And what about the freaks? Where are the bearded women and siamese twins going to get jobs?

My grandparents all had TVs in their nursing homes as they were dying. There really wasn't a whole lot else to do.

Which is weird, because he was the playwright of Farragut North (later made into the George Clooney film The Ides of March), which actually *was* a reasonably realistic political drama.

That's kind of ignoring the Paris Commune of 1871. Granted, it didn't last very long, but the Mexican Revolution didn't either (in practice).

On the other hand, Texas (at least before the late 1960s) was kind of based on white supremacy. If they had been occupied by the Japanese, I could see them fighting. Against the Germans, who 1) had a racial philosophy not that far from their own KKK (which remember was anti-semitic in addition to not liking blacks)…

As I mentioned mentioned before, in real life the Germans had no problem with French war heroes running Vichy, so I wouldn't see a problem with Smith. As for the resistance, I think it is pure American exceptionalism to imagine that the resistance would be that much more powerful than European ones. Most people…

Hell. the leader of Vichy France was Marshal Pétain, who was a WWI war hero fighting the Germans. He didn't see himself as selling out France to the Germans the way the Resistance (and history) viewed him — he saw himself as making the best of bad situation — sure Vichy France was a puppet state, but at least it was…

Although to be fair, do you really think a victorious Germany would really keep either Franco or Mussolini around? They were convenient allies early on, but they were after all, Southern Europeans, only slightly better than Slavs in the Nazi hierarchy.

Isn't that Esperanto for "to eat Kosher food?"

I think the most confusing thing to me about the movie was finding out Arnold Schwarzenegger exists in the Simpsons' universe when it had already been established that his place was taken by Rainer Wolfcastle. It just opens up so many questions. Does Mike Tyson exist there with his analog Drederick Tatum? (and yes, I…

And only in the last season does Jughead don his famous hat.

True. Speaking of the Moonies it's weird that they sort of fell out of the public consciousness — I know Rev. Moon himself died a few years ago, but even before that. Back in the 1980s I remember how people were frightened when they started the right-wing Washington Times newspaper — if anything people were more…

The actress who plays Bart (Nancy Cartwright) is a Scientologist and apparently had no problems with the "Movementology" episode. Unless a show directly references Scientology itself, they don't seem to mind.

Hell, I'm 46 and only know Archie through references.

Two vultures decided to fly south via a commercial plane rather than doing it themselves. As they check in, the guy behind the desk notices that one of the vultures has a dead racoon. He asks "Do you want to check that to your final destination?" The vulture responds: "Oh, no, it's carrion.".

I've just had an idea: Note how holograms and ghosts look nearly identical in the Star Wars universe. What if holograms aren't actually technological there, but are the result of enslaved ghosts?

You don't like Quinto's version of Spock? I'm not really a fan of the Trek reboots (they don't really seem to get the Trek feeling but seem more like generic SF movies with people running and jumping around rather than giving long-winded speeches about the human condition or what not), but much like Urban's Kelley…

That's kind of true. I actually subscribe to the phone NYT paywall. That should be enough. But if I want to read it on my tablet I'm supposed to buy yet another (more expensive) package. WTF?

Courses for horses — I *tried* achewood, but it just seemed painfully unfunny. But I really like Xkcd — but then, I was a big fan of "The Far Side" when it existed — science-based in-jokes were a big part of that as well.

The whole reason you know about these things at all is because the major news media *do* cover them. The NYT has published articles about all of these. It's kind of where the random people on Twitter and Tumblr *get* these stories.