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Um, the War of the Rebellion (the government's official name given to war declared post Succession by the CSA on the Union) was 1861 - 1865. General and President Grant always referred to that war by that name, and so did the people around him -- not the 'Civil War.' 'Civil War' as designation is part of the "Glorious Lost Cause" revisionism of history.

"Pays the same marginal tax rate as me" is my solution to broaden her dating pool, and best hope the US doesn't adopt a flat income tax rate anytime soon.

I'll stick with the Judge Dee Mysteries -- also on NF! I'm enjoying these very much. Lately, the evening routine has become dinner, and announcing to Partner, "OK, I'm leaving for the Tang Dynasty for an hour or two." Additionally, currently all three of the Once Upon A Time in China films are on ... is it HBO or AP? I can't remember. I'm still in the Tang. (Which, coincidentally, is regarded as a Golden Age -- which is the same century here in the West as Justinian's Flea, which was anything but golden.)

There are a fair number of countries, including Canada, that if they were willing to spend the necessary money, could make a nuclear weapon in less than a year. They haven't done so because they do not want nuclear weapons, but if the calculus changes where those weapons are needed for defense, then the list of nuclear powers could get quite a bit longer very rapidly.

Funnily enough, Canada provided India with a nuclear reactor (CIRUS) that eventually generated enough plutonium for the latter's first nuclear test in 1974. Mostly without the knowledge of the former of course, but they had their suspicions. There are other nations using Canadian nuclear technology mostly for power production, I think safeguards were put in place to prevent use for other stuff. I grew up...about 2 miles from where the CIRUS reactor was.

I found it disturbing, bringing to mind mostly forgotten childhood nightmares. Which means I can't wait for more. I haven't read the books, as I hate reading sci-fi (love watching it though, was a Trekie by age 12 and only TOS was available) I'm just a visual reader, so I have a hard time with most sci-fi. I really enjoyed the show, as an individual thing. (no books, no science, just the drama) especially the historical Chinese parts. I worked out a peaceful solution in my mind, but it lacks the drama of good story telling (but a good story makes you want to try and solve the problem too, so there us that)

This conversation really escalates: "I do hope you are murdered soon."

Often, a "tyrant" in the Greek world was someone who did terrible things like freeing slaves, or proclaiming debt relief, and based his political power on lower class supporters, at the expense of decent, landowning, slave-owning folks.

Who knows if they’ve adapted some of the current technology of our times. We always viewed nukes as the traditional big missiles but maybe there were drones which we definitely wouldn’t see. Even if not drones because of no transistors we definitely see fusion cores and they’re super small so there is lots of ways to get that to places.

Meh. This is a results based business. The Republican House is not going to pass much that will actually become law regardless, and the weakness/disunity amongst the Republican members has already allowed Democrats to have influence over bills they otherwise would not. If the Democrats need to vote "present" on a motion to vacate to get important bills passed like keeping the government funded and preventing Ukraine from being overrun, that is a small price to pay. I personally can see the upside of a Republican speaker who needs to stay in the Democrat's good graces. It sounds completely untenable for Johnson, but it sounds pretty good for Democrats (and the country as well).

I suppose being anti slavery is frowned upon now.

The same in the ye olde golden age of Athenian democracy!

MTG will probably go ahead with her motion to vacate and the dems will have to protect Johnson. It will be a very bitter pill to swallow.

Yeah its essentially saying nobody born after 2009 can ever buy a cigarette, so it is a ban for those people. As I said, I'm hugely anti smoker, but even I think the law is mostly just completely unnecessary.

The devil's has a pre order date of 20th May 2025 on amazon.

Agreed, ultimately the mistake was Argilac's. The dowery included lands Argilac didn't control (at least not fully), and would almost certainly put Aegon at odds with the Iron Born sooner or later - not that it mattered that much, but it seems fairly obvious Argilac was trying to put a buffer between his lands and the Iron Born. As far as we can tell, it also didn't ensure Aegon would eventually take the rest of the Stormlands, Argilac could name someone else heir (if he didn't have a son from another marriage). It also didn't include Argilac submitting to Aegon, and it seems Aegon had already decided / prepared to take Westeros, so would have wanted his submission. Argilac could have easily put himself into a position to be part of Aegon's inner circle and likely kept more of his lands. Even if he had resisted the Targaryens, he still would likely have the Iron Born to deal with.

If I had to rank it would be BSC Heroes BTAH LAOK Red Country TBI I find it hard to rank last 3 as I've only read them once each. I found them quite emotionally draining. No worse, but a lot less fun.

