CatBus

moviefreakedmind said:

I want to bring something up from a long time ago, when Catbus…

Yep, it was me.

Well, I hope you can look at this discussion and realize that if you’re one of the people that the religion deems an abomination, then religion is far from a net positive.

You’re a real glass-is-half-enpty kinda guy, aren’t you? No, I get what you’re saying.

Let’s say Religion X unambiguously deems Group Y an abomination. That means Religion X is pretty unlikely to be a net positive, as you say. That’s a very different thing than saying religion in general is not a net positive. But don’t all religions have defined outcast groups? Depends on how you define the religion. Just using our existing example of the LGBTQ community and Christianity, which Christian church do you mean? There are plenty of Christian churches that are very accepting of the LGBTQ community, and see no conflict with their faith.

IMO these outcast groups, hateful actions, Crusades, and whatnot, have more to say about the biases of that religion’s practitioners than the biases of the religion itself. Long story short, you can lead a bigot to Jesus, but he’s still a bigot*.

Certainly you can look to the Soviet Union for some pretty unflattering examples of what happens when people with inherent biases act on them in the name of atheism.

So maybe you’d partially agree with me here: I may think religion is a net positive, but I’m far less convinced about humanity itself.

* Bumper stickers on sale now.

Pretty much what Ash said. Certainly I recognize there’s some artistic and creative value in any translation, but ultimately what we’re preserving is the films, not the translations. If one translation is clearly superior to another, then I use the superior one. If the preferred translation contains flaws, I feel no need to preserve those flaws, and will edit an official Lucasfilm-blessed translation without any regrets. Yes, there is absolutely some historical value lost–a goofy old translation with misspelled words and occasional bad translations can have some novelty and nostalgic appeal. But that’s not for this project.

There’s even the issue of the duelling roles of subtitles–is it to translate the English dialogue, or to transcribe the dubbed dialogue in another language? I always go with the former wherever the dub does not provide the most accurate translation (the translation choices for dubs can be governed by other factors such as matching lip movements, so they can sometimes be off).

Once we get to the point where it’s actually not clear one translation is better than the other, and it’s more of a matter of opinion or taste (and I’m still open to the possibility we’re already there with Japanese), then I’m more resistant to the change. There’s absolutely value in consistency between films (so if you change one translation, you should change all three to match), and in not introducing a new translation when the familiar one was just as good. Also, to be clear, the Japanese subtitles we have right now are based on the original home video dubs, but they’re already not a perfect match. Those Japanese subs contained Furigana, which I couldn’t find a way to reliably reproduce, so I asked one of our members to go through and re-translate those words as needed, or just remove the Furigana if it wasn’t needed. The newer translations don’t use Furigana at all, so they’d be more faithfully converted.

As for maintaining multiple versions, long ago I made some pretty hard-and-fast limits on what this project would support, to preserve my own sanity as well as those who try to sort through the project themselves. For example, I do not provide subtitle variations for the 1981, 1985, or 1993 variations of the films–just the theatrical versions. Multiple translations per language is another.

DuracellEnergizer said:

CatBus said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

CatBus said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

RicOlie_2 said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Another example of Christian opposition to freedom:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/09/anti-lgbtq-protesters-swarmed-library-protest-drag-queen-story-hour/

If you call the normalization of mental illnesses freedom, then sure. Gender dysphoria is contagious among certain segments of the population, so I have a hard time believing that it’s normal and healthy to believe you’re in the wrong body. What happened to telling people to be happy with their body and the way they are?

Though comment sections rarely offer anything edifying, I found this comment from your linked article quite agreeable:

The truth is likely somewhere in between. It is misguided to assume that ‘ALL individuals who experience gender dysphoria are born that way’, or that ‘ALL individuals who experience gender dysphoria are confused’. When you start contemplating ALL or NOTHING statements in social or psychological research, you are probably wrong.

It is important that we clarify these issues and determine how best to approach gender dysphoria in these young populations. I could not even imagine the potential regret or harm that young individuals might experience by making decisions at a young age that will impact their entire lives. I absolutely support counselling that includes exploration of social and psychological issues as part of a complete treatment plan. It’s important not to be narrow-minded.

