This Is Why I'm Here

This got me.

I know there needs be a through line. And racing is fine but not my favorite. I stand by my original ask, though, and I want racing / theme quieter and the worlds to be louder.

Thanks for agreeing, @portisleft !

Good afternoon! I agree with the asker who preferred the “three worlds” to “racing”. I’d love more travelogue sets with a heavier emphasis on the worlds (kind of like how alara was five worlds all together)

If the focus is on the three worlds, there has to be a thematic (and mechanical) through line.

Another old favorite. 3/4 for three, keeping my trend of always like at- value heft even with a drawback. These "gating" creatures were a fun cycle, but still largely overcosted (IMO even 2001), save for this and the even better Horned Kavu.

Pre-flash Flash made the gating a potential straight upside that could save a creature. So much fun!

Fleetfoot Panther

Artist: Mark Brill TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

I'm psyched my question fueled another follow up. It makes me feel more seen. Thanks, @mythial-blog

"If the focus is on the three worlds, there has to be a thematic (and mechanical) through line." The mechanical throughline seems straightforward enough to figure out; but what constitutes a thematic throughline? Does it require a story event running through all 3 planes (as with aetherdrift) or could it be something simple like "The Big Monster Planes" covering Ikoria, Muraganda and Tarkir. Then again, saying that, a territory dispute between the multiverse's biggest beasts would be cool plot.

It has to have a thematic through line that can have a mechanical component. The story taking place on all three isn’t enough.

Senpai says you’re welcome

CNN

James Harrison, blood donor whose rare plasma saved millions of babies, dead at 88 | CNN

James Harrison, a prolific Australian blood donor famed for having saved the lives of more than two million babies, has died at age 88.

It's worth noting that there are some extraordinary people in the world who have been quietly doing the work for decades, and they should be celebrated with all the fervor that we denounce the villains. I first read about Harrison twenty-odd years ago, when he'd already been doing this for about fifty years, and this is one of those guys whose life can, indeed, be summed up by his headline.

James Harrison saved millions of lives. Millions. Not with anything flashy or dramatic, not with profound speeches or brilliant strategy or any of the things we insist are the ways to impact the world. He simply kept himself as healthy as possible so that every few weeks he could go and sit quietly in a room and give away a fundamental part of himself — quite literally his lifeblood — to people he'd never meet, for no pay and no expectation of acknowledgement. (He was, it should be said, acknowledged quite a lot per this article, but that's beside the point.)

When we talk about the kind of people we want to elevate and celebrate in our societies, I often think of people like James Harrison. I hope we get more of him; not just for his blood, but for his heart.

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

It's nice when you vote for someone and they do something extraordinary and good. I'm from NJ, and this was welcome.

Nice isn't enough of a word by several magnitudes, but it's the one that came to mind first. But it is also just nice.

Cory Booker has been talking in the senate for over 20 hours now

He’s not filibustering. He’s protesting the current administration.

Tesla is tanking so hard it is dragging the entire EV segment's sales down into the negative. When you omit Tesla from the equation, EV sales are up 13% across the board.

Don't let anyone tell you EV sales are in a slump.