Tom is a complete shitheel to everyone below him, and a suck-up to everyone above him, but Shiv is the one person with whom we’ve ever seen him (at least occasionally) be honest. And she hates that. If they’re being manipulative or self-serving or even twisted-flirty (biting?) with each other, she’s okay with…

Parliamentary democracies are in fact better, on average. Maybe not “vastly superior,” but superior enough. Comparative studies (e.g., Gerring, Thacker, and Moreno 2009) have shown that since the beginning of the 20th century, parliamentary systems have produced better quality of governance on average for their…

Ah, yes, the old “personal responsibility” mantra. Poverty is people’s own fault. They could bootstrap their way out of it if they just weren’t so stupid/lazy/short-sighted, and stopped making Bad Decisions. Right?

It’s a widespread attitude. The thing is, it’s really hard to back up with evidence from the real world.…

You’re spot-on about the calculations (and it’s annoying that the article stops short of explaining anything about such nuances, leaving off at a simple rule of thumb).

I think you’re a bit too pessimistic about “you, and you alone” being responsible for your retirement, though. Social Security is still a very real…

Pretty sure Laenor *himself* didn’t have any lines before this episode, so it would’ve been kinda difficult to work his lover into the story any sooner.

I’ve never seen Schitt’s Creek, nor have I ever seen the meme about it you refer to, but I’ve seen Spartacus. (Several times, over the years.)

One of these references is quite simply much more obscure than the other, and it’s *not* the one from the award-winning star-studded classic film directed by a world-class…

Umm. What is there about living in 2022, exactly, that makes keys obsolete?

Well, you do a better job of explaining it than the show did.

Ellen’s presidency absolutely screams Republican to me... it just screams *20th-century-style* Republican, in a world that never had Watergate, and even more importantly never had Newt Gingrich’s “Republican Revolution,” never mind the later Bush/Cheney years, or the Tea Party, or the MAGA travesty, or the …

I like your thoughtful reviews, but I think you’ve gotten a bit too cynical about the show at this point.

Yes, there are soap-opera elements. Yes, Danny is a walking plot device who’s both written and acted in a completely charmless way.

But, still... it’s a show that embeds genuinely thought-provoking ideas in every…

We don’t *all* know that feeling. Not everyone is an early bird! Speaking as a night-owl: “blazing through a productive morning” is a once-in-a-blue-moon thing for me, lunchtime just slows me down, and 3pm is when my energy levels have finally climbed to a comfortable level. (By 10pm or midnight I’m firing on all…

It’s nice to finally get some details. However, having read the THR piece, this all just comes across as standard creative differences on a film, not anything “gross, abusive, or unprofessional,” much less racist. When there are creative differences on a film, it’s pretty much to be expected that a young actor…

Intent definitely does matter. Both law and ethics recognize that, in almost every context. After all, intent is the only thing a speaker can control.  Conversely, the effect on others is a matter of subjective perception, and can vary as widely as the number of people doing the perceiving. Logically, it makes sense…

I’m with you about rigid conformity to ever-shifting rules, and intolerant callouts of “microagressions.” You lost me, though, with the gratuitous shot at “liberals,” and the even more gratuitous Hitler reference.

We’re not talking about some defining characteristic of liberals here, or for the matter of the left…

Hundreds? Methinks you severely underestimate.

So, that episode was seriously disappointing on at least two major fronts, and a number of minor ones.



Wow, I completely and utterly disagree about that scene. It seemed to me as transparently plot-driven as anything this show has ever done. But I guess that’s what makes horse races...

So “The build-up to Daenerys’ heel-turn this season hasn’t been as effective as it should have been”...
That’s the understatement of the season.

“...and it was a bit simplistic to see her pin her sole hopes for optimism on the idea that Jon Snow still wanted to get it on with her, but Emilia Clarke sells the …

The friends I was watching this with actually thought the dragon-killing scene was a dream sequence at first, because it just seemed so surreal and implausible.

Euron’s past ambushes: yeah, no argument, they were bullshit.

This one I can almost buy, though, because Cersei’s side knew where Dany was and where her forces would be sailing from (IF they came by sea), so it would be easy enough to have some scouts along the coastline (just as Dany SHOULD have had some at…