I mostly use "The French" in a dehumanising manner. Which is a good thing, because a chess opening should not be humanised.

In the Netherlands we always outperform you stupid Belgians. As you can see, we are higher than you on this map too!

I know it's just a meme, but when I see anti-Lobelia propaganda of any kind, it fills my veins with rage. Therefore I now spread the truth that Lobelia did nothing wrong, but that Bilbo framed her as a thief. Here is why:

Once upon a time, the hobbits lived peacefully in the Shire, never needing to leave their paradise, therefore never leaving it. However, one day Bilbo suddenly disappears with a wizard and some weird beard-dudes. Then he does not return.

Obviously, he is dead. So his family inherits his estate, among other things, and Lobelia moves into Bag-End.

Now Bilbo is returning from his adventure in the Hobbit. While vibing with Gollum, he had taken the ring of power, and now he comes back to his home. What he sees here horrifies him: His own home is being taken by Lobelia! This fills him with rage.

To understand matters fully, we must understand the power of the One Ring, as well as Bilbo's psychology. The power of the ring, as is clear in the LOTR books, lies in corrupting the mind. However, we can point to a specific type of corruption: possession. This is logical, as Saurons goal was to possess all of Middle-Earth. You can see this influence of the ring with Frodo becoming paranoid, being mad at Sam for taking the ring.

Now Bilbo. He never went outside the Shire, the only place he calls home. He is continuously among strangers and obviously longs for home. Now when he finally comes home, he sees that this home is taken from him. With the ring already corrupting him he cannot think clearly and therefore doesn't see how it is logical that others would think he is dead.

But the ring doesn't stop corrupting Bilbo's mind. He spins a fake tale to justify his possession of the ring and doesn't even trust his best friend Gandalf.

Now the question is: why would he only care about posessing the ring? The rings power can't solely lie in this, for then it would be useless to Sauron. The only logical conclusion is that he became more paranoid every day and started justifying himself in all his possessions.

Now to the point: Bilbo, paranoid as he was, tried to attack Lobelia in every way. She was a selfish person, always trying to get Bilbo's house and his furniture and what not. Most notably, he said that Lobelia took his spoons, without providing any evidence.

The only thing that we can really say about Lobelia personality is her conversation with Frodo and the second-to-last chapter. The conversation with Frodo does put her in a bad light, but we must remember that Frodo was heavily influenced, or rather indoctrinated, by Bilbo, so this can't be seen as an objective source. This means the only thing we know about Lobelia is that she was the most courageous of all Hobbits in fighting Saruman and his gang.

If you have mad it this far, I am sure you have been convinced of this truth, and if not, I invite you to give your arguments so that I can crush them.

Tl;dr: Lobelia was right

Chess generators would never invent a name as glorious as "grob opening, double grob variation, Coca-Cola gambit".

Dutchie here. We are slowly advancing to the rescue. We have already conquered the south sea, so the north sea is up next. Give us a little time and all seagulls will become poldergulls

I have no English sources for you, but with some translation app you can probably still check them out. One article that I used is not available online unfortunately.

The Owl Camera(they have other owls and other birds too, as well as some interesting articles. The site is only in Dutch unfortunately).

[Article by NOS](Oehoe bezig aan opmars: 'Mogelijk al boven de honderd' - https://nos.nl/l/2519607), the public broadcasting service. From this article is the ringing video that I talked about in the post.

This German Site which has some numbers about the Eurasian Eagle Owl in Germany. They also have This article that talks about how the Eurasian Eagle Owl was perceived in the past in Germany. It is really interesting, so definitely check it out! They have some more articles that are very interesting too.

Also some random linguistic facts: The Eurasian Eagle Owl is called Oehoe in Dutch and Uhu in German; both pronounced as "oo-hoo". This is the only Dutch owl name that doesn't end in owl; it is also an onomatopeia.

