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iI is not irreplaceable, as you might have noticed if you ever looked at anything except, I dunno, twitter feeds or something. THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Israel and Saudi Arabia Are Trading Places https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/02/opinion/israel-saudi-arabia.html In fact Israel is rapidly being replaced through the efforts of bibi and his bigoted, ignorant government, as Friedman details in the the piece.

These are the same sorts who are attacking science in general to discredit what we've learned through it, which supports the so-called 'woke' agenda. Just as they are now condemned antisemitism while still claiming George Soros controls the world. No one with any sense has ever not noticed that these people don't make sense, and that they don't make sense on purpose. To keep everyone confused to advance whatever of their own agenda, which of course is hate --oppress, suppress and even rid the world of everybody except themselves. I.e. they are NOT good faith or humble questioners at all.

1.. Indeed, it is non-living. 2. Yes, it is an object you can touch and feel. 3. Yes, it exists in the current ASOIAF timeline 4. Indeed, it is made of inorganic material. 5. Bit of a grey area that. I'm gonna tentatively say 'No, it's not a personal possession'. 6. No, it is not Is it an heirloom, important family object, or anything associated with a particular house 7.. I would veer into fragile-ish territory. 8. No, it is not jewellery. 9. No, it cannot be used as a weapon.

Absolutely. Growing up all the possible futures I was imagining for myself were condemned and ridiculed because "girls can't do that!"* While, oddly, I was doing all kinds of work on the farm that society, including the one in which I was living, and my parents and family, defined as men's work. But when he found it convenient and saved him money, o my, you betcha I was out there in the fields on the tractor plowing, seeding, etc. or on the roof pounding in shingles, while doing all the girl's work too. I didn't get paid for doing the men's work, though my brother did. I didn't get paid for doing the girl's work either because one doesn't pay for girl's work. * The only future a girl had, of course, was getting married, cooking, cleaning, keeping quiet and having babies and caring for children, gardening etc.. A very few 'special' ones could be primary school teachers, or an organist in church. Neither of which paid enough to live on. Or be a hair dresser.

There’s so much propaganda here my head is spinning. For instance, the word intifada has been weaponised. I learned just the other day from a Jewish scholar… and in an interview with another Jewish intellectual, I learned that the Arabic translation of “Warsaw Ghetto” is”Warsaw Intifada” - IIRC, he was talking about this translation being in a book in a Holocaust Memorial/Museum, don’t remember which one. ETA: the uprising obviously

Scale matters. Golden Company is only 10 000 men, and only some 2 000 of those are cavalry. Continent the size of Westeros isn't going to even notice such an army. But e.g. 50 000 Dothraki are quite another story... each Dothraki would have half a dozen to a dozen horses, and horses eat like, well, horses... so in the end, food requirements of such a force would be some 50 - 100 times that of the Golden Company. Of course, a lot depends on whether Martin actually understands that... That is just wishful thinking, I'd say. Golden Company got scattered due to early autumn storms... and the winter coming is not normal, it is going to be the Long Night. Daenerys will be lucky to get her army to Westeros without losing most of it in the storms... any sort of regular supply is going to be a fool's errand, even assuming it could be set up over such a distance to begin with (remember, this is no Roman Empire we're talking about).

Excellent point. But it takes time, which the Gazans do not have. Nor do we. Let us keep our eyes on the ball, i.e. the reasons people are protesting -- the continuous murders, bombings, starvation, ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Right this minute. Do not allow the blob media and the fascists to use this as fuel to keep the freedumbs riled up about what, o I don't know -- suddenly the blob and the fascist no longer is concerned about censorship and free speech, so what else is there?

Re: Sugar,

Finally, after 4 months off due to some minor injuries, vacation, changing my job and trying to get back into the routine of training before work on a regular basis I got back to crossfit today. We're having some public holidays (Labour Day and Easter got perfectly aligned this year) so I still didn't get up at 6:15AM, but I really needed to start, and will ease myself into getting up that early when I get back to work.

