The idea that Bubba is Bill Clinton is the part I have a hard time believing. And I think it might be a joke. But I also think it’s possible that Trump performed oral on someone or something named Bubba.

I’ve never heard that nickname for Bill Clinton before. Maybe I live under a rock or maybe it’s a private nickname that could be corroborated elsewhere in the Epstein files, but idk he’s never looked like a “Bubba” to me.

More critically, I have a hard time believing the 2016 election cycle plays out the way it did if this were the case.

But I do think it’s clear there’s SOMETHING that Trump doesn’t want the public to know about. And I don’t think he or his base care about him being with 16 year old girls. Or even his daughter. What could it be that Trump would be scared of his base knowing about?

So I think Bubba could be another dude. Or perhaps a gigantic novelty dildo. Or maybe even an animal.

Edit: For everyone getting caught up in the nickname, Mark Epstein has said that it wasn’t Bill Clinton. Plus, even if you don’t believe him it still doesn’t make sense that it’s Bill with how 2016 played out.

In order to be incorporated, a company has to have stock. Private companies still have shares even if they aren’t traded on public exchanges.

It’s possible that Gabe owns 100% of Valve’s stock, but it’s also possible that he’s sold some to other people or entities. Originally when Valve was founded, it was a split between Gabe and Mike Harrington, but Harrington reportedly sold his shares to Gabe when he left.

It’s also very likely that Gabe owns shares in other corporations, even just as personal retirement investments. But that’s not what I was talking about.

This is exactly why I’m wondering if “Bubba” could be referring to someone else. Maybe not a celebrity.

Heck, could be a giant novelty dildo. Or a dog.

I have wondered this for a while. All the stuff with the child’s beauty pageants. The “grab them by the pussy” comment. The various quotes about liking young women, calling his own daughter hot, etc. Even without the Epstein files it’s pretty clear that his base is not bothered by him sexually assaulting you girls.

At the same time, he’s scared of something. Putin clearly has something over him, or at least did during his first term. The speculation back then was some sort of “piss tape” with a Russian prostitute, but… Would his base really be bothered by that? And if not, what exactly could Truml have done that his base WOULD care about?

The rumor I started seeing this morning makes more sense: that there is evidence of Trump giving a blowjob to Bill Clinton. I think any evidence of Trump doing any sort of submissive act with another man would cost him his base.

Bill Clinton would be especially egregious as a hated Democrat, and there IS a relationship and connection there i could see but it almost seems too ridiculous to be true. And like… He ran against Hillary Clinton. Surely if that happened and evidence existed, it would have gotten out before now, right? Or at the very least the Clintons could have used that aseverage to get Trump to drop his campaign. So I’m not sure I buy that rumor. But it could have been another guy. Or anyone with a dick.

Another thought I have is that there is a common trope in the BDSM scene where people tend towards sexual roles that oppose their “normal” daily roles. Powerful men like to dominate everywhere else, but like to be submissive in the bedroom. I wonder if it could even be something as innocuous as video of Trump going down on one of his wives that he is afraid of leaking.

In most US states that would not be illegal.

“Billionaire” is a convenient modern buzzword. It used to be “millionaire”. The classic joke from Austin Powers where Dr. Evil demands money is a good example. It’s just inflation.

Plus, a lot of “billionaires” are only considers such because they own shares in their corporations. It’s a “theoretically if they could find a way to sell all of those shares at the current price without tanking the market value of those shares in the process, they could get $X billion from that”.

If there were a theoretical global revolution, on of the the first steps of eating the rich is to seize and nationalize those businesses. Later, land reform will seize the extra mansions they own. They will still be left with adequate personal property to live quite comfortably. Finally, the justice system will need to evaluate what labor laws (or other laws) they may have been violating for years and using their wealth to get away with.

Start with the biggest fish and watch as the rest start to downsize voluntarily and cut deals to avoid jail.

I don’t expect to see any of this in my lifetime. Not in any major country, and certainly not globally.

None of that was invented by Valve. “Normalize” is subjective but I would argue they didn’t do any of that either.

Launchers existed for a long, long time before Steam- part of what made Steam so successful was having a centralized launcher for games from a lot of different companies together. Before then there was usually a separate launcher for each game.