You went into the comments section on an Internet news site and not only came out unscathed, but having found a thoughtful and cogent analysis in there.

I am now considering starting a religion worshipping you, but I’d like to know your opinion on ritual flagellation before I get too far down that road.

If it feels good, do it. Otherwise, buy my miracle spring water instead.

Any restrictions about shellfish?

Never eat any in the presence of prawn aliens.

Any prohibition on pineapple on a pizza?

If I looks like you’re eating a wedge of pineapple, there’s something amiss.

Joe versus the Volcano. Thumbs up or down?

Haven’t seen it.

Play your cards right and you get a shrine dedicated to you, made out of toothpaste, this very night.

It had better be multicoloured toothpaste.

Mine wasn’t, but my kid’s was. Your first shrine smells like bubblegum.

DuracellEnergizer said:

CatBus said:

DuracellEnergizer said:

RicOlie_2 said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Another example of Christian opposition to freedom:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/09/anti-lgbtq-protesters-swarmed-library-protest-drag-queen-story-hour/

If you call the normalization of mental illnesses freedom, then sure. Gender dysphoria is contagious among certain segments of the population, so I have a hard time believing that it’s normal and healthy to believe you’re in the wrong body. What happened to telling people to be happy with their body and the way they are?

Though comment sections rarely offer anything edifying, I found this comment from your linked article quite agreeable:

The truth is likely somewhere in between. It is misguided to assume that ‘ALL individuals who experience gender dysphoria are born that way’, or that ‘ALL individuals who experience gender dysphoria are confused’. When you start contemplating ALL or NOTHING statements in social or psychological research, you are probably wrong.

It is important that we clarify these issues and determine how best to approach gender dysphoria in these young populations. I could not even imagine the potential regret or harm that young individuals might experience by making decisions at a young age that will impact their entire lives. I absolutely support counselling that includes exploration of social and psychological issues as part of a complete treatment plan. It’s important not to be narrow-minded.

You went into the comments section on an Internet news site and not only came out unscathed, but having found a thoughtful and cogent analysis in there.

I am now considering starting a religion worshipping you, but I’d like to know your opinion on ritual flagellation before I get too far down that road.

If it feels good, do it. Otherwise, buy my miracle spring water instead.

Any restrictions about shellfish?

Any prohibition on pineapple on a pizza?

Joe versus the Volcano. Thumbs up or down?

Play your cards right and you get a shrine dedicated to you, made out of toothpaste, this very night.

DuracellEnergizer said:

RicOlie_2 said:

moviefreakedmind said:

Another example of Christian opposition to freedom:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2018/09/anti-lgbtq-protesters-swarmed-library-protest-drag-queen-story-hour/

If you call the normalization of mental illnesses freedom, then sure. Gender dysphoria is contagious among certain segments of the population, so I have a hard time believing that it’s normal and healthy to believe you’re in the wrong body. What happened to telling people to be happy with their body and the way they are?

Though comment sections rarely offer anything edifying, I found this comment from your linked article quite agreeable:

The truth is likely somewhere in between. It is misguided to assume that ‘ALL individuals who experience gender dysphoria are born that way’, or that ‘ALL individuals who experience gender dysphoria are confused’. When you start contemplating ALL or NOTHING statements in social or psychological research, you are probably wrong.

It is important that we clarify these issues and determine how best to approach gender dysphoria in these young populations. I could not even imagine the potential regret or harm that young individuals might experience by making decisions at a young age that will impact their entire lives. I absolutely support counselling that includes exploration of social and psychological issues as part of a complete treatment plan. It’s important not to be narrow-minded.

You went into the comments section on an Internet news site and not only came out unscathed, but having found a thoughtful and cogent analysis in there.

I am now considering starting a religion worshipping you, but I’d like to know your opinion on ritual flagellation before I get too far down that road.

I quite honestly haven’t seen any sign of that. The existence of crazies on both sides is not proof that crazies are running the show on either side – otherwise they’ve always been running the show. There is, however, some political advantage in throwing bones to the crazies so that they show up to the polls, but that’s also been a feature of democracy since forever.

