"Some mutation types visualized
Normal - BEAST
Substitution - FEAST
Insertion - BREAST
Deletion - BEST
Inversion - BEATS
A Mutation occurs when a DNA gene is damaged or changed in such a way as to alter the genetic message carried by that gene."
*Track and Field*
"NIG"
"GER"
Too bad NIG is photoshopped, since the flag is India.
"Fake bus. Turkish street food
Fake taxi"
It was formerly Shawarma Bus, and seems closed now.
Rob Henderson on X - "The decline of the headphone jack has released an epidemic of braindead mouthbreathers playing videos in public spaces. Airpods are expensive but even if you manage to get them they're easy to lose (easier if you're dumb). So tech companies increase profits as people buy more of these miniature devices and the rest of us must endure shitty music and tik tok noise pollution."
Abraham Ash on X - "Reading Ottoman history is very jarring when you're mostly accustomed to European history. The institutional fratricide, the ease with which children were executed - it's just brutal in a way that Europe never was since the Roman Empire
Please read the tweet before responding something about WWII lol. This is talking about the institutional and routine kinslaying within the House of Osman, not doing mean things during war."
Seamus Nua on X - "You upset Turkish Twitter didn't you"
Abraham Ash on X - "It must be. Brain dead, functionally illiterate, fulminating at the smallest perceived slight... checks out"
Is Your Smartphone Listening to Your Conversations? - "the CDT alerted the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to a technology called SilverPush. It uses audio beacons to track your activities across devices: Your TV emits a tone during a commercial break, a tone that’s inaudible to you, but your phone is listening for it. Now they can link the TV and phone as belonging to the same person. Advertisers have developed lots of techniques for device-matching, because the more accurately they can track your activities, the easier it is for them to advertise to you. But it’s not difficult to imagine other applications for this technology. Any government interested in who you are meeting with could play a tone through the TV and effectively ping all the phones in the room, identifying the whole group... “The big companies have a strong incentive to be mostly upfront about what they’re doing because the Federal Trade Commission and other government organizations would fine them if they were using deceptive practices,” suggests Hong. “There are also a lot of researchers analyzing these kinds of apps.”"
(20) Video | Facebook - "The X-Men Are Defeated"
Sentinel: "I attack with words"
A series of burns delivered to all the X-Xen
Thanks to living ‘skin,’ robots can now smile and make other unnerving faces - "Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a new nightmare technology using engineered living skin tissue and human-like ligaments, that they can now bind to the surface of robots to give them more human-like facial expressions, including smiles and frowns. This so-called "skin equivalent" adhesion method, still in its prototype stage, is sure to perturb. A GIF shared online alongside the study shows a small, pink, 2D face with glassy eyes pulled up into a smile, invoking memories of unsettling Claymation cartoons from the 1960s and '70s... While Takeuchi had previously developed "living" robot skin using collagen and human dermal fibroblasts, both found in human skin and connective tissue, these latest designs are set apart by how they hook to a robotic structure."
It isn't just Trudeau — western leadership saddled with duds - "The opening get-together in the annual summer summiteering season was titled G7 Italia, after the location at a posh resort on the Adriatic coast. It should rightly have been Dead Men Walking. Rarely if ever have so many unpopular, discredited, likely-to-be replaced national “leaders” gathered on a stage to be opped for a photo that would be out of date almost the moment they landed back in the countries that desperately want to be rid of them. Rishi Sunak, Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz, Fumio Kishida… if any of them faced a vote tomorrow there’s an excellent chance they’d be ex-leaders the day after. Of the seven G countries, six are spoiling to kick out the incumbent. The only one still in good standing is Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who won office as a revolt against uninspiring opponents resembling Macron, Sunak, Trudeau and the others. Who elected leaders like this bunch? Who was foolish enough to trust national fortunes to such inadequate hands? Oh yeah … it was us... Polls indicate Sunak could be the first prime minister in UK history to lose his own seat, with Labour considered so certain to gain a massive majority that UK doctors have already addressed pay demands to Sir Keir Starmer on the assumption he’ll be prime minister within weeks... 68 per cent of Canadians want Trudeau to quit now rather than hang on until the next scheduled election in 2025. “This is as bad as we’ve seen it for Trudeau. It’s close to rock bottom,” said Ipsos chief executive Darrell Bricker. Fellow pollster Greg Lyle of Innovative Research Group is even blunter. “It’s over for Trudeau,” he told TV Ontario’s Steve Paikin, suggesting the only choice for embattled Liberals is whether the prime minister sticks around for a certain drubbing, or gives way for a successor to try their luck. Every leader faces difficult events. Sunak didn’t cause Brexit, though he supported it and is stuck with the results. Germany’s Scholz inherited a country that gambled the power grid on the good faith and trustworthiness of Vladimir Putin. Joe Biden’s first day on the job came 14 days after an angry mob attacked Congress looking to overturn his election. Tough as those challenges might have been, the group that gathered in Puglia has authored many of their own problems. They’ve shot themselves in the foot so many times it’s a wonder there’s a toe left among them. Almost the first thing Biden did as president was yank U.S. troops from Afghanistan in a colossally chaotic retreat. Only two weeks ago did he concede the true extent of the disarray on America’s southern border and order the sort of measures he’d been resisting for three years. He refuses to accept that millions in his own party feel he’s too old for a second term or that the voters who so strongly back Trump need to have their issues addressed, even if Democrats disagree with them. Sunak took over from Liz Truss, who took over from Boris Johnson and so quickly caused a financial crisis she was forced from office after just 50 days. Sunak’s judgment has proven so faulty — he bewilderingly skipped out early on D-Day’s 80th anniversary celebrations to give a campaign interview — a columnist at The Times wondered recently, “Is he even a politician?” Trudeau is now the longest serving leader in the G7 and has the mistakes to prove it. What’s peculiar is that he keeps making the same ones. Do shrewd politicians take freebie holidays at luxury resorts owned by millionaire pals, then jet home to raise taxes on cottage owners and small businesses, and portray them as greedy plutocrats when they object? In the midst of that imbroglio do they spend $223,000 on catering for a trip to Asia? Does a leader under fire for lavish spending expect his menus to include beef brisket with mashed parsley potatoes with truffle oil, pan fried beef tenderloin with port wine sauce, braised lamb shanks with steamed broccoli, and baked cheesecake with pistachio brittle? Trudeau’s tone deafness seems to be contagious. His foreign minister says she has no idea why Canada’s navy would visit Cuba while Russian warships were in port, and then lead a conga line through downtown Havana, but she’ll look into it. His defence minister complains he can’t convince cabinet colleagues Canada should honour its financing pledges to NATO, even as Ukraine is under assault and other NATO countries are sharply increasing their budgets, because “nobody knows what it means.” His finance minister insists taxes must be raised or future generations will be left with “an unfair burden” caused by too much borrowing, apparently forgetting the Trudeau government took a debt it took almost 150 years to amass, and doubled it in eight years."
Nakheel demands retrial as judge falls asleep - "Nakheel, the developer behind the Palm Jumeirah, yesterday demanded a retrial in a $15.5m (AED 57m) case in the Dubai World Tribunal as it accused one of the judges of falling asleep during legal proceedings... Chief Justice Michael Hwang was accused yesterday by Clifford Chance, the international law firm acting for Nakheel, of nodding off for six minutes at a hearing on May 9th in a dispute between the developer and Shokat Mohammad Dalal, an investor in The World project... Clifford Chance also asserted that the judge had been drowsy for about 40 minutes leading up to the period he was asleep. Sir Anthony Evans, Chief Justice of the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts and chairman of the Dubai World Tribunal, conceded that there had been a “breach of duty” and that Judge Hwang had been asleep. But he dismissed Nakheel’s claims on the grounds that the evidence in the six-minute period that the judge was sleeping was not relevant to the case... the tribunal had dismissed the Nakheel complaint because a full transcript of the hearing was available to Hwang, including a video, and that Clifford Chance was aware of the incident the morning after it had taken place, but delayed its complaint."
Meme - "WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?"
"MONEY"
"MY PASSION FOR MY CRAFT"
"I WANT TO BE A BETTER PERSON"
"PURE SPITE. I LIVE ONLY TO PROVE THE HATERS WRONG! I SUCCEED TO MAKE THEM SUFFER!"
Wokal Distance on X - "A man built a fence to keep wolves out. It worked, and there were no more wolves. With the wolves gone and forgotten, his wife became convinced that he built the fence to trap her at home, so she tore it down. She was promptly eaten by wolves. This is story about social norms."
The Chesterton Principle
Meme - *Venn Diagrams*
The Fulfilled Man: "Things you're good at. Things you enjoy doing. Things that make you money. Union - Purpose"
The Male Twitch Streamer: "Things you're good at. Things you enjoy doing"
The Female Twitch Streamer: "Things you enjoy doing. Things that make you money"
The Executive: "Things you're good at. Things that make you money"
The Retail Worker: "Things that make you money"
The Drug Addict: "Things you enjoy doing"
Most people nowadays don't know how Venn diagrams work
Meme - "Walked in to a bar, in Australia. Ordered a beer and then the bartender noticed i'm American. I asked, "was it the accent or my choice of Budweiser beer"? He said, "because ur the fattest fuck i have ever seen in my life mate""
Doughnuts: The Fried Treat That Conquered the Modern World - "For all the joy a doughnut brings, fried dough is something you make when you don't have anything better around."
