Iz 🌟

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.

chosen some dark theatrical pop ^_^

A few instant highlights beyond the songs we'd heard prior, 'Cut The Bridge' and 'Stained' sound great. Not so sure about 'Overflow' or 'IGYEIH', but it's early days and they also don't tend to have entirely perfect albums. I think it's a very good comeback at the start - great to see them doing so well on streaming.

My 50th came up not long after the original 'veto-skipping' rule was devised, I personally didn't think 50 was a significant enough milestone to do something cheap (and I was never on board with that aspect of the rule) or overly meaningful for, so I just ended up not using the mod request thing and just sent a theme from an anime TV show I was really into at the time, Assassination Classroom. The one consideration I had with that one was that it (intentionally) broke my rule of not sending songs that are too insular and connected to their origin - in this case a Japanese anime song fully about the TV show and sung by the voice cast etc. Did terribly but it's still a fun song and attached to a great series. 100th was different, I did take it seriously. Actually I looked back and I was actually considering BABYMETAL's 'Road Of Resistance' as a possibility as far back as my 50th, and I know I also considered it as an option for BJSC 100 too, so I'm so glad I finally chose to send it to a special contest as it's a really special song for me. I've always held to the idea that 'Megitsune' was the most important and influential entry in Séyetana's history, as my first Japanese entry, one of my earliest metal entries and a signifier for sending loud fun songs a good deal of the time, and of course attached to this breakout band who've become one of my favourite artists of all-time in the years since. I'm finally going to see them live next year after missing opportunities to see them in the past and I can't wait. 'Road Of Resistance' itself has a lot of history, as a song the band wrote themselves about their perseverance in becoming stars, it and 'Megitsune' are constantly fighting each other to be my favourite BABYMETAL song. It unbelievably coinciding with my never-again-gonna-get-this-opportunity of hosting was just perfect, made it feel really special for me. Plus a bunch of frightened checking that it would qualify, having to sleep through the final rush of semi votes, waking up to see enough votes in the PMs that I knew through mental arithmetic I was safe, and then relief and shock when it actually managed to finish top 20 in the final ranks among the top of whirlwind of emotions I've had with this contest :heart: so I guess I went from being sceptical about anniversaries to loving them, but only because I managed to build up that narrative for myself about RoR. I don't think it would have worked with any other song.

^Quite, and even if you say 'well he's part of the government now', a) not yet and b) that's not his role. The way he's described as hanging around Mar-a-Lago and joining telephone calls with Trump in the same manner as if he's on a Discord call just sounds so pathetic - and to be saying that about one of the objectively most powerful men in the world right now... And forgive me if I'm not exactly jumping for joy at Israel deciding to withdraw what should be their illegal invasion of another country apparently due to this. Blackmailers who got what they wanted. Looks like we're in for a period of 'quid pro quo' international relations with the USA which is potentially very unstable and will just enable the power of autocrats across the world.

excellent :D (I was already thinking about putting an extra clarifier in the title from yesterday so I will do that now though) the Joker sequel's recent prominence and the meaning of the phrase as 'madness of two' came to me as a good descriptor for the second Trump term. RFK Jr. at Health is so insane I can barely believe it but it really does fit with the theme of sycophants - this will really be a wild ride.

Me too, I'm slowly marathoning onwards with some longer shows (One Piece, MHA, JJK) but not actively watching any seasonals, safe in the knowledge I can pick and choose which shows to get to whenever I like. I've heard enough about Dandadan to give it a go at some point though. I do love Luce though, a very astute choice of mascot by the Catholic Church. There's gotta be a mangaka out there who's seen enough of the Catholic archetypes that occasionally permeate anime whenever there's a Christian character of some description to put something together...

'Little Dark Age' showing a bunch of longevity is really cool to see, I wouldn't have called it making into the ROTD final at any point before it did this year but it is holding up well culturally (in part due to online edits with... mixed... origins) for something that wasn't a big hit initially.

I'm sorta enjoying that quite a few cabinet appointments seem to be Republicans from the House which will ensure the Republicans don't get to use their slim House majority to do anything for several months. Other than that, what an outright batshit insane set of appointments. Trump 1.0. wasn't this blatant, it was a mix of some Trumpian political operators and Republican establishment, this just seems to be whoever's been most sycophantic to Trump over the campaign (Rubio aside). One bright spot is that John Thune is the new Senate majority leader succeeding McConnell - he's still a Republican of course but much more clearly aligned with the Republican establishment and wasn't on board with Jan 6. So between that I don't actually see the slim Republican trifecta working all that well for Trump. Hopefully, in any case.

Figured as uncharacteristically, Trump is being really on the ball with announcing cabinet picks, that the time for the general thread on the next term of the United States' politics is upon us. Perhaps a little early but Biden's is not showing any signs he's going to do much in the lame duck period. Such INSPIRED cabinet picks include: Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy being sent to the kids table at the new Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE, wow so le epic) Tulsi Gabbard, former Democratic snake oil saleswoman as Director of National Intelligence Kristi Noem, South Dakotan governor and dog murderer in Homeland Security Marco Rubio as Secretary Of State Elise Stefanik, insane Trump loyalist as Ambassador to the UN A Fox News host as Defense Secretary and possibly most insane of all, the notoriously creepy Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. Anyway, discuss the trajectory of the US here.