scoobyshakespeare.bsky.social
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For him, it's better than it could be, since it actually offers to make vaccines available and briefly acknowledges their role in protecting others.
But it really has to be graded on the curve for a piece more enthusiastic about vitamin A than MMR vaccine to be worthy of praise in an epidemic.
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The piece isn't urging people to vaccinate. It grudgingly offers vaccines "for all those who want them" while touting vitamins as "the best defense".
It also downplays the role of vaccines in the initial conquest of measles, and reups his "vaccine safety" hobbyhorse.
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Watching libertarian-leaners wax optimistic re Bezos's announcement re oped policy was like seeing Charlie Brown run to kick the football. Again.
As someone here said, Don't galaxy brain yourself into being born yesterday. It was obvious that personal liberties and free markets weren't the point.
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Tolkien addresses that in notes re an illustrated map. (The notes are collected in The Nature of Middle Earth.) Apparently he had at least one pocket for the Ring.
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When my wife got Covid last summer, I made some effort to avoid it (slept in another room, kept windows open in addition to air cleaners, but mostly didn't mask at home) & didn't get it.
When I got flu A last month, she made no effort to avoid it (other than her fall vax) & didn't get it.
So 🤷‍♂️. 🙂
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Maybe it was done with the ring Saruman made and showed Gandalf, since that's likewise never brought up again after he shows it off once.
(You'd think Saruman figuring out how to make a ring would be more important to his story than it proved.)
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I've had that thought too. Though against it, Boromir isn't really established as a liar. (At least until the Ring has worked on him, and even then he's mostly just evasive.)
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I don't know that they see it in 2038. The shadow of the Spanish Flu is visible once you know to look (death dates of non-soldiers, a scene in It's a Wonderful Life, a Poirot novel where his flu recovery is treated as precarious).
But you had to look, & there wasn't the same effort to bury it.
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You *really* never know what you're going to get.
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Fair enough!
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Whether this is because as servants of Manwë they're leery of intervening, or because as ancient, proud birds of prey whose eyries would be hard for Sauron to trouble they're just not *that* interested in helping, is hard to say.
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The Eagles seem to really strongly limit themselves to the deus ex machina role. Gwaihir was a bit grumbly about carrying Gandalf away from Orthanc, and definitely didn't offer to let anyone up north (Radagast, Elrond, or Cirdan, say) know what was going on then.
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Of course it's necessary. Every vote counts.
But remembering the people who went from vocally appalled at January 6 to voting for Trump again in 2024 certainly doesn't help one's inclination to send for the fatted calf. Or trust that this time the change will last long enough to make a difference.
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Of course, if so letting Frodo use the Mirror was really dangerous. But presumably she trusted herself to cut him off in time.
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I'm thinking she uses it to perceive Sauron's mind (as she describes doing right after), but "the way is closed" in the other direction. An overwhelmed Hobbit drawn in might inadvertently open it. Much as Pippin's mind was open to Sauron through the Palantir while Aragorn's was guarded.
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I read it as the actual Eye, and Galadriel warns Frodo against touching the water he's being drawn towards because doing so would reveal him.
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Same. bsky.app/profile/scoo...
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They have to perceive the need, and be able to judge the qualifications.
I think it's somewhat more likely that someone from the younger generation of the party will seize the initiative, but that's not exactly happening on a rapid timetable either.
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"I'm a wealthy and influential figure in the most powerful mortal land in the Western Seas. The only thing I lack is the immortality of the Elves. I bet seeking after that will end well!
"Maybe it will help if I engage the help of someone even more powerful, who the so-called Wise revile!"
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I don't disagree on the need for urgency. I'm just skeptical of their capacity for it.
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It is something they need to figure out, ideally yesterday. But their inability to act urgently in a crisis has lasted through a lot of crises at this point.
If they couldn't do it when a million Americans died, I'm not holding my breath on their doing it to save democracy or the rule of law.
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To be fair, they're probably also not capable. Wielding social media isn't a skill they or their staffs mostly seem to have. (AOC and a few others maybe excepted.) No one wants Schumer trying to beat Trump or Musk in head-to-head poasting, and their staffs all seem to be the corporate comms types.
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In a country in which 49% of the voters chose what we have, and the state legislatures look like this, I shudder to think what an Article V convention would pass.
Best case is probably that no one gets 3/4 of the legislatures (or 3/4 of the state conventions chosen by the same electorates).
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"I have a 'Jor-El' on line one."
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Earth-2, but yeah.
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I expect Illinois and @nomads.bsky.social may have something to say about that.
(Though I imagine a subordinate Ohio Ilkhanate might be arrangeable.)
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Look, I went to the effort of establishing a line of credit with the First International Trouble Bank, and if I don't use it regularly I might lose access.
(And then where would I be?)
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And not resigning in that situation, because "if I don't do it, someone worse will", is a well-trod road to compromise and corruption.
(Very rarely, also heroism, like those who stayed in authoritarian governments and facilitated visas to escape the Holocaust. But that's a tiny fraction.)
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The extreme focus on China's culpability 5 years ago (real even if only secrecy and obstruction) is also oddly juxtaposed with our active neglect of bird flu surveillance & countermeasures.
Whatever China should have done it can't be changed; our choices are still available & the outcome in doubt.
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"...and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up."
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Which puts a great deal of power in the hands of those who choose whether or not to open an investigation.
Is it worth drawing their attention (for those given a choice), if it means you might have to assemble generations worth of documentation on pain of being stripped of citizenship?
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The d4s I have have Roman numerals, which may or may not help. :-)
www.amazon.com/Chessex-Spec...
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I never really thought about that consciously. But since I own dodecahedral d4s and d6s in addition to the d12s, and find I use them in preference to my tetrahedra and cubes, revealed preferences suggest I agree about the roll. :-)
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There was also speculation that ticket numbers indicated that the all-important crowd sizes might compare unfavorably to other inaugurations.
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That three-armed version almost looks like a 45 rpm record adapter. (For those of an age to recognize those, anyway.)
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I also appreciate that they have a character named Kong, and a character who's a gorilla, and they are not the same character.
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This seems tailor made for an Earth-1/Earth-2 style crossover.
(Honestly, the 80s reboot of the Filmation Ghostbusters sounds like the Silver Age reimagining of a Golden Age team. "Futura, a time-traveling Ghostbuster from the future"?)
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It seems as if someone should have built a realm there: Nandor, Dunedain, Northmen, offshoots from the Wood-Elves or Dale.
If Gondor doesn't do it, whoever's there has straightforward trade links with them & their seaports.
(Maybe passing btw Lorien & Dol Guldur was a deterrent in the later TA.)
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The Great River north of Rohan is kind of shockingly underdeveloped and underpopulated for being "the Great River".
The Third Age is decline all over, but from the time the Elves first hit it during the Great Migration it doesn't really seem there was ever much farming, urbanization, or trade.
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Later I found out she didn't then *know* that, or how to chmod her directory to take files private. But all's well that ends well.