Just a point of clarification here - which smoking ban are you referring to? I looked up the law in the UK and that’s the first I’d seen about the “raise the legal age every year” law being proposed by the PM. Presumably you don’t want the 2007 law reversed? I think the idea of raising the legal age for smoking every year is actually a pretty good idea. The argument against is the usual “it won’t work”.

Right. But even if they didn't, would we really see an atomic warhead coming in before it exploded at the distance we see the city at? I don't know. Maybe not.

More leaks Actually something that was leaked by TORn three months ago corroborated possibly https://redanianintelligence.com/2024/04/16/new-information-on-the-rings-of-power-season-2-and-its-multiple-endings/

I think 'the vastly so' is open for debate. Although I have to say I only read half of their Butlerian Jihad thing and,the prelude to Dune thing they did ... so I don't know how worse the other stuff was.

Can you imagine how badly the US would lose its shit if Canada announced it was starting a bomb project? Or Mexico? This made me look up the population numbers, 2.5 M in the US in 1776, 13.78 M in Rwanda in 1994, and Rwanda was a targeted genocide. But yes, once a nation has genocide on their mind the slaughter can be fast and ruthless.

Well, not if vault tec was planting them.

The biggest giveaway for the pattern so far is The Kingbreaker. Imagine you're reading ADWD for the first time. Royal dramas are happening all over Planetos from King Stannis, King Tommen, Queen Cersei, Queen Daenerys, Prince Quentyn, Princess Arianne and more. The names of King, Queen, Prince and Princess are appearing all about, but you're so used to it now that you don't question it anymore. Davos says King and you understand that means Stannis, even though in the very next chapter King means Tommen when Tyrion says it. In another chapter King means Robb. Whose POV am I reading now? In another chapter King means Robert. Whose POV am I reading now? Whatever else may be going on in the chapter titles, one thing we can say for sure is that the essential role and purpose of a chapter title is to tell the reader whose POV we're entering. So the question is, whose POV did you think we were entering the first time you saw the chapter title The Kingbreaker? Whatever your answer, I could bet it wasn't Barristan, and I would be right more often than not. Jaime Lannister might have come to your mind, because he's well known as The Kingslayer, and that looks a lot like The Kingbreaker. The most common answer might genuinely be that most of us did not stop to wonder who The Kingbreaker is at all. We simply read the title unthinkingly and immediately began reading the chapter itself, where, based on accumulating context clues, we knew we were in the POV of Barristan. The next question is why didn't you think The Kingbreaker was Barristan? I mean, in retrospect it seems like an obvious answer based on where the Meereen story left off, doesn't it? Queen Daenerys is long missing, Barristan is struggling to maintain her rule in her absence, and King Hizdahr is trying to take it for himself. Wait a minute, did you say KING Hizdahr? Did you call that slimy perfumed slavemaster that Dany had to marry the king? Oh, that's right... He actually is the king of Meereen, isn't he? Oops. Surely you knew that when Dany married him, right? Surely you knew it every time somebody called Dany Queen? Obviously the husband of a Queen must be a King, no? The chapter title rubs uncomfortably against the reader's feelings about Hizdahr, Dany, Barristan, Meereen, the Great Masters, Meereen's slave culture, and that whole situation. We see Barristan as the rightful ruler of Meereen, because he's Dany's first man and Dany is absent right now. By titling Barristan's chapter The Kingbreaker, GRRM forces us to notice that, by all rights, Hizdahr is the rightful ruler of Meereen, because, even assuming the principal ruler of Meereen is its Queen, in the Queen's absence the King assumes the rule before any of the Queen's appointments do. It highlights that the transition is not from Dany to Hizdhar nor from Queen to King, it's from dictate to tradition. Because Dany's presence was imposing upon Meereen culture the dictate that, regardless of their customs about kings and queens, This Queen is in charge as long as she reigns. Or, more to the point, A King is not. And that would remain the situation even if the king were to change, such as after Hizdahr died and Dany remarried. Because Dany has the power. Now that Dany is long absent and presumed dead, Meereen defaults to their normal custom and the principal ruler is the King again, regardless who he is. This reversion to normalcy is one that also took place when Dany left Dothraki society, Qarth, Astapor, and Yunkai. What looks like sexism to ASOIAF's audience looks like tradition to ASOIAF's characters. The explanation for the change in chapter title convention is tightly related to this disconnect between ASOIAF's audience and ASOIAF's characters, and to our feelings of discomfort about "The Kingbreaker," seeing Barristan described like a villain and Hizdahr described like a victim.

Another boost for Leverkusen. Their CEO has confirmed that Wirtz will be staying at the club next season.