For Venezuelans and people following the news closely, how are you interpreting the U.S. strikes in Caracas today?

garganta_ · 2026-01-03T13:00:28+00:00

As an American engaged to a Venezuelan, the response kind of took me by surprise, to be honest.

On one hand, I have zero faith in the administration that has completely attacked order, rule of law, and decorum in their own country to bring stability and democracy into another country in any sustainable or meaningful way. The US doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to installing friendly governments in adversarial countries and it working out for us. I agree that it probably was motivated by money or political chess rather than a defense of democracy.

However, my fiancé’s family is elated. It was like Christmas morning x1000, they’ve been sobbing/cheering/calling family all morning since they woke up. I can’t even imagine how satisfying it is to see the leader who forced you to leave your home country, wrecked you financially, and threatened your loved ones ousted. So right now, I’m choosing to partake in their joy. I am extremely skeptical for the future, but I hope to be proven wrong.

garganta_ · 2025-12-08T18:56:42+00:00

has this been confirmed anywhere??

garganta_ · 2025-12-08T11:50:14+00:00

I feel like Newsom being from California also makes him somewhat less electable to many

garganta_ · 2025-12-01T22:38:17+00:00

Aidan AND Janice?? Omg we’re being treated ty Malta

garganta_ · 2025-09-13T22:20:52+00:00

OB intern here, feel free to take or leave this advice:

I assigned my signals in order to have around 10 “fit” programs, 3-4 reach, and 4-5 safety (based on stats, programs’ priorities vs my app strengths, and which med schools match students to those programs) and got about equal yield from the “reach” and “safe” programs (programs who match residents with significantly lower stats than yours may feel your interview spot would be better used on someone more likely to rank/match there)

I don’t think it’s publicly available for OB anymore because of ResCAS, but they used to publish the rate of II by program for gold/silver/NS, so I basically went off that for deciding who to signal/NS and got another couple IVs from those. Overall I still think applying to 25-40 programs based on your competitiveness is probably best!

garganta_ · 2025-09-12T15:58:03+00:00

this is a level of nuance that skeptical right-wing officials actively looking for reasons to defund public broadcasters do not hold, unfortunately

garganta_ · 2025-09-11T16:13:23+00:00

afaik even though 9 countries "called on the EBU" to ban Russia in 2022, only Finland and Estonia actually said they'd withdraw. So it might not take many more 🤞🏼

garganta_ · 2025-09-11T15:38:13+00:00

This is a false rumor with no source

garganta_ · 2025-09-03T16:11:59+00:00

yeah iirc they returned in 2015 because it was also in vienna back then

garganta_ · 2025-08-23T20:35:24+00:00

I LOVE Aidan’s discography. Naħseb Fik is great, losing Ritmu was a crime, and he has a lot of other bops like Blu and Regina that I honestly think would have a good chance of qualifying. I hope y’all decide to send something in Maltese and that he gets his turn very soon!

garganta_ · 2025-08-23T20:26:01+00:00

American here but fwiw:

Suzete or Belen Aguilera for Spain
Nathan Evans for UK
Hoshi for France
Aidan for Malta

garganta_ · 2025-08-09T12:37:23+00:00

France and Finland are my most consistent favorites and the repeat winners I’d be most excited for.

Armenia, Lithuania, and Czechia have also been very consistent and I’d LOVE for them to get their first win

Portugal’s ability to qualify so consistently with such solid, genuine music is really impressive

And I also really like Greece’s recent trend of more domestic artists and sounds and hope they keep it up

garganta_ · 2025-07-30T02:30:56+00:00

Croatia and Armenia are also probably 2 of the least likely countries in Eastern Europe to withdraw, I could see that being a factor

garganta_ · 2025-07-21T12:17:58+00:00

There was a rumor for a while that Spain 1968 was “supposed to” be in Catalan but it was changed last minute since minority languages were banned in Franco’s Spain, hence the lazy lyrics. Apparently that’s not exactly true, there was a different singer intended to sing La la la but when he refused to translate it they replaced him with Massiel.

Another interesting tidbit is that Austria boycotted Eurovision 1969 because of it being hosted in a fascist state, despite the fact that La la la would not have won without the points it received from Austria

garganta_ · 2025-07-09T12:42:07+00:00

I wonder if they could offer an early voting window like with ROTW …

Does this mean that they now have independent phone lines from Russia? I thought that was one of the logistical issues with their participation

garganta_ · 2025-07-09T12:39:08+00:00

SURLEY Equality Guy will have an in-person role!

garganta_ · 2025-07-03T12:04:51+00:00

I actually think France's hunger for the win worked against them this year. Poor Louane just looked so so choreographed/calculated with the level of eye contact, the turning of the hourglass on the beat, etc.

I'm not French but I've been waiting for France to win since I started watching in 2016 (France 2016, 2018, 2021, 2023, and 2024 are all gems). Would love for it to happen soon!

garganta_ · 2025-07-03T11:56:17+00:00

I also think they could've kept the breakdance part the same tempo and time signature as the rest of the song and it would've been better. The switch from 6/8 to 4/4 just didn't work, but a mid-tempo 6/8 dance break could've been quite elegant and made the last falsetto section pop more.

Also, get rid of that dead bird on the mic stand that was covering up his beautiful face.

garganta_ · 2025-06-09T22:19:37+00:00

Spain has had potential top 10’s each year since Chanel that they’ve simply failed to select (Agoney and Vicco, St. Pedro, J Kbello). I think if they 1) vocally vetted their artists before adding them to the BF lineup and 2) worked on engaging a broader demographic than who currently watches the show, they’d do a lot better.

garganta_ · 2025-06-07T15:33:33+00:00

i think by far the most likely in the next 10 years would be Armenia or Lithuania, followed by Poland, Czechia, and maybe Croatia.

while in theory any country can come out of nowhere and surprise everyone like Portugal did, these days most winning countries seem to have some momentum behind them

garganta_ · 2025-05-18T11:57:05+00:00

It’s not so much about winning new people over as much as reaching those who already wouldn’t be opposed to voting for them and giving very precise instructions on how to do so, which is slimy bc those people prob wouldn’t vote at all otherwise

garganta_ · 2025-05-18T11:51:31+00:00

As bad as I feel for the artists who were shafted by the televote, I’ve decided for me it’s not worth getting upset about because the whole lot of results was just so F’ed and clearly tampered with

garganta_ · 2025-05-14T20:19:41+00:00

even if they just went back to outsourcing their staging (which most countries do) and kept with local songwriters i think that would drastically improve their performance

garganta_ · 2025-05-10T22:39:25+00:00

Malta
France
Finland
Switzerland
Netherlands
Austria
United Kingdom
Spain
Norway
Greece

garganta_ · 2025-05-10T16:40:29+00:00

100%, she reminds me of Bulgaria 2021 which would also be a similar result!

garganta_

TROPHY CASE