Iz 🌟

noooo hinterlandia!!! that was my clear 12 of the semi results not the best I have to be honest :(

that is a surprise, I thought Ben's Sanctuary would be safe, good track. great to see East Rukahavian through though

shenanigans!!! had a good year as far as Qs go but I'd hoped to sneak in a J-pop one before it finished off. :( continue listening to it because it's a hella good grower x

ugh I'm very 50/50 on my chances (even though my song's structure and sound is amazing) be kind both semi 1 DNQs so far were very close to my votes but just about missed out, shame

@1862507730680041474 really diverse range of 'for's and 'against' (Starmer, Sunak, Anderson & Denyer vs Badenoch, Patel, Farage, Corbyn & Abbott!!), Parliament should do free votes more often. Like there's a very vague correlation between establishment vs anti-establishment MPs but not 100% by a long shot. Underscores how difficult of a decision this was though, somber moment in the chamber as the results were read out.

Not happy about that, she was one of the bright spots of the new government and was doing great work over at transport - rails into public ownership, addressing Euston's issues, the bad stuff about transport so far in this government has come from higher up. Also apparently one of the few in cabinet not in the McSweeney faction, which tracks, and might be a more pertinent reason than a spent (and hardly disqualifying, in the eyes of most reasonable people) conviction from over a decade ago suddenly becoming a problem.

The fact that Leadbeater is the one leading the bill has made me more positively inclined towards it than I would otherwise, she's certainly one of the MPs I trust more in parliament and my instinct is she's determined to get this right. The bill is entirely focused on mentally sound terminally ill adults making an informed choice, in these sorts of situations it prevents more suffering, so in those cases I'm good with it. I am edgy about any legalised dying, but under specific circumstances, where our medicine can only painfully delay, not fix, the inevitable, that's fine. I don't feel too strongly on it either way though as this is one of the rare commonly debated political issues where both sides do have legitimate points.

predictions go brrr 🐛 FARC 🐛 Ceechynaa - Last Laugh 🐛 Aeroche 🐛 Leftfield - Full Way Round (Ewan McVicar Remix) (feat. Grian Chatten) 🐛 The Spodic Empire 🐛 Andrew W.K. - She Is Beautiful 🐛 Cor Lupus 🐛 No Mana & SOFI - Digital Friends 🐛 Altyr Muunilinst 🐛 Metteson - Waves 🐛 Kathaldazia 🐛 Mona Yim - Baby Dragon 🐛 Eastovka 🐛 Diskoria & Danilla - Flamboyanku 🐛 Harmonica 🐛 Daniel Allan & Lyrah - I Just Need 🐛 Jupiterdonia 🐛 School Of Seven Bells - Ablaze 🐛 Hushkanukia 🐛 ADÉLA - SUPERSCAR 🐛 Hinterlandia 🐛 Felix Lee - And The Parasite Speaks (feat. Ecco2k) 🐛 East Rukahavian 🐛 Geowulf - Nightmare 🐛 Ultraviolenceland 🐛 Skye Riley - Blood On White Satin 🐛 Herbilore 🐛 Benedict Cork - Reasons I Loved You (I Can't Think Of One) 🐛 POPHub 🐛 Becca Hatch - Think Of You 🐛 Macromia 🐛 SOFIA ISELLA - I Can Be Your Mother 🐛 Singerpurear 🐛 Jackson Sisters - I Believe In Miracles 🐛 Cadelicia 🐛 Sara Landry & Shlømo - Play With Me 🐛 FSR Rontvia 🐛 Kit Sebastian - Bul Bul Bul 🐛 Danæviia 🐛 CLANN - Arise 🐛 Pestolia 🐛 ieuan - Tokyo Convenience 🐛 Greenfroze 🐛 HWASA - NA 🐛 New Lexico 🐛 Cimberly - bye bye bye 🐛 Séyetana 🐛 Phantom Siita - Zoku Zoku 🐛 Ben's Sanctuary 🐛 &Tilly & Color Theory - I Cannot Rain 🐛 Mothertopia 🐛 Leah Kate - But I Lied 🐛 Fljótavík 🐛 CHINCHILLA - 1:5 🐛 Sovarasma 🐛 HINA - Tararua

now that's the hopeless $20 budget Monterockgro I know and love

Saw this got a week in the cinemas here which is unusual for anime films, missed it then but caught up to it now. Really cute, emotional little story. .

