Chesterton’s Fence Sitter

A woman from Marina Del Ray has admitted to illegally paying homeless people on Skid Row to register to vote in what prosecutors say is a 20-year scheme tied to illegal petition signature collection.

On several occasions, she even let homeless people use her own address to register, meaning mail-in ballots could be sent to her home, a plea agreement obtained by The California Post states.

Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, also known as “Anika,” took a plea deal for one felony count of paying another person to register to vote in a federal election, prosecutors announced Monday.

The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

“False registrations undermine Americans’ faith in elections – even more so when payoffs are involved,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon in a statement. “This Justice Department is committed to ensuring that all U.S. elections are fair and free from illegal meddling – so that all Americans can accept the results with confidence.”

Prosecutors allege Armstrong targeted Skid Row because of its dense homeless population and regularly offered cash payments — typically between $2 and $3 — to persuade people to sign petitions.

If anyone had ever drawn fanart of this moment, I would use it with credit but without asking them for permission and you would not have a problem with it. But nobody has ever drawn fanart of this moment. No concept art of it exists. The only images of it are screencaps of an Xbox 360 game, with Xbox 360 model and texture quality, where no single frame actually captures all the elements of the event (the laser only fires when nothing else is in frame, the Savior and the demons getting lasered are never in the same frame, the lighting is really bad and the Savior's details can't be made out). In order to use this card I designed, I have exactly two options:

- I can use Gemini to synthesize the pose and framing from one frame, the laser from later on, and the detailed design from a frame where it's clearly visible, redraw it in a more painterly style, and create an image that does not look like complete shit and conveys what moment the card represents.

- I can use an X360 screenshot that looks like complete shit and doesn't actually get across the visual of the event it depicts.

I know this because I did it all the time. I would just write up the mechanics and card design and then play around with them.

You don't have to create these images to create this set. You can just make the set of DMC themed cards and then leave the image section blank. That is a perfectly valid option that I have used literally HUNDREDS of times in my life. If what you REALLY care about is "Designing cards" then there is no reason for you to be generating illustrations. That's not actually part of the design process at all really. I'm sure that if you sat in on any design session at WotC for a magic set you would not find a single finished illustration because the illustration is not part of the design. It's part of the flavour text.

I can't find the actual poll anywhere so I am trying very hard to take this with a grain of salt but YouGov usually does good work and NewsGuard who commissioned the poll noted on their site that they were so surprised by these results that they asked YouGov to check again and yeah sure enough.

This is really disturbing.

If anyone had ever drawn fanart of this moment, I would use it with credit but without asking them for permission and you would not have a problem with it. But nobody has ever drawn fanart of this moment. No concept art of it exists. The only images of it are screencaps of an Xbox 360 game, with Xbox 360 model and texture quality, where no single frame actually captures all the elements of the event (the laser only fires when nothing else is in frame, the Savior and the demons getting lasered are never in the same frame, the lighting is really bad and the Savior's details can't be made out). In order to use this card I designed, I have exactly two options:

- I can use Gemini to synthesize the pose and framing from one frame, the laser from later on, and the detailed design from a frame where it's clearly visible, redraw it in a more painterly style, and create an image that does not look like complete shit and conveys what moment the card represents.

- I can use an X360 screenshot that looks like complete shit and doesn't actually get across the visual of the event it depicts.

If you create because you want to "be a creative" that's fine I'm sure but it has nothing to do with where I'm at - I create because I want to have a creative work. The reason I don't use AI for illustrations is because I don't need any illustrations. If I did, I'd use AI.

A private company ended up donating a prefab bathroom. But the costs still added up to $200,000. The city said union workers had to connect the plumbing and build out other infrastructure to get it ready.