Abba Bina - Wikipedia - "Abba Bina (died October 2012), best known as Mr. Shit, was a Papua New Guinean businessman and former celebrated political aspirant... Bina began operating a manure business in Port Moresby using the name Mr Shit in the early 1990s, with his slogan "Chicken shit, horse shit, cow shit -- but no bullshit" on his business card. Bina ran for the National Parliament of Papua New Guinea during the 1997 election. He was denied permission to use the name "Mr Shit", a factor used to explain his poor showing in the election"
Pet Playground: Animals at the Blizzard Campus — All News — Blizzard News - "Registered pets are also asked to place their pawprint on an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) and refrain from passing along information about any secret games Blizzard is working on."
Meme - "Black truffles on a McDonalds double cheese burger."
NatCon conference resumes after Brussels court overturns closure order - "A radical right conference that was addressed by Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman as police arrived to close it down has resumed after a Brussels court overturned a local mayor’s attempt to stop it. Following moves condemned as “unacceptable” and “unconstitutional” by the Belgian prime minister, Alexander De Croo, organisers of the National Conservatism conference went to the conseil d’Ă©tat, Belgium’s supreme administrative court. It ruled there was no evidence of a threat to public order from the event itself and that this claim seemed to be “derived purely from the reactions that its organisation might provoke among opponents”... Emir Kir, the local mayor who had issued the order to break up the conference, was defiant on Wednesday, saying the move was based on analysis by the Belgian state agency that monitors extremist threats. The court’s ruling, which was published by the Belgian prime minister on his X account, included details of Kir’s original claims about the conference. These included allegations that it had the potential to cause serious disturbances and that speakers included provocateurs, homophobes, others who had been under police protection in their own country and at least one author of a controversial work about “political Islam”. There was said to be a “medium” level of threat to participants, in the view of Belgian counter-terrorism officials. Kir’s claims that counter-terrorism officials had made the assessment were rejected as “bullshit” by Frank Furedi, a professor at the University of Kent and executive director of MCC Brussels... The conference was staged after two other venues pulled the plug under pressure from local mayors... The attempt to shut down the event was also criticised on the left, including by Keir Starmer, the leader of the UK’s Labour party. Starmer’s spokesperson said: “There were potentially operational decisions that we don’t know about but in principle, he believes in the principle of free speech.”"
Ayaan Hirsi Ali on X - "Hmm, so the police in Brussels have time to shut down NatCon, an international conservative conference where participants are there to peacefully and transparently share their views and experiences while they have no time to shut down the elaborate infrastructure of hard core Islamists who peddle in hatred of all who oppose them and Jewish people in particular!!! And then the EU and the Belgian government wonder why their populations don’t trust them. Go figure."
Ayaan Hirsi Ali on X - "The Brussels mayor in question who shut down the NatCon conference also denies the Armenian genocide and was expelled from the Socialist Party for inviting far right politicians from Turkey to Brussels. Is this all a coincidence?"
To live in Starmer's Britain, you need to learn Labour's bewildering catchphrases - "Under Sir Keir Starmer’s new regime, what was formerly the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is now to be known as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. In a way, I suppose we can’t really blame Labour. After all, levelling up sounds like an awful lot of hard work. Instead, the new Government clearly intends to pursue a much less strenuous course: levelling down. Hence its plan to impose 20 per cent VAT to private school fees, for example. And perhaps, in due course, raising taxes for savers, homeowners, pensioners, people who inherit money or property left to them by their late parents… In short: if you can’t make the poor richer, simply make the rich poorer. Equality achieved. Job done. At any rate, Angela Rayner – who is now in charge of what used to be the department for levelling up – sounds happy with the decision to bin Boris Johnson’s phrase. Under Labour, she declared, there will be “no more gimmicks and slogans”. Well, no more Tory gimmicks and slogans, anyway. Because, as is already clear, the new Government has numerous of its own."
If Starmer isn't careful, Blair could steal the Labour spotlight - "“We’ve got a curious relation with our past. One of the big mistakes we made since 2010 was distancing ourselves from the [previous] Labour government … a real category error. We wanted to correct that, and to Keir Starmer’s great credit he did correct that.”"
No wonder left wingers are disowning Starmer, because they rather have the ideal of revolution in opposition than take on the real task of government and doing actual work
Meme - "god created everything!"
"why would he create brain parasites?
"except that that was sin"
why did god create sin?
"he didn't create sin man created sin"
i thought we were made in gods image?
"ok let me start over. god creates all the GOOD things. everything else is the devil"
why did god create the devil?
"you're a stupid atheist. you might have read the bible but you didn't UNDERSTAND the bible and you can't understand it because you don't want to understand. woke fascist communist. you want to be an atheist so you can sin. you just hate god. you'll understand one day."
Meme - "YOU WIN A COMPETITION TO DESIGN YOUR IDEAL MAN CAVE BUT ONE HAS TO GO, CHOOSE. *pool table* *movie room* *weight room* *2 tied up women in lingerie (AJ Lynn and Jamie Lynn in Bondage for Friends and Family!)*"
A winner has emerged in the old rivalry between Singapore and Hong Kong - "Dinner-party conversations across Asia have often been animated by an old debate. In economic dynamism, the state of the urban fabric and the vibrancy of civic life, which city comes top: Hong Kong or Singapore? Until not long ago, it was obvious to Banyan, who spent a decade working there, that Hong Kong won hands down. But recently the balance shifted. There is clearly no contest anymore. It is game over in favour of Singapore. As a consequence, Banyan has moved there... The imposition of a draconian national-security law in 2020 marked the obvious break in Hong Kong’s trajectory. The law ended any prospect of more representative government and curtailed the space for civic expression. Dozens of activists, lawyers and politicians are in jail. Stringent pandemic travel restrictions compounded the sense of claustrophobia. Some 200,000 expatriates have left Hong Kong in the past three years, along with even more Hong Kongers. By contrast, in 2022 the number of foreign professionals in Singapore grew by 16%, Banyan among them. But a deeper divergence has occurred in economic performance, on which leaders in both places have always asked to be judged above all. In 1997, the year of Hong Kong’s return to China, the two cities’ GDP per person was remarkably similar ($26,376 in Singapore, $27,330 in Hong Kong). Today Singapore’s is 1.7 times higher than Hong Kong’s. Singapore’s economy has grown by one-seventh since 2017; Hong Kong’s not at all. In reality, Hong Kong was never as freewheeling as it claimed. Cartels or oligopolies operate in power, construction and supermarkets, among other sectors. Singapore’s economy is more innovative and diversified. Given China’s economic slowdown, Singapore is now in a more vibrant region. Yet the biggest divergence is in governance—defined by Donald Low at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, writing in Jom, a new Singaporean magazine, as “the capacity to anticipate, plan and prepare for the future”. By that test, Hong Kong fails dismally. The government’s answer to poor job prospects is to urge Hong Kong’s young to seek work across the border. Its strict “zero-covid” policy, mimicking mainland China, undermined its standing as an international financial centre. Like the mainland, Hong Kong bungled, failing to vaccinate the old quickly enough. Excess deaths per 100,000 people were nearly three times higher than in Singapore. Hong Kong is also a harder place to live in the literal sense. The presence of rich foreigners pushing up property prices calls for big public-housing programmes. Yet so strong is the grip of Hong Kong’s property tycoons that less than 50% of the population lives in public housing, for which there is a six-year wait. In Singapore, the figure is over 80%. Private rents, high in both places, are even steeper in Hong Kong, for worse flats. Singapore is no paradise. The pleasantness of its urban fabric is thanks mainly to the toil of the foreign migrant workers who make up nearly a third of the workforce. Their contribution is a curious blind spot. Meanwhile, politics is tightly constrained, as is civil society: you may be arrested for holding up a placard with a smiley face. The media is cloyingly tame, while foreign journalists, it is made clear, are here on sufferance. With nearly 500 executions in the past three decades, 70% of them for drug offences, Singapore’s use of capital punishment is grotesque. Still, a far brighter future beckons for Singapore’s young than for their counterparts in Hong Kong. They are slowly pushing at Singapore’s rigid boundaries. This month, in a first, a few hundred activists gathered on Labour Day to call for greater rights for, among others, foreign workers. The launch of Jom reflects a growing desire for independent voices. In Hong Kong, by contrast, a transport-news website promoting road safety, of all things, this week became the latest target of the authorities and was forced to close. Singapore is at a crossroads. Hong Kong has hit a dead end."
Meme - đ. @inkedupjayy: "Charcuterie board but it's just 5 different types of pickles"
Meme - Lucas Gage @Lucas Gage_: "I'm am removing ALL JEWS from my life. I don't give a shit if they're "innocent" or not, anymore. Their silence is violence. No more Jewish doctors or Jewish friends; I can't risk it. If I I want Jews out of power, then I first must remove them from my life and lead by example."
Meme - Lucas Gage: "My wife just told me the jews are now sending us Chinese food. Keep exposing your demonic nature, you stupid rats."
It's crazy that if you change "Jew" to "Zionist", this flips to the "other" side of the political spectrum
Meme - Dull Men’s Club @BestOfDullMen: "I spent countless hours turning aluminum welding wire into this chainmail blanket. WHY? I like having weight on me when I sleep, and I like to be cool. The heat dissipating properties and weight of Aluminium are perfect for this."
Meme - Smash Baals @smashbaals: "Chris from Mr. Beast: Abandons his wife and child to pretend he’s a woman
Chandler from Mr. Beast: Becomes a Christian and does Bible studies on TikTok
Which way, Western man?"
