I’ve never understood why Sanders’ detractors always hit him for his party affiliation; the number of self-identified Democrats is at an all-time low and the number of independents is higher than ever. Seriously, who gives a shit?

This is a fairly recent development though, not some fixed reality of American politics. The key to defeating Trump is building a durable national majority of the working class, not writing off 2/3 of the states and crossing our fingers that Florida goes the right way.

“Do it like Obama” is a really bad prescription, especially given that while Obama gave liberals tinglies from the Oval Office, his party lost influence at every level of government other than the federal executive (in part because all those warm-fuzzies didn’t translate to voter turnout). This is not a desirable…

Wasn’t there speculation that the ship would have some kind of joint Federation-Klingon crew? (Which seems to fit with the vaguely Warbird-like ship design we’ve seen, and with some of the rumors above.)

This is operating on premises about the electorate that are literally and demonstrably false. While Americans are more likely to describe themselves as “conservative,” polling on the individual policy level shows majority support for a wide range of social democratic policies (breaking up the banks, increasing…

Align yourself with literal white supremacists, then plead for intellectual diversity when people call you an asshole. Nazi geeks fuck off.

Image Comics was kind of infamous for their delays in the early ‘90s. Marvel and DC were more willing to swap out talent to keep books on-schedule, but big name artists failing to meet deadline has been a thing for a long time.

This seems like a weirdly self-defeating thing to say when you’re the guy writing the movie? You get to define the characters however you want, dogg.

I am discussing the people you describe as “actually” neo-Nazis: specifically, organizations like the Austrian Freedom Party (formed by ex-SS officers) and the Greek Golden Dawn (founded by a Holocaust denier). These organizations rely heavily on the kinds of martial imagery that uniquely characterize fascism in the…

Nope, just the neo-Nazis. Great chat.

Thank you; out of respect for intellectual diversity, I will refrain from labeling far-right ethno-nationalist political organizations as “fascist.” The discourse has been elevated. Please do not send me to a concentration camp

While folks rage that Nick Spencer made Captain America into a (kind of; not really) Nazi for an issue of a comic book, actual honest-to-God fascists continue to gain influence across the west. “But we can care about multiple things!” says someone who couldn’t point to Greece on a map.

Treating the decision to avoid a specific cultural product as a “boycott” is one of the more maddening rhetorical frames of today’s social media activism. As if politics begins and ends with the comic books you choose to buy.

Well one is a substantive legal concept, and the other is a bullshit buzzword, so...

My fan theory is that every professional writer who writes about fan theories is actually Hitler. It makes sense when you think about it!

I’m not really tracking this section? You raise the (very legitimate) point of contention that our current artificial intelligences are devised to meet specific cognitive challenges. An AI that can play chess can’t drive a car (or vice-versa) — and despite major technical advancements, it seems like generalizing the…

I can’t speak to the specific lore in question, but as I understand the broad tradition of “Native American” belief systems (understanding that this is a major generalization), the act of storytelling itself often takes on a different significance than it does in many “Western” religions. It’s not just “we don’t tell…

Maybe it’s just because I watched The Last Dragon last night, but I am ready for a black Iron Fist.

Worth noting that “white slavery” is actually a more specific term, used to denote sex slavery in particular; the term was used primarily in the context of immigration debates of the 1900s and 1910s, in which immigrants were said to be preying on white women and forcing them into prostitution.

Fun game to play with Star Wars rumors: Every time you read the words “Darth Plagueis,” punch yourself in the face.