It was a disaster. The post The worst Beatles concert of all time, according to Paul McCartney first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Luigi Mangione expresses his anti-corporatism in a typical, Ivy League way. He makes showy demonstrations and inscribes all sorts of words on paper (and shell casings) as he drinks Starbucks coffee, eats breakfast at McDonald’s, and carries his belongings in a $300 Peak Design backpack. Does he get his own irony? Mangione allegedly murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last Wednesday morning by shooting the father of two in the back and then in the leg (Merry Christmas!). Five days later, a McDonald’s employee — a person of a caste Mangione did not much interact with — called the cops on him in Altoona, Pennsylvania. There, the police say they found the fake identification used to check into a hostel on the Upper West Side, a firearm made from a three-dimensional printer, and a manifesto. “I do apologize for any strife and trauma,” this manifesto reportedly reads, “but it had to be done. These parasites had it coming.” Parasites? That sounds like projection. Mangione derived enormous privileges by virtue of his family who live on a Maryland golf course. He attended the upscale, all-boys Gilman School, which charges $38,000 annually for high school students. Mangione started his own company in high school, which may have been when his hatred of corporate overlords first manifested. He graduated as valedictorian. “He was a smart kid, he was a nice kid, and he was relatively unassuming,” a classmate told the Baltimore Banner. “He had a healthy social circle and was very well-read. He had a lot going for him.” Mangione parlayed the prep-school education into a college education at the University of Pennsylvania, the site of much disturbing activism in recent years. There he received both a bachelor of science in engineering and a master of science in engineering, both degrees involving computer science. His LinkedIn page further advertises his peculiar relationship with the object of his hatred (corporations). He apparently worked in data for TrueCar, a digital retailing site for automobiles traded on NASDAQ for the last decade. “I guess he just got caught up in some ideologies after school,” that high-school friend theorized. “Something has to go pretty wrong to lead to this.” Or maybe, from the perspective of the educators who pushed such ideas upon Mangione, something went right. Despite coming from enormous wealth, enjoying profound educational benefits, and reaping corporate dollars, Mangione could rail against corporations without the laugh track inside his head accompanying his harangues. Perhaps all that social insulation caused him to crusade without ever wondering if he ranked as the right man for that job. (RELATED: The Most Shocking Part of the Shocking CEO Assassination) Rather than an antidote to such behavior, Mangione’s upbringing amounts to about the only type that could allow one to murder a perfect stranger for abstract, impersonal reasons based on ideology. All sorts of people take the lives of others. But to assume the power of God in a dispassionate, non-impulsive situation involving neither money nor lust nor longstanding grudge, one must see oneself above others. Does that not fit the prep-school valedictorian and Ivy League whiz-kid? Long ago, America knew another such narcissist from Baltimore who imagined that he knew best. Alger Hiss also attended prestigious universities and his peers regarded him highly. Then he decided to betray his countrymen by sharing secrets with the Soviet Union because he knew better than the president what information rated a classification and what information did not. In the case of Hiss, he did not murder but instead empowered one of history’s great mass murderers. Both acts required profound arrogance. “To belong to the masses is the great longing of the ‘alienated’ intellectual,” Czeslaw Milosz wrote in The Captive Mind. This applied to Harvard Law grad Hiss as much as it does to Ivy League counterpart Mangione. They shared intelligence, tellingly absent from the 14 traits of leadership outlined by the U.S. Marine Corps. Many people boasting high IQs lack judgment, justice, integrity, knowledge, courage, and a few traits unmentioned by the Marines (prudence and wisdom come to mind). Society often confuses smart with wise, moral, and anything “good.” But some very intelligent people exhibit compulsivity, evil tendencies, mental illness, and a proneness to extremism. Mostly, they fall for the delusion of intelligence as a catchall for positive traits instead of one positive trait among many. From this, they suffer from God complexes. Mangione, a son of privilege and corporate lackey, expressed his cognitive dissonance by murdering another who was drawing a dime from corporate America. A long, cynical look in the mirror or repeated visits to a psychiatrist could have solved rather than exacerbated his problems. READ MORE from Daniel J. Flynn: The Most Shocking Part of the Shocking CEO Assassination Dems Click Off MSNBC and Discover There’s No Place Like Home Weekend in Review: Joe Biden Pardons His Son, Critics Come After Trump Picks The post Luigi Mangione’s Cognitive Dissonance appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In the restaurant world, steakhouses are often viewed as a cut above the rest. However, each chain changes for better or worse in response to its circumstances.

