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I'd wear those myself! They're beautiful.

This is a sword that cuts both ways, I think. If Jerry Coyne is to be disregarded because he doesn't like social-justice politics, than isn't Jack Turban in the same boat for his own advocacy? If we go too far down that road, there won't be many expert opinions we can consider at all. Also, other scientists who think sex is binary include Luana Maroja, at Williams College, Carole Hooven at Harvard, and Emma Hilton at the University of Manchester.

Chapeau, Sabine.

I wouldn’t say “being too hands off” is problematic at all, just the opposite. But I also wouldn’t say he’s being too hands off either. He has spoken about it twice? Not sure, but I think it was once or twice. And in both occasions he did use the same language and rhetoric that all the MSM uses. And it’s not even subtle. So, not really hands off imo b/c he has his hand on the scale. Agree 100%.

This point occurred to me in another thread and I figured it deserved some theorizing of it's own, because if you think about it....it's actually an incredibly important issue. All of Dany's conflicts thus far have been land-locked. Her forces primarily consist of Unsullied and Dothraki....and they have zero experience at naval warfare (with the Dothraki being actively afraid of the sea). I don't think it's realistic to expect Dany to successfully make land-fall anywhere on Westeros without a group of experienced, organized naval officers. Tyrion can advise her on the defenses around Blackwater Bay, but little else. And Euron is out there, and extremely competent. Aurane Waters is also out there, leading pirate raids with the flagship he stole from Cersie. There's a TON of threats in the ocean right now. So....which character (or characters) is going to fill that role for her? I really only see one . The only option that occurs to me is Victarion Greyjoy. We know he's been sent specifically to help her, and we know that Euron is going to betray him. He might be dumb as a post, but he's rock-solid in terms of naval warfare. It's possible that Euron's betrayal may be the breaking point that finally causes Victarion to oppose his brother. He's also got a Red Priest on-board....one who saved his life. That Red Priest views Dany as the messiah - Victarion might be somewhat swayed by that as well. He's my best-guess, in terms of who will lead her Navy. What about you guys? Is there some set of events that could result in Asha, Davos or Aurane Waters leading her Navy? They'd all be good candidates, except they're all in the wrong place and have no current link to Dany.

Yeah, the "attacks" by Biden as cited so far are... stretching and hand-wavy.

Jello. I used to make it a lot as a kid. It was a cheap and easy sweet. I think probably the last time I had it was in the form of shots, at parties we threw in my 20s. The purple ones, we mixed in everclear instead of vodka. Relatedly, Cool Whip was the standard accompaniment for Jello, and now just the thought of it makes me queasy.

This seems to be circular logic. You’re saying his actions don’t match his words, but when asked to identify what actions, really the only one mentioned is him being too “hands off” the police crackdown. I tend to agree, but again that is a rhetorical point. I don’t think he should be using the substantive powers of the presidency - like, say, federalizing the national guard - to confront the NYPD. That doesn’t sound like it’d help the situation.

Many of the great houses store food (particularly, grain stores) not just for themselves but for the smallfolk, because of the unnatural winters. If they didn't, there would be no smallfolk. The city populations would simply all have died off long ago if it weren't the case. The more rural areas keep stores as well, centered around townships and inns. This is true on Planetos, and it was true in medieval times. Stores are kept for particularly rough times. King's Landing's stores have been depleted but there are still many areas of the country which haven't had their supply lines cut. And yeah, Dany definitely thinks King's Landing is pivotal. It's the figurative and literal seat of power for the continent. As for King's landing being easier to access than Oldtown....how so? They're both port cities, at the mouth of a major river. They both have lookout points on either side of the bay to serve as early warning. If anything, I'd say King's Landing is harder to access, because the defenses there have been dramatically increased due to the Battle of Blackwater Bay. That chain boom is still there and the bay is more enclosed, making it easier for a Navy to defend. Dragons may somewhat ameliorate that, ships burn.....but the bay is still more enclosed. As for Old Town being more important than King's Landing - it's closer to the breadbasket of the continent. There is more fertile land near Old Town than King's Landing - Highgarden's lands are famously productive, hence the name. An army landing there (or near there - the Shield Islands would serve as a great military staging ground) would at least not immediately starve. Militarily it makes more sense. If Dany were to land in the South and work her way North, gathering supplies on her way, she could cut off King's Landing and win the city via siege, rather than attempt a naval battle with an inexperienced Navy. There's also a very good chance that by the time Dany arrives in Westeros, Old Town's defenses will have been ravaged by Euron, with little time to recover. I'm not saying that's what Dany is going to do - she's almost certainly going to occupy Dragonstone. But if I were Tryion, I'd counsel her to start in the South....especially if Faegon already has a hold on King's Landing. My point about Dany not being much of a reader is actually quite important. She isn't going to know anything at all about naval warfare, the defenses of Kings Landing, or any of the other major port cities. She currently doesn't have anyone to advise her on those things. Tyrion will be of assistance once he sides with her, since he knows all the details of the defenses of King's Landing from his time as Hand....but she still doesn't have the equivalent of an Admiral to lead her navy. Tyrion can advise on defenses....but he's no naval commander. She's going to need one.

