Winterfell is Burning

Thing is 33 million people that didn't vote, and that percentage of abstentions (20,95%) was the highest in the 21st century. If they return to a normal rate, there's a lot more votes there in contention. Also against Lula is that people who are illiterate in Brazil can vote, but it's not mandatory for them, and that's a group that tends to favor him overwhelmingly. And people can of course change their votes- it's purely anecdotal, but the doorman of my building told me today he and his wife were going to vote for Lula, but after his poor performance in the last televised debate Thursday- at TV Globo, which has more audience than all the others combined- they switched to Bolsonaro (I don't know why he didn't switch to one of the other candidates considering Bolsonaro's performance was at least as bad, though). That said, the normal thing would be for Lula to win by a decent amount. But I don't know if there's much normal anymore, in Brazil or elsewhere. Polls not only were off generally speaking- but they were off by ridiculous amounts in many places, particularly in senate and government races- we're talking about 15/20 points differences in some cases. Also, the press did a roundup of the difference between Lula and Bolsoaro every major institute on their last poll- in the election, the margin was of 5,23%: IPEC 14,00% Datafolha 14,00% Ipespe 14,00% Quaest 11,00% Atlasintel 9,20% PoderData 10,00% Idea 11,00% MDA 8,60% Paraná 7,10% Only the last one's was in the margin of error. The "democratic credentials" of both are very few. Difference is that Bolsonaro was an idiot screaming because he thinks it makes them look mainly- and of course, he has command of the Army now, but I don't think he has the support or the capacity to pull off- he enjoys work and think things through as much as Trump does. Meanwhile, Lula never came publicly supporting a 3rd term after he was reelected...but some members of Congress that support him did, and after poor reaction by the public and Congress, no one raised the idea. He and Dilma also never expressed willingness to use the military to crush protests against her...but the commander of the Brazilian army said (after she had been out of office, to not throw more fuel to the fire) he was sought by members of their party to see if he was willing to use the Army against those protests, and he refused. Now, it's entirely possible those were actions of individual players without his consent, but I doubt it. His party is not like the Democrats or Republicans, with tons of independent players vying for power, he controls it all and anyone that challenges gets sidelined or leaves. The thing is that I think people are right to dislike, distrust and hate Bolsonaro, but the problem is that this often leads to people whitewashing anyone that opposes him. Hell, that sort of thinking against Lula and PT is what got so many people to vote for him in the first place, people thinking "oh, he's bad but he can't be worse than that guy".

Carol is really a bad choice for emotional center because she barely had an arc or much emotion in the movies she was in. And she's way too powerful for the MCU- she basically retained more or less her comics power level, but since Thor, Hulk and Thanos are much, much lower, she looks overpowered and nothing seems like a real challenge. As for emotional center, yeah, without T'challa and Peter, they don't have it. Scott Lang is popular but, feels, heh, too small. Maybe Ms. Marvel? But it's also hard to imagine her being such a big player. It's another reason why, at least for not, the hesitancy in introduce X-men makes no sense.

It's hard enough for many people to swallow Targaryen polgyamy or a woman in the throne. A woman with two husbands? That would be the straw that broke the camel's back for most people.

Maybe, but Lula is one of those guys that condones them (as well as his party), a fact that Bolsonaro exploited in the last two elections endlessly and well. It's harder to deny you plan to turn Brazil into a new Venezuela if you keep refusing to condemn Maduro and defend him at every opportunity, or keep expressing your admiration for the Cuban dictatorship. Anyway, one point that I see Bolsonaro's supporters exploiting is that they kept claiming the polls were wrong and rigged against them, and at least in the first point, they were right. In state and senate elections that is most notable- that can partially be explained by people deciding at the last minute who they'll vote (since there's virtually no party loyalty in Brazil, and people don't automatically vote Labor/Democrat or Conservative/Republican), but it doesn't really explain why they always tend to overrate left-wing candidates, or the most left wing of the two if there's two of them running. Also, Lula's campaign tried to make a play for "useful vote", and for supporters of other candidates to support him in the first round to end the election already, but if anything, those voters seemingly ended up migrating to Bolsonaro instead, even though most were closer to Lula in the ideological spectrum. Probably an indication polls also underestimated Lula's rejection rate.

This is somewhat exaggerated by people that didn't follow it too closely his career- the vast majority of his goals were in competitive games, and he managed to be top goal scorer of the Brazilian league at 34, 35 and 39, the last time with a mid-table side and losing many games to injuries. And he didn't became top goal scorer of all time, he reached 1000 goals, but even he admitted at the time it was more just a way to motivate himself and have a new target. But yeah, during his career, he was an opportunist drifting through left, right and center, always looking for chances to score, and that hasn't changed...Unfortunately, the level of Brazilian politics is so low there's always an opponent that's more incompetent, more corrupt than him, or both.