Math Goes Pop! - The Futurama Theorem - "they seriously stepped their game up a notch, by featuring the proof of an original mathematical result as a central feature in the plot of the story. The mathematics evolves quite organically. In the show, Amy and Professor Farnsworth have created a mind-switching device, which can swap the minds of any two individuals. After a brief discussion, they decide it would be neat to swap their own brains: As you might expect, before long they decide they want to swap back. Unfortunately, due to the brain's natural immune response, they discover that once two people have switched minds once, they can never switch back (obviously). This raises a question: once two people have swapped minds, can they get back to their original bodies by means of a third party?... in the end it is discovered by 'Sweet' Clyde Dixon that by including no more than 2 new people in this mind swap game, everyone can always return to their original body. The proof is shown briefly, but for interested parties, here it is in all its glory (the proof was written up by writer Ken Keeler, who earned a Ph.D. in applied math from Harvard University)"
Thoughts for the 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review - " If you had been a security policy-maker in the world’s greatest power in 1900, you would have been a Brit, looking warily at your age-old enemy, France. By 1910, you would be allied with France and your enemy would be Germany. By 1920, World War I would have been fought and won, and you’d be engaged in a naval arms race with your erstwhile allies, the U.S. and Japan. By 1930, naval arms limitation treaties were in effect, the Great Depression was underway, and the defense planning standard said “no war for ten years.” Nine years later World War II had begun. By 1950, Britain no longer was the world’s greatest power, the Atomic Age had dawned, and a “police action” was underway in Korea. Ten years later the political focus was on the “missile gap,” the strategic paradigm was shifting from massive retaliation to flexible response, and few people had heard of Vietnam. By 1970, the peak of our involvement in Vietnam had come and gone, we were beginning dĂ©tente with the Soviets, and we were anointing the Shah as our protĂ©gĂ© in the Gulf region. By 1980, the Soviets were in Afghanistan, Iran was in the throes of revolution, there was talk of our “hollow forces” and a “window of vulnerability,” and the U.S. was the greatest creditor nation the world had ever seen. By 1990, the Soviet Union was within a year of dissolution, American forces in the Desert were on the verge of showing they were anything but hollow, the U.S. had become the greatest debtor nation the world had ever known, and almost no one had heard of the Internet. Ten years later, Warsaw was the capital of a NATO nation, asymmetric threats transcended geography, and the parallel revolutions of information, biotechnology, robotics, nanotechnology, and high density energy sources foreshadowed changes almost beyond forecasting. All of which is to say that I’m not sure what 2010 will look like, but I’m sure that it will be very little like we expect, so we should plan accordingly."
Norma Ibarra on X - "Anxiety is literally just conspiracy theories about yourself."
Meme - "Asian buildings are designed so that when evil spirits fall from the sky onto the roof, they are propelled back up towards the sky.
American houses are designed so that the evil spirits fall into your neighbor's lawn."
How Much Would It Cost To Raise A Kid Like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes? - "How much ruin can a 6-year-old possibly wreak (assuming Calvin "represents the worst-case scenario in terms of the amount of damage a child can do")? One dedicated soul has read through the comic's entire run to find out. Reporting in the Honest and Reliable Data sub-journal of Proceedings of the Natural Institute of Science* (PNIS-HARD), researcher Matt J. Michel attempts to provide "an explicit approximation of the amount of damage that children can cause," in a half-serious effort to increase the accuracy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's estimated cost of raising a child from birth to age 17 ($226,800–$264,600 total, for middle-classers). To do so, Michel read through every published strip of Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes in chronological order and identified every instance in which Calvin or his tiger caused physical damage. Also included were cases where explicit mention was made of Calvin having caused damage... The monetary cost of damages is only mentioned on a handful of occasions in the course of the strip, so Amazon was consulted in estimating the cost of damaged goods. homewyse.com and fixr.com were referenced in estimating cost for property damage. The result of Michel's analysis is the chart you see at the top of this post, from which he concludes that Calvin caused an estimated $15,955.58 worth of damage, or $1,850.55 annually.
Meme - "Girls who say ""Hiiii" *Disney Princesses from Ralph Breaks the Internet*
Girls who say "Bruh" *Shrek*
Knights who say "Ni" *Monty Python*"
Blinded by speed, tiger beetles use antennae to 'see' while running - "Speed is blinding. Just ask the tiger beetle: This predatory insect has excellent sight, but when it chases prey, it runs so fast it can no longer see where it's going. Cornell University researchers have discovered that, unlike insects that wave their "feelers" around to acquire information, tiger beetles rigidly hold their antennae directly in front of them to mechanically sense their environments and avoid obstacles while running"
Meme - "Great news! My cereal is an excellent source of iridium!"
"Oat Start. Ca. Good source of calcium. Ir. Excellent source of iron"
Are House Spiders More Common in the Winter? - "Those spiders that you sometimes see scurrying around your house during this season have likely been living with you all year-round. In fact, less than 5 percent of the spiders you encounter inside your home have set one of their eight feet outside, according to Rod Crawford, Curator of Arachnids at the Burke Museum at the University of Washington... A female spider may have placed one of her egg sacs in an undisturbed area of your home. Once hatched, spiderlings instinctively seek out secluded lairs in crawl spaces, storage areas, wall and floor voids and behind furniture and appliances. You may encounter some house spiders in late summer and early fall that have migrated into your home, but they are not necessarily outdoor migrants seeking a place to stay warm during the winter. Most spiders' breeding seasons coincide with the transition from summer to fall. If you see more spiders than usual around your home during these months, chances are they're mature males wandering far and wide in search of a mate... So, what happens to all those outdoor spiders in the winter? If most of them don’t seek shelter inside our homes, how do they survive the frigid winter months? Unlike humans, spiders are considered cold-blooded creatures since they don’t have a mechanism to regulate body temperature. When it's cold, some spider species go through a process of cold-hardening to survive the winter. Beyond the chemical transformation in their bodies, many spiders seek shelter in piles of rocks, leaves or wood. Once snuggled up, spiders enter a slowdown state called diapause. In diapause, spiders are not completely inactive. Instead, they may emerge on warmer days to hunt and feed on any insect prey that may be active during this time."
Meme - "BREAKING NEWS. Spanish police deploy Phillip Schofield after search dogs fail to sniff out the teenage boy. Schofield's Wife said; "This is what he does best. If anyone can find a vulnerable teenage boy, its Phillip""
Could Toronto limit Uber, Lyfts on city streets? - "“I think the city really needs to consider a cap on the number of rideshare and vehicles on the road,” said Marc Andre Way, President of the Canadian Taxi Association. “You’re reducing the price and services, and there is enormous congestion in the city.” Hubbard said taxi operators and private citizens have built a vehicle-for-hire system over the years, but they are now out of work and desperately looking for answers."
Classic rent-seeking
We've been dealing with rage all wrong – here's what to do instead - "getting things off your chest may feel good in the moment, but in the long term it’s not effective at reducing the rage. A new study published in the Clinical Psychology Review suggests using techniques that address stress have been shown to be more effective at decreasing anger and aggression than venting, as the key is to lower physiological arousal. In other words, calm down... 'Despite what popular wisdom may suggest, even going for a run is not an effective strategy because it increases arousal levels and ends up being counterproductive.’... the research was partly prompted by the rising popularity of rage rooms which promote smashing things like glass, plates and electronics to work through angry feelings... Activities increasing arousal were ineffective in reducing anger and produced a range of outcomes. Jogging, in particular, was the most likely to increase anger, but physical education classes and playing ball sports had an arousal-decreasing effect – the researchers suggest having an element of play may counter negative emotions."
Horrible History: Lighting the way - "Wall sconces and torches are favourite lighting motifs in films set in the ancient and MediĂŠval eras. There is one major problem with most depictions however: the settings are usually, but not always, too well lit. In MediĂŠval castles, for example, far more reliance was placed on windows to admit natural sunlight but, contrary to film and TV, ancient halls and castles generally would have been quite dark. Torches were not lit every ten metres along corridors, nor were rooms flooded with candlelight. Indeed, the idea that rooms were lit all the time is most certainly a ‘Hollywood-ism’. Rather, if you wanted illumination, most people carried it with them in the form of a candle, a rushlight or an oil lamp. If you want to experiment in your own home to see how effective such things are, then get a candle. For authenticities sake, peasants would have used ones made from animal fat, known as tallow, which was smoky. The nobility and clergy on the other hand preferred beeswax that burned brighter and cleaner. Regardless of your chosen medium, put the candle in some sort of holder, light it, then turn off all the modern lights. Allow your eyes a minute or two to adjust and you will find that you can move about your unlit home with perfect confidence, by the light of a single candle. You may also discover that the light given off by candles, tapers, rushlights or oil lamps is a much warmer glow perfect for inducing a more mellow ambience. All of which leads us to how film-makers use different lighting methods to set the tone or mood of a scene.
Film-makers typically deploy two forms of torch to light an actor’s way: handheld burning brands or those attached to a wall. At a time devoid of electricity (or gaslighting), torches provided much needed illumination, but fire was a constant hazard in the ancient and mediaeval world. Property owners, apartment dwellers, city magistrates, and even monarchs lived in fear of the potential damage caused by unchecked fires, particularly in urban areas. While burning torches were carried by the joyous celebrants at Roman era weddings, the very same torches still retained their potential to cause harm and, in some cases, signalled the potential for violence to break out. After Gaius Julius Caesar’s assassination, in 44 BC, Rome’s citizens gathered in the Forum to hear erstwhile colleague Marcus Antonius’ eulogy. They collected pieces of wood and furniture from the surrounding locality to make an ad hoc funeral pyre upon which to burn the dictator's body. Fired by Anthony’s words - literally - many of those present then grabbed pieces of flaming wood as torches from the pyre...
