Like as a kid I absolutely believed that the government was made of the smartest people in the country. As I grew, I realized that was a dumb idea. Now, I’ve gone so far the other way that I doubt members of congress are even functionally literate.

GODDAMMIT.

Hey that’s fair, it’s not even my favorite pizza from there - I mostly thought of it because I was thinking about political events nearby at the Hamburg Inn (I’m still kicking myself that I wrote Hamburg Grill earlier, ugh). But I really did like their house special pizza.

I miss Iowa. I grew up there, lived in Nebraska during high school and undergrad, then back to Iowa for grad school. Now I’ve been working for seven years in New England and I still feel like a Midwesterner far from home.

Yeah, the rather willful obtuseness about Trump’s meaning when he said, “I didn’t get a thank you” is aggravating. Sure, he has nobody to blame but himself for his completely lack of coherency, but it’s not hard to figure out that he was talking about his critics rather than John McCain’s ghost.

I’m not a proper old, I find sidecuts weirdly endearing!

Possibly. But the narration that Xander supplies throughout the issue seems to say that he’s more feeling lonely and isolated.

I completely understand your skepticism! And while I don’t think that bullying is anywhere close to going away, it’s something that my undergraduate students regularly say was a much more anonymous thing when they were in high school. They’ve told me that being seen as a bully (physical or emotional) means you’re…

That’s actually the first time Willow’s done anything remotely aggressive so far. As for the Hot Topic look, though... yeah, that’s definitely fair. Though her girlfriend makes her look downright tame in comparison:

I can definitely understand your feelings about those three characters in particular. I’ve been warming up to these reinterpretations, though. I particularly appreciate that they ditched Cordelia’s mean girl act this time around - this version actually feels like a much better fit for how the original Cordie ended up…

Very glad to see this get some attention! I stumbled across this completely by accident and was surprised that I hadn’t heard anything about it before.

You’re being deliberately obtuse. Wahhabism is a repulsive ideology that deserves to be treated as such, and the willingness of Americans to look the other way when supporting it to serve our purposes (whether it be Republican or Democrat supporting the Saudis or the Taliban) is a massive stain that we are still…

The day some asshole comes into a Western church and guns down 50 Christians simply for being Christians, you can damn well bet I’ll be denouncing them just as hard. And anybody who refuses to do so will be no political ally of mine. It’s really not that hard of a stance to take.

Exactly. Though the added irony is that the Obama administration stepped up border security and deportations in a huge way compared to Bush, but none of it was ever enough for US nativists. Everybody who actually understands the logistics of the border knows that “the Wall” would do little to stop actual illegal…

Yeah, completely agree, and I say this as somebody who otherwise very much likes the show in general and this episode in particular. The spinning briefing is when it finally pushed me over the edge, it was extremely distracting.

Vonnegut didn’t have much use for the American two party political system, but he didn’t have much use for people who are deliberately cruel, either. Coulter’s whole persona is based around gleeful cruelty.

Sometimes I feel like the victory lap we all took (hell, I know I’m still taking it) is going to make it more likely that he actually does shut everything down again in a few weeks. He’s given himself 21 days to get driven into a frenzy from all the mockery.

Funny enough, Babylon 5 canon really does have angels turn out to be glowing tentacle things.

Beth Elderkind, who did the reviews last season, hated the show. Idk for sure who’s doing them this season, but if it’s James Whitebrook, he hates the show too. They’re like every whiny Trekkie ever.

Thank you for this, I’ve always wondered what the hell Solomon’s deal is. I mean, reading articles on the Hill for its (usually) decent reporting typically means having to navigate a minefield of shrieking conservative opinion pieces masquerading as ‘breaking news,’ but the bug up Solomon’s ass always seemed to have a…