I mean, they're calling for "intifada" (meaning, a terrorist suicide bombing campaign against Israeli civilians) and for Palestine "from the river to the sea" (meaning, destruction of Israel). Maybe some protestors don't understand what those terms actually mean, but the most charitable interpretation is that they are idiots and not actively malicious. You might call that a minority of radicals, but I didn't see anyone from the protest movement calling them out or distancing themselves from such stances. In fact, doing that will get you shouted down as a "zionist". Which somehow became a dirty term despite actually meaning "someone who thinks Israel should continue to exist".

Do you have the example of him saying that? If he did I would disagree with him, it’s hyperbole to say referring to a child by anything other than your birth gender is child abuse What I could find off Google is this: He seems to be referring to medically transitioning children.

Ye... After that, I don't know either. Not sure if they can, frankly [conclude satisfyingly with two eps left] The showrunner could go all sorts of ways after that reveal, but if the quality doesn't dip I'll definitely want a second season.

Emery got sacked by Arsenal because his football was this shit, soul destroying horseshoe of doom. And he insisted on speaking to his squad without the help of the interpretor he relied upon for his dealings with the media. His English was hilarious, and mostly unintelligible. No wonder his players were mocking him. And I'm pretty sure Aubamayeng would have been one of the more vocal piss takers in the dressing room at that time. Arteta was sooooooo right to bin the cunt.

The Veronica Ivy argument is a poor one. I think it's pretty easy to cherry pick bad arguments though, from random people with opposing views. Both sides of this discussion twist the science to social concerns. Colin Wright, who you mentioned up thread, considers it child abuse to refer to a child by anything other than their birth gender. I think that's twisting science for social concerns- because whether or not sex is binary, gender pretty clearly is not. People can argue about at what age a person could want to transition, but he's gone a step further and is saying that merely referring to a child by their preferred pronouns is child abuse.

Ì don't think I've ever read something so naive in my entire life. What preposterous horseshit. The desire to change things doesn't give you the ability to do so. Even if you are 100% right in identifying what the problems are. Also, she doesn't seem the type who has experienced the gut wrenching hopelessness of the youth of today. If it has to be an 18 year old I want them from a shithole estate in Tottenham.

Israel has been very clear about their goals in Rafah, their goals of "destroying Hamas", and that they plan to occupy Gaza indefinitely. With respect to Rafah, they claim that there are some remaining battalions that they want to dismantle. I should add though that I think it will be very difficult to declare victory, at least complete victory, without recovering all the hostages. Almost every time Netanyahu gives a speech it's about how they are going to achieve a great victory. Personally, I think it's laughable to call what they've done a victory, but it's obviously a part of his propaganda strategy. Dismantling the Rafah battalions, at least to an extent that they will declare the battalions dismantled, won't take more than a couple months, if they can operate freely in Rafah (bulk of civilians evacuated). It shouldn't be any different than what they've done in Gaza City and Khan Younis. It's clear that Netanyahu desperately wants to declare some sort of victory as soon as possible. He just can't stop talking about it, and he needs a political win. But I also agree that Netanyahu would like for the conflict, whether its with Hamas, Hezbollah, or some other party, to extend past 2026. Maybe he'll claim victory over the Hamas army/organized fighting force/whatever it's called, like how Bush prematurely declared victory on an aircraft carrier, and shift the narrative to rescuing the remaining hostages and hunting down Sinwar and other leaders still in Gaza during the indefinite occupation phase of his strategy. The resistance in Gaza post "victory" is likely to be very active, and maybe that'll be enough conflict for Netanyahu.