EDIT: There are clearly Democrats who are fact-resistant – vaccines, cell phone radiation, etc – and I happen to live in a town with more than its fair share of them. But they’re still very much a tiny minority, and safe to ignore. The good and bad thing about Democrats is it’s pretty much impossible to get any reasonably large number of them to agree on anything much more complicated than “water is wet”, and I’m sure you could get some LaRouchites in there to argue that one.

Jay said:

Regardless of what the FBI finds, if Kavanaugh is confirmed, most Democrats will believe we have a sexual predator on the Supreme Court. I feel totally comfortable using the word “most”.

If the FBI finds nothing, but possibly because they were instructed not to look for certain things that would be reasonable for such an investigation, I’d have a hard time not joining that number, though I’m not a Democrat anymore. As I said, cover-ups scream “guilty” even when it’s not true. The “dirty defense” as you call it would be entirely to blame for people’s misperceptions if he’s actually innocent.

Jay said:

Possessed said:

Warbler you should really have a beer man

Yeah.

CatBus said:

It’s hard not to conclude that both the Senate and the White House are working very, very hard to prevent people from actually performing the investigation that could be used to clear Kavanaugh, and to wonder what sort of advantage such a heavily biased process could possibly give to an innocent man.

What do you think they could possibly find at this point to clear him? Short of a plane ticket stub and passport stamp that shows he was out of the country that entire summer, I doubt there’s anything that would prove to any Democrat he’s innocent.

“Clearing” means finding no evidence of guilt (i.e. innocent until proven guilty). So by not finding anything, they clear him (that doesn’t necessarily disprove Ford’s accusation either, it just fails to prove it). However, if they don’t find anything because they were instructed not to investigate, that’s another matter entirely. That’s the difference between “not guilty” and “coverup”. And “coverup” just screams “guilty”, whether it’s true or not.

Innocent or guilty outside the legal definition is a partisan playground. The FBI cleared Clinton of any criminal wrongdoing with regard to e-mails, and most people are fine with that. And clearly there’s still a fringe of people who think she’s guilty of something. Certainly the same will be true for Kavanaugh. But “all Democrats”? That’s extreme. It’s like saying all Republicans believe in Mailghazi. It’s just not true.

The press and Democrats were particularly up in arms about this issue precisely because it wasn’t being investigated. With an investigation – one not circumscribed by the White House – people will go back to disliking his politics, or his propensity to commit perjury and spout conspiracy theories. They’re not going to start liking him, that’s fairly certain, and they will continue to say bad and even mean things about him, but this particular issue would fade in importance. If they actually find evidence disproving the accusers’ testimony entirely, the issue would drop to Pizzagate levels of support among Democrats.

I agree it’s unlikely they’ll find much. There’s a little more evidence to sift through in this case than a “he-said/she-said” scenario, but it is just a little more. Failing to find anything at all (most likely scenario), he’ll be cleared, but Ford’s accusation will remain plausible. There’s a legal distinction between “innocent” and “not guilty”, and people may have a hard time finding him innocent. But most people (Democrats included) would recognize that the legal process would nevertheless have found him effectively “not guilty” (technically: not enough evidence to charge, but close enough), assuming that legal process is permitted to happen… which is unfortunately still very much in question.

CatBus said:

In the end, this may very well amount to no difference for all involved. But procedurally, it may help solidify a precedent. Anita Hill’s accusations yielded an investigation (followed by a confirmation). Similarly, although it wasn’t looking like this way until the very last minute, Ford’s accusation will be afforded the same degree of respect, at least in terms of an investigation. Probably to be followed by a confirmation as well.

But the precedent will be harder to ignore next time. The next time a credible accusation of a serious crime is made, the argument of “we can’t afford to waste a few days investigating, we have a letter right here that says nothing happened and that’s good enough for us, so let’s vote right now!” will seem even more spurious than before.

The histrionics of Sen. Graham’s dire warnings aside, the man still had a point. The next time a Democratic president nominates a judge, and that judge faces a credible accusation of criminal behavior, there will be payback. That judge quite simply will have to suffer the indignity of an FBI investigation. And good. That sounds like the way it ought to be for everyone.

Never the hell mind – I was wrong, there’s no sane precedent being made here. Partisan trench warfare continues unabated.

