My company’s insurer is United Healthcare, and they have just moved CVS from in-network coverage for prescriptions to out-of-network. Meaning that until I switch my prescriptions to Walgreeen’s, I’ll have to pay out of pocket. The company has also forced us to open HSAs with Optum Bank (run by UHC) rather than our own…

I was hoping for Tasmia as well. Would have been cool to see her done right.

I’ve read about that idea, and agree - the more I read about the wars, the more it seems like a continuation of ills that plagued Europe at the end of the 1800s. French Marshall Ferdinand Foch said the end of WWI wasn’t a peace, but a 20-years armistice, and he was only off by less than a year.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement - which divided up the Ottoman Empire between Britain, France, and Russia - is considered a main reason for all of the strife in the Middle East. This article seems to explain it better than I can:

One connection to the Chevalier was Pierre Beaumarchais, the playright of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, who was sent to London in the 1770s to bring d’Eon back to France. Beaumarchais was an inventor, writer, adventurer, and spy (among other things), and Sarah Vowell has a rather amusing story…

I have a feeling that in the spirit of empire and conquest the Middle East would have been conquered and divvied up at some point (like Africa was). But you’re right about the crucial - probably never in history has the drawing of a map caused so much grief due to ignorance and/or blind arrogance.

Harry Turtledove does a lot of other alt-history stories - what if the Spanish Armada had won over England, or what if Josef Stalin had moved to the U.S. as a kid and eventually entered politics while being as ruthless as the original. The Southern Victory series is pretty sprawling, and he’s dedicated more books to…

Sounds along the lines of this book:

Work at a Dönitz shop?

I’m guessing that the waitress was XS (Jenni Ognats) from the 31st Century’s Legion of Super-Heroes, who is Barry and Iris’s granddaughter by way of their daughter Dawn Allen, one of the Tornado Twins (the other is Don Allen, oy). It could be Dawn, but Jenni was a rather excitable character.

The modern strains are so potent it would probably lay me out for the rest of the year, and a month into the new year... but thanks for the advice.

I hate hate HATE “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer”. My late brother (God rest his soul) loved it, and bellowed it out every Christmas; he had many positive accomplishments in his life but couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, so I feel absolutely no guilt. It’s an insipid song that has all of the verve and craft of…

Her talking about how everyone will be okay made me think about that hadron collider that Whiterose and an associate were near in the first episode of the season. I’m wondering if it’s some kind of time machine/quantum entangler thingy, plus the one guy who spoke of alternate universes last season.

This show just kicked its viewers in the nads and did the happy dance, especially with Irving’s speech about how all revolutions are paid for - and profited - by the rich. The present political situation doesn’t help either.

I really, really wish they had named this episode “Weird War Tales” since a telepathic gorilla controlling soldiers on both sides of a war leading to WWIII would be a prime example of that comic’s story telling. Grodd being menacing and creepy brought to mind some of the stories from so many years ago; it’s probably…

Nice catch, I had almost forgotten that. From what I remember he did a pretty decent Mirror Master.

From here in Georgia it sounds like MARTA is getting the brunt of the blame. This will be another excuse for the Legislature to cut funding, and people who don’t want MARTA in their counties* to double down on the inefficiency claim. All of the other shots were from the air or surrounding buildings, and I wondered how…

You’ll have to vault over the rope barrier (hint: be in a wheelchair), sneak coffee into the Louvre (hint: colostomy bag), melt the bulletproof glass, and find a way past the Louvre’s highly trained team of Mona Lisa Ninja-guards, who will not think twice about sacrificing their lives for the glory of France.

I’m hoping the BBC adaptation of Good Omens will tell us.

In the first season, there’s a scene with Lucifer at Dr. Linda’s office ranting about how humans blame him for everything, and the dialogue is almost verbatim from “Season of Mists”, where Lucifer is tired of humans considering him buying and selling souls “like a fishwife come market day”. While TV Lucifer doesn’t…