That's what radar detectors are for...

;)

If nobody gives a shit what they think, why'd you spend a bunch of words attempting to deflate what they said? Did that sting? Methinks he doth protest too much.

Hard evidence? Counselor, I move to bring Tolkien's letters into the courtroom. The hearing is adjourned for several days of reading. Get busy! Oh, you don't want to because you have better things to do than Tolkien-lore? Gosh, what's that called legally?

The Fell Beasts didn't need to be ridden. The Servants of Sauron were completely capable of acting on their own. It's not a rationalization. You'd have to learn a bit more to know this, but as you've already closed your mind I rather doubt you're in the mood for learning. Plus, studying Tolkien-lore is much like being good at chess...it's a useless skill that only pleases its student. Your time would be better spent learning applied skills.

Sigh...I love when people wave this around like they found something and have proved once and for all a beloved work of literature is stupid and pointless. The Eagles are standoffish and don't mix with the rest of Middle-Earth. Most of their interaction with society comes from stealing cattle, which doesn't exactly make them popular.

And the old "oh-ho, why didn't they just fly into Mordor and drop the Ring into the top of Mount Doom", yeah right the Eye would have spotted them coming a mile off and they would have been met by every Fell Beast from Barad-Dur. Great job handing the Ring to the bad guy, people. The only reason the Frodo plot worked in the first place was because Sauron never saw it coming, only purity of spirit and mercy can get rid of evil, not brute force, etc. etc. Plot hole my ass.

I remember before the movies came out, that I wished more people could experience Lord of the Rings. It was just such an awesome book. I dreamed of the day the work would be known to everyone. Oh, don't get me wrong, lots of people knew LOTR back in the day, but it wasn't mainstream. I knew that if my dream were to come true, the real key would be overexposure. Hey, it's either that or stay a cult classic, right?

Of course, today, my dream has been fulfilled. The movies were great. Lots of haters, but you know what? The director kept most of the themes intact, and that's what counts.

The really ugly haters are on the literature side. The "literati" (LOL what a dumb name) are horrified by Tolkien because he shoves in their face the fact that they don't get to decide what literature is. The readers do. He reminds them that they are less and less relevant with each passing year, and they hate that.

Tolkien stands in stark contrast to the socialist-leaning, Modernist, elitist literati that hate him so much. As Mingardi and Stagnaro have demonstrated, Tolkien understood that socialism was unworkable and made little distinction between "left" and "right" socialism. Shippey notes that the literary coterie that "ruled and defined English literature at least for a time, between the wars and after World War II⦠were committed modernists, upper class, often Etonians, often professed Communists, often extremely rich, well-entrenched as editors and reviewers in the literary columns." (p. 316) In another article, Mingardi and Stagnaro show that far from being a statist as so many of the literati were throughout the 20th century, Tolkien identified himself as an anarchist (of the private property sort, not the socialist, bomb-throwing sort).

Furthermore, he commits a cultural/political crime that for our socialist literati is unforgivable. He likes the middle class and writes about them affectionately in the guise of the Hobbits. No sense of alienation! No sense of looking down on the middle class snootily from a lofty vantage point! Unforgivable!

-- Why They Hate Tolkien, by Lew Rockwell

Uber have been shut down in cities in the following countries:

That's the problem today with too much damned govt. rules, regulations and stranglehold on innovation.

Geez, if we had the amounts of rules and regulations a 100 years ago that we have today, we'd certainly NOT likely have all the inventions and businesses we have today.

No, that pollutes too much. No you need a permit for this, and this, and this...and well, we don't permit that at all. Are you diverse enough in your company? Do you have medical? Well, you need a license to even think about building and testing that and certainly not around here. You want to sell what across state lines? You want to drive what across state lines? I'm sorry but we have to tax that. Etc.

Shit....Henry Ford couldn't have done business today as a start up.

I'm kind of the same way. I log into root when I really need to do something...just a habit from old Slackware days.

But I do try to make damned sure I double check my directory I'm in, as well as the command before I hit enter.

I've blown stuff up before, but mostly as other users...likely that I wasn't being as careful when in as those users as I was when I'm wielding root around.

Wow..I had no idea she was that old.

I used to think she was pretty hot back on the old Star Trek days....

Well, sounds like she had a full life....say hello to Leonard, Deforest and James for us all!!

Good job changing the subject. As for the draft-dodgers, Canada can keep them. The whole world would have been better off if Bill Clinton and his toxic wife had gone there and stayed.

Austin is an integral part of Texas. If you planted it into Massachusetts or Oregon it would become just another bland medium-sized metropolis with nothing to really recommend it. It's just bigotry due to the current poisonous political climate. Were Texas an actual shithole, people wouldn't be moving there from California.

The moment the American people take up arms against their own government is the day that the American mainstream media (and the rest of the world) call them crazy extremists who would be much better off with less freedom and smart people in charge of their lives. Oh wait, they already do that.

Detroit's government deliberately drove off businesses. It took a long time to get to where it is today, and it was all part of the plan. Look up who Coleman Young was and what his policies were.

What was the difference between someone getting hurt and not? The act was the same. It could have easily spiraled out of control.

An act of a child is something stupid. It's NOT trying to burn the school down. That's the act of an adult, 15 years old or not.

By the way, it is the general consensus that the Western world is corrupt, colonialist, imperialist, and outright evil. Where'd you get the idea that it treats its children well? You trying to hold it above other cultures? Racist.