Point of Order:

"I understand that the Catholic church has lightened up on that in the last decade or so."

It hasn't. The German proposal in 2018 was rejected by Pope Francis. Like, rejected rejected.

1. Catholics under the usual conditions
2. Orthodox properly disposed
3. In Extremis, other Christians

Continue

Sure, but I think that's sort of the inevitable outcome of just calling for re-arming Europe... we've got a pretty good idea that (eventually) there's a decent likelihood that absent a unifying force, that they start to re-arm in competition against each other.

Brussels is not going to hold that thing together.

The US keeping the primary military capacity was acting as the (Empire)/Unifying Force... the allies still need to pull their weight (they weren't - look at 1989 tank battalions for just an idea); but we don't want France and Germany (and Poland) vying for the mantle of Strategic Security Dominance. That way madness lies.

That's a great Bobby McFerrin video... he's really funny and his singing voice is very impressive.

Plus, there's one woman in the audience that has got some Ave Maria singing chops.

You guys are drunk on Macron. He's a spent force. France's house is not in order.

Doesn't mean they won't grab at brass rings; but I'd not pin any hopes on 'France is the new defender of the Liberal Order'

Even though I see a multi-polar world as inevitable, I think that Trump is blundering by forcing a complete 'rearmament' of Europe.

The US's goals oughtn't be a completely re-armed Europe, but a Europe that is armed and in alignment with US materiel and plans to counter various scenarios.

Obviously equivocating a bit on the term 're-arm' but where Trump was correct about the EU's deficiencies in their end of the defense bargain... we don't want to re-write the defense bargain from a US first perspective.

The user community should still use discretion to promote interesting and/or novel topics.

Now, I'm not sure Italian Senators bartering sex is all that novel, but...

Well, capybara is hard to source.

But yes, that's why Lady Marchmaine has a meta-rule that no Lenten obligation can burden another member of the family unduly.

Half my side of the family is Greek Orthodox, so we hear no end of the hardships imposed by their mostly vegan lent; except the reality of Orthodox lent is mostly observed in it's exception to practicing it's mostly vegan lent.

That's weird, I'm *only* eating capybara empanadas every day for lent as a mortification *and* as way to keep the abstinence on Fridays.

I do have a dream of one year eating one thing every day as some religious brothers I knew would do. Like, lentils with sausage from a big pot we make every Saturday... reserving a portion without sausage for next Friday. Every week, every day. Lady Marchmaine says we can do it when all the children have left our stewardship.

I'll do a few minor mortifications and am looking forward to doing morning prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. I could, theoretically, never stop doing morning prayer and therefore never need to look forward to picking it up again... but that's why Lent is Lent. It reminds us that we stopped doing morning prayers for no particular reason.

I'm not doing the Hallow 40 challenge ... I checked it out a couple (few?) years ago and thought it was fine, but I'm just not that into listening to people read morning prayer to me. I did like the section I did on St. Francis de Sales -- he was a mensch.

On the technology front, I really like that they've finally figured out how to get the Hours into an app format -- younger generations will no longer understand our references to finding the proper for such and such a day -- but in turning it in to an app that keeps track of all the different feasts and saints days for various readings, it has the (necessary) deficit of including absolutely everything that you're *supposed* to do, including the many things that *nobody* does... so it's a little distracting to skip this bit, do that bit, and then skip this other bit. What I *really* want is a fully customizable app so I can tell it to drop the Hymn, don't repeat the antiphon in the middle of the canticle, and drop all of these alternate things in favor of the one that we always use. And, for all that is Holy, the doxology should be: "... as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be..." not that other way some people with questionable aesthetics have substituted. Maybe that's how I make my billions. If only the algorithm for getting all the proper readings in order wasn't so impossibly difficult.

Yeah, that's probably a good comp.

I think if I were in the House and wanted to undermine the narrative, I wouldn't fact-check or make a scene, I'd just make a point of scrolling my phone, laughing where appropriate, and basically just shrugging when asked what I thought... about what? He didn't really say anything... the kids were cute, the moms were sad, I like fire fighters too.

I put it on in the background as I was defending Wraeclast from its demonic denizens. On the rhetoric, a few thoughts hit me.

1. He speaks at I dunno, a 5th grade level. I have a 5th grader and he can follow Trump and get his jokes. Though, to be honest, my 5th grader's vocab is bigger and his sense of humor is more ironic -- but he's raised by GenX wordcels.

2. Most people speaking at a 5th grade level would come across as anxious and have an inferiority complex that would make their rhetoric dreadful. Not Trump. He own's his rhetoric... not a care in the world about how simple it is.

3. He's not bright, he's not clever, his content is boring... but dang, is he comfortable doing what he's doing and has the ability to look for opportunities to ad lib, usually to good effect. There's a strange existential *thereness* to his rhetoric... one minute he's making up stuff that isn't true, another he's reading things he has no idea the meaning of, and another he's just saying things he think might be neat.

What I'd call the total falsity of his political existence seems entirely authentic. This is genuinely difficult to replicate, especially for a politician. Politicians are acutely aware they are lying, and it shows. Trump? He believes 100% contingently everything he says, for the length of time it takes to leave his mouth.

His guileless guile is beguiling.

... not to me, but it's fascinating to watch it work.

See, that's an actual story worth pursuing, not the part about a woman being one of them... but 6 out of approximately 30+ top ranking Generals? That's a bad precedent for an a-political military because it isn't tied to any particular incident or failure and implies a sort of litmus test.

But that's the story: is there a litmus test? what exactly is it? why those 6? and what new 6 take their places?

Now, it's possible (in theory) that the top flag officers are in need of a thorough dusting... Biden, after all, held none accountable for the Afghanistan operational cf... but my priors would start with a litmus test and require evidence that Trump is acting for the good of the services. But that's just me.