Watched The Wages of Fear (1953) and I have to say, it’s a really tough call between this and Sorcerer (both adaptations of the same book). They’re pretty equally fantastic, but I think I prefer the ending of the latter.

I despise Lavrov almost as much as Poots. He'll be fine [maybe] but here's hoping Maria slips a shark into their bed the next time he wants a blowjob.

I also requested the second John Gower novel, The Invention of Fire, by Bruce Holsinger, in an audiobook read by the excellent Simon Vance. These books both do a tremendous job of taking the poetry of the real-life John Gower, and then imagining what the man who wrote them must have been like, and how the court of Richard II worked. It also deftly portrays Geoffrey Chaucer again, although in this one he has a less-pivotal role, despite his important diplomatic link to the mercenaries of Sir John Hawkwood in Italy. Many times a successful novel like A Burnable Book is followed up by a hollow imitation of a second book, but this is not the case here. Holsinger turns the reader's viewpoint to another key turning point of history, the advent of guns, and includes an excellent main story about the use and development thereof into a political thriller. Really interesting history, characters with stories you want to hear, and technical writing skills at a level slightly above the normal middle-brow fiction.

Nope, he's bald from the first time we meet him.

He has not even called me, so I’m expecting he has been sold for parts. Or being kept for his manliness, and being plied with food, drink, and such.

Selective enforcement is the hallmark of pretty much every justice system in existence today, just ask minorities, esp racial minorities in certain western countries that claim to be bastions of equality and justice, and the poor who find themselves in prison when a richer and/or differently skin coloured person would receive a non-custodial sentence or a significantly lesser term of imprisonment for exactly the same crime. Not holding the rich and powerful to account for wrongdoings is a feature for how the current (dis)order operates. To hold the ICC to a higher standard of exception is odd indeed as a rationale for its disestablishment. The fact that countries were given the opportunity to opt out is tantamount to recognising the claims of the sovereign citizen movement. You opt out of (or don't ratify) the ICC you should be out of all global governance institutions with the exception that you retain a UN general assembly vote (but no speaking rights), which includes the US losing its security council veto. If you're not going to be a global player, you don't get to be a global playah. Of course no one has the guts to stand up to the global bullies, so bully they will continue to do.

This past week I read both Borne and the slim novella The Strange Bird that complements it by Jeff Vandermeer. Borne was an audiobook read by Bahni Turpin, which was fine. I want to like Vandermeer's work, but I found both of these post-apocalyptic stories to be meandering affairs where the protagonist is so vague that it is difficult to establish much empathy. The writing is good, but the broken city setting just wasn't very interesting to me, either. VDM does do a decent job of setting up some reveals, though.

