Lord Liaden

All your answers can be found here:

This has been building for quite some time. I hope it's a sign of an international trend of putting an end to political clown shows.

Tornadoes and enormous hailstones rip across China's Guangzhou Province in late April.

I think there's value in reading insights from American expats who know the US from the inside, but are also immersed in perspectives of it from the outside.

Saudi women’s rights activist secretly sentenced to 11 years in prison for ‘choice of clothing’

‘The US is seen as a joke’: American expats on Trump, Biden and the 2024 election

You might also borrow the "Uplift" concept from David Brin's series of novels, in which sapient aliens perform genetic engineering on animal species to make them sapient as well. The newly-augmented races become "clients" of their "patron" uplifters, until the patrons become defunct in some way and their clients achieve independence. This process has apparently gone on since time immemorial. Many races believe there must have been an original "un-uplifted" race who started the whole thing, and for some their devotion to that concept verges on religious fervor.

Per the (admittedly cursory) research I've done on conspiracy theories, they appeal to people on two levels. One, they make them feel they're among the special few who have seen through the public deception to The Truth. Two, they assure the theorist that the seemingly random and irrational events in the world are actually under someone's control and following a purpose, which they find more reassuring than that they're simply natural chaos.

I assumed it was a drop-bear. I wonder what they think of us?

You wouldn't be your endearing self if you didn't.

Well, I was trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

I would suggest going back to the origin of such creatures in myth and folklore, the trolls of Scandinavia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll One of the early alternative root words for "troll" listed on that page might be suitable. Given your examples, IMO the Proto-German noun Trullan sounds like a good choice.

Wait, this is something private citizens can buy?! Is this in America? 'Cause if it is, I'm sorry, but your country is crazy.

I thought of that too. Honestly, I don't think there's any outcome that will lead to a clean win.

I guess someone was bound to mount a cow-catcher on the back eventually.

Closing in on the Beach Mummies.

I don't wish death on anyone, but if it's going to happen, it would be really helpful if it happened before November. I have seen it. I agree, it's brilliant. And hilarious, in a bleak way. But I used to think the behavior of some of the characters was too crazy to be real. Now, not so much. 😞

I hope that when we can finally travel to other stars, somebody tracks down that 'bot and recovers it. It deserves to be enshrined among humanity's other good and faithful space servants.

I can't tell you how much it pleases me that Joe Biden, and other Democrats, have finally taken the gloves off and are going after Trump and the MAGA Republicans, calling out their BS, showing what buffoons they really are. It's long overdue. You can't stick to the high road when your opposition is wallowing in the mud. You have to sling some mud yourself. It doesn't hurt that the mud the Dems have to work with has some sharp rocks in it.

If you haven't checked out the Osmonds, trust me, you're missing out. And I think that's about as far from politics as we can get. 😏

D&D has experienced quite the resurgence in recent years. Granted, the upsurge in interest is mostly confined to that game, but it does offer a gateway to expand new gamers' horizons.