Malazan Empire: Cause - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

Trump will just use an executive order to declare he was a democratic leftist.

On a more serious note, yes he was assisted, yes he was a public figure. However flying the flags at half mast? He is not a politician, I don’t believe he served.

"To my friend Charlie Kirk. Rest now brother. We have the watch and I'll see you in Valhalla," Kash Patel said. This quote fascinated me because it is also filled with self aggrandizement, it honors Kirk in a way I’m not convinced he deserves and it possibly shows a problematic personal bent/bias by the man whose agency is gathering the evidence? I mean they are friends that is a fact that I don’t expect Patel to deny but is this normal language?

I don’t know if this is a post assassination lionization or if I underestimated a Kirk’s influence. I always saw his as a b grade maga influencer on the level of Ben Shapiro or Candace Owens. Household names with a following but not necessarily such a huge deal. Not a Tucker, hannity or the supplement guy (I’m blanking right now but he is huge).

Trump will just use an executive order to declare he was a democratic leftist.

On a more serious note, yes he was assisted, yes he was a public figure. However flying the flags at half mast? He is not a politician, I don’t believe he served.

"To my friend Charlie Kirk. Rest now brother. We have the watch and I'll see you in Valhalla," Kash Patel said. This quote fascinated me because it is also filled with self aggrandizement, it honors Kirk in a way I’m not convinced he deserves and it possibly shows a problematic personal bent/bias by the man whose agency is gathering the evidence? I mean they are friends that is a fact that I don’t expect Patel to deny but is this normal language?

I don’t know if this is a post assassination lionization or if I underestimated a Kirk’s influence. I always saw his as a b grade maga influencer on the level of Ben Shapiro or Candace Owens. Household names with a following but not necessarily such a huge deal. Not a Tucker, hannity or the supplement guy (I’m blanking right now but he is huge).

 Nicodimas, on 10 September 2025 - 08:52 PM, said:

Don’t worry the wonderful things about guns and civil wars is they don’t separate the wheat from the chaff, just the lucky from the unlucky.

The next few hours/days are already written. The extreme right maga crowd will go on the news and speak out of both sides of their mouths lambasting us all for this unamerican <deport everyone> and unacceptable <fuck the left> extremism {we need to crack down on civil unrest with the guard} that is pervading politics [gerrymander everything]. All while pretending butter won’t melt in their mouths.

Kirk didn’t deserve to be shot but his whole stick is rage baiting the leftist, liberal, woke college elite who he drips with disdain for.

Please forgive some first world grumbling, or as I have recently discovered it mockingly referred to as 'oh no my steak is too juicy and my lobster too buttery':

I have found myself over the last few weeks contemplating inflation, enshittification, shrinklfation and also the thread in the discussion forum about the west vs China.

I travel a lot for my job. I have high status with airlines, hotels and the perks that come with it.

I guess one of the primary factors that started this round of negative thinking was I recently achieved a bucket list aspiration. I was upgraded for free to a first class cabin from LA to Boston. I have always wanted to experience this and while I have been upgraded to first class before its been on domestic first class seating which is really just a bigger chair. This was a true Delta One cabin with lie flat seats, a welcome ammenity and a meal served on white linen. It was a fun experience (its not worth paying for by the way unless your closing a million dollar deal the same day you land and you need to be alert) and I am very glad I got it. I also know that Delta One is not comparable to the propaganda airlines like Emirates or Qatar which exist to advertise the opulence and wealth of their countries and bring in business and tourism. The only thing about the experience that actually was a stand out improvement was the lie flat seat whose value increases the longer the flight is. Otherwise being served a meal was nice, but I remember a time when meals were served in all cabins and I am not that old. I feel like I accomplished my bucket list goal only to immediatly feel like no I need to aim for a better experience for it to count.

It made me realize that in addition to record inflation (generally) the last few years we have of course been facing enshittification of the airline industry for decades. Whatever the reasoning or the excuse or validity of the practices we now have to pay to check bags, overhead baggage space is not guaranteed. Even for a 6.5 hour flight from east coast to west coast no longer includes a meal or even a free snack beyond a small bag of pretzels or biscoff cookies and soda. Relevant with todays headlines airlines overbook flights, cancel or delay them regularly and they feel no obligation to offer amends and now the regulation that might have forced them too has been repealed. I am not a big drinker but I have started to ask for a vodka or rum on flights to collect the mini bottles. I thought it would be amusing the next time I hosted a board game night or something I could serve everyone mini bottles from my stash. My grandfather used to collect and display these bottles form his trips. His 'bar area' had beautiful mini bottles of the whiskeys he enjoyed. They were beautiful glass bottles, with beautiful designs with gold or other bright embelishents. Today these bottles are just plastic. This one is petty I know, plastic is cheaper and less prone to breakage but also glass is just a superiro storage material. Nevertheless Ill include it as it nevertheless is worse than examples I can remeber from the past.

Hotels will award me with a free bottle of water as a loyalty bonus. A bottle of water! This used to be considered a common courtesy. From overcrowded airport lounges, to weaker credit card benefits everything I encounter in this travel space was better 5 years ago, even better 10 years ago, and best 20 years ago. A dollar gets you less not just as inflation raises prices but in the experience it buys you. The actual inflation is therefore much higher than it might even seem.

Also by contrast I have seen this week for example a 24 hour spa in china that costs 30 dollars to enter, and be provided unlimited food, drinks, and access to private pods, pools, saunas etc. It looks incredible and for the price a great way to spend a relaxing Saturday. A pod hotel in NYC on the hand still costs 250 dollars a night somehow. Now I know from my experiences with USA and south africa that different countries are not really comparable. While 30 dollars are nothing to me now, in china its presumable a different story for most who will earn less on average. I dont want to experience wonders at the cost of the toil of a working class who earns peanuts but I think this kind of contrast that you might see on social media is one of the reasons that China might be seen to be winning.

I often use the example that a cleaning service in America costs 150 dollars for an hours work whenre in south africa you could employ someone full time for 300 dollars a month. South Africa is not winning at anything.

Anyway thats my first world rant for now