"Her husband's just a drag." The post Who inspired The Rolling Stones song ‘Mother’s Little Helper’? first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Curious. Curious indeed. The headline in the Washington Times was this: Reparations advocates find hope in Harris despite silence ahead of election The story reports: Vice President Harris, who is open to convening a federal commission to examine reparations for Black Americans, will face pressure from advocates to take concrete steps to advance the cause nationally if she wins the White House. Ms. Harris has signaled explicit support in recent years for providing reparations for Black Americans to compensate for slavery and discrimination. She signed on to a Senate bill in 2019 that would have created a federal commission to study the matter, and she called for “some form of reparations” when she ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. She also made a public promise in 2019 to support reparations legislation if elected president, telling Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, “When I am elected president, I will sign that bill.” Notice anything? Anything as historically obvious as, say, the Civil War? That would be this. Which of the two major American political parties — Democrats and Republicans — was founded by — gasp! — slave owners? That would be the two Democrat presidents for whom, for ages, Democrats named their annual February fundraising dinner: The Jefferson–Jackson Day Dinner. Named for Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. (Something that only recently has started to change, with some Democrats slowly aware that having a celebration in terms of slave owners is not a good look.) And obviously, it was the Republican Party that was formed by opponents to slavery and very much in opposition to slavery. Question? Which political party was a staunch supporter of slavery in its political platforms? As I noted long ago in this space when discussing what Democrats completely ignore when discussing their party history in their platforms. There is no reference to the number of Democratic Party platforms supporting slavery. There were 6 from 1840-1860. And as if that weren’t bad enough, there was this: There is no reference to the fact Democrats opposed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The Thirteenth banned slavery. The Fourteenth effectively overturned the infamous 1857 Supreme Court Dred Scott decision (made by Democrat pro-slavery Supreme Court justices) by guaranteeing due process and equal protection to former slaves. The Fifteenth gave black Americans the right to vote. All of that decidedly vivid history of Democrat Party support for slavery is aside from these other facts: There is no reference to “Jim Crow” as in “Jim Crow laws,” nor is there reference to the role Democrats played in creating them. These were the post-Civil War laws passed enthusiastically by Democrats in that pesky 52-year part of the DNC’s missing years. These laws segregated public schools, public transportation, restaurants, rest rooms and public places in general (everything from water coolers to beaches). The reason Civil Rights heroine Rosa Parks became famous is that she sat in the front of a “whites only” bus, the “whites only” designation the direct result of Democrats.” There is no reference to the fact Democrats opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It was passed by the Republican Congress over the veto of Democratic President Andrew Johnson. The law was designed to provide blacks with the right to own private property, sign contracts, sue and serve as witnesses in a legal proceeding. There is no reference to four Democrat platforms, 1908-1920, that are silent on blacks, segregation, lynching, and voting rights as racial problems in the country mount. By contrast the GOP platforms of those years specifically address “Rights of the Negro” (1908), oppose lynchings (in 1912, 1920, 1924, 1928) and, as the New Deal kicks in, speak out about the dangers of making blacks “wards of the state.” There’s more here in terms of the history of the Democrat Party. The use of the Ku Klux Klan as what historians call the party’s “terrorist arm” against black Americans. Etc., etc., etc. With all of this and more in the party’s history — and the Democrats current and soon-to-be-past leaders — Harris and President Joe Biden — are utterly silent on their party paying reparations? Really? Really? How about Harris, Biden, and the rest of Democrat Party leaders at all levels apologizing to America’s African American population for their decidedly serious support for slavery? Their use of federal and state governments to support slavery? And issuing a pledge that the Democrat Party will start payouts on financial reparations from the party’s treasury and millions of white members to black Americans and the descendants of slaves? Descendants whose ancestors were in fact enslaved by the then-leaders of the Democrat Party to get votes from the pro-slavers of the day? And note as well this interesting sentence about Harris in that Washington Times article: She also made a public promise in 2019 to support reparations legislation if elected president, telling Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, “When I am elected