Maedhros

I live in a "big government" country - the cops here aren't even armed. Big governments are fine as long as you have fair political elections, and a relatively educated population. I think it's also important to have laws that prevent politicians from enrichening themselves, which seems to be the case over there. It's fully possible to have a larger degree of social and economic justice from the state without losing any "freedom".

There aren't really a lot of scenarios that makes much sense here. Framing your enemy to gain casus belli has been known to happen in history. On a sidenote, Japanese Tanker Owner on the attack: https://www.thedailybeast.com/japanese-oil-tanker-owner-says-us-is-wrong-about-gulf-attack

Shinzo Abe is currently in Teheran for diplomatic talks. Would be really strange if Iran decided it was a good idea to attack a japanese oil tanker amidst that. This smells more of Mossad/Saudis to me, sanctioned by Bolton/Pompeo/Trump. Manifactured crisis.

10, 796 false or misleading claims in 869 days, not bad: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?utm_term=.db6d5f34fbfd

Thorne & Daughters, one of many talented wine producers in South-Africa. This is their Tin Soldier Semillon, named so because Semillon was once the foot soldier of the wine industry there. Great wine, btw. It's a white wine, but with extended grape skin contact.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-saudi-arabia-execute-three-prominent-moderate-scholars-after-ramadan I'm seriously considering stopping reading news concerning the Middle-east. Depressing stuff, as usual.

The only episode of GoT I liked this season was episode 2. Bryan Cogman should've written far more episodes, it's pretty obvious he's the only one of them who really likes the books. I think the characters endings will be similar in the books (if they're ever written), but with far better character development, and buildup. When it comes to shows ending well I have Breaking Bad, The Wire and The Sopranos as the holy trinity.

Watched True Detective season 3. A pleasant surprise, after the mediocre season 2. Mahershala Ali with yet another great acting performance.

I actually thought the Night King wasn't gonna take part in the battle, instead directing a large part of the forces to take King's landing, thereby boosting his army a lot. And then the later solution would of course be to wildfire-bombard the whole capitol, and the Iron chair with it - like the Mad King originally planned.

Targaryens aren't immune to fire in the books. Dany's pyre was a one time thing according to GRRM. Also, the Night King isn't in the books. There is another character by the same name, but he's a dead Lord Commander. This episode was pretty much 100% original content I think.

Beto released a pretty comprehensive climate change plan: https://betoorourke.com/climate-change/ Or wasting money to fight a threat that doesn't exist, depending on you you ask

Yeah this episode was better than the last. Loved the shoutouts to the books (Jenny of Oldstones, Tormund finally telling one of his stories), and Brienne being knighted was oddly touching. Something's definitely going to happen in the crypts in the next episode. Are the corpses there decomposed, or are we going to see a gang of Stark skeletons wreaking havoc there?

My favorite charity is SOS Children's villages. I like that they send you an update on what your money has been used for, so you can see the concrete results. I don't give much, partly because I don't earn much, and because I already do my best to help children in different life situations every day. So I don't really feed bad about not giving more.

Thought this was pretty funny: "Mueller noted that Trump “challenged” his lawyer for taking notes of their conversation. “Why do you take notes?” he asked McGahn, according to the report. “Lawyers don’t take notes. I never had a lawyer who took notes.” McGahn said he kept notes because he is a “real lawyer” and to establish a record. Trump replied, “I’ve had a lot of great lawyers, like Roy Cohn. He did not take notes.’’ Cohn, who was chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) during McCarthy’s communist-hunting hearings in the 1950s, was disbarred by a New York court in 1986 because of “dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation."

So Trump vetoed the bipartisan bill to end U.S military support to Saudi-Arabia in the Yemen-conflict. Trump describes it as a 'dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities.' Down is the new up. Peace is dangerous!

Good to see both Harris, Sanders, Warren and O'Rourke releasing tax returns from the last 10 years. Transparency is a good thing. Of course, you probably don't wanna go as far as we do over here, with everyone's tax records being public and searchable.

Why are the firemen unable to stop the fire? Not to criticise, just genuinly curious

The Ghibli films still do it for me. Princess Mononoke especially is a wonderful film. Most anime I've seen is from 10-15 years ago, doubt I would get the same enjoyment out of it now. I recall really enjoying a series called Monster. It was about a doctor who choose to save the life of a random baby over someone important, and how he deals with the consequenses of that when the child grows up to be a serial killer. Edit: oh thought we were still discussing anime

Silence brought out the best in many actors. I enjoyed his and Andrew Garfield's performances immensely. He did really well as the lead role in Paterson too. It all started with Girls though, where I vaguely recall him to play the least annoying character.

Yeah ressurecting dead characters is bad. Somehow it worked in the Clone wars animated series though if you could live with the bad story premise. I was surprised by how much I liked that tv show, did not expect to at all. Rebels was terrible in comparison.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/436293-rand-paul-blocks-resolution-calling-for-mueller-report-release Rand Paul doesn't want the Mueller report released. No surprises there considering his own ties to Russia.

Sweden is the most feminist country in the world. They have a much looser definition of the word "rape" than most countries, and victims are more likely to report it. The police there also handle rape statistics differently.

Using younger family members as an excuse for going to the movies is a good strategy. I remember forcing my little brother to come with me to watch the first Pokemon movie back in '98.