Finale a novel of the reagan

I have been starting to get a little worried about Yellowjackets, that they are going to get too “LOST” with their long teases and eventual answers (or lack thereof). But as of this week, I’m starting to feel more confident that they’re going to get it right.

Since episode 1, the heavy implication was that while most of the girls on the flight died, the rest survived by eating at least some of the others, a cannibalistic secret they all now share. But while that was implied, we never saw them come close to that for all of season 1, minus the brief flash-forward that teased it.

Now uh, yeah. They did the thing.

After last week, I thought that this would be a slow burn over the course of the season, with Shauna covertly snacking on Jackie’s ear. But what happened in episode 2 felt like it would normally be the close of a season finale. Spoilers follow .

The final sequence had the girls attempting to cremate Jackie’s long-frozen corpse. Except “the wind” (an evil spirit?) dumped a bunch of snow on the fire just when Jackie had been barbequed enough to start smelling good. With game scarce and food nearly gone, the girls go full feral on Jackie’s body, tearing it apart and eating it with their bare hands, the scene interspersed with a fantastical Greek bacchanalian feast celebration representing a sort of mental detachment from the reality at hand.

Every girl plus Travis partakes, though minus Coach Ben, who is the only one who doesn’t succumb to the hunger, and he’s horrified by what he sees. And since we’re almost sure he doesn’t make it back, it’s easy to have a hunch about who may be eaten next.

I’m just very glad Yellowjackets stopped beating around the bush and finally did the thing. And there are supposedly worse moments to come. In the wake of this episode, the showrunner has talked about how the moral choice in this situation is different than say, hunting and killing someone to eat them, as opposed to cooking up an already-dead corpse. And that further, bad choices will need to be made to come.

There’s a really great article over at Vulture about how this scene was filmed, which shot an hour of total footage of the girls eating both meals for just 40 seconds or so that made it to air. They had to joke around on set to lighten the mood, and the “Jackie fruit,” as they called it, was made out of things like jackfruit (ha), syrup, salt, pepper and rice paper for skin. Supposedly it actually tasted…pretty good?

Of course, there’s plenty Yellowjackets is still teasing, like how the rest of the non-surviving cast dies, and if this “evil spirit” that seems to be lurking in the woods is real or not, and what forms it takes, exactly. We also have yet to see adult Van, whom we know survives and appears this season, as teased ahead of time.

It’s still one of the most fascinating, disturbing shows on TV, and yes, I would consider it worth a Showtime subscription on its own, for at least as long as it’s airing.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .

America’s latest mass shooting, this time at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tenn., has recalled nightmarish memories and raised one of the most vexing of political questions.

Before the funerals had even begun for the three children and three adults slain on Monday, the well-practiced roaring and debate had resumed in Congress. And so had the usual expressions of exasperation, because those who have followed the issue in recent decades have had an education in frustration and futility.

Democrats this week were once again asking how a person disturbed enough to use military-style weaponry on children could have such easy access to such weaponry. They want more legal restraints on guns.

President Biden this week called for the reinstatement of a ban on military-style assault weapons, a ban first instituted in 1994 but allowed to lapse a decade later. Bills that would restore the ban had already been introduced in both the Senate (S. 25) and House (H.R. 698) this year, following the Chinese New Year mass shootings in Southern California.

Republicans, for their part, were once again blaming the individuals who commit these crimes and changes in society they say have weakened our ability to fight crime in general.

Speaking to CNN news reporter Caitlin Collins on Thursday, South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds was direct : “I think the things that have already been done have gone about as far as we’re going to with gun control.”

Guns have been a sticking point in American politics since the ratification of the original Constitution

From the start, some of the former colonies wanted it made clear that their respective militias would not be disarmed by a federal force.

Accordingly, the Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”

But in our time, that connection between the right to bear arms and the “well-regulated” militia is often lost, or regarded as an anachronism, a concept long abandoned. Gun rights advocates, and in recent years the federal courts, have held a more general view of gun rights.

The 2008 Supreme Court holding in District of Columbia v. Heller is the latest and most definitive defense of the individual citizen’s right to keep firearms at home, and, in many states, carry them in public.

Yet if the gun rights community and Republicans in Congress see the issue as settled, the ragged parade of mass shootings keeps upsetting the national mood.

There have been more than 130 mass shootings in the U.S. thus far in 2023 with four victims or more, according to the Gun Violence Archive. In other words, there has been more than one per day on average.

