Maedhros

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.

Hurlshot found his candidate? Harris wants better pay for teachers: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/23/kamala-harris-teacher-pay-proposal-1233066 (To be fair, guessing most of the Democratic candidates will agree with her).

I had a Portuguese white a couple of days ago called Xisto Cru 2016 by Luis Seabra. Pretty much the best white I've ever had in that class ($30-35). Delicate nose of apples and beeswax. Balanced, fresh, concentrated fruit, minerals, long dry ending with notes of grapefruit. Recommended strongly if you can get a hold of it. The winemaker also makes a damn good Alvarinho. Wasn't as impressed by his red wines. Going with a Portuguese red today, by Luis Pato. Gonna try to pair it with Entrecote and bearnaise sauce. Generally you want wine with tannins to go along with red meat, but the sauce won't match well with that at all. So I'm gonna go with a wine that supposedly has both the fruit and the acidity to stand on good legs alongside the dish. The grape is called Baga, one of the most up and coming of the 250ish (!) grape varieties from Portugal.

Sauces based on wine can be amazing yeah. I often use white wine when making risotto as well (a dish that incidentally pairs amazing with reds). In general I try to avoid it though as cheap wine is pretty damn expensive here. As for headaches, I get those too, but only when I don't drink enough water.

Probably my favorite clip on the internet. The troubles of being Estonian in Finland.

I rarely drink beer anymore, but if I do I prefer blonde ale. Belgian sour ale can be really good too. I'm pretty much all about wine. Been drinking a lot of good stuff from California lately, including the best wine I've ever tasted - Domaine de la Cote's "La Cote". It would probably be 5x as expensive if it was from Burgundy, so I'm happy about how affordable it was. It was the clear winner in the wine tasting I arranged for some friends, where the theme was "France vs the US" (with the grapes Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Syrah). Hard to compare french and american wine though, because the best american wine is easily attainable, while the best french wine needs much more aging, and is much harder to get a hold of. (Guess I'm kind of speaking to myself, haven't noticed anyone else being into wine here?)

https://nordic.businessinsider.com/senate-passes-new-resolution-to-end-us-support-for-saudis-in-yemen-2019-3?utm_source=reddit.com&r=US&IR=T Can't believe they got 7 republicans to vote for this. Well done!

Is there any politician (or anyone in general?) who isn't a hypocrite? Sanders seems more trustworthy than most of them.

I think it's the only film I've seen in the last 5-6 years that had no redeeming features. [insert joke about Margot Robbie's backside]

Quality product for who? Suicide Squad had focus groups too.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/feb/28/girl-11-gives-birth-to-rapists-child-after-argentina-refuses-abortion Catholics are the worst christians.

Haven't watched yet, but I'm guessing Subutai is in it? Can't really think of anyone who did more than him in terms of conquest. To be fair you could include other mongol generals as well like Jebe and Muquali. Edit: Guess not. Pretty strange considering he conquered 32 nations, and won 65 battles.

We're definitely different from our neighbours in that we've made ourself pretty dependant on oil export yeah. Through our oil fond I believe we own 1,4% of all the worlds stocks, so we're heavily invested in all sorts of ventures. We adapt to the volatile currency pretty easily, but that's another discussion. Doesn't make the image any less relevant. Just goes to show that countries with different economies can make the same policies work. Not denying that the US has unique challenges that we don't have in Scandinavia though.

The cost is one of the reasons me and my girlfriend agreed to never have a wedding. We'll probably marry at a point, but the celebration will probably consist of me and her going to a nice restaurant at the most. Today I had to cancel my plans for the third weekend in a row. Turns out being a parent can be pretty time consuming.

Free education and healthcare is a given if you can pay for it as a collective. I think free education especially is wonderful, because it gives everyone the freedom to pursue the career they want. Makes for a better society with lower inequality. There's a reason the nordic countries always top the "World Happiness" reports.

Bought and read The Lord of the Rings on kindle. There aren't many fantasy novels I'd bother re-reading, but Tolkien's Middle-earth books never fail to captivate me. Currently reading The Medici by Mary Hollingsworth.

In movies, sure. On TV, nah. The 'universe' part of MCU has been great for the movies but pretty close to actively terrible for TV since TV is seen so much as a secondary medium. DC's approach of letting the shows do their own thing and link as much or as little as they like is far better for TV. The only really bad thing about DC's approach to TV is being arbitrary about who and what can be used due to whatever movies they're planning as if people couldn't tell TV Deathstroke or Deadshot plus multiple others apart from the movie versions. Movie wise DC is a mess, that they have two Joker movies with different actors in production at the same time just about sums things up there perfectly. But in terms of successful adult orientated TV shows Marvel is miles behind, albeit in part due to the, heh, meta issue of the Disney vs Netflix stoush. Titans' (DC made/ US/ original) trailer was not great either. The international Netflix trailer and the actual series though were good. Personally I think Doom Patrol is inherently a bit of an odd choice, but I'll give it a chance. Plus, it has Tim Dalton. What DC shows qualify as "succesful adult oriented tv"? Genuinly curious, because I haven't liked any of the ones I've tried the last 10 years or so (Arrow, Gotham City, Legends of Tomorrow, and Flash). Not too up to date on what they've been doing lately, but I generally just have an impression of newer DC tv as very unmodern, with Smallville still reigning as their best effort in the 21st century. I've been far more impressed with Marvel shows like Daredevil, Jessica Jones (s1), The Punisher (s1) and Legion.

I spent far too much money on wine today. It's the official "Burgundy release" in Norway today (2016 vintage). So now I have to wait 10-20-30 years to figure out whether it was worth it! There are no 5-10 bucks wine in Norway. However, fine wine is relatively cheap here. The most famous wine in the world, Romanee-Conti, cost under $6000 here, and above $20.000 in the global market. It's in extremely limited supply though. The guy who got one of the three bottles of that wine slept outside the store for 16 days. He could've sold it for a really nice profit, but he said he'd keep it. I find it a bit strange that more people don't buy a lot of these wines and sell them abroad, can't think of an easier way to make a lot of cash quick. Fun fact - there are no privately owned wine shops here. Only the Wine monopoly (owned by the state) are allowed to sell liquor with above 4,75% alcohol. It sounds terrible, but far from it. They have a range of 17k products that you can order from their website directly to your local shop free of charge, and the people who work there are extremely competent and concerned with quality. I'd argue it's probably among the best wine shops in the world. (So, nazis as Volo would call them - but competent nazis). ((Sweden has a similar system - but not quite as good in terms of fine wine).

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/javier-bardem-dune-reboot-1203126074/ Javier Bardem cast as Stilgar. The hype is real.

I'm a kindergarten teacher, or whatever the correct term in English is. My kindergarten section has children from 4-5 years old, and I spend my days playing cards, soccer, and going on long hikes with the kids. Basically I just try to spend as much time as possible outdoors - so I can spend the rest of my day in front of the computer/tv with a clean conscience! I have a bachelor's degree + 2 years of pedagogy.

Would be pretty easy for the other democrats to wreck her in the debates after what happened. Surely she's not this naive?

Yeah it can work if done right. Godfather 2 (half of it anyway) did it perfectly. The new Planet of the Apes films too were much better than they had any right to be.

Still haven't watched Solo. Star Wars is the perfect introduction to his character, he doesn't need a prequel. Terrible idea by Disney. Pretty excited about the casting for Dune so far. Timothy Chamalet as Paul Atreides is a good match I think. Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Harkonnen could be good too. Of course the most important thing is that Villeneuve is directing.