Tolkien came at his mythology through a very unusual path. While, no doubt, he's deeply held Catholicism informed his writing (it's much more clear in his writings on the First Age than in LOTR), he really began developing the mythology as a means to produce a world in which the languages he was inventing could exist. He began developing the earliest Elvish dialects before 1917, which is about when he began writing The Fall of Gondolin, the first story in Middle Earth (though the conception as very different at that time). In his view every language must have speakers, and those speakers must have a history. He then formulated the notion of an "English mythology", so that through much of the development of the Silmarillion, he had the character of Aelfwine/Eriol who sailed to Tol Eressea and spoke with the Elves and learned of their history. And he kept on developing the various Elvish and other languages almost to the end of his life.
The closest we get to overt racism in LOTR is that Orcs are described as "swarthy". To my mind, outside of Tolkien's clear hatred of Nazis and how they had co-opted his beloved Nordic culture, is that scene in LOTR when Frodo and Sam are in Ithilien and see Dunedain battling men of Harad (who were pretty obviously black people) and how Sam sees one of the Haradrim fall dead, and he wonders what lies or threats had taken the man so far from his home and family. Tolkien was making it clear that the common soldier is as much a victim as anyone else in a war, and while, as you say, he was not writing allegory (and in fact hated allegory), I believe scenes like this are directly informed from his experiences as a soldier in WWI.
If Brian Herbert had done what Christopher Tolkien had done, we would have had those various plot lines and notes that were Frank Herbert's plan for the Dune universe, instead of a series of pretty fucking awful novels. Anderson really is a hack, and what they've done to Herbert's pretty majestic writing is a travesty. I'd sooner just read point form chronologies of what happened after Chapterhouse Dune or chronologies of the Butlerian Jihad than have to wade through acres of bad prose.
That's largely because the published Silmarillion is by and large based on chronologies like the Grey Annals which Tolkien used to keep track of events while he attempted to write a proper large-form narrative. The Silmarillion as Tolkien envisioned it was never completed, though you can see what it would have looked like in stories like the woefully unfinished version of the Tuor story in Unfinished Tales, or in the much expanded Turin saga to be found in Unfinished Tales and in the later The Children of Hurin.
The sad reality is that by the time Tolkien had the time and financial independence to actually complete the Silmarillion, he was simply getting too old to do the hard work of drawing the over half century of threads together into one cohesive whole. The years he took to write LOTR basically robbed of him the energy and time to finish The Silmarillion.
But do read the Turin Saga and The Children of Hurin, because there you can catch a glimpse of what the Silmarillion could have been, a far larger and yet far more narrative-style work that would probably have been seen as one of the greatest creations of the English language.
CO2 has the properties it has regardless of your views on international agreements or your favorite international conspiracy. The universe well and truly doesn't fucking care about your fantasies. CO2 absorbs and re-emits solar radiation as it does, irrespective of whether you think some evil conspiracy is involved.
Remember, when dealing with pseudo-skeptics, all that counts in their eyes is that they made an objection. The objection may be absurd, it may be outrageous, it may in fact be an outright lie, but so long as they can say they objected, they somehow believe they've falsified an entire field of research.
Not only is everyone else going to remain in your supposedly "bad deal" but China in particular is soon going to use it to turn the screws on the US. You fail to see the big picture here, that the "deal" isn't just about future emissions targets, it's about who gets to call the shots going forward, and the EU-China climate pact represents the largest trading and population group on the planet.
This idea that some people, like you, apparently have that Paris will fall part because the US backs out is not only just wrong, but utterly delusional. China, and likely now that Trump has gone out of his way to show his contempt for Europe, the EU as well, are going to use Paris and successor agreements to pummel the US.
And then you still have to factor in the ever-mounting costs to the US having to actual deal with the physical effects of AGW. Oil isn't dying fast enough to keep emissions, and consequently temperature increases, from royally fucking things over, so if China, the EU and everyone else that signs aboard has to pay a large proportion of the bill, then they are going to use the overwhelming economic clout of this new pact to make the US pay in every other conceivable way.
