Fairfax County contributes 22% of state revenue and is a big net contributor to the tune of about $2k per resident. Arlington likely has a similar profile.

NoVa pays for RoVa, guys.

That's not funny.

To (probably misquote) Terry Pratchett:

"I don't know the name or the author but it had a red cover and it turned out they were twins."

Haha yes!

Yup. You walk up them on your way to Sacre-Coeur and the pl.

Still looks exactly like that. The French know how to take care of cities.

But nothing at all about the video of an IDF soldier dragging the body of a dead Palestinian into the road so all the tanks could run over him.

Bibi's just playing to his evangelical supporters in the US. He doesn't care about anyone's holy symbols.

Butbutbut RFKJR just told those nice congresspeople that it's a garbage study! Why dont you believe him? It's only 1.5 million people. Inadequate sample size.

/s/ since it can be so hard to tell these days....

Yes, it's all quite adolescent. The kind of thing a humanities education cures you of.

I meant Susan of course. She was dropped from the picture bc she was no longer pure, as you say.

@greenleejw.bsky.social is this true?

Or were these the electric eels you have to keep explaining aren't eels?

What about the cultures that produced wonders but were ALSO dysfunctional and regressive? The Roman Empire comes to mind. Can't beat that indoor plumbing + mass crucifixion combo...

Indeed, but that kind of wrecks both our metaphors, sadly.

Can we say the stone beat him?

It didnt defeat him. It did kill him, though.

Not sure why that would be the binary. One can understand rationally that returning to rural simplicity is impossible and still indulge in ahistorical nostalgia about how wonderful things were back then. That was Amis's point (and Jim's....)

True, and often forgotten.

We also forget that most people (outside of war) are murdered by people they know which is why it's disingenuous for politicians to claim that high crime rates in stressed marginal areas mean all us Babbits are likely to be murdered in our beds.

Brilliant thanks! I will have to try to find that movie.

2/I once drank in the pub where he and CS Lewis used to hang out in Oxford. I wondered whether Lewis's insufferably smug worldview rubbed off on JRRT when he was writing the Hobbit. I never forgave Lewis for killing off Jane for the sin of becoming a young woman or for his cheerful racism.

I adored the LOTR trilogy as a tween, (with the exception of the insufferable Tom Bombadil); the Hobbit less so because of its tweeness. I think Peter Jackson's LOTR gave the story the depth and personality Tolkien's wooden prose style lacked. Couldn't get through the Silmarillion. 1/

Tolkien fought in the Somme. He'd have had no time for Thiel.

Humans anthropomorphize everything, starting with stuffed animals, and the imaginary friend is a common thing among children. And now,. apparently, adults.

not to mention cars and e scooters

Indeed. Tolkien's views on capitalist technology are pretty clearly set out in the Scouring of the Shire.

(Although it's hard not to suspect that he was indulging in the same donnish Merrie England stuff Kingsley Amis skewered in Lucky Jim)

It's truly astounding. He seems to think Saruman is the hero.

Already true of wind. Farmers in Michigan are reaping sweet lease fees for turbines in their field AND can farm around them.

And solar will never run out of rooftops and car parks if we choose to go that way.

I'd like @dieworkwear.bsky.social to comment on Vance's pants here.

Over a million Virginians have already voted. how are they going to determine what ID they presented? Are they hoping to throw them all out?

It's the one about not serving both God and Mammon?

“No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Doubt Hannity served both. Mammon is pretty much his guy.

I have a practice of immediately blocking any account that posts an image where breasts, abs or butts are at the center of the picture. That includes an awful lot of otherwise technically proficient manga art, sadly.

oh well played sir