shaunc

a man is riding a horse and talking to another man while another man looks on . ALT: a man is riding a horse and talking to another man while another man looks on .

Definitely Zoroastrians! Also maybe Cathars....

See - if you didn't revise in the summer that proves their point.

The Left Hand of Darkness?

based

(When the top of the hill is actually a Ceres-sized asteroid on a collision course with earth...)

(The downtrodden masses of Bryansk, of course, should be part of Belarus which should be part of Lithuania.)

Bilhorod is Ukraine! And what of the downtrodden masses of Bryansk?

This is a good point. We didn't fight WW2 on the basis that Germany, Japan, Italy should not have the right to exist. It was rather fascist propaganda that equated (for instance) the survival of the German people and victory in the war.

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all:

“If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.”

Israel just killed him.

BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.

They call the Church-Turing thesis a "thesis" and not a theory for a reason, I think! :)

By "computational process" do you mean something that a Turing machine can simulate? Isn't that everything (modulo resource issues)? OTOH if they are processes that can simulate computation ... aren't they mostly not Turing complete? What sort of mind/brain would falsify the computational metaphor?

Also the Russian legacy in Alaska is the murderous exploitation of the native population to extract furs. Not something to be proud of, to whatever extent it resonates with America's own western expansion "from sea to shining sea". (Paging Cormac McCarthy....)

To take the middle position I would picture Umbar as ethnically mixed w/ many being hybrids and this being for a racist Tolkien the symbol of being "fallen." The numenoreans weren't wiped out but the "will to power" overcame preservation of purity....

a black and white photo of a vampire standing in a doorway ALT: a black and white photo of a vampire standing in a doorway

Yeah - poor oral hygiene is inappropriate for those preserved through the centuries by sorcery. Cartilage does keep growing, though, with some characteristic results....

a man with a beard is sitting in front of a christmas tree and two framed pictures of him ALT: a man with a beard is sitting in front of a christmas tree and two framed pictures of him

We are becoming one of history's great cautionary tales.

Thousands in Tel Aviv protest against Netanyahu’s plan to escalate Gaza war Organisers say more than 100,000 people joined demonstration demanding end to military campaign

100,000 Israelis, including families of hostages, protest against war
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Eaten by polar bears - oh my!

Just being sensitive to how shy you are.

"My great great great great great great great granddaddy was snookered into giving that vinyard to the church in 1263 for an indulgence, and yet he's still haunting the manor, so obviously we were conned. Now we can buy it back cheap!"

Though tbf "perogi" is plural. Pierog.

Maybe in real life spies just sit in offices and surreptitiously plug in flash drives to their work computers? Seems to me like being ugly and out of shape would be useful, so you don't look like a spy in a film....

And it seems that Russia is displacing Wagner in Africa - probably a fairly large contingent of murderous mercenaries available for any sort of work?

Tbf my home is made of wood, so "homestyle" including a bit of the home's style doesn't seem so far astray from the description.

Cycles of Time - Wikipedia

So Penrose just stole the sane parts? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycles_...

two knights are standing in the woods and one of them is saying i 've had worse . ALT: two knights are standing in the woods and one of them is saying i 've had worse .

Counterpoint

I think an underappreciated strength until Trump was the "American political consensus" (Hofstadter) actually kept policy oriented around ideological liberalism despite change in president. So there was uncertainty but it was pretty well defined uncertainty.

1. Isn't there also a sufism - kabbalah link? Perhaps more cross-pollination than being downstream?
2. Is there a jewish precedent to Manichaeism?

Perhaps they should try recruiting abroad? Surely they could get the work visas through the system?