If you thought 2024 presented plenty of big fast food changes to whet your appetite, just wait until you see what McDonald's has in store for 2025.

by Jordan Conradson, The Gateway Pundit: Hope Walz, the 23-year-old daughter of Minnesota Governor and former Vice Presidential Nominee “Tampon” Tim Walz, a total weirdo who says he’s friends with school shooters, came out and revealed what litmus test she and her friends use for guys they’re talking to. And it’s not whether or not they […]

by Ronan Manly, BullionStar: With less than two months until his inauguration on 20 January 2025, US president-elect Donald Trump is ramping up the rhetoric on tariff threats to unprecedented levels – even by his own “all guns blazing” standards. In the space of less than two weeks, Trump has lost no time in firing […]

from The Alex Jones Show: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

There are many online slots available, each with different themes. Developers have recently begun to find influences from the world of retro gaming. In the article below, we discuss the link between them.  The bleep of an arcade classic or the vivid graphics of a pixelated character can really kick off a hit of nostalgia. As retro gaming comes back into vogue, it is a niche that is being adopted by the developers of online slot games. So why do these classics appeal to the modern iGaming audience so much? We dive into the correlation between them in the article below. The Growing Appeal of Retro Slot Games The online gambling market is expected to reach $97.15bn by the end of this year. This is only set to grow as the industry ventures into new markets across the globe. Since the US states changed their legislation to South African online casinos, it is now easy to play casino titles wherever you are in the world. A large proportion of that comes from slot games. These are low-wageering, low-payout games based on the result of a random number generator. You may have played them yourself in the past and enjoyed spinning reels and watching as symbols land. Over the past few years, these slot games have evolved from their basic concept. While at their heart they still involve spinning reels, many have added complex bonus rounds and side games. This has often brought them closer into line with retro games. As their ability to provide better graphics and animations has improved, this has allowed them to increase the capacity of these rounds. Finally, the slot game market is extremely crowded. Developers often release the same titles with slight variations, and the themes are often repeated across games. Licensing an existing videogame gives them a distinct advantage, making a title unique and providing a familiar point of reference. The Street Fighter Slot Game A perfect example of this is the Street Fighter: The World Warrior slot. Any retro gamer knows the pedigree of this game. A one-on-one beat ’em up, created a whole genre that endures to this day. The game takes you firmly back to the 1991 incarnation of the series, using the same graphical style and audio. Just like the original game, you get to choose from one of eight characters. A theme often used in retro game slots, and one employed in this title is the concept of levelling up. You have to complete a certain number of wins or matching reels to move on to the next stage, which pays out more. As you defeat the bosses, you move on until you meet the final boss: M. Bison. There is also a hidden bonus game that lets you smash up a car. Hardcore fans of the original game will know its developer, Capcom, has already pioneered using this type of puzzle game in the past. Super Puzzle Fighter was released during the nineties and used Street Fighter characters. It was a gem drop-and-match game, much like the mobile title Candy Crush. When one stage was complete, you defeated your opponent and moved on to the next. Street Fighter is not the only retro game that has been licensed either. The classic Space Invaders also has its own slot title. Released in 1978, few arcade games have the history of this title. It has the original sounds and symbols from the game appearing on the reels. More simplistic than Street Fighter in terms of its progression, it does have an interesting wheel feature on its bonus rounds that can amp up the excitement. NoLimitCity Gaming It is not just existing licenses that are being used. Some developers are pushing the boat out by creating entirely new characters and concepts based on retro themes. One of these is NoLimitCity, which has built a reputation for irreverent, groundbreaking slots. Brute Force is one of their most recent outings, and it draws heavily from games like Contra and Streets of Rage. You choose from one of two musclebound characters who must work to save the Earth from the alien Hyper. At its base is a slot game with 5×5 reels and 21 pay lines. However, it has some very unique features taken from retro games not always found in slots. For example, the characters you choose will shape the gameplay in some way due to their unique characteristics, giving different rewards and bonuses. Undoubtedly, the future is going to see the lines between slots and standard gaming blur. Titles like Aviator have already shown that people are looking outside of the slot genre for gambling entertainment. This is also enhanced by the number of interactive live games. They often have simplified versions of the reel spin like a wheel and transport people to the bonus round game right away. As they evolve, you can expect more games to lend their licenses to slots The post How Online Slots Are Being Influenced by Classic Gaming appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.