No, because it is one of many possible interpretations. And that one, in fact, is only one you could reasonably make if you have a lot of information from unfinished and unpublished texts the average reader of the LotR never has. The connection between 'the One' that is mentioned once or twice in the appendices and the Christian god is effectively impossible to make with the obvious impression that the world of the LotR is a fantasy world. And even if one were to conclude that this 'One' might be a creator god somewhat like the Christian god the idea that said god might have a divine plan for his creation laid out in a Music which took place before creation itself would be a bit far-fetched. Why would we assume this One cared what happened to the Ruling Ring? Tolkien himself says that in the MT texts. He looks at his own cosmology - flat earth, weird levels of air, divine beings running around acting as natural forces, etc. and how all that intersects with the plot of the various stories - and he can't keep it up. While Eärendil goes back to a Christian poem ... it is an Old English poem and Tolkien's entire desire was to create the pre-Christian mythology England lacked or lost due to the Norman Conquest. The mythology was originally conceived to include a somewhat Christian god like creator god ... but that was all. The gods working under him were pagan gods and the attempts to turn them more and more into angelic beings doesn't really work. It is also, of course, not exactly in accordance with any tenet of Christian orthodoxy I'm familiar with that, say, the Archangel Gabriel played any role as a sub-creator in the creation of the world. The Valar and especially Melkor are far too powerful than the devil/angels in Christian lore. You introduced the idea that the people of Númenor would reinterpret their own history like one might religious texts/lore. But it is his history, not religion, at least the core part of it. And there are real people in this world who can answer questions about lore. We are not talking religious texts tradition handed down to them, we talk, essentially, living, breathing history. History which, in the end, came to the island not just as Sauron but also earlier as Manwe's messengers and, in the very end, as god's wrath. The past is not the past to the same degree in world where immortal beings and gods walk around. Even if things like the Ainulindale are beyond the world and thus also the knowledge and experience of the Elves ... the link to that ultimate beginning is much closer and more real than any creation myth we have in the real world. My impression of what @Ser Scot A Ellison meant when he talked about his re-reading experience of the Silmarillion is that he realized - like I did during my earlier rereads - that there is a very striking pattern in the myth cycle of characters who should know better act like they don't. It is mostly bad tragedy. Some of the villains do make sense, a character that works reasonably well in the Silmarillion is Maeglin, I think, but especially the tragic noble characters work badly. Worst is the demise of Thingol in any scenario as his divine wife knows or feels every shitty thing that is going to happen, but either can't or won't intervene nor can Thingol bring himself to listen to her. And that is a pretty big problem as Thingol is totally beholden to Melian to protect his kingdom, so even if we were to cite 'patriarchal convention' as the reason why he is making all the choices (and he does, especially when you consult the longest versions of the various tales) ... it is very hard to swallow that anyone would just sit there and meekly watch while her husband ruins the life of their daughter and eventually their own. And that extends to many other things. Saruman and Denethor I mentioned. Another big blunder is Eonwe and Sauron. The former is the commander of the Valinor host defeating Morgoth in the War of Wrath. He has the authority to capture Morgoth himself and drag him back to Valinor in chains ... but when Sauron shows up he just lets him go... Ah, well, those are more propaganda texts as there is plenty of archaeological evidence that the people there actually did worship many deities at that time ... but that's not something the priests and scribes writing those texts liked them to do. But I certainly agree that Aaron agreeing to make the golden calf kind of borders on Pharazôn's stupidity. Gil-galad's realm was larger in those days, so Pelargir would have been also pretty close. The Númenóreans deforested most of Eriador, so there would have been a lot of contacts with the Elves there then. But I also meant Nandor or Avari colonies in other places. Númenor had colonies all over Middle-earth. I don't think so. It seems to have been a matter of natural gifts/talents. Faramir and Denethor are as noble 'common Dúnedain as Aragorn is the very embodiment of a Dúnedain king. Not in the same, but I think if one wanted to add complexity to Pharazôn as a character making him somewhat like Denethor could work fine. Denethor didn't want to live if things changed the way they would have, and Pharazôn could have followed Sauron's advice because he knew death was inevitable and he would rather see his home and people die and burn with him than go alone ... while also, perhaps, hoping against hope that Sauron spoke true and there was a small chance that he could win immortality. That would perhaps still not be the greatest character in fiction, but better than the devil worshipper Tolkien kind of turned him into. Yes, that is the big issue there. Tolkien tried to wiggle out of things there by having the author of the Narn be a mortal man, not Rúmil or Pengolodh who wrote most of the Silmarillion texts, to 'explain' why fate and doom were so prominent there. A heathen man would have had different philosophical and theological views than an Elda. But that doesn't really change anything as the Narn in the almost finished version was the version of the story Tolkien himself wanted to tell, not a sanitized or different version about, say, free will triumphing against all evil. Catholic or not, he was in love with that kind of story. Those were the stories he liked to read, and they were the stories he liked to write. It is also rather striking that he never seemed to have shed the LT idea that Turin's suffering was so great that he was posthumously numbered among the Valar and destined to eventually deal Morgoth the finishing blow in the final battle. That is akin to the glorious dead going to Valhalla or Herakles living on Olympus after his death.

NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

My wife always gives the skin from her hot cocoa to me.

Nah I'd prefer a Real-Borussia but all in all, it's a great night for football.

Come on, there's literally zero chance he was left alone bruh. Somehow Gilroy got corporate buy in during development, or had their confidence already [probs the latter] Diz just needs to get out of their own way. Favreau's best by date has expired. Just need some more unicorns.

I also was wary going into this, for some reason I had it in my head that this was a MAGA centric fantasy and it wasn't at all.

Peanut butter. A little of that shit goes a long way. And I can't stand the taste of whole milk either anymore. Skim is so much more refreshing. I have a vague memory of having tasted government cheese. I don't recall it being actively offensive, but it was pretty far from a gourmet product. Very bland.

I am melting down. I cannot endure this insanity! I'm just sitting here trying to think of what to make for dinner and helicopters are going nutz over my head, the radio is describing Stormy Daniels's testimony, and is interrupted to say that a kid was shot dead in plaza two blocks from where I am, and two kids have run away, so I guess the helicopters aren't about NYU or The Trial. This is the second violent crime committed within two blocks from two different directions within two weeks. Last week it was an invasion rape. WTF????????? Since all these cannabis storefronts opened things have been deteriorating quickly.

Meh. We Europeans built a freakin' mountain out of our excess butter.