Looks like Hill’s claims got an investigation, and Ford’s claims get an “investigation”. Where the White House counsel provides the FBI with a list of the only people they are permitted to interview and shit like that, no joke. Want to talk to Judge’s former employer as a means of verifying those elements of Ford’s story? Too bad for you, that’s not in the White House-approved script. The lack of an investigation and lack of calling witnesses to testify is what made this whole affair smell at the start, not the accusation itself. Hamstringing the investigation like this now makes it stink. It’s hard not to conclude that both the Senate and the White House are working very, very hard to prevent people from actually performing the investigation that could be used to clear Kavanaugh, and to wonder what sort of advantage such a heavily biased process could possibly give to an innocent man.

EDIT: Oh who the hell knows anymore. People verify McGahn indeed hamstrung the investigation, but then Trump tweets that it never happened. Does that mean McGahn’s restrictions get reversed, or it’s just another round of gaslighting and business as usual? The story will surely reverse itself tomorrow regardless.

https://twitter.com/KenDilanianNBC/status/1046248077949063168?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1046248077949063168&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2018%2F9%2F29%2F1800137%2F-BREAKING-FBI-Investigation-NOT-so-Limited-says-Trump

In the end, this may very well amount to no difference for all involved. But procedurally, it may help solidify a precedent. Anita Hill’s accusations yielded an investigation (followed by a confirmation). Similarly, although it wasn’t looking like this way until the very last minute, Ford’s accusation will be afforded the same degree of respect, at least in terms of an investigation. Probably to be followed by a confirmation as well.

But the precedent will be harder to ignore next time. The next time a credible accusation of a serious crime is made, the argument of “we can’t afford to waste a few days investigating, we have a letter right here that says nothing happened and that’s good enough for us, so let’s vote right now!” will seem even more spurious than before.

The histrionics of Sen. Graham’s dire warnings aside, the man still had a point. The next time a Democratic president nominates a judge, and that judge faces a credible accusation of criminal behavior, there will be payback. That judge quite simply will have to suffer the indignity of an FBI investigation. And good. That sounds like the way it ought to be for everyone.

dahmage said:

Jay said:

Warbler said:

Jay said:

Warbler said:

Jay said:

Warbler said:

SilverWook said:

Wouldn’t a history of alcoholism be a disqualifying factor in of itself?

Not if it is passed history. People have been known to have a problem with alcohol and overcome it later on. Remember you are talking about a history of extremely drinking when he was a teenager. I have heard no one say that he still has a drinking problem. Does extreme drinking necessarily = alcoholism?

I drank heavily during the 4 years I was in college and then pretty much stopped outside occasional social gatherings. Never blacked out, but did get thoroughly wasted on many occasions and it definitely altered my behavior.

It’s entirely possible Kavanaugh did what Ford says he did if he was a heavy drinker. However, labeling him an alcoholic because of heavy college drinking only shows that the person applying the label has no idea what alcoholism is—or is simply using it as a smear to disqualify him or sully his character.

How possible do you think it is that someone could sexually assault someone and totally completely forget it due to extreme drunkenness?

Very possible. I had friends who were heavier drinkers than I was and I’d tell them stories the next day about shit they did or said and they wouldn’t remember.

But we are not just talking ordinary shit people do while drunk. We are talking about sexual assault. Any of them commit a sexual assault and not remember it the next day?

No, but my lived experiences aren’t the sum total of all possibilities. It’s also important to remember that if Kavanaugh did get wasted and assaulted Ford, it’s possible that in his mind his actions weren’t out of bounds since alcohol messes with your reasoning, so he could’ve seen it as a sloppy attempt at getting laid rather than a forceful assault and not worthy of much study/contemplation.

This I agree with

And it applies to all sorts of human interactions, even non-criminal ones: “That advice you gave me after college, it was so perfect, it spoke to my very soul–and it changed my life!” “And you are…?”

But also not as unlikely as it should be: “You shot me in the leg and then ran me over with your car as you drove away from the liquor store! I spent twelve years learning how to walk again!” “And you are…?”

I frequented a “party house” in college. You’d stop by on a Tuesday night and there’d be several people there getting drunk, hanging out, and dancing to loud music. To anyone who didn’t frequent that house, they may have reasonably described it as a party. But the parties were only on weekends, and they were much bigger. That was just the normal background level activity for that particular house. If you asked someone who lived there about the party on Tuesday, they would quite honestly say there wasn’t a party on Tuesday.