The question is kind of silly as nobody actually asks what the hell the Golden Company are living off right now and how the hell Aegon is going to win the hearts of the poor Westerosi smallfolk if his foreign sellsword scum is stealing food from them? Because that is what they are doing right now in the Stormlands. And yet there are still Stormlanders joining him. This is something that could become a plot ... or not, as it didn't with all the other campaigns in the books we got so far. Bottom line is - soldiers will always eat because they will take whatever food is left from the non-soldiers ... and then the non-soldiers will starve and freeze to death, and that will take care of them to the point that there won't be much of an organized resistance movement. Food riots are something for city folk - and there there is likely to be some trouble like we had before. But in the country people will just quietly starve and die. It is also kind of silly to assume that Aegon or Dany or any of the current pretenders in Westeros will launch massive campaigns across the continent in winter. What we can expect is naval campaigns and short regional or local campaigns. Both Aegon and Daenerys are likely to try to take KL, but not much else. That means that the provision of the troops marching to war is likely going to be as important as a plot point now that it was before ... with the only change being that it is winter now and not so easy to find food. It is winter now, and they have no clue how long it will last, so what moron would start a war of conquest now rather than next spring? Stannis' people almost froze to death marching from Deepwood Motte to Winterfell ... and that was merely an autumn storm. But, of course, Daenerys will likely control huge fertile lands in Essos less affected by winter when she goes to Westeros, so there will be means for her to ship food to Westeros if she wants to do that - just like the Lords of the Vale might or might not decide to ship food from the Vale to other regions of Westeros since they have a lot of surplus food stored.

Yeah, you're right there. 19 non penalty goals and 12 assists playing for Villa. It should be Watkins.

Nah. Emery manager now wasn’t same as when he was at Arsenal. He actually learned a lot from what went wrong. Emery is a good coach but Arsenal needed a true vision post Wenger and that was something Emery didn’t have.

Can it be used as a weapon?

Daenerys will begin using Drogon to commit horrible acts if no one stops her. The size of Dragon make him dangerous. Daenerys riding him make him more dangerous.

Lucifer Means Lightbringer had a whole theory series about this. The gist goes that Asshai was originally the grand capital of a pre-Valyrian Dragonlord Empire civilization spanning the known world, the Great Empire of the Dawn. They were the ones who built the Five Forts and the fortress on Battle Island (made of black stone but distinct from the evil oily black stone and more similar to Valyria's fused black stone created from dragonfire but primitive). It would also explain why the city is considered to have existed since before recorded history and apparent source of origin for dragons (which Bran's vision from the first book seems to corroborate), and where the Hightowers & Daynes came from (who have Valyrian features but are not from Valyria and are also associated with the Dawn) But then the Bloodstone Emperor ursurped his older sister as ruler of the Empire, ushering in the Long Night (and there may be some parallels to myths like the Azor Ahai legend and the Qartheen belief that dragons were hatched from the cracking of a second moon). Presumably the Bloodstone Emperor sacrificed his sister and ended up summoning the meteor that was made up of the oily black stone (likely in Stygai as another user here pointed out) and this specifically was what caused the Long Night. It ended up corrupting the capital Asshai, maybe it infected the existing structures or maybe the Emperor simply had the entire city rebuilt with the material. The Long Night was said to last a generation (over 20-30 years) so it's possible that the empire declined over time instead of collapsing immediately. During that period, said oily blackstone was deposited around the world, either fragments from the crash or due to the Emperor's decree. It's possible that Yeen was originally a GEOTD colony that obviously went wrong due to the materials they used. If you want to get even more speculative, perhaps the COTF used the oily black stone to create the Others, corrupting men with very dark magic to create the perfect weapons. As for how the Long Night ended? It seems more like the work of multiple heroes who had seperate adventures to save their respective lands according to the legends. The Shadowlands never recovered though, it still seems to be suffering from the symptoms of the Long Night (always dark even during the brightest day, monster attacks). Stygai is still in a state similar to Valyria. This is all just speculation though but it's pretty fun to think about.

Sorry: 1.. Indeed, it is non-living. 2. Yes, it is an object you can touch and feel. 3. Yes, it exists in the current ASOIAF timeline 4. Indeed, it is made of inorganic material. 5. Bit of a grey area that. I'm gonna tentatively say 'No, it's not a personal possession'. 6. No, it is not Is it an heirloom, important family object, or anything associated with a particular house 7.. I would veer into fragile-ish territory. 8. No, it is not jewellery.

That's absolutely true.