It's true that the President is CiC and civilian deference ought only go so far; but it is also true that pure political advancement will corrode the officer corps very quickly. And, well, a very politicized military is indeed something worth guarding against.

But the focus on women and poc? That's precisely the bad resistance that we need to avoid.

So far to the right, I'm on the left.

Agreed. *If* there are cost savings, they will be incidental, down the road, and completely unobservable at the individual level. MattY will do a blog post in 15 yrs about the now barely perceptible 'curve-bend' that the new system is introducing.

My biggest concerns would be:
1. Tiers... I think it inevitable that Catastrophic would be primary selection... and that richer folks would pay extra for more. (fine in theory, but if positioned as a public utility/good, it would be unworkable in practice)
2. Non-contributors... which covers lots of things, disabled, stay at home parent, children, elderly, temp unemployed, perennially under-employed, etc. etc.

#2 is one of those things that, if working properly, it's all absorbed... even a % of defectors; just need to make sure % of defectors is not incentivized to grow... might require 2 prongs, Tax plus VAT.

Plus a thousand other things...

Sure, free tip #1: don't call it publicly funded health insurance.

Call it Universal Basic Insurance that you pay into via work. You own it, you paid for it, and to InMD's point above, it's quite possible you picked it.

It only becomes 'publicly funded' for those periods when you can't work... and even then, don't say that... say your tax also has a 'gap allowance' baked into it to cover those times.

I agree that the 'Vision' is sellable... people don't like the way health insurance works right now.

Except; we also know that the only thing they like less is change to the system they don't like.

It show's up a 'liking' the system in a perverse way.

Path dependency gets in the way of the 'vision' so have to slowly alter the paths.

Yeah, if you squint you could see an ACA with better Tech as a sort of intermediate step for ending the employer tax incentives for health care.

And ultimately we'll have to buy-out the insurance companies... so, yeah, they could become regional processors like utilities.

But still have to deal with the pay distortions (which already exist, but you don't realize you're being paid less than the guy with the family plan) and how that unravels.

...and don't make the original ACA mistake of selling it as a welfare program for the uninsured.

I honestly don't think people would accept a 'tax' in exchange for Universal Healthcare as a policy position.

Not because we don't tax labor already for a mostly universal system, but because we'd have to unwind the wild distortions to wages that the hidden tax imposes.

First step would (of necessity) be to return the wages to workers -- which would have very very strange effects -- as in this: imagine two working partners: 1 of them has the health insurance, the other does not. The person with the health insurance gets a $20k raise (assume a family), the other partner doesn't. But, what's *weird* is the other partner's co-worker *does* get a $20k raise, so they are doing the same labor for different pay. And so on and so on.

That's the problem with getting to universal healthcare... in order to 'tax' it into existence, you have to raise all the wages first. Else, it's a massive windfall for business... and a huge hit to take-home pay.

But, that's the rub, with the massive and *hidden* distortions to labor costs we have a sort of gordian knot.

So, one way or another, *first* you have to return the taxes back to workers in some sort of way that doesn't crater your labor markets... and *then* you can re-collect those wages in a broad tax on labor (like FICA).

People would trade employee health insurance for a guaranty of a lifetime of health insurance -- but not for a govt. run system of health -- based on a broad tax on Labor. Then you just have to solve for incentives to drop out of the labor force if health insurance is guaranteed. We hate to admit it, but the absurd cost of health insurance is absolutely a motivator to seek employment.

Which is all to say, there's a path to a better insurance program... but it isn't a straight path, and it won't reduce costs, and it will probably involve tiers and trade-offs... but there's a path, just not one that isn't painful.

I think it's time we stop outlawing the Pike Square... we have countermeasures.

You know what all the Mercs say: Halberds for show, Sig Sauer for dough.

Given the distances involved, have we thought of making the Earth go faster?

Would like to request a whimsical renaissance guard. Swiss if possible. Blue, gold with an accent of orange.

and he's only got one lung...

My gut says he'll recover ... not getting the 'there's nothing to worry about here.... oops he died' vibe we usually get. But, he is 88 with only one lung... so you never know.

Yeah, there are a lot of things I like about it... appreciate that the systems are simplified into big 'chunks' e.g. Food, Gold, Culture without the tiny micro-management of VI. I like Generals too.

But yeah, a lot of odd choices for the GUI and interface.

My meta-concerns are that while the systems are good and chunky (vs. micro management) we seem to have lost a connection between building things and feeling the improvement in the gameplay.

Plus, I don't really feel like I'm in a race... so far I just build almost everything in a single age and try to hit the major objectives, best I can. Feels extremely plodding without any real meaningful choice or sacrifice or gamble.

Lastly... I *like* the 'clean-up' moving from age to age, but I really feel that they made a very, very bad decision forcing us to chose an entirely new CIV (wtf) for each age? The 'correct' approach here would have been to have you chose how you wanted to play Rome in the next era: MedRome1, MedRome2, MedRome3... and then Modern Rome has options depending on choices in Medieval Rome.

I feel like the last one is a pretty big miss... but so far the bigger issue is that on Average difficulty I just seem to plod along building all the buildings and not really needing to specialize or have a significant grand strategy.

Yeah, I agree with the original comment, and that's why I wanted to add an explicit rationale for *why* expanding NATO isn't the right path for Ukraine.

NATO membership restricts our options and it's just bad strategic thinking to reduce our options while simultaneously expanding our obligations and reducing effectiveness by weak countries like Romania, Bulgaria and the Baltics.

To paraphrase the intertubes, the best time to pivot was the 90s, but the next best time is now.