More than 1000 people have been killed in a horrific 7.7 magnitude earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand, and the devastation is enormous. To help survivors:
Hey. Look at me. Please leave yourself a note somewhere you’ll see it later that says “it is going to take years if not decades to get the United States government to the level of functionality it had in November of 2024.” If we elect a democrat in 2028, we are not going to be up and running by 2032.
Please make sure you have a reminder in your phone reminding you to not look at 2028/32/36 Democratic candidates and say “why are they not promising/delivering Cool Shit?” because you are going to understand that to get Cool Shit we must have competent people running a decently funded government, and we are not going to have that.
We are not getting UBI. We are not getting single payer healthcare. We are not getting free college or free preschool. We are not redistributing wealth on a large scale. We are not getting free internet. We are not getting ranked choice voting.
If we are lucky, we are going to get an IRS that can collect taxes, qualified schoolteachers, research grants, Social Security, and a government that thinks maybe it should be a priority for people around the worlds to not have AIDS, malaria or TB.
I reject all incarnations of the addams family written like spooky goths who hate normies. The joke is that they’re warm and welcoming and they don’t even know that they’re weird. Still might maim you though because they also think everyone else is into hardcore sadomasochism.
Yeah I hate how both the musical and the Wednesday show specifically write just the female Addamses resenting each other in this sort of “haha, WOMEN am I right guys??” tone that especially has no place in the writing of these characters. Musical Gomez almost says exactly that line, even, and musical Morticia has a line like “oh god I’ve turned out like my MOTHER!!!” While looking at the audience like “eh? Relatable, right ladies?” and just who the hell wrote that. Come on. If you genuinely can’t figure out how to have a story about a family without them hating each other, I feel bad for you but also you might be a hack.
[ID: Twitter user whose handle begins @ReadyWasHe… shared a post “According to Americans, this is not a burger.” with a picture of what appears to be a chicken burger. Twitter user whose handle begins @Diabolic… retweeted with the comment “Listen we are a stupid fucking country full of monstrous idiots but we absolutely have earned the right to decide what a burger is”]
It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws. But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.
This is the latest in a string of self-inflicted wounds by the new administration that are squandering America’s strength and threatening our national security. Firing hundreds of federal workers charged with protecting our nation’s nuclear weapons is also dumb. So is shutting down efforts to fight pandemics just as a deadly Ebola outbreak is spreading in Africa. It makes no sense to purge talented generals, diplomats and spies at a time when rivals like China and Russia are trying to expand their global reach.
In a dangerous and complex world, it’s not enough to be strong. You must also be smart. As secretary of state during the Obama administration, I argued for smart power, integrating the hard power of our military with the soft power of our diplomacy, development assistance, economic might and cultural influence. None of those tools can do the job alone. Together, they make America a superpower. The Trump approach is dumb power. Instead of a strong America using all our strengths to lead the world and confront our adversaries, Mr. Trump’s America will be increasingly blind and blundering, feeble and friendless.
FINALLY, a major Democratic leader speaks up and trashes Trump’s reign of stupidity and cruelty!
And of course, it’s a woman: Hillary Clinton, who must be appalled at how easily Trump has dismissed “Signalgate,” which was far worse than anything Clinton did with her “emails.”
This is a gift 🎁 link, so there is no paywall. Enjoy!
People are always hating on Hugo Weaving’s Elrond for not being atractive enough or looking too old for an elf but
He pulled off playing a younger, dashing, more physically active version of his character really well in the Hobbit while he was actually like 20 years older LMAO
People can hate on my man Hugo but he was the only one who genuinely looked younger and more handsome somehow, all the others looked visibly older, even Cate who is so beautiful and aged extremely will did look older than in LOTR but he didn’t. I need some respect for him
I also think his actual portrayal of Elrond is fantastic — Weaving generally plays campy franchise villains (or Priscilla Queen of the Desert lmao) and I genuinely maintain that the melodramatic mannerisms carried over from those roles very much enhances his portrayal of Elrond as an intruiging and individual character and not Baby Gandalf, which was what the character could so easily have been!
Man is theatrical as FUCK, makes unhinged faces every five seconds, and aland it very much works — Elrond being a weird little freak (affectionately) is imo an absolutely perfect portrayal: Also, canon Elrond is clearly quite eccentric, just in a different way to Gandalf! Aka Gandalf is the “take your meds, grandpa” brand of eccentric, while Elrond is the “the king of england likes to walk around with a rubber duck on his head but nobody says anything because he’s the king of england” kind of eccentric.
And lest everyone forget, he fucking BODIED the Arwen storyline — that narrative could have so easily turned into a cliche “overprotective dad shows his daughter’s prom date his gun collection” deal but the total mastery of microexpressions (to the point that to this day idk whether he’s meant to be laughing or crying at the coronation) made it such a deeper, richer storyline, because you could see the slow war of attrition against his heart!
Basically, I wouldn’t find Elrond as compelling a character as I do had he been played as an archetypal sage, instead of a guy who rightly looks fucking miserable 24/7 because he spent 6000 years saying “I told you so”.
Also, I’m not going to contribute to elrond hairline discourse but imo if any elf was to develop male pattern baldness as a result of stress, it would be Elrond “Murphy’s Law in action” Peredhel.
I’m so sorry for the essay this truly is my roman empire
amhrancas 