So even what qualifies as a party, let alone if it was at that house or a different one, may be reasonably in question, and dependent on the observer.

Trident said:

Well she could be. I mean its not like hiring actors has never been done.

But I’m not sure how likely that is either. I guess if someone recognized her and tied her to some acting guild that would do.

And the probability of hiring an actor who just happened to also be a sexual assault survivor is significant as well. “Hired activist prop” is not a 100% overlap with “not a survivor”.

Victims of sexual assault are everywhere, they’re just more likely to talk to you about the weather than their assault, so you’d never know under most circumstances. Even if they’re your mother, sister, or daughter. 56% of Native American women have reported experiencing sexual violence. Lower rates for other demographic groups, but it’s not an uncommon crime anywhere.

Can’t see the connection between:

There’s a credible accusation of a serious crime, complete with a witness and some corroborating accounts. And… an independent nonpartisan investigation is performed before anyone is convicted or vindicated!

…and…

The system is broken.

Sounds to me like the system surprised everyone and started working today. So yay for small favors.

Potentially, that is. Technically it’s a one-week delay and a request for an FBI investigation. Trump can still stonewall at the executive level, and then they’d be voting a week later with no investigation. And I can’t say Flake would be willing to vote No simply due to lack of an investigation. So the system would be broken as you said, if no investigation were done in spite of the request for one.

Uproar, furor, pandemonium! There’s a credible accusation of a serious crime, complete with a witness and some corroborating accounts. And… an independent nonpartisan investigation is performed before anyone is convicted or vindicated!

It’s how the party of law and order does things. And also Jeff Flake, apparently. I honestly didn’t think he’d do it.

Conservatives have little to worry about. It’s like a one-week delay and it also lets Kav say he’s been cleared of wrongdoing by the FBI (assuming they do), just like Hillary was able to do with her e-mails after the FBI cleared her.

I suppose I should say that the first home video subtitles were not necessarily the same as the theatrical subs. i.e. if you look at the Italian theatrical subs for Greedo/Jabba dialogue, it doesn’t match any home video release (this is apparently a good thing, because as I understand it, the theatrical translation was pretty crap). Nevertheless, Project Threepio does have theatrical reconstructions for those crap Italian 35mm subs, for those who want to see them.

So the first Japanese home video subs may just be exclusively home video subs, I just don’t know. We don’t have any 35mm reels to confirm. But if we did, I’d preserve at least the Greedo/Jabba lines, matching font and placement as well as translation.

But for translations of the whole film, I maintain only one translation, the one that most closely matches the English dialogue. I will try to make very certain that’s the case for Japanese, though, before switching. If you or anyone else want to help confirm this, let me know.

Warbler said:

CatBus said:
I have no idea if Gorsuch did something inappropriate in high school.

I’m sure he did do something inappriopriate…

What makes you so certain? Had there been some sort of accusation made against him that I don’t know about?

I was talking about the lightness of the term “inappropriate”. “Inappropriate” is a term for laughing during a serious event, or wearing shorts on a cold day, or failing to remember an anniversary. I’m sure he did that, because he’s human. Ever met a human who never did anything inappropriate? What about a high school boy?

“Inappropriate” is an extraordinarily minimizing term to use for sexual assault. Criminal works better. Monstrous also fits the bill pretty well. What I’m saying is I’m pretty sure Gorsuch was not a criminal monster in high school, but I’m equally sure he was inappropriate… and talking about inappropriateness is very much beside the point. Bank robbery isn’t “inappropriate withdrawal of funds”. It’s a crime.

Mrebo said:

Kavanaugh’s friend apparently did swear under penalty of perjury.

It was a letter to the committee, not a sworn affidavit. There are no penalties for lying in a simple letter, regardless of the identity of the addressee. Well, okay, there’s wire fraud, but you know what I mean.

EDIT: Looks like Judge’s letter included some text at the end about “I do this under penalty of felony” which I guess sounded more formal to him or something, but it’s not a legally meaningful statement. And if he consulted a lawyer (he did in general, but not sure about this particular text), he’d know that. There’s no penalty.

