That's a surprisingly full-throated endorsement of a regime so corrupt, greedy, and exploitative that they can claim credit for causing not one, but several of the worst famines in human history.

Is it just me, or is this review a little… short? I mean I get that most of us more or less know what Faust is about, but there's so much he doesn't cover. What's the acting like? How sharp is the writing? What about the translation? I'm also a little confused because in the review he says the dialogue is dubbed but…

Well the ever-expanding acronym is a problem for a whole nother reason as it lumps lots of completely different groups together simply because of their perceived minority status. I understand there was a time when Lesbian rights groups had nothing to do with Gay rights groups who in turn often had a rocky relationship…

That would mesh with my experience. There's probably a community of mature, dignified genderqueers out there somewhere, but the only people I've ever met who described themselves that way were confused twenty-somethings with spikey hair and too many piercings.

It's actually one of the best ways to immediately spot a certain kind of SF/Fantasy hack. In English, apostrophes are never pronounced, they're simply there to indicate possessives or that some letters are missing. Sometimes foreign words are written with apostrophes to denote pauses (although modern translators seem…

Yeah I enjoyed Mass Effect for its space opera cheesiness, fun shooty-looty gameplay, and generally good art direction and voice acting, but the writing was fairly problematic. For every interesting character (Garrus, Tali, Wrex, Mordin, Legion) there would be two dull, vaguely unlikeable ones for you to fill out your…

You make it sound like the Nubians ruled Egypt for all its pre-greek history, but really only certain dynasties had ties to Nubia and the bulk of Egypt's rulers — not to mention the common people — were probably about the same color as modern Egyptians. As far as afro-centric mythology goes, saying "the pharoahs were…

Yeah what's wrong with The Indian in the Cupboard? Inquiring minds want to know.

Also books that circulate well in one library will get bought up by other libraries and might even wind up getting mentioned in the American Library Journal — one of the holy grails of books sales.

I disagree. Nude discus is perfectly straightforward. Dangerous though.

I'm personally looking forward to the episode where Saul represents Skylar's sister in a shoplifting case.

It also doesn't have to be Saul who meets them. The show has a whole supporting cast to fill out so that sort of cameo doesn't have to be too contrived.

I was amazed to see Nightvale on here. A year ago no one I talked to even knew what it was and now it seems to be blowing up. Good for them.

Yeah it had a cool car and Cristoph Waltz doing a goofy russian accent.

Counterpoint: executives like to meddle because it justifies their existence, but Whedon's star has risen higher than most of us could have guessed even five years ago and The Avengers made a LOT of money. That's got to change the power dynamics more than a little.

Firefly's one season was pretty good, but the second half of the season is stronger than the first and Serenity is fricking amazing so I think @disqus_u7vdwwhJsZ:disqus may have a point.

That's just the nature of pilot season. Lots of great shows have terrible, inconsistent pilots (I'm looking at you, Parks and Rec). With comedies it usually takes the writers and cast a while to find their tone and the overstuffed high concept mystery dramas that have been so popular in recent years generally have way…

Are we pretending Continuum is good now? I mean, it's watchable, but they really, really shouldn't have cast model lady in the lead role. Every time she makes that glassy eyed "I'm emoting" face, I wince a little.

Yeah this list is just plain sad. Good inventories (which we haven't had in a while) highlight trends and make connections most people otherwise wouldn't think of. Bad inventories read like one of Colonel Gentlemen's pointless lists. Any idiot can think of bands with onomatopoetic names (well, idiots who know what an…

Me too. I keep thinking "oh, I should catch up on Breaking Bad" or "oh I should check out this Black Orphan show." Then I go to Netflix and watch Deep Space Nine or King of the Hill or some other fifteen-year-old show I've seen before.