Posts made by The Tree of Woe

For the same reason people always tried to choose "Neutral" as their heroic inclination on a Superhero MUX.

They are very stupid.

The Sanctity of Merits rule makes transitioning from a minor to a major template almost wholly painless, which is am-a-zing.

Visually a lot of those shows are dated. As clever as Animaniacs is, it looks primitive. So do shows I love like Dexter's Lab and the Powerpuff Girls. I get the distinct impression Cartoon Network is cycling either down or up to some kind of shift, because there's even more filler on both it and Boomerang than I remember.

However, even Adult Swim (which I remember as mostly feculent post-modernism, haha, it's funny because it's incoherent) has gotten a laugh out of me. Jack & Triumph is really stupid and an absolute riot if you can accept that. And I thought I was going to hate China, Il. until they spent an entire episode teasing a godzilla battle between Hulk Hogan and Steve Urkel on dinosaur testosterone -- and they delivered.

USA is still out there but it mostly runs standard network content with the exception of WWE, which is leaning heavily towards its subscription network (they're even sending feelers into producing non-wrestling content, which is... weird).

Nick has TMNT. That's basically it.

Amazing World of Gumball is visually jarring sometimes but it is incredibly well-written with great gags and pacing. It included maybe the best dozens put-down I've ever heard:

"Your mother's so ugly that even the warts on her face spell out 'UGLY' in braille."

It's just that CN is resorting to the formula it's used since Ed, Edd, N' Eddy of finding something that sucks and padding out the schedule with it. Mostly, I'm getting tired of "retard humor", where the joke is that the protagonist is, quite literally, mentally retarded.

There's a fine line between The Mayor of Townsville (hilarious) and Uncle Grandpa (not) but I don't know enough about comedy to give that lecture.

Between this and Gravity Falls and Star Wars: Rebels, Disney is bringing its A-Game while Cartoon Network starts its re-runs of King of the Hill at 8 PM.

Well, that's not true. They have "Steven Universe" and "Adventure Time" which they will show maybe every other day in between marathons of Uncle Grandpa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whFc4xtSD3w

This. I'm sharing this with the world tonight.

I am... honestly not sure what I have that's multiplayer-OK., less still what will run on my laptop. I do know a lot of the shit I'd actually LIKE to play in multiplayer is no longer MP-OK on Steam.

I have it and might be interested. I sprung for the season pass, so I have EVERYTHING. The poor Dwarf and Elf have cobwebs on them.

Getting rid of secondary skills is one of the best things the 20th anniversary line did in terms of making CWoD playable again. Yes, you CAN be an ass-butt and use them, but... then you'd be an ass-butt.

I am surprised I have not heard more bitching about the plot introduced in the book.

I thought it was a fun concept. That, and in the cartoon Mother Brain was voiced by the late, great Levi Stubbs.

Remember that place? It was a sound if silly idea. Captain N: the Game Master writ large.

It would've been fun if it wasn't run by a micromanaging, arbitrary nutbag.

It's still a sound (if silly) idea.

We had seven feet of it this winter. In eight hours.

Going out to an evening of mindless entertainment and paying six dollars for a freaking gin and tonic. Seriously, I had a lovely time.

@DamnitJim There was a real fear that the UK would intervene on the Confederacy's behalf, both because of trade revenues and to gain another foothold on the continent. Whether that was realistic or not is debatable, but the British earned a reputation as opportunists for a reason. You can hear it in a lot of the war songs/marching songs of the period.

Now if you want crazy shit that's true, the Golden Circle stuff... man. TL;DR, powerful individuals in the confederacy basically planned to conquer Mexico, the Caribbean, and part of South America and use that empire to keep themselves awash in both exotic goods and cheap slave labor.

Regarding slave populations and the potential for explosive revolt, that was the case at the time. We do not know if the population disparity would have continued to grow if the Confederacy had forced a peace. I think it would have. Aristocrats LOVE cheap, disposable labor. It lets them lead luxurious lives without having to lift a finger themselves. And while religions like Santeria or Vodoun were important, they were important the way a spark lighter can set off gasoline. Given the types of assholes running the Confederacy and the legacy they hoped to build, I feel confident saying a catalyst would have presented itself.

If there were widespread slave revolts (and there would've been), I have no doubt the UK would've intervened.

In exchange for the CSA becoming Victoria's personal muppet. Love the boot, boys...

@Silver said:

Interesting bit of history: Egyptians had a system of civil service called Corvee, in which every Egyptian was expected to spend a portion of their life in service to the kingdom. I don't remember how long that service was or how it was figured, but once it was finished they went about their lives free of their service. The people who made the pyramids were normal Egyptians fulfilling their service within Corvee. There were slaves in Egypt but typically they were a minority of the labor force.

As far as I can recall, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, et al had slaves but their economic systems weren't dependent on a massive slave caste. While that's hardly equitable there's a measurable difference between slavery as practiced in the old empires and the chattel slavery practiced by European colonies in the Americas.

Here's the thing about chattel slavery. To support your economy, you need a lot of slaves. As in, slaves outnumber free individuals by a significant percentage. This can only end in disaster. Haiti is the textbook example of the chattel slavery death spiral. Even if the Confederacy had forced the Union to sue for peace, we would've likely had to invade again a few decades down the line if only to pacify the unrest on our border.

Of course, it's just as likely the CSA would've turned to the UK for help. Heh. Heh. Ah hah hah hah hah.

Hahahah. Smelly library patrons. That takes me back.

More to the point, the States' Rights argument is bullshit.

If they really gave a damn about the rights of the states, when Northerners did their level best to undermine the Fugitive Slave Law (speaking of the imposition of unjust laws...), they wouldn't have bellyached to the Fed about it.

And oh, the bitching and moaning they did! "Uncle Sam, make the mean Yankees send back our darkies!"

And it's true. The North was not united in its desire to end slavery. But that doesn't excuse the perfidy and, well, evil of the Southern aristocracy, which was without a doubt the worst enemy a white Southerner could ever hope to have.