But school shootings evince a particular kind of public horror. The latest bloodshed at the Covenant School has brought back the haunting images of child victims at Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed less than a year ago years ago. And it was only a heartbeat further back the nation learned the names of Parkland, Fla., (2018), Sandy Hook, Conn. (2012) and Virginia Tech (2007).

At least up to now, school shootings have seemed to demand something more, something deeper and more soul-searching.

Indeed, it was a school shooting that led to the assault weapons ban that Biden spoke of reinstating this week. That law probably would not have happened but for a particularly ugly event in 1989 in the California city of Stockton.

The Stockton schoolyard shooting in 1989

Stockton is a cornucopia of the agricultural abundance all around it in California’s central valley. The picking of fruit and other crops had long drawn immigrants and migrants to the region seeking work, new arrivals from Europe in the 1800s, followed by waves of Mexicans, Japanese and an array of other Asians.

Patrick Purdy, 24, was described as a drifter. He had been in and out of foster care since adolescence, struggling with alcohol and drug abuse. He had come to associate his own problems with the arrival of more Asian immigrants in America.

On January 17, he took his semi-automatic assault rifle to the Cleveland Elementary School and in a few minutes fired 105 rounds at the children on the playground for recess. Five students died, ages 6 to 9, all refugees from Southeast Asia. Thirty others were injured, including a teacher, before Purdy killed himself.

Patrick Blanchfield, author of Gunpower: The Structure of American Violence, noted in 2022 that after more than 30 years, the Stockton shooting was notable for its “uncanny familiarity … it could be something that happened yesterday.”

Indeed it was just a few weeks after Blanchfield made that comment that another shooter, also apparently motivated by animus against immigrants, killed 21 people in Uvalde, Texas.

The Stockton story was national news, featured on the cover of Time magazine with the headline “Armed America.” Public alarm at Stockton pushed the legislature to be the first to prohibit the sale of assault weapons that year.

Stockton was still reverberating three years later when California, the home of Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, sent two liberal Democrats, both women, to the U.S. Senate It also stocked its legislature and congressional delegation with big Democratic majorities and gave its Electoral College vote to Bill Clinton.

One of the two women senators elected that year was former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who had first become mayor when her predecessor was shot to death in his office in the 1970s. She had long been outspoken on gun control and brought that commitment to Washington, D.C., becoming one of the principal sponsors of a bill banning assault weapons ban in her first year.

The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994

Feinstein and her cosponsors wanted to end the sale or manufacture of 14 categories of semi-automatic assault weapons. They also wanted to go beyond the California ban by outlawing copycat versions of earlier models and high-volume detachable magazines that held more than 10 rounds.

But the bill did not address the status of an estimated one million assault weapons nationwide. “Essentially what this legislation does is create a freeze,” she said. She lamented the resistance that rarely produced actual arguments among her colleagues. She said had never realized “the power of the NRA in this town.”

She was referring to the National Rifle Association, which along with the Gun Owners of America and other groups opposed Feinstein’s bill. Gun organizations are among the more generous donors of campaign funds on Capitol Hill, but their greater power is in their ability to mobilize voters – especially in Republican primaries and especially in rural districts and states.

There were literally hundreds of exceptions included in the final version, distressing many of the bill’s supporters. But getting the ban into the crime package to be passed in that Congress (with billions in new police funding) required many compromises. Ultimately, to get to a majority, Feinstein would have to accept a sunset provision by which her restrictions would need reenactment after 10 years.

Later that same year, Democrats suffered one of their worst electoral drubbings of their history, losing control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 40 years. They lost the majority of House and Senate seats from the South for the first time since the Reconstruction period in the 1870s, and they have remained the minority party in those states ever since.

At the time, the ban on assault weapons came in for considerable criticism, as not only Southern Democrats paid the price but also their colleagues from Western states and rural districts generally.

That set of circumstances stymied further consideration of serious gun control throughout that first decade of the new century. Even after Democrats won back control of Congress in 2006, there was no prospect of Republican President George W. Bush signing gun control into law.

So when the 10-year expiration date on Feinstein’s bill arrived in 2004, Democrats were no longer the majority party in Congress and all attempts to extend the 1994 ban were unavailing.