Ford’s friend recalls no such party, not sure why that would change.

Under penalty of perjury, lots of people change their tune. And with a skilled interviewer, useful minor corroborating facts can still be gleaned even from reluctant witnesses, ones that might have been intentionally or accidentally left out of a sworn affidavit.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve read that Ford never named Kavanaugh until his nomination. By degrees, that’s very late in the game. I think her husband says she used his name with him, but apparently not in front of the therapist. She only claimed an assault previously. It doesn’t corroborate her specific claims terribly well. Certainly, we’d want something more than that.

I think you just corrected yourself a few sentences later, so I’ll just let that go. But yes, trauma victims remember some things explicitly and some things for crap, that’s the whole hippocampus discussion again, and it’s extremely common for sexual assault victims to delay reporting. And usually that’s where it begins and ends… when there aren’t other witnesses to help fill in gaps.

I have no idea if Gorsuch did something inappropriate in high school.

I’m sure he did do something inappriopriate… but I doubt he did something criminal. We’re not talking about whoopie cushions under the headmaster’s cushion here.

It does appear that Gorsuch was a more buttoned-up young man.

He could have been a drummer for a Death Metal band. It’s not about how many piercings he had, it’s if he violated any laws. Buttoned-up young men are no less likely to commit crime than any other young men. But they might not be caught as much.

EDIT: And don’t forget the Democrats filibustered Gorsuch, which is less than “sailing.” I guess he was so bad that it’s good they didn’t hold off on filibustering, eh?

Filibustering is sailing when it’s toothless. The point of filibustering is to express extreme political difference, not as a means of investigating criminal acts–if you want to do the latter, a hearing is a good place to start. So the Dems effectively said they disagreed very strongly with Gorsuch’s politics and gave no indication he committed any crimes. That’s not really a surprise.

Mrebo said:

Impossible to know if Ford’s allegation against Kavanaugh is true. Partisans are going to believe what they want.

Without calling witnesses, that’s certainly the likely outcome. That’s why I bemoaned how little time was spent on the details that could steer things away from he-said/she-said.

All other named witnesses have no recollection of any such behavior or events.

What people say to the press and what they say under penalty of perjury are sometimes two very different things. If he wants to say that under oath, that’s fine. Give him that opportunity.

one uncorroborated claim of assault

Corroboration has degrees–parts can be corroborated if not the whole. You can corroborate that the claim predates the nomination, for example, so while the public revelation may be political, the underlying claim certainly isn’t. There’s also a witness that I believe should be called to testify who may or may not provide more corroborating detail. I’d describe it as one partly-corroborated claim with a yet-to-be-questioned witness, and other uncorroborated claims. YMMV.

It’s not a good look for anyone, but this is apparently how our government operates.

Weird how under such a dysfunctional, dramatic environment, Gorsuch sailed through the same Senate recently without even a mention of him assaulting anyone. It may just be equally possible that government always works like it did for Gorsuch, but only when you studiously avoid assaulting people.

It’s possible that one or two GOP Senators defect and Kavanaugh doesn’t get confirmed but I also think that’s unlikely.

Right there with you.

Well, it looks like I was wrong, and happily so. Those weird new unsubstantiated anonymous assault accusations made no appearance at the hearing AFAICT. Glad they didn’t make the cut for Senate hearings, I suppose they’re strictly for the tabloids. On the plus side, I feel Kav and Ford both got to say what they needed to say, but on the downside, far too much of this boiled down to a he-said/she-said. Far too little attention was paid to witnesses (Judge wasn’t even asked to testify, which seemed very improper for something this serious IMO), very little attention was paid to other corroboration (Ford’s discussion of the assault with friends prior to the nomination was mentioned only briefly), and the failure to include other accusers did not seem adequately explained at all IMO.

Will it make a difference? Maybe. By not going full InfoWars*, they may have saved Murkoski’s vote. But I don’t think any of the others were in danger, so he’s in like… hmm, maybe Flynn’s not a good name in this context. They may have also caused themselves some midterm troubles, though. Kav didn’t step on any legal landmines AFAICT, but he sure didn’t endear himself to anyone new.