president, I will sign that bill.” Say what? Where is Al Sharpton’s National Action Network demanding that the party that enslaved black Americans pay up? Maybe with its first check to Sharpton and his African-American members in his National Action Network? Yet Sharpton was silent as a mouse on the subject of Democrats paying reparations. In short? Reparations is not a serious subject unless and until the Democratic Party and its leadership pays up for the party’s history of supporting slavery. Will that ever happen? Are you kidding? What Kamala Harris is about in the reparations discussion is purely politics. And that’s all. Most assuredly, she has not the slightest intention of leading her party in an apology for its decidedly slavery-supporting history. Much less for paying reparations for that history. Imagine that. READ MORE: Vance Outclasses Walz in Debate That Validates His Selection Biden Isn’t Sabotaging Harris, Is He? The Imaginary Electoral College Advantage for Trump The post Harris Silent on Democrats Paying Reparations appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

On September 22nd, ScarlettVixen released Mario Adventure 3, the sequel to her romhack Mario Adventure that’s been twelve years in the making. The original Mario Adventure is a classic rom hack of Super Mario Bros. 3 by DahrkDaiz (an old handle of Scarlett Vixen) renowned for its excellent level design. Luigi vs. Mario, which almost but didn’t quite become Mario Adventure 2, didn’t quite live up to that pedigree. With Mario Adventure 3, ScarlettVixen aimed for a more elaborate overhaul of the game. Thanks to the SMB3 Assembly by southbird3, she succeeded. Everything from the collision engine to the enemies to even the on-screen colors has been souped up and pushes the Nintendo Entertainment System to its very limits.   Yet Mario Adventure 3 has not been without controversy. Mario Adventure, for those unfamiliar with the title, is a very playable game. Only the last level can be said to be exceptionally difficult, and the challenges of Mario Adventure come with commensurate reward as the player feels satisfied in completing them. But Mario Adventure 3 got off on the wrong foot with a lot of gamers through the use of an elaborate tutorial mode. To put it simply, the tutorial deals with Mario Adventure 3’s new puzzle mechanics, which require the use of certain power-ups in a certain order. The trouble with these mechanics is that when Mario gets hit, he loses his power-up- which can make the tutorial impossible to complete, and the exact timing of when Mario needs to say, deflect a fireball with his tail is tough enough that gamers who aren’t that good at gaming will likely get frustrated into quitting long before even starting the game proper.   How did such an oversight happen? As ScarlettVixen notes on the official Mario Adventure 3 site here (yes, literally just marioadventure3.com), Mario Adventure 3 went through a full month of beta testing with a small team. But of course, that’s precisely where the disconnect appears to have come from. The beta testers either didn’t mind the intense difficulty or just didn’t notice it, thanks to having a granular understanding of the mechanics of Super Mario Bros. 3. Consequently, the first official release of Mario Adventure 3 was quite frustrating to fans who had otherwise been quite excited for the project.   ScarlettVixen, to her credit, clearly wasn’t joking when she asked players to use a form on marioadventure3.com to send her reports about any issues with the game. While Mario Adventure 3 only had its initial 1.0.1 release on September 22nd, the very next day, September 23rd, had version 1.2.0 with a large number of bug fixes. September 24th saw the release of version 1.3.0, with Casual Mode to make the game less punishing to players who just couldn’t get the exact timing right. The fourth version, 1.5.2 on September 26th, had more relatively minor fixes as well as the inclusion of a new ability. But at this point, ScarlettVixen appears to have decided that the next release would need to be a bit more elaborate.   Enter version 1.9.2 on October 5th, which dispenses with the binary of regular mode or casual mode and simply puts every option for managing the game’s difficulty into an options menu. Certainly, Mario Adventure 3’s original development is no small achievement on its own- but ScarlettVixen’s remarkably constructive response to all the feedback nearly feels like a comparable accomplishment. In an era where technical support even from major gaming studios is dubious, ScarlettVixen has crunched in the work necessary to ensure that Mario Adventure 3 is accessible to everyone.   This probably isn’t the last of her tinkering (version 1.9.3 came out on Wednesday), and as gracious as ScarlettVixen is to come up with these fixes so quickly, the controversy does tend to warrant a word of warning. If acquiring this game from anywhere except the patcher on marioadventure3.com, be sure to check the version number. It’s possible that the game which seems so impossible at first might become significantly more manageable with the help of an options menu.   The post The Rough First Two Weeks of Mario Adventure 3 appeared first on Old School Gamer Magazine.

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