China and INdia both are moving as quickly as they can towards renewables. The problem here is you've bought into the fossil fuel industry's talking points, and even as you demonstrate your ignorance and stupidity, oil inventories keep going up and demand keeps falling. Oil is dying, you moron, so why in the name of fuck would you applaud while the President of the United States literally cut off his balls despite his dick?
And what do you imagine Canada and Mexico are thinking right now? Canada already has a free trade agreement with the EU, and is seriously looking at a trade agreement with China. Mexico certainly can't be far behind. In the short term both countries will likely suffer from any trade reductions with the US, but both have known for some time that they need to look further afield for trade agreements. And all future trade agreements are going to have much more rigorous climate and environment components. By the time the US regains its senses, it will be a follower, and will have little choice but to abide by what the EU and China decide, and what they will be deciding is that if you want any favorable market access, you're going to have to demonstrate emissions reductions.
In the short term, I'm thinking a number of major states, in particular California (the sixth largest economy in the world) will have to try to make up for Washington's stupidity. If the US is lucky, the "unofficial" climate agreements California manages to push through may be enough to make up for what will be at least four years of simpering morons running the country, but there's only so much US states can do, and they cannot enter any major international agreements. In the end, states like California will basically have to abide by whatever Paris or future agreements require, with no formal ability to negotiate future agreements. In essence, California will cease to be a strong economy that can use the muscle of the United States of America to gain some sort of preferential treatment, and will simply have to abide by whatever the climate bloc decides.
The EU-China bloc represents 2 billion people and a GDP of over 31 trillion dollars, as compared to the US's roughly 321 million people and 18 trillion per annum. Simply put, the US, rather than being a significant player in future economic agreements (because, as I said, climate change will be part of all future agreements), will end up having no international voice. It's phenomenal to imagine that anyone in Washington, even if they somehow believe God makes CO2's physical properties different because Jesus loves oil and coal, believes this is a good idea. It's absolutely phenomenal that the fossil fuel industry, with the value of its products steadily declining, could have such a strong hold over the US government. It really does appear that the US is run by a mentally retarded person, enabled not necessarily sociopaths, but by pure idiots. If they impeach that halfwit, they will have to replace him with a man just as equally shortsighted. The Republican Party surely must know at this point just what ruin they are wreaking on the country they claim to love. They are either utterly impotent, or utter fools.
For chrissakes, a quick review of Ebert's Top Films shows while he clearly loved Werner Herzog, he was also a big Spielberg fan. There's nothing artsy about Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark or Jaws, and yet both these films were among Ebert's favorite films ever made. For goodness sake, he even put Planes, Trains and Automobiles on that list (and justifiably so, it is an incredibly good film).
The risk here is that the China-EU-lead bloc will start pushing for international trade rules that require emissions controls for favorable access to their markets. The EU and China are only doing this partially out of some sort of grand global altruism, they're also doing it because the US walking away from climate commitments is creating a power vacuum which they intend to occupy. This is the 21st century version of Rome pulling out of Britain.
And they will, largely because the next phase after Paris is for the climate bloc to begin disincentivizing emissions-heavy industries, which means US manufacturers may find export markets becoming a lot more expensive. A lot of states rely pretty damned heavily on exports, and they'll have little choice but to join a compact that guarantees low emissions as a qualifier for products they ship abroad.
This is the real irony. The halfwit at the top of the heap who keeps talking about how the US needs a better deal is in fact going to fuck over the very people he claims to help, and right now they'll cheer, because everyone loves a guy who confirms their prejudices, but in five, ten years, it will be a rather different story. By then, of course, oil's value will have dwindled even more, and all the folks who pushed Trump to get out of Paris will have made all the money they can. The reason the US is pumping so much oil out of the ground, no matter how much it increases inventory, and regardless of slipping demand, is because if the oil doesn't get pumped out in the next decade or so, it will never get pumped out at all.
It's hardly good will. China sees the US retreating into populist stupidity, and sees its chance to reach for the brass ring of major power status. Russia, no matter how much Putin puffs his chest, is a power in a long decline, and now the US, under possibly the stupidest man to ever inhabit the White House, abandons leadership. China and the EU both now have a path to basically running the world.
