not forget, for some people in the conservative movement their “principles” are more important than stopping the country falling into chaos.
Just be sure they will never feel the pain real working people will when the shit hits the fan.
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
“Respect Orders” are far worse than you imagine.
First, look at the standards for entering a “Respect Order.”
A court need only find there was a 51% chance (“balance of probabilities”) you engaged in “anti-social behavior”
Not beyond reasonable doubt. Just slightly more likely than not
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
So let me get this straight: Brazil has a judiciary JUST for elections. They decided against extending the hours. Then a judge who was Lula's personal attorney issues an order to extend the hours solely in areas favorable to Lula. Am I getting this right?
According @malugaspar — not exactly considered a Flavio supporter — all the judges of the TSE oppposed granting the extension that Lula’s former campaign lawyer now turned STF justice @Cristianozaninm ordered.
It’s Lula’s lawyer, sitting as judge in a court with no jurisdiction, ordering the polls remain open when all judges in the electoral court opposed it. This has to have consequences Lula is going to destroy the rule of law in Brazil on his way out.
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
Rose City Riveters, which sanctioned, directed, supplied, and carried out the attack on us Friday night, is part of the 107 Independent Supporters Trust - a registered not-for-profit organization in the state of Oregon. It has Federal 501c(7) status.
Its members have ties to Antifa, which is a federally designated terror organization. @MrAndyNgo wrote about them in his book Unmasked: Inside Antifa's Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. The group is officially sanctioned by the @ThornsFC and @TimbersFC.
@USAttyBradford
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
Voting Karen Bass is morally unacceptable. She has been a complete disaster. There must be accountability. You cannot reward her with your vote.
Yes, Nithya Raman is a DSA extremist. But she would be no worse than Bass. Do not vote for either.
Los Angeles: I am your only hope.
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
*BOLSONARO TEAM ASKS COURT TO ANNUL RUNOFF OVER VOTING ISSUES
And. Here. We. Go.
The major question in Brazil…
At exactly 5pm, a code is supposed to be entered that closes and locks the voting machines. Once a machine is locked, it can’t accept any more votes. It’s irreversible.
The Supreme Court extension was relayed a few minutes after polls were supposed to be closed and machines locked.
So… which machines were kept open? In what districts were those machines? And why weren’t they locked at 5pm?
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
To everyone watching the surge in far-left violence across the West and telling themselves it cannot get worse: I am old enough to remember when organized left-wing terror groups were killing, kidnapping, and bombing across Europe and America. The 1970s and 1980s are worth a quick revisit.
In West Germany, the Marxist-Leninist Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof) and the Revolutionary Cells carried out hundreds of bombings, arson attacks, and bank robberies over some 25 years, wounding hundreds and killing dozens. In September 1977, Baader-Meinhof ambushed Hanns Martin Schleyer, one of Germany’s top industrialists, murdered his driver and three police officers, held him for 43 days, then killed him.
In Italy, the Marxist-Leninist gang Red Brigades carried out assassinations, kneecappings, and kidnappings over 20 years, killing nearly fifty people. In 1978 they kidnapped former prime minister Aldo Moro, killed his five bodyguards, and left his body in a car trunk after 54 days.
In Spain, GRAPO, another Marxist-Leninist group, killed more than 80 people, including a notorious 1979 cafe bombing in Madrid. It used kidnappings to attack the state and later raise money. Its highest profile victims were the president of the Council of State and a top military general.
In France, Action Directe, a self-described “libertarian communist urban guerrilla” group, carried out more than 80 bombings. Its leaders were convicted of assassinating General René Audran in 1985 and Renault CEO Georges Besse in 1986.
In America, the Weather Underground claimed roughly two dozen bombings, including the Capitol and the Pentagon. Their bombs killed no one but their own members—three in a Greenwich Village townhouse in 1970—until 1981, when remnants joined the Black Liberation Army in the Brink’s robbery. A guard and two police officers died.
These groups did not emerge from nowhere. They began inside much larger movements of protest marches, campus organizing, and anti-war activism. Small cells decided that talking had failed, that the state was illegitimate, and that violence was the only remaining language. They were few in number but they did real damage.
The grievances of the 1970s were not identical to today’s. The mechanics of escalation, though, are similar. When political anger, economic frustration, and a sense of moral emergency pile up, it only takes a handful of people to break away and treat armed confrontation as the next logical step. History shows it has happened before. The question is whether it will happen again.
