John B

The troubles

Hegseth drove himself this morning, I see

Same and agree - I think classical concerts skew younger than either opera or ballet

I mean, it's actually even weirder than that: it's two lots of 30yo mostly-non-British postgrad students

True believer, I think - his position was that Belgium was going to be destroyed by France and/or Germany unless it became a major colonial power and that he'd do everything he could to make it into one, at the expense of all moral considerations.

He's a crook *and* a depraved true believer. I get the impression he started out as the second and turned into the first opportunistically (this might be wrong)

Peanuts is gaslighting the country.

Charlie Brown has hoes.

Counterpoint: we both went to the exact same sort of insufferable movies that we do now when we were teens

Yeah, I think I still have the same childhood coding for Emmylou and Dolly, but on the other hand it is noticeable that Dolly keeps popping up in mainstream (both music and non-music) media whereas I don't think I've seen Emmylou mentioned outside of Mojo/online equivalents

(the seniors at the opera largely behave themselves; the seniors at the movies are some of the rudest douches I've ever encountered as far as chatting, phone lights, loud cronchy snacks, etc go. Baffling stuff given that - unlike teens - they've spent the previous 60 years going to the cinema!)

I went to the opera last night. It was great (Turandot at the SOH - fantastic set/visual design). I was one of the youngest people there. I am 47. OTOH Clare and I do also skew the average age down when we go to non-debut-run arthouse movie festival showings, so worst case, Tim C is already too late

The Onion headline "Timothee Chalamet Under Fire for Dismissive Comments About Traditional Japanese Puppet Theater Form 'Bunraku'" was liked by Bernie Sanders.

Bernie... thank you

LMFAO SOMEONE MADE IT A REAL THING

sweepthestrait.com

The point there is that the second bit *doesn't make any sense in a framework with a mandatory two-party system with open primaries* (it might in a European-style system, but that isn't the game). The question of who is up for office and what Dem polices are is answered by primary voters.

The crooks had broadly let things tick along as long as they could keep stealing (or if they fucked up, they destroyed the economy by stealing too much). A crook who also has Trump's levels of genocidal mania is something we've not seen since the more depraved and unpopular Byzantium types (2/2)

One of the under-discussed things that I think has blinded people to Trump (including me to some extent in his first term, but Jan 6 really changed that) is that pretty much every well-known modern-world evil genocidaire world leader before him was a serious, principled evil bastard (1/2)

In that specific context (which works *because* US general elections are a highly prescribed game), not voting is the "standing there and doing nothing" position. All the "untie the people instead" points about how the game is itself bad relate to what you do on the other 1460 days of the term!

It is a useless framework to describe most things in real life. By sheer chance, and not at all as Foot or Thompson's intents, it is a reasonable analytical framework to describe US general elections, and the US voters pretending that it doesn't are absolutely trying to duck their responsibilities.

It is not the case that the ICE fans are (mis)using the trolley problem to support their position, come on, that is not a thing which is happening

ive noticed a weird thing where people have kind of become debate drones. they see an argument that says [x], it vaguely reminds them of argument [y] which pertains to a related subject, and they immediately start furiously arguing against [y] and just don't understand you didn't say that

I still think about this a lot.

This would be an excellent reason for it to introduce AV instead

That's AU$12 (best internet guess) and the cost tables from here, in case you were wondering www.measuringworth.com/calculators/...

Purely accounting for inflation, the Beatles White Album cost the equivalent of almost AU$200 today on double-vinyl when it came out. As a share of average income, it was like buying something that cost AU$500 today (this thought brought you by paying $60 for the new double-vinyl Gorillaz album).

"The trolley problem is an experiment designed to show philosophy students the clash between our deontological and our utilitarian instinctive believes, and is not a helpful way of framing IRL trade-offs" is a reasonable point for someone to make, but crucially *not what the OP said*.

I wouldn't say "fuck you, why are you so fixated on finding reasons to justify killing people?" is "questioning the premise and wondering at the overreliance", so much as "overtly stating that anyone who raises it is a bad person who just wants to make excuses for killing people"

Looking forward to seeing The Great Arch at the French Film Festival; also what is it with unknown Danish architects winning prestige international competitions and then getting into massive shitfights with everybody?

My answer to the trolley problem is:
That’s not a trolley, it’s a tram.
No, what you call a tram is a cable car.
No, what you call a cable car is probably a funicular.
Oh, while we were sorting out these important points, the railed vehicle has passed the points. Yes, they are points, not a switch.

Oh come on, he's not "questioning the premise", he's wigging out in bad faith

I like the one about the violinist the best