And what is "it really is". Virtually every climatologist states CO2 emissions are increasing surface and ocean temperatures. We're already seeing the direct verifiable signs of that warming, and it will only get worse. Even without US in the Paris agreement, demand for oil is steadily shrinking, so all that really happens now is the US gives up any say on future targets, and will have to rejoin the international community on future agreements with little power save to accede to whatever the EU and China have decided. And for what? For a resource that's value is dwindling, and will never recover? For a decade or two more before oil's value is so low that it's not worth pumping out of the ground? So the Koch Brothers and a few Trump cronies can make a few more bucks, and meanwhile the very people that voted for this halfwit are the ones that get screwed the most?
Oil is dying. Natural gas will follow. Fossil fuels are the past, and good riddance, and the US will regret this for decades to come. But this is how empires die, I suppose, once morons can get to the top of the heap, what's left?
Let's imagine in ten years, when new trade agreements, particularly with large trading blocs, start demanding CO2 reductions as part of any favorable access? Let's try to imagine how much this will cost US manufacturers over the coming decades? Do you think the EU-China climate bloc is just going to let the US off the hook for paying for their towards a carbon-less future? The US will pay, and it will pay dearly, and I hope when the time comes, everyone remembers that it was the sociopaths and morons of the Republican Party, and that payback may come sooner than people think when SCOTUS starts disemboweling gerrymandering and some of these so-called "red states" start turning blue.
Oh fuck off. Nuclear is almost the expensive way to produce power there is. What is this obsession with nuclear? It only makes sense when you're prepared for massive amounts of taxpayer subsidy.
The US is basically surrendering its global leadership. It will probably rejoin any climate accords within the decade, but it will cease to have the ability to negotiate their terms. Trump is the harbinger of the US's eclipse. The EU and China will take over the global leadership, for better, and sadly, for worse.
Huh? I was watching Siskel & Ebert 30 years ago when looking for the good versus bad movies. Movie critics have been around almost as long as movie, and all Rotten Tomatoes did was bring a number of the better known or well-syndicated ones together to sort of give a statistical scoring.
Also as old as movie critics is studios blaming movie critics for their shitty movies bombing. It's a tired complaint. Anyone who seriously thought a Baywatch reboot or yet another Johnny Depp pirate film were going to be smash hits ought to be forced into early retirement.
Apparently you're either an ignoramus or a liar. Scientists aren't saying it's going to kill us... well, it's probably going to kill a lot of people, but not likely many in the West. But it is going to make our lives a lot more difficult and a lot more expensive, and actually, if you pay any attention to insurance actuaries, it already is.
But I get it, you're a baby, a little infantile child who hasn't the maturity or the wits to assess a situation based on what's actually happening, preferring the nice cooing sounds of a profoundly stupid and disturbed man. You are truly among the most contemptible people of our age, and I hope you suffer for it.
But they're already rolling out Office to their competitors' phones. In other words, they're handing the biggest gimmicks they have already. I cannot see any reason to use an MS portable device, and I actually have one (an 8" Windows 10 tablet, which I use maybe once every couple of weeks when my G4 runs out of juice).
Or worse, until they actually roll it out, a few million people buy, some dumbass developers actually develop time to it, only to have Microsoft abandon it again. In the meantime we'll have an endless stream of Redmond shills telling us why it's the bestest mobile OS ever, and why you're just a stupid doody-head if you want a mobile platform with apps, and how it's going to totally blow iOS and Android out of the water.
At what point do the investors finally say "Pay us higher dividens, you fucking witless wankers, and quit blowing money on pointless quests for a place in the mobile market"?
People get to elect the representatives that will decide the taxes they pay. The Founding Fathers didn't ralley to "No taxation", they rallied to "No taxation without representation."
Learn your history and pay your taxes. Libertarianism economics is nothing more than a sociopathic fantasy ideology espoused by the insanely greedy and the utterly stupid.
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I don't hate the USA, I hate the fucking moron at the top and the fucking morons that back him.
Yes, oil is dying. Look at the price, supply is up, demand is down, but it isn't dying fast enough to hold back temperature rises.
And renewables are dropping in price, so what's really needed is a way to start properly pricing emissions.