* Notwithstanding Kav’s attempt to pin the blame for this on the Clintons, who clearly must have used the same time machine for coaching Ford to talk about the assault prior to Kav’s nomination that they used to place birth notices in the Hawaii newspapers for Obama prior to his election.

Warbler said:

They probably want to push this now because who knows how much more difficult it may be if they have to start over again and maybe try to confirm a conservative after the election.

They have plenty of time to confirm a conservative before the election (especially if they keep with the rushed schedules), and they can even confirm a conservative AFTER the election but before the new Senators are seated (oh, we lost our majority in the election? so sad, let’s confirm!). And either way, pretty much every most likely Senate projection shows Republicans gaining seats this cycle, which will make confirmations even easier for the next two years.

I don’t use EasySup anymore, and I’m pretty happy with the replacement scripts I’ve got now. Especially because they are fully scriptable/unattended for large file batches. There’s a lot of custom P3PO-specific stuff in there that would be pretty much impossible to replicate without some similarly purpose-made software.

But in other news, I’m in the process of considering switching Japanese translations, and IIRC I think you have some sort of experience with Japanese? Basically the versions we have now are the original theatrical subtitles (1977, 1980, 1983), which were a little rushed and maybe not the most accurate translations. But we successfully got them in text format, so we ran with it. Later, a new dub and subtitles were made in 93 (before the SE’s) which I believe are more accurate to the spoken English. I now have a text copy of the SE subtitles, which are mostly the same as the 93 ones, and with a little work I think I can do this.

I found a website where someone is comparing the subs (the original ones we have) to the dubs (which more-or-less match the later 93 subs), and it seems a significant improvement in a few places.

http://nihonshock.com/2009/12/star-wars-quotes-in-japanese/

If you know some Japanese, would you agree this seems like a good change?

Here’s how it seems to be going down tomorrow. They are actually going to try to go for confirmation on schedule. No withdrawal, no three-day delay for FBI investigation of newly-revealed materials. Full steam ahead.

We have several people now with stories of Kav engaging in sexual assault, with varying degrees of witnesses, evidence that the stories were shared years ago (not just invented for this confirmation), sworn affidavits, and so on. And Kav perjuring himself at every opportunity doesn’t help his case. He couldn’t even manage a fluff interview on Fox without verifiably lying about his underage drinking.

They can’t turn any of that off, but they can increase the noise in an attempt to drown out the signal. Now suddenly at the last minute, in addition to these women with plausible stories, corroboration, and names, it looks like we suddenly have a new raft of even more sensational stories–but anonymous this time, with no paper trail, no names, no nothing, and trivial to simply deny. And two men have volunteered to the committee that they assaulted Dr. Ford instead of Kav (because not only could that mistaken identity thing be for real, but being assaulted by two guys makes it un-possible to be assaulted by a third…it’s a little-known medical fact, and, oh yeah, people jump up and confess to sexual assault all the time when they’re not even under suspicion). Presumably, the idea is to have the bulk of the hearing’s time devoted to unsubstantiated phantom assaults everyone knows didn’t happen, hoping that the other ones with witnesses and corroboration become less believable by association. Or maybe they’ll run out of time before they have the chance to discuss them at all.

It’s brutally cynical and transparent. And it can work because it doesn’t even have to convince a single person. It just allows the Senators to say with a straight face after-the-fact “Who could possibly have known four of the seventeen assaults discussed at the hearing were for real? Most of them seemed so farfetched, so we voted to confirm.” It also shows who’s driving this, and how desperately they want it–if more than one Republican Senator steps out of line and this vote fails, you can bet they’re getting primaried and worse. And it’s just bizarre–there are tons of extremely conservative justices who wouldn’t have any assaults in their background–the Senate just confirmed one last year for crying out loud. No, it’s not just any super-conservative judge Trump wants, because he could (and did) get that quite easily. It’s Kavanaugh in particular he wants, and he’s pulling out all the stops to make sure it happens, public opinion and midterms be damned.

I can’t see this strategy sitting at all well with Murkowski, so I think she’s a “No” vote at this point. But there’d have to be another, and I don’t think my second-choice candidate Flake will do it, so it squeaks by.

People can usually tell I’ve got PMS before I announce it.