Exactly. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a point of contention in the writing staff, which might explain the different takes. Then they're being cowards. It's a show that killed many characters already and will kill many more, there's no reason why gays have to be exempt from it, and if they feel like they need more gay characters, it's easily enough to make some of the other characters gay or bi- for most of them, it wouldn't require too much of a retcon or be out of character.

Hard to say now, probably will be easier in the coming days- haven't met anyone after the result was officially announced. But everyone was assuming there would be a lot worse, in terms of conflict and violence.

It was going great until the terrible, terrible ending. What a bunch of cowards. He's going to let his family and everyone that loves him think he's dead, and also abandon his dragon too? Just pathetic.

In football adjacent news, former striker Romário was reelected to the Senate for Rio de Janeiro. Yes, really, he not only got elected, but got reelected. This probably speaks more to the quality of his opposition in both elections as well as the fact that he latched himself to whoever was leading the polls in the state for President both times (Dilma Rousseff in 2014, Bolsonaro in 2022). He also ran for governor in 2018, but didn't make to the 2nd round, with stronger competition and no support from a strong presidential candidate. But of course, maybe this will lead to more strikers running for office. Imagine Messi president of Argentina? Thierry Henry for President of France? Harry Kane as English Prime-Minister? Honestly, can't be worse than the people they have running things now. Of course, Zlatan won't run for Parliament in Sweden because he's already the King, and it would be beneath him.

Anyway, now there's a mathematical definition of a 2nd round between Lula vs Bolsonaro. For the country, it's of course a disaster, since for both of them it's an existential fight, and will be out for blood. There will be even more fake news and dirty attacks, and since the more moderate and smarter candidates are out of the debates, there will be even less discussion of actual policy. Every poll before this predicted Lula would win a 2nd round easily, but they also underestimated Bolsonaro in this election. On one hand, the voters of the candidate that finished 4th, Ciro Gomes, are much more likely to vote for Lula; I'm not sure about about the 3rd place, Simone Tebet (who got my vote)- perhaps it depends on who she'll support, but I find hard to imagine she supporting Bolsonaro after she's been heavily critical of him, maybe she'll stay neutral or support Lula- the former would be better for her in the long-term, the latter in the short one. In Bolsonaro's favor is that most of the candidates already elected for governor, specially in the largest states, support him, and most of the ones leading the polls going in to the 2nd round support him as well. Most of the elected senators were supporting him or at least closer to him in the ideological spectrum as well. The potential kingmaker here is the governor of Brazil's 2nd largest state, Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema, the only candidate to win (and easily) without support from either Lula or Bolsonaro. His state is also the one that usually reflects the election results more than any other (kind of like Florida or the Rust Belt in the US). The problem is that since he took office replacing a disastrous Workers Party governor, he was opposed by them at every turn, even when they were reasonable, and I can't see him supporting Lula when his party will continue to undermine him. As for me, for the first time in a presidential election, I'm voting on nobody (well, in 2018, in the 2nd round I was way from my city, so I couldn't vote on anyone). Just can't bring myself to vote on this trash knowing they'll destroy the country either way, and nobody that I ever voted on got elected anyway.

He also said Zelensky was more worried about appearing on TV than to reach a deal, and should have compromised with Putin- you know, the guy that already invaded a part of his country already.

Anyway, with 2/3 of the votes counted, Lula is closing in, with less than 1% difference, but it's still clear polls underestimated Bolsonaro and overestimated him, though not by as much as the initial tallies seemed to indicate. Of course, whoever wins there, Brazil loses.

Saddam Hussein was a mass murdering dictator who invaded another country before and used chemical weapons on his own people. Lula also specifically said both sides are equally to blame for the war. You're making excuses again. I'm merely telling what are facts.: A) He's a Putin apologist; b) Because he's from the left, some people from the left excuse his actions and stupid shit he says, when they wouldn't from a right-wing figure who did the same thing. And there's the problem- conservatives excuse whatever bullshit the Trumps, Bolsonaros, De Santis' of the world do, and are rightly criticized for it. But many sectors of the left also make apologies for people like Lula, Maduro, or even worse people- even Pol Pot has people making apologia.

You're making excuses. He's comparing Zelensky to Saddam freakin' Hussein. If Bolsonaro did that, there would be riots among the left worldwide.

Putin won't accept it, because he's too much of a threat to whoever takes over. He'll be murdered shortly after losing power.