Giant Bombcast 686: Baby Yogurt

Jan's shirt kicks ass.

Thanks guys, appreciate the thoughtful discussion, and Danny's perspective was super interesting.

Also sleep paralysis suuuuuuucks

Thank you for speaking up about the assault on Gaza and Palestinians' right to exist. As a Jew who cares about human rights, I'm grateful you weren't scared into silence by the region's complicated history or fear of a false accusation of anti-Semitism. The situation is bad, and the US is a big part of it.

Palestinian Solidarity + Pokemon Fuckability = Bombcast

Can I introduce you to the concept of Licky Licky? - Jan Ochoa

There's no fuckable Bakugan. - Jeff Bakalar

That Pokemon segment really channeled some Plagueofgripes energy haha.

The answer to the fluoride thing:

Municipal water usually has enough fluoride added to it to protect teeth, but adding fluoride to municipal water happened during my Dad's lifetime. He was doing studies on the long-term effects of fluoride in college, and testing fluoride toothpastes on rats.

Municipalities can't always provide enough do to how their water system is built, and dosing the kids at school was a way to make up the lack.

Great bombast! Go J's!

I love that the gang just has to let "Resi evil" go because they like Danny so much.

TLDR; Opinion pieces are not factual, not vetted, they are opinions of people/groups. That's all they are. They are blog posts. In this case it's an israeli think tank who published propaganda as an opinion piece in the WSJ so they can get the credibility that the WSJ logo offers. Millions of people think OPs are backed by the publication, they are not. It literally says on the top of most OPs that "The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent the views of the publication" They write this specifically because people post abject bullshit as OPs, and the publication doesn't want any of that blowback.

Opinion pieces are generally not edited or fact checked or anything. Opinion pieces are extremely damaging most of the time because, as you've proven, people take the fact that it's published on a credible (WSJ credible... lol..) outlet as proof that the outlet itself vouches for its accuracy. This is not how opinion pieces work. That's why they're called "opinion pieces", they are opinions, not facts. You don't fact check people's opinions.

Here's how opinion pieces usually work: Person writes something that represents a certain view, the publication goes "that's your view I guess" and publishes it if they find that it has some value. Other times there's literally no review process, instead it works like a blog. The most popular opinion pieces(blog posts) float to the top, that's why you see "X thing is dead!" and all sorts of clickbaity nonsense all the time in opinion pieces... It's the most flashy subject and it draws the eyes... Clickelyclick - most popular article on the site - KACHING! - unearned credibility.

Here's a thing you might not know: If you write an opinion piece, you can publish that thing on a bazillion different sites. Then your article will also have the seal of authenticity that a major publication brings, even if you've written nothing but drivel. That's why opinion pieces are horrible. People want to believe what they want to believe, and that's where opinion pieces give you all the leeway you want in terms of disregarding facts and instead adopting random people/groups' opinions as truth.

If you want to learn about the israel palestine conflict, first thing you need to do is NOT listen to or read american news. The bias in America is unbelievable to outsiders when it comes to this topic. Any criticism of israel's actions are instantly countered with "well I guess your hero has a squared moustache!!" no... That's simpletonism in its purest form... Israel is not "the jews", it's a state where jews live. Lots of jews are tired as fuck of this whole conflict and do not support Netanyahu, the most obvious psychopath in power today. (I dare you to conjure up a memory of Netanyahu being a genuinely kind and warm person. Picture his face in your head, now place a smile on that face, fresh look innit?) Netanyahu is a far right lunatic by anyone's standard. Authoritarian + he has no qualms with expanding territory by force. He is not a good guy. Israel is run by a monsterous piece of shit right now, giving him and his warmongering cohort of fuckwads carte blanche to do horrible shit because Palestine started it is insane. This topic is so much more involved than "brown man bad, jew good cus holocaust was so bad and we can't say anything bad about israel cause uuuhm... uuuuhh...." as if being critical of a nation ruled by a far right corrupt piece of shit is going to bring about the second coming of the third reich...

Opinion pieces are super damaging to all discourse. 85% of all "facts" flung around on reddit are opinion pieces, and everyone thinks the fact that it's on [Reputable Journal] means it's been vetted. This often comes from people who, only seconds prior, shouted at the top of their lungs how the lamestream media can't be trusted. "Now look at this article from WSJ about how X and Y is Z." Opinion pieces... sooooo damaging and so endumbening. Their main purpose is to convince others of certain views, OPINIONS, not to spread facts. That is not what OPs are for. If you're writing factual shit you actually get paid real money and you get vetted. OP aren't always even paid, as in this case it was done by an israeli think tank, biased as fuck. They're not interested in facts OR getting paid for their scribbles.