In most movie settings it is unclear what flammable material is being used with the typical burning brand. In most cases it appears to be some form of material coated in a flammable fuel, perhaps pitch or animal fat, wrapped tightly about the end of a wooden stick. To be of use the burning torch is typically held in front of the bearer, but this creates a few problems. Firstly, as the layers burn off little pieces of flaming cloth or dripping hot fat or pitch can become a hazard to the user. At the same time, the bearer is effectively walking into, and breathing, acrid smoke while being dazzled by the torchlight itself. Furthermore, the flammable material can burn off quite quickly and would need replacing frequently, which is something you rarely see in films (in much the same way that, in the old cowboy movies, six-shooters seemingly never ran out of bullets!). The second type of burning brand are usually set in a bracket or sconce affixed to a wall... a flickering flame produces inconsistent lighting which, depending on how the torch is positioned, may not illuminate an area or corridor particularly well. As before, if you were moving from place to place, it is far more convenient to carry a light source with you. Secondly, torches are largely impractical indoors because, depending on the fuel used, they can create a lot of obscuring, noxious fumes. Such smoke is potentially lethal in a poorly ventilated space such as in a tunnel or windowless corridor. Thirdly, lighting is often depicted positioned high up on walls well above an average person’s reach... How do the castle’s occupants refuel these torches? While it is not inconceivable that a servant had to regularly position and climb a ladder to reach the bowls to refuel them, this is labour-intensive and not very practical. The sconces shown are best described as uplighters. Precisely what illumination value would these torches offer?... Moreover, it is daylight, why are the torches burning at all! They are not providing any additional light, so why waste fuel? Fuel is expensive (something we can all identify with currently)... why do so many films and TV shows depict scenes with gratuitous numbers of candles burning even in daylight? Oddly, this even applies to electric lighting in much more modern settings. The answer seems simple enough. Lighting technicians are employed to create the director/producer’s desired ambience or ‘mood’... viewers may struggle to see what is going on, which can be both frustrating and irritating. With this in mind, it just makes sense for lighting technicians to err on the side of caution"
Dozens rally in Pakistan after a Christian man is sentenced to death for blasphemy - "Blasphemy accusations are common in Pakistan. Under the country’s blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death"
Islamophobia!
The fact that it's only dozens is telling
Meme - "Holy Communion. All Baptised Christians are welcome to receive Holy Communion. During Communion, the choir will sin"
Meme - *Furniture diagram with measurements*
*Assembled furniture with measurements displayed in real life*
Meme - Michael Foster @realmfoster: "*Every Project Veritas recording*
Subject: You're not from Project Veritas, are you?
Project Veritas: No lol
Subject: Oh ok. haha. Just making sure. So yeah, we are building a "Lair of Doom" inside a Volcano."
Nicholas A. Christakis on X - "Police officers, financial advisors, and CEOs or CFOs who used the Ashley Madison infidelity website were significantly more likely to engage in professional misconduct. Many have argued that people who lack integrity in their personal lives often lack integrity in their professional lives, and this has been true in academia this past decade, too. So I was amazed to stumble on this inventive 2019 study in @PNASNews via @mattyglesias just now. https://pnas.org/doi/full/10.10"
Meme - *Meme mashup: Saddam Hussein hiding place + Plato's Cave + Sisyphus + "Never Give Up" / Digging for Diamonds*
This man accidentally swallowed and then pooped his AirPod. It still worked. - "Ben Hsu was wearing Apple's wireless earbuds when he discovered that one was missing after he woke up. He tried looking for it everywhere and finally decided to use Apple's tracking feature. Now, when the feature is used, the loose AirPod should emit a sound so long as it is within range. Hsu heard the beeps. But he still couldn't find his AirPod. "I checked under my blanket and looked around but couldn't find it – then I realised the sound was coming from my stomach"... Hsu is a lucky dude, by the way. Not only did he retrieve his expensive AirPod and they were still functional, he could have been dead if the batteries of the earbuds were exposed."
Defying Cavity: Lantern Bioworks FAQ - "Lantern Bioworks says they have a cure for tooth decay. Their product is a genetically modified bacterium which infects your mouth, outcompetes all the tooth-decay-causing bacteria, and doesn’t cause tooth decay itself. If it works, it could make cavities a thing of the past (you should still brush for backup and cosmetic reasons)."
Reports of the Death of Dental Cavities Are Greatly Exaggerated - "If I asked you to name the most common chronic disease in children, what would you say? Asthma comes top of mind, but there is something five times more common in kids: cavities... It may seem like BCS3-L1 was the perfect candidate, but in an independent paper looking at this body of research, multiple concerns were highlighted. The toxicity of this Mutacin-1140 compound had not been tested. What would be the consequences of millions of bacteria in the mouth releasing this compound? The answer wasn’t clear, even though the archetypal compound in the family Mutacin-1140 belonged to was known to be very safe. BCS3-L1 also had the possibility to disturb the microbiome in the mouth in ways that were not predicted and allow disease-causing microorganisms to grow and thrive. And the fact that this bacterium did not produce acid could theoretically be reversed if it acquired the gene from a neighbouring bacterium. Still, a new drug application was filed with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and thus began a decade of back-and-forth. The FDA wanted a big red “abort” button in case something went wrong, a way to kill BCS3-L1. So Hillman, who was now the director and chief scientific officer for a company called Oragenics, made a change to BCS3-L1: the bacterium now needed an amino acid to survive, one that wasn’t typically found in the human diet but which would be given to research participants in the form of a mouthwash. By withholding the mouthwash, the bacterium would die. Once on the market, though, the strain that would be sold to people would not need this amino acid to survive: this safeguard was only meant for the safety trials. (It turns out that when tested in rats, this safeguarded bacterial strain was still occasionally able to colonize the mouth in the absence of this amino acid in the rat’s diet, possibly because it was getting it from the poop the rat was eating. Hence the safeguard was not foolproof.)... This whole technology is predicated on the assumption that dental caries are caused only (or, at the very least, mostly) by S. mutans. That was, after all, the accepted theory in the 1970s when Hillman got the ball rolling. Our understanding of dental caries, however, has greatly advanced in the interim. We went from calling caries an infectious disease that was specifically caused by S. mutans—much like how the influenza virus causes the flu—to gaining a more ecological perspective on the disease. S. mutans is not the only acid-producing oral bacterium that can cause caries: in fact, it forms less than 2% of all the bacteria that cause caries, and a little over one in seven people with caries do not have S. mutans in their mouth. There is even a scientific paper on dental caries literally titled “Beyond Streptococcus mutans”!... scientists have been able to detect 800 different species of bacteria in the human mouth."
Meme - *Joe Biden as FĂ«anor sniffing the hair of an uncomfortable as Maggie Coons as Galadriel looks uncomfortable*
Meme - *Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli in Fangorn Forest*
"LOTR" Fans: "It cannot be.."
*Peter Jackson as Gandalf*
Meme - "Beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid!"
"And Titanic will answer"
*Titanic as Rohirrim*
*scared Gothmog*
By coddling Islamism, Canada sleepwalks into a crisis of extremism - "Canada has now earned the unwanted distinction of becoming a hub for Islamist terror financing. A March report by the online publication Focus on Western Islamism noted that five groups with Islamist ties in Canada received at least $42 million in taxpayer funds from government departments between 2018 and 2022... Many argue that because there have only been six successful jihadist attacks in Canada between 2000 and 2020, the country is much safer compared to most of its western peers. This illustrates a deeply flawed and complacent sense of security and a clear lack of understanding of our ideological enemies. There’s an African saying: “Don’t think there are no crocodiles just because the river is calm.” Many Islamist groups are playing the long game, biding their time as they work to undermine and weaken their adversaries in the West. Conducting sensational terror attacks is by no means their sole or ultimate objective. The true international aspirations of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and al-Qaida are genocidal and long-term — to destroy western societies, wage a global jihad, create a global caliphate and achieve the total annihilation of homosexuality, Judaism and Christianity. Aiding their goals are their Islamist sympathizers in the West who resort to the use of transnational criminal gangs, social media, universities and questionable charities to conduct clandestine hybrid tactics such as spreading hateful propaganda, fundraising to support foreign armed militancy, radicalizing and recruiting youth, manipulating voters and threatening critics. Thanks to their well-established networks, Islamists are able to quickly mobilize resources and capitalize on the social tensions that erupt in the wake of global conflicts such as the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The rampant anarchy on our streets and the recent arrests of youth in Ottawa and Calgary on terrorism charges prove their disruptive efforts have certainly succeeded. Yet, the Trudeau government remains wilfully blind to the dangers of youth radicalization and homegrown terrorism, even though there are obvious signs that Canada is struggling with them. Canada’s lax attitude contrasts with that of Europe, where authorities have been warning about Islamist extremism — deemed to be an acute threat to the continent — even before the Oct. 7 attacks, foiling at least a dozen attack plans last year. A Hamburg-based “pop-Islamist” group with tens of thousands of western followers is being monitored by German intelligence for advocating for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. France has raised the national security alert system to its maximum level amid rising concerns over ISIS’s recruitment of French youth to conduct attacks in the country. In the United Kingdom, nearly 50 per cent of Muslims sympathize with Hamas. Among those recently arrested in the counter-terrorism context, 20 per cent were children under the age of 18. Australian police arrested seven radicalized teenagers for their involvement in a knife attack in Sydney. One report released this year by the United-States-based Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy unearthed billions of dollars of illicit funding of American universities by foreign governments such as Qatar and Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which promote anti-democratic and antisemitic ideologies and have connections to terrorism. Notwithstanding the controversial appointment of Amira Elghawaby as Canada’s Islamophobia czar, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s deafening silence on the Islamism threat — along with his reluctance to quickly and forcefully condemn the antisemitic mobs ruling our streets — is a barefaced dereliction of duty to Canadian citizens and a betrayal of the Jewish community. From the glorification of terrorism and cheering for the destruction of Canada, Israel and the U.S., to the Islamist mob’s total disregard for law and order, it is clear that Canada is sleepwalking towards an impending crisis of extremism. During the early years of the Afghan War, after the Taliban lost multiple battles to the militarily superior forces of the U.S.-led coalition, a Taliban commander nonchalantly remarked: “You have the watches, but we have the time.” Sure enough, he was proven right when western troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban again seized power... Time after time, our enemies have told us who they are and what they intend to do to us. It’s time for the Trudeau government to take appropriate countermeasures to prevent Canadian soil and taxpayer money from assisting an evil ideology that patiently but ardently seeks our demise."
