There appears to be some confusion about the cost of the United States bureaucracy. The total cost of the US government is 6.75 trillion dollars. The total cost of the civilian bureaucracy is about 270 billion dollars- including everything from national parks to the FBI. The civilian bureaucracy amounts to about 4% of total government co…
So, I’m rereading the Odyssey, as one does, and I noticed a curious pattern: 6 deaths by Scylla, 6 by Polyphemus, 12 ships, 12 maids, 12 axes, 72 deaths by the Cicones, 108 suitors… these numbers would all be round in a base-6 number system: 10, 20, 200, and 300, respectively. This is particularly interesting because the ancient Greeks used a base-10 system, and the Odyssey —like other oral traditions— relied on easily memorable numbers for storytelling. Oddly specific numbers would have been h…
Far more astonishing to me than the main subject of the story is that a veteran with PTSD, flashbacks, multiple other mental illnesses and a TBI was sentenced to 52 years for shooting into a crowd as a result of a flashback and causing a non fatal injury. In most first world countries that would be five years max. One might even hope for a non custodial sentence. US sentencing is out of control.
All the stuff they say is “grimderp” here used to be lore. The imperium used to be unequivocally evil and stupid. Further, it was a comedy setting- the Imperium was meant to be a joke. The profiteering cowards at James Workshop changed it to appeal to the tastes of children (who want clear good guys) and fascists (who want the imperium and muh speesh marrins to be their little substitute SS).
We hear discussions about how it is so-very-hard to balance the needle on wokeness and not wokeness etc. etc. I just don’t think it’s all that hard. There are edge cases sure, but most things aren’t edge cases.
I recently heard that a particular RPG is “extremely racist”. Given the way people use words these days this could mean any of:
“AAAARgh they didn’t listen to their diversity consultants at all 🙄. They even refer to some characters as being slaves even though it’s nothing like African Am…