Raithe

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/mississippi-roe-v-wade-abortion/index.html Mississippi asks the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade On a second thing, I was engaged in conversation on work benefits with someone, and as occasionally happens when people on this side of the Atlantic discuss things, you got a few horrified "how do the American's accept what they do with work?". A point was made that for all the "Land of the Free" attitude, and general bellicose nature a large number of Americans seem to have against the Federal government... There's a very feudal attitude between Employer and Employee. The casual acceptance of "fire at will", the lack of vacation time, the way pregnancy leave is so short (and quite often unpaid) across huge swathes of the workplace, the nature of health insurance and such like. There was a half-joking comment that historically, medieval peasants in Europe got more time off work each year than current day Americans due to the various feast and saints days...

Well my only experience in driving are those 10 lessons about 20 years ago. So I pretty much need the practical run through of it all. Before you take the practical test, they expect you to have around 40 hours of lessons so it's not all theory. Private practice is sort of outside that, and is limited in where you can do it, and you have to have an experienced driver in the car with you during it all.

This might not make sense to the Americans here, but I was digging through things and found my provisional drivers license. Now, I applied for it back in, '96 when I first became legal to drive, took about 10 lessons, then life disrupted them. For other reasons I've never actually needed to drive places myself, everywhere I've needed to go has been in walking distance, easy and good public transport, or I had friends going there who were driving past my house on the way there who were happy to pick me up. You need to get your provisional license before you can take lessons, then if you pass your theory test, then you can take your driving exam, and then you get your full driving license. Some years back they changed it so provisional licenses needed your photo, and would only be good for a few years before you'd need to re-apply. My provisional license is the oooold provisional license. It's folded paper, no picture.. and it's valid until 2049. Now I'm actually looking into doing one of those intensive driving courses to get my license, but yeesh. For 40 hours of driving lessons, the cost of theory and practical, you're looking at about £1,400 - £1,900 cost.

Well remember, the film as is it only half of the first book. So, film 2 will equal the remaining half of Dune. Potentially that could be the model they'd go forward with if they thought about it as a franchise. But even then that could be troublesome. They'd need Chalamet to age a bit before they could have him doing Children of Dune...

“I must not hype. Hype is the mind-killer. Hype is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face the hype. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the hype has gone there will be nothing. Only the film will remain.” - The Litany

Apparently he's had it awhile, they still have to do further tests to figure it out. However the specialist referred to it as "complicated", so, eh, who knows what state it's in just yet.

My father has been having that batch of medical check-ups the last couple of weeks, diagnosis finally coming back that it's bowel cancer. Looks like a lot of serious conversations to be had going forward. Coming out of pandemic lockdown, the start of the jobhunt after a month's chill down from contract end, and now this to stir in the pot.

Quelle Surprise.... https://thehackernews.com/2021/07/us-and-global-allies-accuse-china-of.html

New Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Will Bring Back Characters from the '80s Cartoon Series (movieweb.com) Okay, so tangentially related to TV, but still...

To me, it felt like everyone was enjoying themselves in that version of the Three Musketeers, embracing a certain steampunk campness, Orlando in particular seemed to just going full-tilt chew the scenery, twirl the moustache villainy. That combined with some quite entertaining fight choreography was worth the watch. But it sounds like you missed the end sequence which kind of left the film hanging on a potential cliffhanger. On other matters that might be mildly interesting to a few folks: https://filmschoolrejects.com/dances-with-wolves-native-lens/ Or "What do John J. Dunbar and every sad white guy in romantic dramedies have in common?"