Online DRM has existed for as long as the Internet was ubiquitous enough to get away with it. Offline DRM existed before that. Even back in the 80’s games would ship with all sorts of anti-piracy mechanisms. The only 2 Valve games that ever had DRM were Artifact and DOTA 2, both of which were online multiplayer-only games, which seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Maple Story is pretty widely considered to be the first game with micro transactions, and they were in the form of loot boxes. By the time Team Fortress came out the concept was already popularized in MMO’s, Facebook games like Farmville, and FIFA.

Achievements aren’t something I really care about, but game had those concepts for years. I remember playing Spyro 2 as a kid and tracking down all the skill points. Sure it doesn’t use the word “achievement” but even today Sony uses the word “Trophy” to mean the same thing.

Corporations aren’t your friend of course, it’s just weird that people think Valve invented these things. And Valve’s implementations are some of the most benign and consumer-friendly cases in the industry.

The launcher i consider a positive - it’s a great way to organize my library, including non-steam games. There’s tons of free features I use all the time, like Remote Play, free Cloud Saves, friend management. It’s great for managing inputs from all sorts of different controllers, managing systems with multiple displays, allowing me to control everything with a controller without having to set it down to use my mouse and keyboard. They have great mod support for the games that use it. There’s tons more features I don’t use. It’s not just a launcher like EA Play or UPlay- it’s a full platform. It’s so useful that I even added GOG Galaxy as a non-steam game.

Any business needs to balance the needs of its stakeholders. Owners, partners, creditors, consumers, employees, governments, etc. Valve is one of the fairest companies left alive in 2025 at balancing all of these entities, and yet in every online discussion about them someone always feels the need to pipe in and be like “well aktually they are secretly very bad!”, just because they don’t have the power to stop other companies from being shitty. They don’t have the bargaining power to tell Sega to get rid of Denuvo on a games from prior generations selling for $20. They don’t have the bargaining power to Ubisoft or Larian to drop their annoying launchers. They don’t have the power to tell other publishers and devs to stop adding pay-to-win mechanics. They don’t have the power to stand up to payment processors that are demanding certain content be removed from the store.

Valve DOES have the power to promote Linux as a legitimately viable operating system for gamers, behind Linux enthusiasts. They have the power to get Microsoft to drop their ridiculous store. They have the power to get Ubisoft to at least add their games to Steam, even if you need a dumb launcher still. They have the power to clearly and consistently label games with DRM in their store so consumers can make informed decisions without spending hours digging through the legalize or EULA’s or doing research on enthusiast forums.

It’s fair to question whether Valve’s 30% cut is justified for every publisher, though we also know that some publishers have been able to make separate deals at times. I’m sure you can find other things that are fair to question. It’s really weird to accuse people of “kissing Gabe’s ass” just for recognizing that Steam is the best platform for a consumer to use right now.

This is wisdom I wish that others in my life would internalize and execute.

I think the main hangup is going to be: how easy and simple is this thing for the average person?

The Steam Deck is, any way you slice it, a better value than the Switch or Switch 2. The Steam Deck has sold roughly 6 million units in 3 years. The Nintendo Switch 2 has sold close to 11 million units in about 5 months.

I hope you’re right and that Valve really shakes up the whole industry, but I’m not going to start expecting that until I see it.

I started typing up my own personal observations about Rush lyrics changing over time, but then I found this quote from Geddy Lee himself:

A few songs may have also been a little naive in their original intent. The nasty little tale called “The Trees,” of course — a comment on forced equality. Being a much more liberal-minded adult, I now have a softer approach to things in life and I’m much more open and willing. I put a lot more importance on social responsibility now than I ever did. I talk about that, of course, when I’m referring to free will. There were a few things we sang about in our early twenties that seemed very important. But as time has gone on, you ameliorate those views because life has told you it’s not so simple. Once you encounter problems and you begin to help your family or friends with some of those problems, you learn a lot about how much of life has lived in the gray areas as opposed to the black and white areas.

The Trees was, and still is, one of my favorite songs for the sake of the music. And I can see how the lyrics may have worked a lot better back during the cold war, just a couple of decades after genocide and famine wiped out millions in the USSR and China.

I grew up listening to both a greatest hits CD that has libertarian tracks like Freewill and The Trees and 2112, but also listening to Snakes and Arrows that had polar opposite messages in songs like Far Cry, the Way the Wind Blows, and The Larger Bowl. They got smarter and more aware of their own privilege as they grew older and saw more of the world.