As I understand it: To avoid the shutdown, Republicans needed 60 votes. They have 53 senators. Only one Democrat voted with the Republicans. The Democrats had some healthcare related demands that weren't met, so the shutdown went ahead.
banazir
joined 2 years ago
I'm starting V. by Thomas Pynchon. I'm going in pretty much blind, don't know the author or the book at all. I just saw his name in the news and realized I'd seen this book at the library, so here we are.
I also recently read Solaris by Stanisław Lem. I first read it in my early teens and I liked it then, but I feel these decades have allowed me to appreciate it more deeply. What a wonderful book! I love the idea that alien intelligence is truly alien - not just humans from another planet - to the point of making communication practically impossible. Any recommendations for books like Solaris and Roadside Picnic, which explore this theme, are welcome.
Yeah, I've seen the film and it is properly terrible.
By Le Fanu? I read a short story collection from him with Carmilla. It was really good. Le Fanu deserves more modern attention, I think.
I really like Bret Easton Ellis's books, and a lot of them are horror. I'll recommend his newest book, The Shards. Other great ones from him are Less Than Zero and American Psycho.
I also enjoyed Red Dragon by Thomas Harris. Possibly better known for it's filmizations, the book is a really good psychological horror story.
Hey now, you can't say that, read the bill:
Is a depiction, description, or simulation, whether real, animated, digitally generated, written, or auditory, of sexual acts, that includes any of the following:
(I) Vaginal or anal intercourse
I can't go anywhere with noisy crowds. The sensory stimulation is too much for me. It's not fun feeling ready to snap at any moment. Anytime I try going to the wrong kind of places I will regret it, so yeah.
Reading the bill, it's pretty insane. I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to ban pretty much all sexual content and all depictions of cross dressing, along with proxies and VPNs. I'm pretty sure you couldn't show Monty Python, because they occasionally cross dress in their sketches.
Anticorruption of Public Morals Act. The name alone screams overreach.
I generally have nothing but a deep sense of loathing for marketing, but I genuinely feel bad for the people who have to try smearing lipstick on this pig.
Seems like the kind of guy I'd want in charge of my company. "Don't buy my stuff" is some next level 4D marketing.
I'm still working through V. by Thomas Pynchon. I intend to finish it, even though I'm not enjoying it all that much. It reads like a weird overly verbose dream, and it's intentionally opaque. At the same time, I recognize that a book like this is incredibly hard to write. I can see the spark of genius in Pynchon, I just don't like his style. Oh well.