SeanF

And, it is so utterly stupid. If you're worried about the survival of your House, and thinking more than one move ahead, you'd know this is something you would not want to touch with a barge pole. Tywin Lannister is never your friend. Do this, and Tywin owns you lock, stock, and barrel. He is your only protector, but if he needs to conciliate the lords of the Riverlands and the North, well he now has the perfect scapegoat to give to them. It would be similar to Cesare Borgia executing Vitellozzo Vitelli and other captains, who had done his dirty work, and whose usefulness was now at an end.

So, Robb breaks a promise, and offers to make amends. In response, Walder Frey and his spawn murder 3,500 unsuspecting people, commit treason (against both Robb and Edmure), and they do so in violation of the in-universe equivalent of diplomatic immunity. There is an utter lack of proportionality in such revenge. In-universe, it is seen as justification for the deaths of the entire family.

Lothar is - like Walder - wholly despicable. @The Gizzard of Oz- raping one’s own children and grandchildren, and sacrificing one’s sons - is as evil as it gets. In this world, as well as our own.

It’s a good idea for the protestors to disassociate themselves from people who support Hamas. The latter are vicious anti-semites. The same way that Tommy Robinson was told to clear off, when he tried to join a march against anti-semitism in London. Otherwise, you end up tarnishing your cause.

Jaime killing his twin sister would be a grim end for both of them.

At any rate, a compromise that their opponents can accept is the same as a defeat. Success can only be achieved by compelling one’s opponents to do one’s bidding.

I think the MAGA’s prefer angry defeat, to actually achieving some of the things (like border security), which they claim to want.

With reason. It’s hard to see any path to Russian victory, now.

“Freedom” is a sick joke.

That presupposes that Moscow Marjorie is on the side of the USA.

This really is the weirdest incarnation of the Republican Party, in my lifetime. A big chunk of them just wish to see the world burn.

All slavery is bad, but slaves kept as status symbols, by freedmen made good, are still likely to be better off than slaves captured in bulk and/or worked to death in chain gangs. And if most people are free, there’s less fear of slave revolts, so less need to terrorise them.

The House has now voted to approve the aid to Ukraine.

Russell Bentley, a Texan who went out to fight for the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic in 2014, and was an enthusiastic pro-Russian YouTuber, has just had his head chopped off by Russian soldiers, who mistook him for a spy.

The weird thing is MTG denouncing the Ukrainians as Nazis. You’d expect her to think that a good thing. After all, she herself is a Nazi.

The Ephors honestly acknowledged the position of the helots by annually declaring war on them. Yunkai’s and Astapor’s elites, who are joke soldiers themselves, would be swiftly overthrown. My impression is their Meereenese counterparts are more militarised. The fight for the city was tough, and the Harpies are effective insurgents. New Ghis most resembles Sparta.

That’s well-reasoned. Being a chattel slave is objectively worse (not just a matter of opinion), for the typical inhabitant of Essos, than being a peasant is, for the typical inhabitant of Westeros. And in a slave-owning society (especially one where slaves so outnumber free people), levels of violence and insecurity will be far greater than in peacetime Westeros (slaves are essentially subject to permanent war). Neither condition is desirable, to any inhabitant of a 21st century industrialised democracy, but one is clearly worse than the other.

Perhaps I’m over optimistic- but I think it will pass.

Credit where it’s due. Mike Johnson has realised that it’s time to act like an adult.

Of course it’s biased. My bias is that private enterprise, free trade, and industrialisation were and are all good things. If GDP per head was still at the level of 1800, the world would be a far more brutal place than it is today.

The Industrial Revolution and modern capitalism floated (almost) all boats. In 1820, 89% of the world’s people lived in absolute poverty, compared to 8% now (and 55% when I was born, in 1967). Even Marx realised that capitalism created abundance.

Reading up about Mark Menzies’ history of drunken and erratic behaviour, I wonder what the Conservatives were thinking, by keeping him as an MP. But then, that applies to so many of the MP’s.

That seems the most likely explanation. These people don’t offer credit.

I think some Iranians view the Arab conquest as a national humiliation.