Age that kids acquire mobile phones not linked to well-being, says Stanford Medicine study - "Parents fretting over when to get their children a cell phone can take heart: A rigorous new study from Stanford Medicine did not find a meaningful association between the age at which kids received their first phones and their well-being, as measured by grades, sleep habits and depression symptoms. The study, which appeared recently in Child Development, is unusual because it followed a group of more than 250 children for five years during which most of them acquired their first cell phones. Instead of comparing phone-using kids with those who don’t have phones at a single point in time, the scientists tracked the participants’ well-being as they transitioned to phone ownership... The research team followed a group of low-income Latino children in Northern California as part of a larger project aimed to prevent childhood obesity... Also, the scientists note, the study did not give children completely unfettered access to phones, as their parents were making decisions about their technology use."
Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media - "The relationship between social media use and life satisfaction changes across adolescent development. Our analyses of two UK datasets comprising 84,011 participants (10–80 years old) find that the cross-sectional relationship between self-reported estimates of social media use and life satisfaction ratings is most negative in younger adolescents. Furthermore, sex differences in this relationship are only present during this time. Longitudinal analyses of 17,409 participants (10–21 years old) suggest distinct developmental windows of sensitivity to social media in adolescence, when higher estimated social media use predicts a decrease in life satisfaction ratings one year later (and vice-versa: lower estimated social media use predicts an increase in life satisfaction ratings). These windows occur at different ages for males (14–15 and 19 years old) and females (11–13 and 19 years old). Decreases in life satisfaction ratings also predicted subsequent increases in estimated social media use, however, these were not associated with age or sex."
Derek Thompson on X - "New paper from Norway: Banning smartphones in school
- significantly decreased doctors visits for psychological symptoms and diseases among girls
- reduced bullying among both genders
- improved girls’ GPA and attendance rates
- largest effect sizes were among the poorest kids"
Smartphone Bans, Student Outcomes and Mental Health
Chamath Palihapitiya on X - "As a parents with teenagers, being the bad guy by limiting their social media has been a path to exhaustion and constant bickering (at least in my home). So having the gvt back me up and do the obvious and sensible thing will give me, as a parent, more reinforcement when not giving my kids social media until 16. Frankly, I’m going to try and limit it until they are 18. The ability to point to the gvt backing me up, ideally rooted in research and mental health gives me a shot at framing the long term effects of social media like other impactful products/technologies - there’s positives and negatives so take your time. Gvt action isn’t the solution to everything, or most things for that matter, but limiting social media is definitely an obvious one and will result in healthier kids."
Claire Lehmann on X - "A lot of kids in my son's year have or are getting phones. Because we've followed @JonHaidt 's work for a long time, my husband & I have had no qualms about saying 'no' to our kid. We know its in his best interests. When our son first started catching public transport my husband gave him a paper map, paper bus timetable, a list of important phone numbers (on paper) and trained him to use payphones (which are free in Australia). Our son is so confident he will go into random shops and ask to use the landline to call us. đ People always comply. Other parents nervously joke about how we let our kid "bush bash" around town. But we can tell that underneath the parental anxiety they are secretly envious."
Crémieux on X - "The latest meta-analysis of experimental social media effects on mental health found a null result: Experimentally, the relationship between social media use and mental health netted out to roughly a correlation of 0.04 (p > 0.05)."
Craig Sewall on X - "Ignoring uncertainty allows for easier storytelling, but it's more misleading: One thing that's bothered me about @JonHaidt 's work in The Anxious Generation and his After Babel blog is how all of the plots only include point estimates. For example, here's a plot from this post (https://afterbabel.com/p/the-girls-are-not-alright-responses) by @ZachMRausch on Haidt's After Babel blog:
By ignoring the uncertainty inherent to these point estimates, this plot conveys a very clear signal: hospitalizations for self-harm among US girls 10-14 has risen drastically since 2008. The story is very clear. It's urgent. There's no noise to distract from the signal. However, here's what that same plot looks like when you include the uncertainty intervals: The signal isn't nearly as clear now, right? The uncertainty in the estimates increase along with the slope (after 2008). And there are many different trend lines that you could fit in the shaded region that don't necessary scream "there's been a humongous increase in hospitalizations for self-harm among pre-teen girls!" This is just one example of many from Haidt's book and blog posts. I would urge @JonHaidt and @ZachMRausch to include uncertainty intervals in their plots going forward as, though it makes the story harder to tell, it's more reflective of the uncertain reality of the data."
Meme - Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt: "Some of my critics say that the global decline of suicide over the past 20 years contradicts my claims. When you mix everyone everywhere, it looks that way. When you break groups out by age and sex, it supports my claims. Something changed in early 2010s:"
How Generic Can Kamala Harris Be?
"For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been circling around this question: Does it actually matter if Kamala Harris stands for something? The days that have passed since she became the presumptive Democratic nominee for President have been filled with palace intrigue, the occasional stirring speech, a bounce in the polls, and a Vice-Presidential pageant that, frankly, got a bit boring, as a handful of perfectly fine candidates tried very hard to be nice to one another. We know Campaign Kamala is about “freedom,” which her first ad defines in terms that align entirely with the policy preferences of the Democratic Party—so, for instance, the freedom to own whatever kind of gun you want is superseded by, as the ad puts it, “the freedom to be safe from gun violence.” This is totally reasonable but, linguistically speaking, perhaps a bit of a stretch. We know that Harris was a prosecutor. We know that Donald Trump and his running mate, J. D. Vance, are “weird.” And we know that Harris has erased much of Trump’s lead in swing states, and that things are looking up.
That’s about the extent of it. Harris has shown more talent for giving speeches than the last time she ran, in 2019, and her campaign and her fellow-Democrats deserve credit for her rise in the polls amid heavy skepticism from many, including me, that they could pull off a candidate switch. But we should also be honest about what we are dealing with here. In tennis, a “pusher” is a player who safely returns the ball over the net, again and again, waiting for an increasingly frustrated opponent to make a mistake. This appears to be Campaign Kamala’s strategy: don’t make any unforced errors, keep things vanilla, and eventually Trump or Vance will implode. Harris—as Vance has repeatedly pointed out on Twitter, with the hashtag #wheresKamala—has taken almost no questions from reporters, and has spent most of her time giving stump speeches at rallies. She has not explained what, exactly, happened in Washington after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate; or why she has changed her mind on fracking, which she once said should be banned, and has wobbled on Medicare for All, which she once supported; or what she plans to do with Lina Khan, the head of the Federal Trade Commission, who is said to be unpopular among some of Harris’s wealthy donors; or much about how a Harris Administration would handle the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
I suspect that a majority of voters don’t really care about the answers to those questions, at least not in any serious way. On the Democratic side, there’s an energized, good feeling about Campaign Kamala—to a degree not felt, on a Presidential level, since Barack Obama’s last race—and nobody wants to mess that up with debates about policy. Harris is popular; Biden was not. Harris gives the Democrats a shot at beating Trump; Biden most likely did not. Most of the liberals I know seem to be enveloped in a pleasant if thin fog in which concerns and criticisms melt away. The believers do not need explanations as long as Harris’s poll numbers remain encouraging...
There was a chance, perhaps, that Harris could have defined herself more pointedly with her choice for Vice-President... Like every other aspect of Harris’s campaign to date, they represented safe choices, and the decision arrived with little public explanation from above. (Another thing about the Harris campaign: so far, it seems to have leaks under control.) Walz, in the end, might not bolster the ticket enough to get Harris elected, but it’s hard to see him becoming the center of constant negative attention the way that Vance has for the Trump campaign. He is another ball played safely back over the net.
Part of Harris’s success thus far derives from the extraordinary circumstances that led to her becoming the presumptive nominee. She is running in a general election without having gone through a primary, in which all her vague positions would have been interrogated both by the press and by the candidates running against her. There have been no awkward debate moments, like the one in 2019 when Tulsi Gabbard, then a member of Congress, reminded voters that Harris had put more than fifteen hundred people in prison for marijuana violations and had “laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.” (In response, Harris, who inconsistently adopted her “prosecutor President” persona in what ultimately was a confused campaign, didn’t address the specific critique, instead later noting how poorly Gabbard was polling and calling her an apologist for the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.) Now Harris is running as a quasi-incumbent who doesn’t have to answer all that much for what she did during the past four years. A Democratic polling firm concluded, for instance, that “voters do not hold her accountable for Biden’s perceived failures on inflation,” meaning that Harris “can run hard on economic messaging.” She can claim credit for things that voters like about the last four years while plausibly distancing herself from some of the things they don’t.