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
BREAKING: Brazil's election could be annulled, according to the New York Times.
Electoral lawyers say Brazil's current situation is "extremely serious" and a "critical situation."
The NYT reports that confusion over a last-minute voting extension by Justice Cristiano Zanin, who was appointed by Lula, could lead to the election being annulled.
"This is an extremely serious, critical situation," said electoral lawyer Priscilla Sodré Pereira to the New York Times.
When Zanin made the last-minute decision to extend voting hours, some polling stations had already closed and shut down their voting machines. They could not reopen.
"Fernando Neisser, an electoral law professor at Fundação Getulio Vargas, a Brazilian research institute, said the election could be annulled if the margin is very narrow and it is shown that polling stations stayed open longer in areas that strongly favor one candidate," the NYT reported.
Wow.
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
In the savage house-to-house fighting of the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004, US Marines received the rare order to fix bayonets as they cleared the city room by room against entrenched insurgents.
Amid fortified houses, sniper positions, and ambushes that reduced combat to stairwells, doorways, and point-blank ranges, the bayonet shifted from a historical relic to a practical last line of defense when ammunition ran low or weapons jammed.
It was some of the most intense urban combat American forces had faced since Hue City in Vietnam. Veterans still recall the radio call and the sudden realization of just how close the fight would get, a moment that embodied the Marine Corps ethos of closing with and destroying the enemy, no matter the distance.
It's a tradition still taught at boot camp as a reminder of that willingness to fight at any range.
Semper Fi
Coffee and Chocolate retweeted
Immigration policy must be driven by the present, not the past, and business leaders are too terrified of the left AND the right to acknowledge this.
Recent H1B discourse revolves around a longstanding immigration sleight-of-hand. H1B proponents point to exceptional people who came here decades ago as if they represent the current state of the program in the same way that advocates for low-skill/illegal immigration point to very favorable immigrant crime/welfare/education/etc statistics that do, in truth, have them beating native-born Americans on many fronts.
It is all a sham. The world that created those statistics, people, and businesses no longer exists. Brilliant but desperate Vietnamese fathers who fled communism have nothing in common with young men from Honduras, and the crime rates/economic acccomplishments/integration of the former should not be used to justify mass migration of the latter.
Nor should the accomplishments of people who managed to get an H1B visa in the 90s (when the program was capped to just 65,000 visas) be used to justify staffing agencies and tech companies using the program to replace American jobs for less money. The obvious abuse going on is politically suicidal and something that even the most ardent supporters of the visa should want to crack down on, no immigration program can possibly survive the obvious and widely known reality of what is going on. I am a longtime outspoken advocate for stealing the best people from other countries to make our own better, runaway abuse of existing programs robs the government of the worker trust required to do so.
Lots of people in the tech space know this. Even the dumb people are smart enough to see it. Nobody actually believes these are all incredible people with unique talents performing jobs no American can. Everyone knows the guy in Cubicle Bay 7 doing mediocre but functional web design for half the salary of his American peers is no savant and doesn't meet the statutory requirements for his H-1B visa.
Unfortunately, most people with power or profile are terrified that any public statement or acknowledgement will get them attacked by the right (You guys have been screwing over American workers for years with visa abuse, you damn hypocrite!) or the left (You are racist, sexist, misogynist, and sucking up to this fascist administration!). Or, more likely, both. I know too many tech execs in particular who feel trapped, like the only winning move is to stay silent.
JD is blowing the whole thing wide open by putting facts and stats front and center that nobody wants to engage with. Critics will talk about anything and everything else but these damning facts and this obvious truth, that H1B visas serve neither their original purpose, legal purpose, invented purpose, or the American people.
Vice President JD Vance breaks down the data:
"If you are working as an H-1B visa in the United States of America, you’re earning $20,000 less than an American citizen hired in the same position. If you were brought in by one of these foreign outsourcing firms, you’re making $48,000 less than an American citizen in a similar position. So I’m sure that everybody here understands the game that is being played. You bring in indentured servants from outside the country, you lay off American workers and, if you’re a corporation, you make a ton of money by under cutting the wages of American workers, replacing them with people who frankly shouldn’t be in the United States of America to begin with."