Anyways.. Facts are facts, OPs are not.

I'm hoping Microsoft will finally reveal some new stuff from the many studios they have working for them. I like my Series X and I get a lot of mileage out of Game Pass but it would be nice to have some great new original IP for the next-gen.

Just want to pop in and say that this new crew and show is very enjoyable! Great chemistry and discussion, long live the Bombcast.

Rockstar should make a sequel to the Bully soundtrack

@bobtoad1: I agree with this wholeheartedly. I think it's maybe an 80-90% terrific game, with some of the sharpest mini-endings and send-offs. Until the final sequence, I'd have said a B+/A- at least, even after the ending (I didn't hate it?!), I wouldn't put the game below a B-. I know these grades are totally made up nonsense of my own making, but I'm a teacher, so I can't help it.

Giant Bomb, where gamers go to know... about middle east politics!

https://youtu.be/O9-ul_kHBEQ?t=7117

Hoo boy, irrational fears. As a child I could not watch the United Artists 1982 logo come up before movies cuz for some reason it scared the hell out of me. I don't know if it was the slow turn of the logo on the black background, the handful of notes played on a piano or the sudden swell of the orchestra or a combination of them all but it still gives me a tingle to watch 30+ years later.

https://youtu.be/kuaJm8_0cZ0

Eh, I thought Mass Effect 3 was fine enough. It only gets bad in the final act, the London sequence mainly. But perhaps that's because I never really ascribed much belief into the "choices matter" narrative they were spinning. I didn't really expect anything to come of that stuff, so I wasn't necessarily disappointed when nothing ended up happening.

I never really understood the attention that the ME2 "suicide" mission got. It always seemed to me that as long as you... played the game... you'd be fine. I guess the average player just mainlines the story, in which case it would be a bad thing. But I always do every single side quest possible in any game I play, so it was never a question of who was going to die.

Feel like Jan is really underselling how much work was done to remake the Famicom Detective Club games when he's talking about the price. It's not like they're just uprezzed ports of the NES games, they're gorgeously animated products, far beyond the baseline standards of visual novels even today. Obviously people are going to make their own value judgements of whether it's worth it to them personally but in general the price isn't really out of step at all with how much work went into these releases.

Man, I love Jeff G but at this point he is just plain wrong about Mass Effect 3. I really hope he can bring himself to go replay it because with the citadel DLC it DOES wrap up the way he wants. It is so much damn fan service and his complaints about the game are so minor when you think about the game now with the fixed end and all the dlc as a full package. I understand it was pretty terrible at launch but he continually complains about how it was at launch and that is such a bummer. Please if you haven't played mass effect don't let Jeff's opinion turn you away from the franchise because it is an incredible and unmatched experience.

i'm 25 and remember getting flouride in elementary school.

I was born in early 1980s and grew up in rural Michigan, and we swished fluoride. Thinking back, it's because most of us were using well water at home, so no fluoride in the water. I think ours was maybe weekly or at least monthly.

I'm pro-fluoride, I had lots of cavities as a kid, but none as an adult once I moved to the city and get fluoride in the water, plus using fluoridated toothpaste.

You seem like a very cool dude that definitely doesn't listen to the Quartering.

Boy, this website got political all of a sudden. This used to not be the case, but it started creeping in years ago i guess. I get it, with the way the internet is now. But I'm also kind of bummed out that its also happening to a website that managed to steer clear of it for a good long while. I just want to talk about videogames some, not be all serious all the time. There's more then enough of that throughout the rest if the day.

Jan I got some pokemon related issues. How in the world is Nosepass fuckable, like what. might as well say graveler is fuckable. also, in the anime there were fish in Misty's gym/aquarium so there are "real" animals in that world. not sure about dogs, but like Frou Frou is literally just a poodle...

oh also, fuck the genocide that Israel is performing on Palestinians.

Man, that rituals stuff sounds pretty weird. No, i don't want to have vans go around to bring me my expensive minty vegan vitamins for a dollar a day, no thank you.

I always wonder how many of these niche subscription services people are signed up to before they realize that yes, they also need to have a subscription to minty vitamins on top. Surely that's not the gateway subscription for anyone. We need some sort of Mazlov's Hierachy chart of subscription services.

Appreciated Jeff speaking on Palestine. Giantbomb has always stood out from the pack by having the well-rounded discussions. I can definitely relate to the shift in propaganda from the 90s to now. It's amazing to see since it was unthinkable growing up.