Interesting case in that he came out of nowhere as well, everyone was expecting a different far-right f***wit, the one endorsed by their official far-right f***wit party (AUR), to do well. Hopefully the one candidate left opposing him can win the second round, honestly, looking into it between her (Lasconi) and the current PM (Ciolacu), Ciolacu seems like a corrupt incumbent turning a historic social-democratic party into an illiberal austerity generator (as ever) and Lasconi at least outwardly reminds me of Maia Sandu, who just managed to get herself re-elected over in Moldova and is pretty much keeping that country on the path to pro-Europeanism.

It can indeed be how politics works. The generation coming of age in the 80s (early Gen X) has always had a conservative bent - and the generation coming of age in the late 00s (central millennials) has so far been pretty reliably progressive. Obviously you can't extrapolate that to younger generations and future occurrences, but broadly, demographic prediction is just as valid as predicting racial depolarisation. Something that may occur in the UK, but to an extent has already happened, Muslims went to greens and independents, Hindus to Conservatives, neither really went over to Reform. Of course, no reason to suspect direction of travel stays in that direction either, I don't know what you mean by 'strong left' policies but a) people don't think in those terms, they think in how it affects them, b) this Labour ain't doing 'strong left' stuff. Basically learning lessons from the US election should be limited to 'make people feel good about the economy' and don't worry about demographic this, age bracket that, because that'll come with the general good feeling. Also broadly, it's a bit more difficult to predict what will happen in a multi-party system than the strict two-party duopoly of America, because here we don't have two distinct choices, and especially so early in the term. The lack of a party infrastructure will work against Reform, the lack of direction and will to rebuild will work against the Tories. Far too early to say who will win the next election but our right don't have a consistent challenger, I think even if you were being optimistic with them and looking at it from their point of view, they have a tough route to power in one cycle and they're really not sending their best in Badenoch and Farage (the latter of whom has stronger potential but is in a far weaker position).

Band Aid 40's fallen behind Wham on Bet365. Could swing back but I doubt it at this point, it was rated ahead of Wham as an unknown.

This is definitely in part boosted by Musk bots (and again it makes me apoplectic to see him interfering) and part of the in-general coordinated anti-Labour media frenzy that has been set upon the government ever since they got in power. However, that does mean the dissatisfaction gets to set in, I've heard it brought up at work - it'll just contribute to the levels of frustration with the government that will not set them on a good route to get anything done - so many of their media appearances are now by default reduced to defending the latest policy that has been uncharitably interpreted. What would those be? Pretty clear the playbook that the right wing is spinning up is dissatisfaction with the 'elite' Labour establishment that cares for nothing but selling out to 'globalist' businesses, meanwhile any pro-worker move is seized upon by businesses as an indication of disaster (c.f. McVities in the Telegraph today). Even though the Biden administration did incredibly capable and effective things given the time they had to do it, there was still a general feeling of malaise that the economy wasn't doing well. From the track record of the media in these first few months of Labour government during which I can only describe them as 'feral', they will not let any positive feeling naturally set in from any of Labour's standard strategies. Starmer's got some great policies out there but he and his government are awful at communicating. They need to get populist, have people feel good about what's happening rather than just telling them things are great - Sunak's government tried the same and it never worked.

Phantom Siita - Zoku Zoku (ファントムシータ　－ゾクゾク） H-1oG5U0NAo for all the Japanese entries I have in my history I haven't done too much of the idol girlbands in reality (BABYMETAL don't count), so something very different from Séyetana this time. got attracted to the beautiful (possibly traditional? at least that's the vibe they're going for) instrumentation in this one and the lovely voices on the girls in this new idol group. I later discovered that they were put together in part by queen of Japanese pop Ado which makes a lot of sense, they have similar sound profiles. Hope you enjoy x

BABYMETAL and Beyond The Black showing up, feels like a Séyetana special :o - been stanning 'RATATATA' since its release so happy it gets a bigger audience, and Beyond The Black are always good quality. reptilian gifs gone for my first and therefore only Japanese entry this year, stayed away too long

