The reason we allow hate speech is because pulling the free speech thread is very dangerous.

If you give government the power to regulate speech, do you think they'll stop at the Nazis?

The USA is a tax exile from Britain.

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by taking perks linearly. Within the specific perks they had linear ranks (gated by levels), but you aren't required to get the lower stat perks before the higher stat perks.

Skip the creation of the world parts, and go right to Feanor and his beef with Melkor.

I love picking out the Deadwood alumni in any show, and here the social worker Locke meets in the first flashback was played by Cleo King, Hearst's Aunt Lou.

Slavery predated Christianity, and the biggest push to end the slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries came from William Wilberforce, a religiously motivated evangelical Christian.

Kent won the fight by knocking out the Rat King's teeth. That's what he brought in the bag, it's what Shelby hung up as a trophy above the sword, and they when show the Rat King at the end he doesn't have the big buck teeth anymore.

Tonight's episode was absolutely fantastic. It's a great example of a perfect stand-alone ep.

How do people not understand that the infighting in Westeros is irrelevant to the ending? The White Walkers are coming south to destroy everybody.

I don't want to sound pretentious here, but Huell and Patrick comprise a dramaturgical dyad.

It is my prediction that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them

I didn't recognize many faces, but it was good to see the pimp husband/father from Carnivale getting work.

Is Illyrio Mopatis the Yellow King?

Oh come on, can't we just get beyond Thunderdome?

I can't be the only one who was thinking about Dennis and his hammer of Thor speech, right?

That was heavy handed, but pilots tend to be thematic sledgehammers.

I don't really understand the opposition to "Hey! It's 1960!" moments. The show takes place in the 60s, and it is in large part about the changes in people's lives during that decade. Do you expect everybody to be on smartphones or something?

Who wrote that article? Perd Hapley or Derry Murbles?

I'm kind of sad that we'll never meet Dr. Richard Nygard, but seeing old Frank Sobotka again was a nice little bonus.