Tolkien came at his mythology through a very unusual path. While, no doubt, he's deeply held Catholicism informed his writing (it's much more clear in his writings on the First Age than in LOTR), he really began developing the mythology as a means to produce a world in which the languages he was inventing could exist. He began developing the earliest Elvish dialects before 1917, which is about when he began writing The Fall of Gondolin, the first story in Middle Earth (though the conception as very different at that time). In his view every language must have speakers, and those speakers must have a history. He then formulated the notion of an "English mythology", so that through much of the development of the Silmarillion, he had the character of Aelfwine/Eriol who sailed to Tol Eressea and spoke with the Elves and learned of their history. And he kept on developing the various Elvish and other languages almost to the end of his life.
The closest we get to overt racism in LOTR is that Orcs are described as "swarthy". To my mind, outside of Tolkien's clear hatred of Nazis and how they had co-opted his beloved Nordic culture, is that scene in LOTR when Frodo and Sam are in Ithilien and see Dunedain battling men of Harad (who were pretty obviously black people) and how Sam sees one of the Haradrim fall dead, and he wonders what lies or threats had taken the man so far from his home and family. Tolkien was making it clear that the common soldier is as much a victim as anyone else in a war, and while, as you say, he was not writing allegory (and in fact hated allegory), I believe scenes like this are directly informed from his experiences as a soldier in WWI.
If Brian Herbert had done what Christopher Tolkien had done, we would have had those various plot lines and notes that were Frank Herbert's plan for the Dune universe, instead of a series of pretty fucking awful novels. Anderson really is a hack, and what they've done to Herbert's pretty majestic writing is a travesty. I'd sooner just read point form chronologies of what happened after Chapterhouse Dune or chronologies of the Butlerian Jihad than have to wade through acres of bad prose.
That's largely because the published Silmarillion is by and large based on chronologies like the Grey Annals which Tolkien used to keep track of events while he attempted to write a proper large-form narrative. The Silmarillion as Tolkien envisioned it was never completed, though you can see what it would have looked like in stories like the woefully unfinished version of the Tuor story in Unfinished Tales, or in the much expanded Turin saga to be found in Unfinished Tales and in the later The Children of Hurin.
The sad reality is that by the time Tolkien had the time and financial independence to actually complete the Silmarillion, he was simply getting too old to do the hard work of drawing the over half century of threads together into one cohesive whole. The years he took to write LOTR basically robbed of him the energy and time to finish The Silmarillion.
But do read the Turin Saga and The Children of Hurin, because there you can catch a glimpse of what the Silmarillion could have been, a far larger and yet far more narrative-style work that would probably have been seen as one of the greatest creations of the English language.
CO2 has the properties it has regardless of your views on international agreements or your favorite international conspiracy. The universe well and truly doesn't fucking care about your fantasies. CO2 absorbs and re-emits solar radiation as it does, irrespective of whether you think some evil conspiracy is involved.
Remember, when dealing with pseudo-skeptics, all that counts in their eyes is that they made an objection. The objection may be absurd, it may be outrageous, it may in fact be an outright lie, but so long as they can say they objected, they somehow believe they've falsified an entire field of research.
Lots of bad shit.
Not only is everyone else going to remain in your supposedly "bad deal" but China in particular is soon going to use it to turn the screws on the US. You fail to see the big picture here, that the "deal" isn't just about future emissions targets, it's about who gets to call the shots going forward, and the EU-China climate pact represents the largest trading and population group on the planet.
This idea that some people, like you, apparently have that Paris will fall part because the US backs out is not only just wrong, but utterly delusional. China, and likely now that Trump has gone out of his way to show his contempt for Europe, the EU as well, are going to use Paris and successor agreements to pummel the US.
And then you still have to factor in the ever-mounting costs to the US having to actual deal with the physical effects of AGW. Oil isn't dying fast enough to keep emissions, and consequently temperature increases, from royally fucking things over, so if China, the EU and everyone else that signs aboard has to pay a large proportion of the bill, then they are going to use the overwhelming economic clout of this new pact to make the US pay in every other conceivable way.