Doomscroller was my +40 - an utter event of a song, frenetic, pacy, building epically, perfectly timed on its societal commentary, introduced me proper into a band who've become one of my favourites of the last few years - I'd heard a few songs of theirs before but this was my motivation to go check out their albums which are fantastic. Not surprised it had so few voters as a 10 minute song doesn't look appealing from the outside and of course it wasn't a hit but absolutely recommended if you like any sort of indie-rock with synths. And 'Exile' just ahead of it is also brilliant. Probably prefer all of #11-#14 to a large majority of the top 10 oops ('Levitating' is absolutely my Dua pick) but great that all 4 of those are up that high. guess I'm team Escapism now.

Would love to know what you consider to be positive elements from a man with allegations of trafficking underage prostitutes, links with Holocaust deniers, sharing inappropriate images in Congress, climate denalism, conspiracism over Jan 6, conspiracism over The Great Replacement, statements on his desire to 'hunting down' those he considers 'antifa', conspiracism over COVID-19, the only member of the House to vote against a Human Trafficking bill, and voting against LGBT and equality rights whenever he got the chance.

I agree with Rooney. People talk up Russia's game as unpredictable but they're really a pretty predictable force in a geopolitical sense, showing hands of strength to intimidate the weaker states around them into giving them what they want. China's actually the more canny political adversary but we're already miles off topic so I'll spare that diversion. That supposed ICBM launch today actually shows Russia's hand painfully, they want people to think that they'll snap but in reality they'd have had to inform the West of their intention ahead of time to avoid retaliation, hence this round of escalation is likely done for now. But it's all aimed at putting themselves in a strong position so that when the new Trump administration tries to end the war, Russia can say that they control the Donbass and aren't retreating from their claims, they have the ability to destroy Ukraine but will let it go with grace as long as Ukraine cedes the four provinces they claim. Or something along those lines. Anyway, on topics actually related directly to the Trump administration I note with pleasure that Congress' creepy uncle Matt Gaetz has withdrawn himself from consideration for Attorney-General. Who's the most prominent Trump loyalist not already tipped for a cabinet position?

Brat ought to and I think it has a good chance - I'd rate Beyoncé, Chappell and Charli all about equally likely to get it just off my estimations?

I seem to recall them picking acts that already had a significant hit or two a problem as far back as when Sam Smith won it. They might make the argument that it takes a while for an artist name to truly embed in the public conscience and so even someone who's had as good a year as Roan would benefit. That said a lot of this does look like following rather than leading, hope the ones they choose to get the sort of coverage Last Dinner Party got are those who could really benefit.

I am so on board with Cha Cha Cha and Doomscroller getting into the top 20 when I had no expectations for either to even be in the final. Solid top 20 on the whole, can't think of anything that doesn't deserve to be there between huge pop hitters and a few alt faves. Incredible climbs for 'Two Weeks' and 'Welcome To My Island', I hope the latter can maintain a bit of a run now, really great track.

The current president's term is not yet over, hence he is within every right to continue current US policy. I'd also question that this action necessarily escalates, it's not much of a material difference to the conflict, except now Ukraine might be able to go a bit more tit for tat by firing missiles into the Donbass, which is fair enough considering how many missiles Kyiv has had targeted at it. Far more likely it actually allows Ukraine to come to the negotiating table stronger, which would be a gift for Trump. It's not like Trump will be able to immediately change US policy towards Ukraine, and I doubt he will, it would just make him look weak. And, the USA is not at war with Russia. Words have meanings in international politics, Russia can't object to the USA arming Ukraine because it is not in Russian interests to enter direct conflict with the USA, or NATO, as that would threaten the rebuilding of Russian regional power they are aiming to achieve in Ukraine, ergo they are not at war with those powers. For someone so willing to see the Russian side of things, it's odd that that isn't your conclusion.

Only one choice #emo

Wham are still good value even at the much reduced price, already got a fiver on - doubt there'll be anything like the profit-making opportunity there was last year. That said if it's now down to predicting which streaming giant is on top, at some point the pendulum could swing towards Mariah, though no signs of that happening this year.