Malazan Empire: Azath Vitr (D'ivers - Viewing Profile - Malazan Empire

One was in the hospital (Correa). Another had a family emergency (Horsford).

Pelosi never makes her Tuesday votes (because she's in California those days most of the time - which I don't like). Haley Stevens also never makes her Tuesday votes (she quasi flipped to Republican party and was actually hanging around in their coatroom recently). Frederica Wilson also never makes her Tuesday votes either, which is not good (she is retiring and Oliver Gilbert, her successor, has not been sworn in yet).

Quoting Michael Paulauski now: https://bsky.app/pro...t/3n223ybyds62m

"That leaves 6 Democrats:
Julia Brownley, Laura Gillen, Jonathan Jackson, Brittany Pettersen, Melanie Stansbury, and Marilyn Strickland.

Several of them cited a traffic incident, motorcade, or police-escorted bus blocking Capitol roads, and some were returning from a reception ~1.4 miles away.

They didn't invent that delay. Under 8 minutes after the Hegseth vote closed at 6:02 PM, all 6 of those Democrats were on the floor voting Nay on Roll Call 318 at 6:10 PM.

Four of the 7 absent Republicans (Fry, Letlow, Tiffany, Yakym) also missed the 6:02 PM gavel and voted Yea at 6:10 PM.

What was the 4:30-6:30 PM event? An orientation-week "New Member Reception" for incoming Dem women hosted by Elect Democratic Women (EDW), the House PAC for pro-choice Dem women.

Yes, EDW's super PAC offshoot (EDW Action Fund) has taken $2.45M+ from AIPAC's super PAC for primary ads.

Calling that event an AIPAC plot to save Hegseth makes zero sense. EDW board member Melanie Stansbury takes $0 from AIPAC and co-sponsored the Block the Bombs Act.

And EDW Action Fund's affiliate Pro-Choice Majority Action spent $450k+ on ads for MA Dem Tram Nguyen, who called Gaza a genocide.

Better yet, look at Roll Call 317 itself: House Democrats on the floor voted 203-0 against burying Hegseth's impeachment.

AIPAC's loudest House allies (Ritchie Torres, Josh Gottheimer, Dan Goldman) all voted Nay, alongside Whip Katherine Clark and 9 of EDW's 11 sitting board members.

Be mad at Dems cutting off-campus events too close to votes if you want. Even with all 6 delayed Dems, 204 + 6 is 210 (short of 211, and 215-210 with the 4 late Republicans).

Turning a Capitol traffic jam after a women's orientation event into an "AIPAC saved Hegseth" plot is pure fanfiction."

Within the next 6 months or so I will read The End of Everything as well as The Disappearers by Marlon James (the only other book on the shortlist that was in my radar) and then I will bump this thread to tell you all who should have truly won, long after it is interesting or relevant to do so. That's my oath.

Early Booker Prize panels often included critics, academics and, of course, novelists. [...]

But the Booker Prize wouldn't have the global impact it has if it were judged in a literary echo chamber. In the middle years there was a preponderance of politicians: [...] I – at the time a newspaper literary editor – was a judge in 2011, as part of a panel led by the former head of MI5, Stella Rimington. (It was a much-maligned but very happy group.)

It's reasonable to appoint a politician as chair: their day job, after all, is to arrive at consensus. But I hesitate over the implication that there is a creative class, and that somewhere higher up in the establishment pecking order, there's another class that's fit to judge them.

So in my time at the Booker (from 2016), I've sought to return to the idea of peers. With one proviso: that the notion of what constitutes a Booker novelist's peer be expanded.

As a result, we've had artists and graphic novelists on the panels for the first time [...] We've had musicians, composers and filmmakers [...]

[...] this is perhaps the most important factor – it's the group dynamic that matters, not just the individuals. You want some who respond to the heart in a book and others who are drawn to the head in it. They all need to be committed listeners. It's often assumed that newspaper columnists or TV pundits would make natural prize judges, and they sometimes do. But already knowing what you think is not necessarily an asset in this context. This is a panel discussion that lasts the best part of a year, during which judges live their lives and come together repeatedly, regardless of what's going on outside the room. [...] They often change each other's minds. Gradually the best books become richer, through the discussion.

https://thebookerpri...-for-our-prizes

The Rings of Power Is Back, and It's Going Full Romantasy

The Prime Video series, now in its third season, just keeps moving further away from Tolkien.



https://slate.com/cu...rime-video.html