And when Democrats briefly held big majorities in both chambers in the first two years of Barack Obama’s presidency, they focused their attention on reforms for health care insurance and Wall Street. There was not enough bandwidth for another challenging issue in 2009 or 2010.

The Sandy Hook Test in 2012

The next time serious energy developed behind renewing the ban was in the winter of 2012-2013. Barack Obama had just been reelected president, and the Senate was still in Democratic hands.

Just as important, the effort to address the gun issue had been given an enormous boost by a new and more horrific tragedy.

On Dec. 12, 2012, Adam Lanza, 20 — described by counselors as fascinated with mass shootings — killed his mother and took guns she had legally purchased to a Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

There he shot dead 20 children, ages 6 and 7. He also killed six adults on the school staff. Then he killed himself.

The national shock at the time is hard to appreciate a decade later, as there have been so many like it. But the sadness of that Christmas season contributed to a sense that something, finally, would be done.

But the 113 ^th Congress came and went in 2013 and 2014 without passing notable gun legislation. A compromise measure on background checks, offered by West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey, got 54 votes in the Senate but needed 60.

As for prospects for reviving gun legislation in the current Congress, the situation looks much as it did a decade ago. The 118 ^th Congress has a Senate where Democrats have a nominal majority that depends on the cooperation of several independents. Feinstein is still in the Senate, the longest-serving incumbent Democrat, but planning to retire next year.

The current House, like that of a decade ago, has a Republican majority led by a speaker whose power depends on placating a hardcore group known as the House Freedom Caucus.

A new James Bond book called On His Majesty’s Secret Service is set to be released to celebrate King Charles’ coronation in May .

The book – which will be written by author of the Young Bond series Charlie Higson – follows the 007 spy as he tries to stop mercenaries from wreaking havoc as King Charles is crowned.

Its title is a play on the 1963 bond novel, On her Majesty’s Secret Service .

Ian Fleming Publications, the company responsible for all of the late 007 writer’s literary works, commissioned the novel to be released on May 4, two days before the coronation.

READ MORE: Too bland for Bond? Does New Zealand lack the glamour to feature in a 007 movie? James Bond books edited to remove racist references Billie Eilish is adorably star struck meeting Prince William and Kate Middleton at Bond premiere

According to Variety, Higson was excited about writing the novel, until he realised the short time fame.

“Getting it written and turned around in such a short space of time was going to be as tense and heart-pounding as any Bond mission. Although, of course, nobody would actually be shooting at me.”

“But I’ve been thinking about writing an adult Bond adventure ever since working on the Young Bond books. Fleming famously wrote fast, and I channelled that energy.

“Now it’s exciting for me to finally enter the world of grown-up Bond . Everything you want from a Bond story is in there – sex, violence, cars, a colourful villain with a nasty henchman, and of course, Bond himself, so well-known and yet so unknowable,” he said.

All royalties from the book will go to support the UK charity, the National Literacy Trust.

The big picture: The European Union finally approved a law that will put traditional combustion engine cars out of the market. The Union had to overcome last-minute opposition from Germany, and other countries pushing for alternative solutions like Italy will have to deal with the aftermath of the final agreement.

Starting in 2035, new cars sold in Europe will have to use alternatives to combustion fuels. The European Union recently took the unprecedented decision to ban sales of traditional vehicles based on combustion engines, with a novel approach destined to radically change the automotive market in the Old Continent.

European Union countries recently gave their final approval , weeks after German opposition to the original draft brought the discussion to a standstill. Berlin wanted an exemption for cars running on e-fuels, which was ultimately granted by the European Commission.

E-fuels or electrofuels are a class of synthetic fuels produced using carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide captured from the atmosphere, mixed together with hydrogen obtained from other sustainable sources such as wind, solar and nuclear power. The e-fuel manufacturing process uses the same amount of carbon dioxide which will be released into the atmosphere when the fuel is burned, providing e-fuels an overall low carbon footprint compared to traditional fuels refined from crude oil.

Together with the outright ban on sales of traditional cars in 2035, e-fuels should help the EU adopt a climate-neutral approach to mobility. Frans Timmermans, head of Europe’s climate policy, said the “direction of travel is clear: in 2035, new cars and vans must have zero” or very low CO2 emissions.

Starting in autumn 2023, Brussels’ Commission will have to decide how sales of e-fuel cars will continue after 2035. The new vehicles must be equipped with a technology designed to prevent the engine from starting if “illegal” petrol of diesel is employed in place of “lawful” e-fuels.