As wildly different as Harris and Trump are, their campaigns seem to share a degree of indifference to the specifics of what their candidates are saying, because both campaigns realize that many of their voters are unconcerned about such details—or, at the very least, are unlikely to be moved by them. What matters to many voters right now is their hatred and fear, however justified, of the opposing candidate, and the fun they have calling the other side weird, dangerous, and deranged. Harris and Trump, under differing circumstances, and in different ways, have floated above what was once the perfunctory and deeply unsexy muck of campaigning on a platform, or for some particular issue, and seem to exist more as brands. Other Presidential candidates have risen above that muck, too—often the highly charismatic ones, like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Obama—but I can’t think of a race that was quite as unmoored as this one from the actual details of governance. Trump has been insisting that he doesn’t actually know anything about Project 2025. Harris’s campaign Web site, meanwhile, does not even have a policy section, or an articulation of beliefs. There’s just a button to donate, some merch and yard signs, and a biography that describes her as “the daughter of parents who brought her to civil rights marches in a stroller.”
The task of filling in what Harris prefers to leave blank would usually fall to the press. But, to date, there have not been particularly loud or widespread calls for her to sit down and answer questions, as there were for Biden after his catastrophic debate. I think it’s fair to say that, so far, the mainstream press has handled Harris quite gently. This is not, in my view, a matter of partisan leaning—although I should say that, having worked in the media for about fifteen years, at several institutions, I have not had a single co-worker who openly supported Trump. (I don’t even know of anyone who I suspect might have voted for him.) But if the media’s liberal makeup inured all Democratic candidates from criticism, we wouldn’t have had endless coverage of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, or a relentless call for Biden to withdraw from the race. You could argue that the overwhelming push in the media to remove Biden simply had to be followed by the lionization of his successor—but the media, especially those of us who churn out opinions for a living, cannot actually achieve that level of coördination...
I wonder how the mainstream press will respond to a scandal, or even a hiccup, in the Harris campaign. If it turns out that Harris has been maintaining an idiosyncratic and not entirely secure approach to e-mail, or if a relative dropped off a laptop filled with salacious images for repair and they were shared with the New York Post, how would the media handle the story? More plausibly, if Campaign Kamala sticks with this strategy of keeping the candidate on message through speeches and answering few questions from the press corps, will reporters just shrug and let it go? Should we care that she has not done a sitdown interview or had to answer a substantive policy question in weeks?
The answer is that reporters should care but shouldn’t expect voters, or even their audiences, to follow suit. This may be a minority view, but I don’t think that journalists are ethically bound to stop Trump and “preserve democracy,” nor do I think that every criticism of or investigation into a liberal candidate needs to be balanced with a cursory statement about how Trump is a lying felon. If Harris is running a campaign that’s full of energy but short on specifics, we should say that, even if we think that Harris’s content-light approach is an optimal strategy for winning in November.
A few weeks ago, back when Biden was still the presumptive Democratic nominee, I wrote about his attacks on the media. He seemed to be tapping into a feeling that members of the press, who had labelled themselves the guardians of democracy during the first Trump Presidency, should live up to that grandiose title and protect the Republic against the dangers of his opponent. I understand why many people feel that this is the press’s job right now, and it can be difficult to write proportionally about flip-flops and fudging when those things are measured against Trump’s absurd inventions and provocations. But I do not think that it will help anyone if the media allows Harris to run her campaign with zero criticism, or any probing into where she stands on contentious issues—even if such questioning is met with pushback on social media, where the mildest criticism of the Democrats can unleash a flood of outraged claims that the press is repeating the “but her e-mails” travesty and dooming the country to four more years of Trump. One can believe, as I do, that some mistakes were made in the coverage of Clinton’s e-mail server and still understand that the media should do its job, and interrogate the Harris campaign, especially the parts that don’t exist yet.
A generic candidate who promises nothing on the campaign trail and is unburdened by any past might be the dream of electoral-politics nerds, but it’s the job of the press in a healthy democracy to make sure that voters know whom they’re supporting. An unexamined candidate can become anything, and can work under the influence of anyone, when they assume power. This week, Wes Moore, the Democratic governor of Maryland, suggested on CNBC that a Harris Administration would change course from Biden’s more restrictive regulatory economic policies and create a friendlier atmosphere for “our large industries.” Was he speaking on Harris’s behalf? Does he know something that Harris has declined to share with the public herself?
On Wednesday, Harris was interrupted by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at a rally in Michigan, a state with a large Arab and Muslim population. She went off script, one of the few times in the past three weeks that she has done so; after responding respectfully to the chants at first, she said, “You know what, if you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.” She has called for an end to the war in Gaza and has coupled her concern about the suffering of Palestinians with an ironclad support for Israel. But how does she plan on bringing about the ceasefire that she says she’s for? On Wednesday, the Times reported that Harris, before the rally, had told leaders of the Uncommitted Movement, seeking to discuss an arms embargo, that she was open to a meeting; on Thursday morning, her national-security adviser insisted that she was not in favor of an arms embargo. Why the seeming change in tone? And how does Harris feel about the student protesters who will be returning to their campuses in the upcoming weeks? We don’t know the answers to any of these questions."
Meme - "John Leguizamo Continues to Blast Chris Pratt's Super Mario Movie's Lack of Diversity
Box Office: 'Super Mario Bros. Opens to Stupendous $204.6M in US... Record $377M Globally
Strange World Is Disney's Biggest Step Toward Inclusivity - For Real, This Time
Disney's 'Strange World' to Lose $100 Million in Theatrical Run"
Actor Boycotting New ‘Super Mario Bros’ Movie Because Latino Not Cast To Voice Italian Brothers - "Actor John Leguizamo, who played Luigi in the 1993 live-action “Super Mario Bros.” movie, is boycotting the new animated adaptation of the video game series over a supposed lack of Latino diversity. Leguizamo is Colombian and suggested the new movie should have cast a Latino actor to play at least one of the brothers. Notably, the characters of Mario and Luigi are Italian... “Cast some Latin folk. Just cast some Latin folk,” the actor added. “We’re 20% of the population; the largest ‘people of color’ group, and we’re under-represented — over-represented in the worst kind of jobs, though.”"
The confusing history of how Super Mario Bros became an anti-woke symbol - "Super Marios Bros. had already generated some controversy well before Leguizamo's comments, though, when it was announced that Pratt would be voicing Mario. Critics complained the role should have gone to an Italian American instead. (Day managed to avoid the same criticism due to having some Italian heritage.) Mark Harvey, an associate professor at the University of Saint Mary and author of the book Celebrity Influence: Politics, Persuasion, and Issue-Based Advocacy, told Newsweek that Pratt's casting created "a cultural grey area." "If you get the actor you want and have him imitate an Italian dialect, would that be offensive in today's media climate? Or do you get an Italian actor who happens to have an authentic accent to play the character?" Harvey said. "Ultimately, the studio avoided the issue (or perhaps didn't give it much thought) and went with the neutral American dialect." He continued, "When the studio didn't change the film—and at this point, a reshoot would be prohibitively expensive anyway—conservative pundits can frame the argument as if the movie is making a political statement against multiculturalism." Along with the idea that the film is "anti-woke" because it—according to some—didn't give in to pressure to be more inclusive is the claim that it lacks any kind of "woke" storylines. Alt-right activist Jack Posobiec voiced this opinion on Twitter, writing that by having "as little plot as possible," the film felt "like one of the games." "It has no woke narratives and all the characters are exactly like the original games," Posobiec wrote. Posobiec's assessment aligned with Crowder's, who said of the film: "It's not even necessarily anti-woke, it just shuns the idea of trying to be woke." However, not everyone feels Super Mario Bros. is "anti-woke." In fact, some argue the exact opposite, including figures on the right. Anna Perez, the conservative host of the Wrongthink podcast, accused the film of "brainwashing" young females "to be a feminist" due to Princess Peach being portrayed as a strong protagonist not afraid to take the lead... Not everyone saw Princess Peach's prominence as negative, and several progressives on social media praised the depiction. "Super Mario is destroying the box office with its EXTREME WOKE GIRLBOSS POWERS!" The Serfs, a liberal outlet, tweeted. A member of The Serfs who identifies only as Lance, further commented on the film in an email to Newsweek. "The new Super Mario Bros was the Trojan horse of wokeness. It features not only a kickass girlboss but a drag performer as well. It will unleash the great wokening and nobody could have seen it coming," he wrote. When addressing how something as seemingly innocuous as the Super Mario Bros. became part of a heated debate, Harvey said "this 'taking sides' of celebrities and entertainment is a fairly recent phenomenon. It used to be that it was unsafe for celebrities and brands to be overtly political. Now, if a celebrity or even a film lacks political content, it is subject to potential criticism."... "People feel increasingly politically threatened because of the vilification of their political opponents," Harvey said. "They are looking for validation for their positions and evidence of the wrongdoing of the other side. "The culture wars have intensified and expanded, and no corner of the political or social universe seems immune.""
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga leans into franchise's queer traditions - "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the prequel to 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, and contains a gender fluid plot-line that isn’t a radical departure from the franchise’s unexpectedly queer (if problematic) traditions."
Box Office: 'Furiosa' Lowest Memorial Day Opening in 41 Years, Should Hollywood Worry? - "How can a genius, George Miller-directed tentpole prequel to the multi-Oscar winning Mad Max: Fury Road with great reviews and 4 1/2 stars PostTrak exits not be working? The entire theatrical business is destined for streaming, oh, no! People will forever stay on their couches!"
