announcing ILÚVATAR, my multi-billion dollar company which will specialize in the dismantling of all other idiotically tolkien-named entities, that they shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite

I guess "get on Marine 1 and leg it to Raven Rock"?

Quite a flex to turn up at the presidential palace, get him to confirm you as prime minister, call him unfit to serve with no moral authority, tell him to resign, and then pose for a picture

This is the "cumulative disruption" measure in the crime and policing bill.

As I said last week, the police are primed to see all protest as disruptive. I mean, it's kind of the point of protest.

This really should be a much bigger deal.

How Anas Sarwar could end up as First Minister with fewer than 35 Labour MSPs Daily Record Political Editor Paul Hutcheon says there are only two realistic election outcomes for Holyrood after May.

Oh and this from the impeccably-sourced @paulhutcheon.bsky.social. "If Labour, the Lib Dems, Tories and Reform reach 65, insiders say the pro-UK parties would vote for Sarwar as First Minister, despite Swinney leading the largest group."

So Sarwar isn’t going to touch Reform? He doesn’t need to The Scottish Labour leader’s ‘non-denial denial’ of doing a deal with Farage’s party creates both moral and political peril

Commentary here from @kennyfarq.bsky.social very relevant again.

Labour doth protest too much about this evening's revelation of Sarwar sidling up to Offord. It's believable because they have clearly been briefing that they planned to do exactly that.

actually what you outer rimmers don't understand is that the galactic empire is literally thousands of lightyears wide so it is literally impossible to organise a coherent civic life. i am very smort

The scene is ALEX KARP, CEO of Palantir, sat in an armchair by a fireside with an open children's book. His hair is wild, his stare intense, his eyes shifting round the room. The comic has many panels of silence where he just stares at us intensely. [Silent pause] [Silent pause] ALEX KARP: Hi there. I'm Alex Karp. CEO of Palantir. [Silent pause. Shifty eyes] [Silent pause] And if you're an enemy of America something really bad is going to happen to you. And your friends and your cousins and your parents And you need to go to bed scared and wake up scared [Waving his arms around now] Because the American people don't wanna hear your woke pagan ideology anymore And you need to know that this technology will take power from educated female voters and - VOICE FROM OFF-SCENE Alex... ALEX KARP: Huh [Pull wider to show that this is in fact the set of the CBEEBIES BED TIME STORY and a CBEEBIES PRODUCER is talking to him from next to a camera operator]. CBEEBIES PRODUCER: This is the Cbeebies Bedtime Story [The book Alex is supposed to be reading is on a screen. It is titled: THE TECH BRO AND THE MAGIC BUBBLE] ALEX KARP: I could destroy you CBEEBIES PRODUCER: Sorry [Ends]

tech people used to tell optimistic stories

How about SOUTHPAW? If you want to keep the boxing vibe.

Could be that he just doesn't have the energy for it in his day.

Like, I would never accuse Trump of working himself to the bone, but if it's a choice between grampa getting his roots done or getting another hour in bed, I can understand why he might pack it in.

Exactly. Wrt the Iraq War stuff, as a kid I was stuck with a lot of black-and-white thinking where I figured "the war is Bad, ergo everyone fighting the coalition forces must be Good". Understanding that, no, both sides can be a bunch of evil bastards was a turning point for me growing up.

I have a horrible feeling I am going to be proven right.

bsky.app/profile/did:...

On balance I think he was working in the right direction while also working with some unexamined tropes in his head.

That being said, the scene where someone tells Vimes, "please let my people also be evil, backstabbing bastards" was very helpful in undoing the Iraq War brainworms I had developed.

Jingo is an interesting one, because on the one hand, he is very deliberately skewering racism and islamophobia writ large, but also employs a lot of stereotypical "middle eastern-ish" stuff as narrative devices to set up further skewerings.

leninists responding to normal people will never not be funny because it's like being condescended to by a fetus. you're barely a person and certainly not a sapient one

This can be turned around. This /must/ be turned around. Not by declaring that social democracy failed, because the other socialist alternatives were, you know, either not meaningfully real or basically worse than any life under capitalism. But by defending what we have and growing it.

"The Alf Hog Monetisation Wars (2026-2027) were a series of destructive economic crises believed to have started on the niche micro-blogging site Bluesky. Few details of this conflict have survived, however Alf is theorised to have been some sort of deity." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 2157.

Yeah, drinking culture from the 1800s onwards was insane. As in, "you could order a pint of your favourite *spirits* in any pub for not that much money" insane.

this is the most infuriating part of the harry potter discourse - if you're going to watch it, then watch it, god knows millions of people played the stupid game

but if you know enough to be aware of the issues, you don't get to ask trans people to absolve you

"If Im fortunate enough to grow old,I’ll gather my little grandchildren around the table.I’ll tell them how so much joy was taken from us.How my kids were afraid of loud sounds

I’ll tell them whom we can never forgive.I’ll tell them everything-down to the smallest detail-about those terrible days

At least one KC-135 already left the chat a fortnight ago (and the other KC-135 it collided with may be a write-off too).

I think they're going to keep on building up forces in the region "as a threat" until the Pentagon suddenly goes "hey, we have enough for an invasion now. LFG."

Honestly, if you didn't like it, you didn't like it. Different strokes and all that.

BSG never handled bottle episodes that well tho, so I can understand why Scar might have felt a bit jarring. Black Market and the "Adama hallucinating his ex-wife on their anniversary" episode were both weird ones.

The French government put out an assessment the other day that approximately 20% of Gulf oil infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed. They estimate that it will take 3 years to restore capacity to pre-war levels assuming the war ends today.

Hey, I liked Scar!

I think the Final Blow series peaked at FB7 tbh

Because it's cur-tailed

I've always pronounced it "coom-ree", but maybe I've been wrong the whole time

Total. Gaullist. Victory.