In the early days, mages were less powerful because there was less power in the Aether. Their most powerful spells could only destroy small houses. Plenty of small houses were destroyed as these mages learned their skills, but it was mostly their own houses, and they learned from their mistakes. Over time, these mages not only became more skilled at their craft, they also improved the power all mages had to draw on, weaving isolated pockets of Aether together into one large Aether-net.

Through this, the mages were able to accomplish much, much more. But it meant that new mages could draw on power far greater than a new mage knows how to control.

99% of the time it's fine, because 99% of the time the person who wrote the Makefile undertands Makefiles and knows that the first thing you do is define a default target. A default target that's chosen reasonably is a very nice feature of make because there are no standard names for targets, and no easy way to find out the names of targets other than trying to read the Makefile, which can be a pain in the ass.

The ideal would be someone who was say a Major, or a relatively high rank, then left the military and had a successful career as an executive in the private sector, or one who reached a very high non-appointed post in the government via promotion. Someone who is familiar with the culture of the military and understands how things work, but doesn't know the high ranking military members, and has no friendships with them, no obligations to them and won't show any favouritism. OTOH, someone who has the personnel-management skills and small "p" political skills that you need in that kind of job.

But, you're not promoted. You're selected for promotion, so you shouldn't be vacating your position just because your name was put up for promotion. Whatever the reason, it's stupid.

Really, it should be the people who are not selected for promotion who are at risk.

If you have an excellent Navy Commander who deserves to be promoted to Captain, but you have too many Captains, then maybe it's time to choose your worst Captain and retire them to make room. It doesn't make any sense to take the Captain who was up for promotion to Admiral and didn't get it and retire them instead.

Ha, and no #1 "ghoulish child", but there is one "ghastly child".

They probably should have called the Korean women who were part of Kim's harem "women" rather than "girls" in the credits.

I wonder if there are any rules or anything in Hollywood for that. It could be that the actresses wanted to be listed as "girls" because it's better for their career. It could also be weird Hollywood rules. Apparently the rules around credits are extremely deep and complicated. For example if it's "Foo & Bar", they worked as a writing team. If it's "Foo and Bar" they worked separately.

I know it's especially complicated for title credits. Normally the most "important" actor is listed first, and in some cases both actors want to be first, so they do some funny things like have the first name in the upper right corner and the second name in the lower left, so one actor is above the other in the credits, but the other is more to the left, so also important.

Send Hegseth to the Hague, then we’ll talk.

The US would have to join the ICC first. That's one massive stain on the US in itself.

There's an international criminal court that 125 nations are a party to, but the US decides "nah" and so Americans can't be tried there and effectively have immunity for any international crimes they commit.

And yes, Jensen cheated on his wife with a woman who has the same last name.

... as himself, not as his wife. If his wife goes by Huang it's because she married him.

Seems like he watched too much stepsister porn.

Canta y no llores!
Porque cantando se alegran,
Cielito lindo, los corazones.

That's not even the worst of it.

I went to an NFL game and the fans were constantly being prompted what to do. The fans saying "De-fence" weren't saying that on their own. We all know about the cheerleaders, who at least started as a group of people who were there to lead cheers. But, these days they mostly just put on short, entertaining dance / gymnastics shows during the periods when nothing much is happening in the game. But, the real "cheer leaders" these days are the screens. There are immense screens in the stadium that tell the fans when to chant "De-fence". Or "Make some noize" (with the mis-spelling of noise on purpose). Or, there was a constant honking from the kind of horn you'd expect on a cargo ship when the other team had the ball and were in a huddle. It's not even the fans trying to disrupt things at that point, it's some guy in the stadium, employed by the home team whose job it is to sound that fog horn.

Now, a lot of that is probably because it's gridiron football and there is more down-time than there is actual time in play. If fans were not constantly prompted to cheer or boo or "make some noize" they'd probably be chatting with their neighbours. That's what tends to happen with slow-paced games in Britain (and elsewhere) like cricket.

As for soccer / football / futbol, in the UK they do really sing about things like someone's drunk driving charge, or someone cheating on their wife with another player's wife, and fun things like that. But, not Debussy's Clair de Lune. What's interesting is that there are so few tunes that are actually used for chants. The oldest, most established ones are based on church hymns because everybody knew those from hearing them in church every week. These days even though people don't go to church much, those tunes are well established for chants. There are also pop songs from the 1950s (That's Amore), 1960s (Hey Jude, Yellow Submarine), 1970s (Go West), 1980s (Just Can't Get Enough), but it's rare to hear a song that's less than 40 years old being used for a chant. Something has to be so well known by fans of all ages for it to actually work as a chant.

The reason that former US allies are still not going to trust the US after this vote is that after the absolute shit-show that is a Trump presidency with a GOP house and GOP senate, 50% of American men are STILL voting Republican.

And, that's the vote. That's not the people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for the GOP this time, but stayed home rather than vote Democratic.

It's just a matter of time before the US swings back to MAGA again. If that happens the US might once again renege on its treaties, threaten allies, start wars, and break international laws.

Texas and Kansas think BBQ sauce should be basically ketchup, but with even more sugar. North Carolina has great sauce with vinegar and spice. South Carolina's is also great with the mustard-based sauce.