‘Furiosa’ Is a Memorial Day Weekend Box Office Dud - The New York Times - "“Furiosa,” which cost $168 million to make, not including tens of millions of dollars in marketing costs, collected an estimated $25.6 million in the United States and Canada from Thursday night to Sunday. Box office analysts expected the film to take in about $5.4 million on Monday, for a holiday-weekend total of $31 million. That would be the worst Memorial Day weekend result in 43 years after adjusting for inflation — ever since “Bustin’ Loose,” a comedic drama starring Richard Pryor, collected $24 million in 1981. (Box office records exclude 2020, when most theaters were closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.) The franchise’s previous chapter, “Mad Max: Fury Road,” took in $45.4 million in 2015, or roughly $61 million in today’s dollars — and that was without the benefit of a holiday weekend. Hollywood had high expectations for “Furiosa,” which Warner Bros. premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; the movie received exceptional reviews. On Sunday, however, it was unclear whether “Furiosa” would manage even first place at the box office. Analysts said the poorly reviewed “Garfield” (Sony), which cost $60 million to make, could inch ahead. It could also be a tie."
Commie Gibberish of the Day | Facebook - "Wow I can’t believe that yet again, women did not show up for an action movie. How many copies of GIRLBOSS Part 28: The Girlbossening have to lose 200-300 million dollars before the worst era in moviemaking history ends? Nobody wants to see 90 pound women flipping multiple 260 pound bouncers around on a green screen with no worthwhile story other than “Yassss she’s tough!” for 150 minutes."
Meme - "I think part of the reason this movie flopped is that any movie that has even a whiff of the "girl boss" trope in it is going to be rejected sight-unseen. Maybe it's not fair, but can you blame fans for being suspicious at this point? Moreover, if fans were to support a movie with even a whiff of the "girl boss" trope in it Hollywood's confirmation bias would see that as a sign to commission 10 more years of "girl boss" movies before they are even willing to admit it isn't working and begin to change course again. So I say everyone should keep their collective feet on the gas pedal and not give Hollywood even an inch until the woke mind virus is completely purged, or the Hollywood industry collapses, whichever comes first."
Meme - "Little Mermaid loses 200 million"
Soyjak: "This is ra-ra-ra-cism!!!
"Miles Morales makes 4 times it's budget back in one day."
Soyjak: "You bigots can't stop us. Woke sells."
"ACOLYTE GROWING DESPERATE FOR VIEWERS."
Soyjak: "This is ra-ra-ra-cism!!!
"Bad boys 4 makes double its budget opening day."
Soyjak: "You bigots can't stop us. Woke sells."
Progressive publication blames Trump and Tucker Carlson for the plummeting popularity of professional sports - "An article published by The New Republic last week has linked the plummeting popularity of professional sports to comments made by both Tucker Carlson and former President Donald Trump. Titled Republicans have ruined sports for Republicans, they surmise that comments made by right-leaning media outlets and commentators calling these leagues "too woke, too liberal, or too tied to the Democratic Party" have led Republicans to protest watching... The New Republic fails to mention though, that a growing number Americans are fed up with sports teams becoming entwined with politics. They mention that leagues have leaned conservative in the past, citing the NFL's use of military symbolism and the MLB's aging fan base that historically leans Republican in voting. They also cite sports team owners past donations to campaigns and super PACS. These political leanings were not as overt as current displays... An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll conducted earlier in April showed a majority of Americans favored sports teams and organizations staying out of politics, with 55 percent opposing teams using their public role to influence political, cultural, or social change. While Republicans were more likely to want sports and politics separate at 84 percent, that's not to say its only Republicans. 58 percent of Independents responded saying they oppose, as well as nearly a third of Democrats, at 30 percent. "It is really the right, in this instance, that has insisted on pushing politics into professional sports. In its universe, keeping politics out of sports means pretending that a racist voting law doesn’t exist; it means insisting that there is no world outside the arena, which has never been true and is itself a political position," The New Republic article reads."
The left wing worldview is non-political. If you don't want the left wing agenda changing the world, it means you are political
Meme - I Survived the Kali Yuga: "Generally, you expect Disney animated musical features to be not your cup of tea when you're a dad. But you watch them because your kids enjoy them, and they're technically impressive if nothing else. Even the worst of them are engaging enough that you don't have to check your phone. But after about five minutes of this movie, my oldest daughter was fidgeting and my youngest daughter was telling me she wanted to watch The Shadow instead. The whole thing felt like it was written by ChatGPT, and there was something very off about the way it was animated (I can't quite put my finger on what it was). The songs were so bad and rambling, I thought they had to have been written by Lin Manuel Miranda, and I was legitimately shocked when I learned that they weren't. And the plot tripped over itself in the first few minutes by making the villain absolutely correct, then spent the second half of the movie making him over-the-top evil once they realized their mistake halfway through writing the script. Overall, this movie is proof positive that there is no greater time in history to be a creative. Because your competition from the mainstream is so absurdly inept that even your worst offerings will likely rival it for quality. I don't recommend it to anyone, as it's not even fun enough to riff on while you watch it."
Asha (Wish heroine): "Go ahead. TELL THEM MY MOVIE SUCKS. You KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN WHEN You Do *racist hammer*
Disney+ Loses 1.3 Million Subscribers in Final Quarter of 2023 - "Disney+ lost a whopping 1.3 million subscribers in the final quarter of 2023 amidst a price increase and crackdown on password sharing."
Disney Spoils Its Own Ride And Pays The Price - "Splash Mountain debuted at Disneyland in California in 1989 and set a new record for having the park's highest and steepest drop. This isn't the only reason why it broke new ground. Up to then, log flumes typically looked like scaffolding as they were formed from a weaving water channel which climbed to a height on bare steel supports before plummeting down at a steep angle. Splash Mountain changed the game as it water channel was set inside a soaring cartoony tree stump. The logs climbed up inside an old barn and then passed through indoor segments set in a faux forest. Based on the story of Br'er Rabbit, Splash Mountain immersed riders in vibrant scenes giving them the impression that they were traveling through a cartoon world. It was one of Disney's first rides to combine this kind of immersion with high thrills which came at the crescendo when two vultures wearing top hats ominously overlook a 52.5 feet fall into a cartoony version of a briar patch. The ride became a fan-favorite thanks to its iconic shape, catchy tunes, panoramic view of the Magic Kingdom before the final drop and its cast of colorful animatronic animals which also included Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear. The ride was inspired by Disney's 1946 movie Song of the South and this ultimately led to its downfall. Song Of The South tells the story of a young boy visiting his grandmother’s plantation after the Civil War and has been criticized for its racist depictions of Black people and for romanticizing the era. In 2020 Disney's chief executive Bob Iger said that the film would not be available to purchase or stream on the Disney+ platform and added that "Song of the South – even with a disclaimer – was just not appropriate in today’s world." Removing the ride based on it was not so easy but push came to shove in 2020 at the peak of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. After weeks of civil rights protests and petitions calling on Disney to change the ride it announced the end of Splash Mountain and claimed it had actually been planning this since 2019. To make it clear that a line had been drawn under the original ethos of the ride, Disney revealed that the new version would be based on 2009 animated hit The Princess and the Frog, which featured its first Black princess... Ironically, although Disney announced that Splash Mountain would be rethemed in Orlando and California, it soon came to light that the ride would remain the same at Tokyo Disneyland. The logic behind this is that the offensive origin of the underlying story has less relevance to the local audience in Japan. However, Tokyo Disney also happens to be the only Disney-branded resort which isn't owned or operated by the media giant. Instead, Disney simply provides the license to specialist leisure operator Oriental Land Co. (OLC) which runs the resort. Presumably, if OLC believed that the retheme of Splash Mountain would bring a significant benefit it would have given it the green light regardless of whether or not the subject matter was offensive to the local audience... Even by theme park ride standards, its premise is unclear and this hasn't been lost on the audience. At the time of writing, the ride-through video has has 336,000 views but has only been liked 7,600 times. Worse still, it has been deluged with negative feedback. "This video is so boring, I can't even imagine why they thought it would be a good idea. And the animatronics with the awkward arm motions...This retheme is going to go down as one of the greatest theme park blunders," wrote one viewer. Another said that "Disney once made a Haunted Mansion with 999 souls. They've now created an entire mountain without one." Not only did one viewer say "I'm so glad I'm not alone in thinking how utterly boring and visually uninteresting this is" but the comment yielded five replies from others who all agreed with it. Indeed, there has been so much negative feedback about Disney's video that WDWMagic, one of the leading authorities on Disney World developments, has produced a summary showing how the criticism picks each aspect of the attraction apart... Tiana's Bayou Adventure is the latest in a string of Disney attractions to be on the receiving end of stinging criticism. In April last year scathing reviews led to the Magic Kingdom's Disney Enchantment fireworks display being replaced with its popular predecessor Happily Ever After just 18 months after it was introduced. Likewise, in the same year, Disney's neighboring Epcot park dropped its new son et lumiĂšre show Harmonious after excoriating feedback from fans. Then, just last month, Disneyland was beset by criticism when it resumed its flagship nighttime show Fantasmic after a one-year hiatus. Fantasmic was put on hold following a fire inside the 45-feet animatronic dragon at the heart of the show but instead of repairing it, Disney has replaced it with an actor who stands atop a tall pillar. The unveiling of Tiana's Bayou Adventure casts a dark spell on the resumĂ© of Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products"
Robby Starbuck on X - "It’s time to expose Tractor Supply. It’s one of the most beloved brands in đșđž by conservatives but what do they REALLY stand for under CEO @hallawton’s leadership?