China and INdia both are moving as quickly as they can towards renewables. The problem here is you've bought into the fossil fuel industry's talking points, and even as you demonstrate your ignorance and stupidity, oil inventories keep going up and demand keeps falling. Oil is dying, you moron, so why in the name of fuck would you applaud while the President of the United States literally cut off his balls despite his dick?
And what do you imagine Canada and Mexico are thinking right now? Canada already has a free trade agreement with the EU, and is seriously looking at a trade agreement with China. Mexico certainly can't be far behind. In the short term both countries will likely suffer from any trade reductions with the US, but both have known for some time that they need to look further afield for trade agreements. And all future trade agreements are going to have much more rigorous climate and environment components. By the time the US regains its senses, it will be a follower, and will have little choice but to abide by what the EU and China decide, and what they will be deciding is that if you want any favorable market access, you're going to have to demonstrate emissions reductions.
In the short term, I'm thinking a number of major states, in particular California (the sixth largest economy in the world) will have to try to make up for Washington's stupidity. If the US is lucky, the "unofficial" climate agreements California manages to push through may be enough to make up for what will be at least four years of simpering morons running the country, but there's only so much US states can do, and they cannot enter any major international agreements. In the end, states like California will basically have to abide by whatever Paris or future agreements require, with no formal ability to negotiate future agreements. In essence, California will cease to be a strong economy that can use the muscle of the United States of America to gain some sort of preferential treatment, and will simply have to abide by whatever the climate bloc decides.
The EU-China bloc represents 2 billion people and a GDP of over 31 trillion dollars, as compared to the US's roughly 321 million people and 18 trillion per annum. Simply put, the US, rather than being a significant player in future economic agreements (because, as I said, climate change will be part of all future agreements), will end up having no international voice. It's phenomenal to imagine that anyone in Washington, even if they somehow believe God makes CO2's physical properties different because Jesus loves oil and coal, believes this is a good idea. It's absolutely phenomenal that the fossil fuel industry, with the value of its products steadily declining, could have such a strong hold over the US government. It really does appear that the US is run by a mentally retarded person, enabled not necessarily sociopaths, but by pure idiots. If they impeach that halfwit, they will have to replace him with a man just as equally shortsighted. The Republican Party surely must know at this point just what ruin they are wreaking on the country they claim to love. They are either utterly impotent, or utter fools.
For chrissakes, a quick review of Ebert's Top Films shows while he clearly loved Werner Herzog, he was also a big Spielberg fan. There's nothing artsy about Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark or Jaws, and yet both these films were among Ebert's favorite films ever made. For goodness sake, he even put Planes, Trains and Automobiles on that list (and justifiably so, it is an incredibly good film).
The risk here is that the China-EU-lead bloc will start pushing for international trade rules that require emissions controls for favorable access to their markets. The EU and China are only doing this partially out of some sort of grand global altruism, they're also doing it because the US walking away from climate commitments is creating a power vacuum which they intend to occupy. This is the 21st century version of Rome pulling out of Britain.
And they will, largely because the next phase after Paris is for the climate bloc to begin disincentivizing emissions-heavy industries, which means US manufacturers may find export markets becoming a lot more expensive. A lot of states rely pretty damned heavily on exports, and they'll have little choice but to join a compact that guarantees low emissions as a qualifier for products they ship abroad.
This is the real irony. The halfwit at the top of the heap who keeps talking about how the US needs a better deal is in fact going to fuck over the very people he claims to help, and right now they'll cheer, because everyone loves a guy who confirms their prejudices, but in five, ten years, it will be a rather different story. By then, of course, oil's value will have dwindled even more, and all the folks who pushed Trump to get out of Paris will have made all the money they can. The reason the US is pumping so much oil out of the ground, no matter how much it increases inventory, and regardless of slipping demand, is because if the oil doesn't get pumped out in the next decade or so, it will never get pumped out at all.
It's hardly good will. China sees the US retreating into populist stupidity, and sees its chance to reach for the brass ring of major power status. Russia, no matter how much Putin puffs his chest, is a power in a long decline, and now the US, under possibly the stupidest man to ever inhabit the White House, abandons leadership. China and the EU both now have a path to basically running the world.
