What's really funny is that dropping out of a doctorate is actually kind of a difficult thing. A master's degree is more school, but a doctorate is something between an apprenticeship and proving yourself worthy of the degree independently. There aren't things like classes or even specific work involved at that point

Well, to be fair there their tries to help the wounded seemed to involve a lot of "stealing their blood to gain eternal life" and a lot less "actually healing them the way they said they would". So it's not hard to see that there might be some resentment there.

I choose to believe that her name is actually just "Maude", she has a slight accent, and no one around her has noticed that she has that accent and just went with calling her "Mud".

And how was that argument going? Effectively?

This goes against the entire spirit of Doctor Who in ways I cannot actually specify without sounding like a raging misogynist but I insist that I have a great deal of respect for women somehow and hate that people would imply otherwise just because I very blatantly refuse to act like they are as important as men. The…

WHY.

I don't know if it was specifically for "unknown" - I mean, consider "Whoever is leaving their used tampons in the recycling bin is being gross and they need to stop" is not especially neutral for all practical purposes. I'm not sure what the best description of how it is used is, though. It is the closest thing we…

You do understand that this person is a pathetic ass with nothing worth responding to, right?

The regeneration results in a different side of the same overall personality - like a different variation on the same theme. So each regeneration of the Doctor is basically the same deep down, but highlighting different aspects of the character in different ways, often in ways that are responsive to the situation in…

There's a weirdly universal belief that while women can identify with a male protagonist men can't identify with a female one, and it has never made much sense to me. It also seems pretty directly false in every instance I can think of.

The extent to which they not only did that but managed to mostly cast Jewish actors to play them is really something amazing to me.

I've worked with both a Dr. Savage and a Dr. Love. It was amazing to me how little amusement people took from that, but it's probably partially since in most areas of (anglo-)academia people view it as really gauche to insist on or even use their professional titles at all*. So it really wasn't something that…

Partially, sure, but what people think of as change can vary pretty widely, and you can tell a lot about a person by which they notice as a change and how big of a change they think it is.

It is, but that doesn't mean it's one of the most powerful organizations in Europe. The real influence the Catholic church has is out in the third world.

And one of the biggest predictors seems to be places with significant social welfare programs, which both help people feel secure in planning for their future (because they have a net to catch them) and feel like an important part of a society already, without the need for a religious community.

Or TOS, really. Then again remember we're talking about the kind of people who watched The Colbert Report and thought Steven Colbert was a conservative…

Here it is: http://strangehorizons.com/…

It was never stated directly that I can remember but there was a pretty strong implication that the Sebaceans were just humans genetically altered by the Eidelons to be the Peacekeepers. If so it's not hard to imagine the plant coming along for the ride and turning out to have an interest effect on species that up to…

Their response when people freaked out was kind of amazing though. They claimed (coughbullshitcough) that they weren't crazy psychos or something: they had no idea that it was linked to the Punisher and just thought a giant skull was a great logo for their department.

Priest: "…I'm confused, shouldn't you just take his actual last name instead of.."
Lisa: "Oh no. No we like it… both ways."