• LGBTQIA+ training for employees
• Funding pride/drag events
• They have a DEI Council
• Funding sex changes
• Climate change activism
• Pride month decorations in the office
• DEI hiring practices
• LGBTQIA+ events at work
Hal also liked posts attacking unvaccinated people and @AllisonW_Sports when she left ESPN over the COVID vaccine. Let’s just say those likes make it appear he’s NOT fond of people who chose to skip the vaccine. I take no pleasure in bringing this all to light. I’m a Tennessean who loves to support TN companies but as a proud Tennessean I know these woke priorities don’t align with our state or @TractorSupply ’s customer base. We must make our voices heard. Hal Lawton needs to understand that we don’t want our hard earned money spent on these woke priorities. If he supports this stuff then he should spend some of his $11M salary or tens of millions in stock on it instead of using the money we spend at Tractor Supply. The kind of sex you like is not an appropriate topic for work. Events built around the kind of sex people like to have should not have kids at them and should not be funded with the money we spend at Tractor Supply. If you’re as disturbed by what you learn in this video as I am, here’s what you can do:
• Don’t take it out on your local store — the vast majority of them are conservative and hate that corporate is pushing this on them.
• Email/Call corporate to respectfully state your position as a customer after learning this information. Let them know where you stand. Here’s their corporate office number that’s listed publicly: (615) 440-4600 — here is their executive team if you’d like to write them or leave them a message at the corporate number. Again, please be respectful: https://ir.tractorsupply.com/investor-relations/governance/executive-management/default.aspx — If anyone has more info on contacting them at publicly available emails, please reply in the comments but no doxxing private info, it violates X rules and it’s not right.
• Start buying what you can from other places until Tractor Supply makes REAL changes and shows that they respect the majority of their customers enough to not spend the money we give them on causes we’re deeply opposed to. As someone with a farm, I know this isn’t easy but if we don’t show them who their customers are then they’ll just keep doing this.
Lastly I want to thank those who’ve reached out to me in distress about the direction of the company. This post is for all the workers who wish they could speak out but fear losing their jobs. That isn’t a very inclusive culture @hallawton. I think you need to get out of the Brentwood office and ask local customers how they feel about DEI/LGBTQIA+ trainings and how they feel about Tractor Supply funding pride events. I think you’ll find very quickly that you’re on the wrong side of this issue. I’m happy to discuss privately one on one as a voice for those people anytime you want off camera or on camera. That’s up to you. If you still feel strongly this is the direction you want to take Tractor Supply then I hope you at least say so publicly so all of your customers know where TSC stands. One last thing: Why are you hiding your sponsorship of pride events on Tractor Supply’s website where you proudly display events/orgs that TSC gives $$ to? Don’t want customers to know that’s where their money’s going?"
Robby Starbuck on X - "Tractor Supply VP/CFO Kurt Barton admits that CEO Hal Lawton came in a month before COVID and used the pandemic to "embed" DEI + ESG policies in every part of the company. "ESG was very purposeful to become part of our overall business strategy in 2020" "Year to date we’ve invested $630,000 into DEI organizations" "Increase hiring of POC at manager level by 50%" — This sounds like hiring based on race? "Hal Lawton chairs our DEI council" This is probably the most beloved company in the country by conservatives. If we don’t boycott and stop this woke agenda at TSC, where exactly can we stop it? Also, @TractorSupply @hallawton , there’s no use trying to scrub all the low view interviews of your execs that are floating around online, we already archived them. Customers and investors deserve to know the woke direction you’ve taken $TSCO."
Riley Gaines on X - "Huge news. Tractor Supply lost over $2 BILLION in just one week because of @robbystarbuck exposé. Suddenly, they've reversed course. This shows that corporations pledge allegiance to only one thing: money. On behalf of all sane people, thank you Robby!"
Tractor Supply ends DEI, Pride support and carbon goals - "Tractor Supply, a retail chain that sells home improvement equipment, livestock and agricultural supplies for farmers and pet owners, is eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion roles; withdrawing carbon emission goals; and walking back support for the LGBTQ community as part of sweeping changes to environmental, social and governance initiatives, the company announced this week. The retailer said in a Thursday release that it will no longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy group. The company will also stop sponsoring Pride festivals and voting campaigns, the release said. The company previously earned a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2022 Best Places to Work Corporate Equality Index."
Robby Starbuck on X - "Hey @HRC @GLAAD , I see you’re upset about Tractor Supply ending all DEI and donations to pride + drag shows for kids. Here’s my response: Get used to it. This is the beginning, not the end. You call me an extremist but you know what I find extreme? Expecting every company on earth to force your political + social beliefs on the entire planet. That seems sort of extreme. All my side is asking for is sanity. Let stores just be stores again. No politics, no far left social values push, just good products & service. No one is asking for discrimination, just normalcy and to not have your politics shoved down their throat. This the beginning of the end of your hold on corporate America. They’re waking up and realizing that they need US to walk in their doors. The customer will be king again. đșđž"
Juicy Tolkien memes | Facebook - "Rings of Powers total lack of respect for Tolkiens work continues. The creation of the Barrow-wights was one of many evil deeds by The Witch-King during his war against Arnor. This took place 1400 years into the Third Age. RoP takes place during the Second Age. This makes about as much sense as British redcoats going to war against Roman legionaries. Don't give Amazon your money."
Empire’s World-Exclusive The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Season 2 Covers Revealed - "Inside, we discover Sauron’s next deception, venture on Galadriel’s new mission, probe the ongoing mystery of The Stranger, and do battle with Barrow-wights, as the show’s true narrative – and major villain – emerges from the shadows. Expect brand new interviews with showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay; stars Charlie Vickers, Morfydd Clark, Sophia Nomvete, and Daniel Weyman; director Charlotte BrĂ€ndström, and more – along with brand new exclusive images and never-before-seen concept art from the upcoming season. It’s an issue forged in the fires of Mount Doom that you really won’t want to miss."
Philip Husband's answer to Why did the Rings of Power series fail? - Quora - "I tried to tell Amazon why it failed, and they notified me that they had removed my review of this disaster for being “inappropriate”. I suppose that it was “inappropriate” in the sense that Amazon hoped they would turn a profit from adapting unimaginative and banal Tolkien fan fiction, and they don’t want anyone pointing out the fact that this series is possibly the most expensive flop in history. I wasn’t expecting it to be as good as Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, but it ended up being so bad that I “hate watched” the whole series as a form of test to see just how much boredom I could endure. To be fair, there were some funny moments, but they were unintentionally funny, such as surging orchestral climaxes for non-events, and horrible casting choices: I laughed out loud when the supposedly puissant Celebrimbor appeared on screen in the form of a middle aged actor who looked like an off brand Michael Palin.
An elf shouldn’t look like a deputy headmaster who’s just been told he has to take early retirement
An elf should look beautiful and ethereal, as Liv Tyler did in her portrayal of Arwen in LOTR
Entirely unconvincing as Galadriel, and the cheap plastic armor doesn’t help matters
The casting of this turkey was praised by virtue signalers for its “diversity”, but I fail to see what’s “diverse” about a cast that’s almost universally crap and/or inappropriate. It seems that the producers had spent so much money paying for the rights to a snippet of the Tolkien legendarium that they had almost no remaining budget to hire decent actors, many of whom look and sound like they were picked up from a random bus stop in South London. Even if they’d had the money, I suspect that decent actors would have read the script, and turned it down, not wanting to have their careers tarnished by any association with this dismal travesty. The producers probably thought they would score points by having a “strong female lead” in the form of Galadriel, but the character comes across as being merely bossy, entitled, and entirely unsympathetic. Other characters are just entirely pointless, such as the “Harfoots”, which are nomadic proto-Hobbits, who just wander around aimlessly and have silly conversations: when they are on screen, they are the most tedious part of an already tedious show, A compelling storyline and well written dialogue might have gone some way to redeem this series, but neither are present, as evinced by the fact that only 37% of people in the US who started watching it made it through all eight episodes. The decision to make a second series can only be explained by the “sunk cost fallacy”, and the fact that Jeff Bezos can throw away hundreds of millions of dollars, and still be one of the richest people on earth."
Bud Light Beer Sales Still Struggling After 2013 Dylan Mulvaney Ad - Bloomberg - "To revive Bud Light, AB InBev has plowed millions into marketing, including TV ads starring Peyton Manning and a sponsorship deal with UFC, but it’s still losing ground, according to interviews with distributors, bar owners and industry experts and data provided exclusively to Bloomberg News. In July, the brand slipped to third place in the US after rival Modelo and Michelob Ultra, another InBev brand, according to analysis of NielsenIQ data by industry consultant Bump Williams. Meanwhile, Bud Light’s market share shrunk to 6.4% in the second quarter at the more than 1,000 bars using point-of-sale software made by Union. That’s down from nearly 12% before the backlash."
Halo: Another TV Show Ruined By Identity Politics And Bad Writing
Cancellation of Halo TV show after two seasons is celebrated by fans of the game - "When it debuted in 2022, the first season was divisive among fans of the original Halo game franchise, receiving a lukewarm reception from many quarters. Critics claimed that the series strayed too far from the source material rather than being faithful to the original. Far from mourning the loss of a potential season three, many fans of the Halo game franchise celebrated its demise on social media. “I watched the garbage first season.... I stopped watching. Looks like a lot of people did,” one viewer commented on Twitter. “Paramount’s Halo is cancelled? it’s almost as if making a show about a game not for the people who like the game will backfire,” said another. Others said sarcastically said they were “so shocked” by the cancellation, while another tweet read: “No offense to the people that made it but that show is not Halo. It should be redone, rebooted, restarted, and/or made into a movie. Do not continue the current series, please.” Another stan of the game expressed gratitude that the TV version had been axed, writing: “Thank God. It had to go! The end result was s*** anyway.” One suggestion was that, if the show were to be renewed, they should “hire some actual writers who have READ the source material and love the Halo lore.”"
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