And what is "it really is". Virtually every climatologist states CO2 emissions are increasing surface and ocean temperatures. We're already seeing the direct verifiable signs of that warming, and it will only get worse. Even without US in the Paris agreement, demand for oil is steadily shrinking, so all that really happens now is the US gives up any say on future targets, and will have to rejoin the international community on future agreements with little power save to accede to whatever the EU and China have decided. And for what? For a resource that's value is dwindling, and will never recover? For a decade or two more before oil's value is so low that it's not worth pumping out of the ground? So the Koch Brothers and a few Trump cronies can make a few more bucks, and meanwhile the very people that voted for this halfwit are the ones that get screwed the most?
Oil is dying. Natural gas will follow. Fossil fuels are the past, and good riddance, and the US will regret this for decades to come. But this is how empires die, I suppose, once morons can get to the top of the heap, what's left?
Let's imagine in ten years, when new trade agreements, particularly with large trading blocs, start demanding CO2 reductions as part of any favorable access? Let's try to imagine how much this will cost US manufacturers over the coming decades? Do you think the EU-China climate bloc is just going to let the US off the hook for paying for their towards a carbon-less future? The US will pay, and it will pay dearly, and I hope when the time comes, everyone remembers that it was the sociopaths and morons of the Republican Party, and that payback may come sooner than people think when SCOTUS starts disemboweling gerrymandering and some of these so-called "red states" start turning blue.
Oh fuck off. Nuclear is almost the expensive way to produce power there is. What is this obsession with nuclear? It only makes sense when you're prepared for massive amounts of taxpayer subsidy.
The US is basically surrendering its global leadership. It will probably rejoin any climate accords within the decade, but it will cease to have the ability to negotiate their terms. Trump is the harbinger of the US's eclipse. The EU and China will take over the global leadership, for better, and sadly, for worse.
Huh? I was watching Siskel & Ebert 30 years ago when looking for the good versus bad movies. Movie critics have been around almost as long as movie, and all Rotten Tomatoes did was bring a number of the better known or well-syndicated ones together to sort of give a statistical scoring.
Also as old as movie critics is studios blaming movie critics for their shitty movies bombing. It's a tired complaint. Anyone who seriously thought a Baywatch reboot or yet another Johnny Depp pirate film were going to be smash hits ought to be forced into early retirement.
Apparently you're either an ignoramus or a liar. Scientists aren't saying it's going to kill us... well, it's probably going to kill a lot of people, but not likely many in the West. But it is going to make our lives a lot more difficult and a lot more expensive, and actually, if you pay any attention to insurance actuaries, it already is.
But I get it, you're a baby, a little infantile child who hasn't the maturity or the wits to assess a situation based on what's actually happening, preferring the nice cooing sounds of a profoundly stupid and disturbed man. You are truly among the most contemptible people of our age, and I hope you suffer for it.
Yes, you voted for King Canute to hold back the tides. Congratulations, you're just so darned brilliant.
But they're already rolling out Office to their competitors' phones. In other words, they're handing the biggest gimmicks they have already. I cannot see any reason to use an MS portable device, and I actually have one (an 8" Windows 10 tablet, which I use maybe once every couple of weeks when my G4 runs out of juice).
Or worse, until they actually roll it out, a few million people buy, some dumbass developers actually develop time to it, only to have Microsoft abandon it again. In the meantime we'll have an endless stream of Redmond shills telling us why it's the bestest mobile OS ever, and why you're just a stupid doody-head if you want a mobile platform with apps, and how it's going to totally blow iOS and Android out of the water.
At what point do the investors finally say "Pay us higher dividens, you fucking witless wankers, and quit blowing money on pointless quests for a place in the mobile market"?
People get to elect the representatives that will decide the taxes they pay. The Founding Fathers didn't ralley to "No taxation", they rallied to "No taxation without representation."
Learn your history and pay your taxes. Libertarianism economics is nothing more than a sociopathic fantasy ideology espoused by the insanely greedy and the utterly stupid.
Actually som Dems the hate the idea of Trump being lined early because the longer he's there the worse the GOP looks.