Porsche and Ferrari were among the companies supporting the e-fuel exemption, while the giants of Europe’s automotive market (Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Ford) are going all-in with batteries and electric vehicles. Poland voted against the 2035 phaseout, while Bulgaria, Romania and Italy abstained. Italy was one of the biggest losers after the final decision, as Rome’s government was proposing an alternative solution based on biofuels extracted from biomass – a solution which was ultimately rejected by the EU.

If you’ve followed my work for a while now, you’ll know that I was one of the few industry people actively attempting to cover Marvel’s Avengers, now just another relic of the live service era, of games that chased the likes of Destiny and failed.

We went through this with Anthem, of course, but this was Marvel , these were the Avengers , but uh, why were they in a loot-based game, exactly? And therein lay the main problem with the game.

As of yesterday, Marvel’s Avengers has shipped its final patch . The game will no longer be updated or supported, no future content is being made. But when I say the game is dead, I mean well and truly dead. As in, it seems like as part of some contract with Marvel, they can no longer make money off the game at all soon enough. You cannot buy the game on storefronts as of September (though it will continue to work if you already own it) and the entire microtransaction store no longer accepts actual cash. MCU outfits have mostly been gifted to players, while others can be earned with in-game currency. They’re even throwing in one final free War Machine skin for Iron Man.

With a few hundred hours across all The Avengers’ characters that have been added to the game over time, I suppose I’m in a position to be one of the final arbiters for this game, more than most at least. I’ve spoken to Crystal Dynamics many times about it. Hearing their plans to just try very, very hard to make this work. But ultimately, it didn’t.

The problem may have been in the core concept from the start. How do you do a superhero looter game, exactly? You don’t, which is the main problem. All the loot in Marvel’s Avengers was forced to be non-cosmetic. You couldn’t mix and match armor pieces or weapons like in other games, which was part basic logic (what gear are you going to give a mostly nude, weapons-free Hulk?) and part based on Marvel having extreme control over how any character is depicted in any game. I remember even controversies about which hairstyles they were allowed or not allowed to do (these restrictions seem to have relaxed eventually).

That meant all cosmetics were either microtransactions in the store or earned skins, and were an entirely separate system from your actual gear. This could work, as that’s how skins work in Borderlands, but that game still had its vast roster of randomized guns to find. Nothing like that existed in Marvel’s Avengers.

This was also a game that just didn’t seem to fundamentally understand how live service loot loops and endgame content worked. Once you finished the rather good central campaign, the experience turned into something else altogether. A mishmash of replayed missions and maybe three different boss fights. Singular rooms of combat or weird freeroams full of mini-events. The most challenging activities in the game for a long while were Hives, near-endless, close to identical rooms of AIM baddies and robots. The game did get more challenging, interesting content like raids eventually, but that was mostly after people had moved on.

But I wouldn’t have played Marvel’s Avengers as long as I did if there wasn’t some spark of magic here. And there was. I was deeply impressed with pretty much every character kit they made in this game. I genuinely had fun playing all these different characters, and at least at the start, they really did do a lot of good work to make them feel unique and interesting. Later, they struggled more with this, as their PlayStation-exclusive Spider-Man couldn’t compare to Insomniac’s, Jane Foster was a mirror Thor, Hawkeye was a mirror of Kate Bishop. But the original crew felt really fun to play.

There were some legitimately interesting and powerful endgame builds as well. While no, gear didn’t affect your look, the perks they built into them could create some solid endgame-shredding characters that were a blast to play. I won’t soon forget my Thor who could nuke an entire screen with his lighting abilities, or my Black Widow tearing through everything with her auto-pistols. It reminds me of Anthem, in that way, where it was genuinely fun to play and make builds, and yet it was just…everything else that wasn’t there.

I think there was a great game in here, it just wasn’t a live service one. The campaign, the character kits, a lot of stuff went right here. But chasing the “play forever” model based around a loot farm and gear power grind simply didn’t work. There wasn’t really a time in its lifespawn when it ever did, at least not for a significant, life-sustaining amount of players.

Crystal Dynamics lives on, sold from Square Enix to Embracer Group, and now mainly focused on building an Unreal Engine 5 Tomb Raider game, back to what they did best. I’ll be there for that, and the rest of their projects in the future. They tried. I saw that much, at least.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy .