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It is on Prime here in Canada. Maybe not so in the US? Anyway I enjoyed it although it did tail off a bit in the second half.

So...this is what like would be like if there were no libraries or bookstores?

Perhaps not as much as one might be inclined to believe. There’s been a gradual normalisation of ties between various Arab countries and Israel. That’s because many Arab governments want little to do with Palestinians, as a result of various actions committed in the past. -Jordan had its king assassinated - Lebanon was plunged into a civil war - Egypt wants to distance itself from the Muslim Brotherhood Since the 1979 revolution, Iran has been a clerical theocracy, whose goal is to export its revolution to the Islamic world. This poses a direct threat to absolute monarchies like those of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. They see an alliance with Israel and by extension the West as strategic.

It's only a hipster game if it comes from Portland, otherwise it's sparkling pretentiousness.

Funny, I was listening to a podcast about the first film yesterday. The makeup was pretty wild, and there's a documentary just about it. They needed so many makeup artists that they basically emptied Hollywood and needed set up a makeup school to teach people off the street, pretty much. There was a period for a couple of decades where pretty much any film had a makeup artist who had worked on Planet on the Apes because of this.

It shouldn’t be an either/or prospect. Having more allies is beneficial to all parties involved. Building a strong foundation between Israel and SA helps mitigate Iran’s influence in the region.

... Long live the King.

I have a very hard time seeing this kind of tax go anywhere in a divided Congress. It would be nice to tax the billionaires somehow, but it's not clear how such a tax would work: would they have to sell some of their holdings (and therefore realize the gains and be subject to a different tax) or would the government take payment in kind?

Biden proposes a tax on unrealized gains affecting people making 100+ million a year. FOX, meanwhile, is blaming the expiration of the Trump tax cuts on Biden. Biden Proposes Twenty Five Percent Tax on Unrealized Gains (msn.com)

Partricularly coming from gay people. For years and years we were suspected of either molesting children or trying to make them gay, or sometimes both. I guess Gays Against Groomers never got that lesson in history class.

I think the biggest butterfly effect ever would be changing opening Instead of Robert and crew riding forth to propose Ned becomes Hand and that Joff should marry Sansa to bind thier houses Imagine Varys negotiated a hostage situation to remove the threat. Joff marries Daenerys to legitimize the dynasty, and Viserys becomes hand And Joff marrying Dany is not that absurd; he does later marry the much older Margaery anyhow (wiki has Dany being 1 year younger than Marg)

Uh oh...

Okay. To continue the food metaphors. The longer you go without eating, the hungrier you get. Eventually you will begin to starve And when you are starving enough, anything tastes delicious.

Yes it did. I previously explained that the novel did that -- but very young me who knew nothing about Japan -- or much of anything else at the time except horses -- had to re-read the novel 2 - 3 times before I got that. The difference between the novel and the series is that a great deal dealing with the Europeans was deleted, for many reasons, including to make the point far more clear for a first watcher who never read the novel, much less re-read it in more mature years. It subverted every trope of adventure in exotic land historical fiction of English and USA novels. Just as Japan just shut the thing down for a good long time to keep out those who would be subverting the aspects of Japanese culture and autonomy if let to run rampant. They'd already seen what the Jesuits could do. Nobody said that the guy who succeeded was going to be or needed to be good. That too subverts even the foundational fiction forms of European fiction, at least anyway, starting with the Romances. El Cid is a great leader, a good man, a godly man, filled with honor. The man who became Shogun didn't need to worry his head or morality about that, anymore than Caesar did. But it was rather rushed, and too many connecting lines were absent to do it in an effective narrative. Thank goodness the show could fall back on aesthetics of vision to keep people going.

Sounds like a hipster game to me.

Odds are they'll side with Faegon, who is likely a doomed pretender.

New behind the scenes promo has a shot on the camera of Aegon and his cronies celebrating Aemond’s victory over Luke…at the “Cock Inn” we saw in spy photos. More importantly it confirms our suspicions that Dyana is working at the tavern now:

Interesting economic analysis that Russia's current economic sort-of boom is being driven by the current military situation. Should the war end, Russia's economy might see a contraction of seismic proportions. Ukraine would have a similar risk, but is better placed to endure it, with likely vast resources being made available to help it rebuild after the war. Russia likely will not have that advantage. As a result, it may be economically advantageous to Russia to continue the war for as long as possible. Other analyses are saying the war boom effect is temporary, and at ~3-4 years into the conflict (18 months to two years from now) Russia's economic expansion from massive military spending will run out of steam and the contraction will occur anyway. There is some arguing about that. Meanwhile, the US and the G7 are working on a plan to use profits and interest from frozen Russian assets to generate additional cash for Ukraine. The idea is that this would generate around $50 billion this year and around $150 billion by in total by the end of 2025. This might mitigate the problems of generating a new US aid bill in 2025, regardless of who's in the White House, and would leave the assets themselves intact, for possible return to Russia after the end of hostilities (a possible incentive for ending the conflict). As for China, it's extremely clear that Xi had a roadmap that included an invasion of Taiwan in or around 2027 (the 80th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army, under its original guise) if possible, but in the early 2030s if not. That roadmap seems to have been disrupted by China's economic woes, unexpectedly robust rearming by the US and its allies (partially caused by Russia) and the economic "decoupling" by former investors that has happened much faster than China ever believed possible, along with much more robust statements that the US will defend China, meaning a direct Chinese-US war which, right now and probably still in 2027, China might have no better than a 1-in-3 chance of winning. China seems to be dealing with this by cooling the tensions and heat, pivoting to the South China Sea controversy (where China may hope to provoke a military intervention by the US or its allies so China can sell any response as justified self-defence) and engaging in longer-term planning. China may still decide to invade Taiwan in 2027 or even sooner if it decides the situation is ripe, but it sees to be less keen now than two years ago or so. That does put its relationship with Russia in an interesting place: it will continue to milk Russia for all its worth but the chances of China putting itself out there on Russia's behalf seems to have reduced significantly, and western leaders are apparently wooing Xi both behind the scenes and in public, congratulating him on his diplomacy with Russia that apparently dissuaded Putin from using nuclear weapons (although the US believes it was actually a very direct discussion between the head of the CIA and the head of the FSB in Türkiye last year where he said that the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine would trigger a direct US military intervention in the war that really dissuaded them, but still, PR), and suggesting that Xi follow through on his previous discussions about Ukraine's territorial integrity to broker a peace deal with Putin. That flatters Xi's not-inconsiderable ego, even if he is aware of that.

Yeah, if only Robb Stark had kept it in his pants. We might still be in the EU.

It's exactly the same with climate change protesters. The media will crow and crow about the evil terrorists of Extinction Rebellion making you late for an utterly pointless meeting or sum shit, whilst having far less to say about the chances of your great grandchildren literally cooking to death because there will be nowhere to escape the heat. Some of the prison sentences being meted out in the UK for entirely peaceful climate protest is shocking and terrifying.

Britain's youngest Prime Minister was William Pitt the Younger, who was 24 when he assumed office (and was 21 when elected to the Commons). He held the office for longer than anyone bar Robert Walpole, and is generally accounted one of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers (for various values of "greatness"), steering the country through the aftermath of the American War of Independence and French Revolution, the spread of revolutionary fervour to Britain, various complications with Ireland and India, and then both the Revolutionary and start of the Napoleonic Wars. Some of that came later, but his first term was basically rushing around putting out fires in Ireland, India, France and cementing relations with the US having just been at war with them, and he was generally successful in these areas despite inexperience. Edward IV became King at 18 and almost ended the Wars of the Roses for good except for his brothers both losing the plot and allowing the ultimate Tudor victory later on. He showed some issues with being young and impulsive but also showed significant political canniness, and was a superior general despite his great youth. Oddly, he seemed to make worse decisions the older he got; if he'd been king when he was older, it's possible he'd have been a far less successful one. And obviously that's people with ultimate power, not being an councillor on a single seat in a very minor part of the country. The youngest MP in UK history is Christopher Monck, who was elected MP for Devon in 1667 at the age of 13; due to a quirk in the law he could be elected but not take his seat until eight years later, at 21. The age of candidacy for being a MP was reduced to 18 in 2006, but so far we've only had one MP below 21. We also regularly entrust people at 18 or younger in roles including soldiers, mothers and fathers, drivers (sometimes of Formula One cars going at 200mph), pilots, landlords, business managers, writers, artists and most other jobs under the sun. Some are spectacularly shit at those things, but some are exceptionally good at them. One might also argue that youth and inexperience may be a boon if it means enthusiasm and ability to get things done has not been beaten down by cynicism.

I watched it again, and now I'm wondering if I'd assumed too much classifying Sugar Then there's Stallings

They've already said they wouldn't Xi Jinping's first trip after Covid abroad was to Kazakhstan where he implied as much through diplomatic speak. The visit was also notable because he was going to a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization where he was going to meet the president of Kazakhstan anyway but decided to specifically honor them with a separate visit prior and Xi's first international visit in more than two years. Where he said that Kazakhstan's territorial integrity is an issue for China. China will do the same thing they've been doing. Maintain neutrality and friendly relations with Russia while price gouging them on high quality goods and low balling them on Russian resource prices. No reason to change that.