In the Netherlands beavers had been hunted into extinction by mid 20th century (I don't know exactly when they went extinct). In the 80s beavers were reintroduced from the DDR and now there are over 5000 beavers in the country. In western Germany populations have been rising too, and these are just what I know from the top of my head.

Beavers are definitely doing great right now around the world and that is uplifting news indeed!

The only pay I need is justice; the only food I need is truth; the only drink I need is apple juice. Lobelia is just a Hobbit, a widow even late in her life! Nowhere in the books is any mentions of women working in the Shire, nor of any pension funds. It is fair to assume that the poor woman was in deep poverty. On top of that she was robbed of her inheritance, Bilbo making Frodo his only heir just to spite her. And here are you, talking about paying someone to defend your name ages after your death! Sometimes even a platform as glorious as Lemmy can make you lose your faith in humanity.

I recently read this and was surprised at how good it was. I loved Orwells Animal Farm, but didn't like 1984 that much, so I wasn't expecting to enjoy it; I read it more to get some insights of the war. But the book is not just informative, it is also really funny at times, and the story is just wild.

I second this recommendation.

I was already afraid you had forgotten about the recap, but it's finally here! This community and especially the OOTY tournament was honestly my favourite thing from Lemmy this year. I am already looking forward to next year's edition. Meanwhile, keep up the good stuff anon6789!

Yeah it is definitely bittersweet, but if you compare it with the Children of Húrin, it is a very happy book. Boromirs death may be the saddest part of LOTR, but it would be the happiest part of The Children of Húrin, just because that whole book is so dark.

Top left? I believe that's Billy Joel, but I may be mistaken

![email protected] vibes here

Widening of A1 highway costs 400 million euros.

Rijkswaterstaat grijpt de verbreding van de A1 aan om samen met provincie Overijssel, provincie Gelderland, gemeenten en de Cleantech Regio een impuls te geven aan duurzaamheid, vormgeving van de weg en ruimtelijke kwaliteit van het gebied

From Rijkswaterstaat. The "sustainable" part is literally just not unnecessarily using streetlights. Totally ridiculous.

Lijkt erop dat de NPO zijn eigen server heeft, Radio 1 gebruikt het ook.

No, Picasso, pronounced Pizza-so.

I'm so sorry, little dude! Force of habit: when I see owls, my monke brain goes "upvote".

It was probably Hans Niemann then

As someone who barely knows anything about American Football, I have spent way too much time researching this. It was worth it though, for I have finally found the truth about the greatest owl team in the world:

Once upon a time, American football was just American. However, the CIA wanted to increase the influence of America around the world, and therefore started pushing for an international football league. They wanted to call it the International Football League, but the name was owned by Donald Trump. Therefore they named it World League of American Football, or WLAF. However, the WLAF stopped after just two seasons.

One of the teams in the WLAF was the Birmingham Fire from Alabama. But when the team was about to disband, something unexpected happened. A coup.

A group of owls took control over the team and rebranded it to Birdmingham Fire Owlabama, or, in short, BFO. The owls in the team were all BFO's: Blakiston's Fish Owl, Buffy Fish Owl, Brown Fish Owl and Buff-Fronted Owl.

However, the owls realised that just 4 members would not be enough to compete in serious competition, which is why they haven't played in all these past 30 years. But things are changing: real progress is being made to get to at least 6 BFO's. The Bare Legged Owl, although no real BFO, has become part of the BFO's under the name of Bare Footed Owl. When accused of betraying their name, the Bare Footed Owl replied: "what is a leg, other than an extended foot?"

A sixth member is still missing, although Blakiston's Fish Owl argues that they count for two due to their size. Opponents of this say that the balance is restored if intelligence is taken into account.

In short, the idea is: team Birdmingham Fire, Owlabama. Members: Blakiston's Fish, Buffy Fish, Brown Fish, Buff-Fronted, Bare Legged.

I don't know about this idea myself, because there really aren't any more BFO's that I could find. Also, maybe we want NFL teams instead of long disbanded ones. If anyone has an idea for improvement, please let me know!

This is so glorious! Thanks for posting!