I think modern amphibians are still okay but for the Paleozoic ones you’re still safer going general by just calling them early tetrapods or something along those lines.

Are there still people who argue that taxonomy shouldn’t totally be based on who’s descended from what? I think it makes sense for everyday language (as cool as it would be people aren’t going to adjust their language to it), but that approach doesn’t really doesn’t do anything wrt answering science questions.

And it’s coming to LA the week I’m at home visiting my parents. Of course.

narrows eyes

“I feel so dirty, stealing and pawning…”

If you bothered to read the article you were never at the A.V. Club.

I think spot.IM’s second test never happened because they ran into financial trouble.

Though so does the short phrase “President Trump”

Georgia, I think

Turns on TV to find Mike Dexter affectionately listening

That’s because until recently there hasn’t been a good, accessible copy of Chimes at Midnight! Luckily that’s changed, though the downside is that people who’ve seen the film don’t have any stories about how they saw it (a near-soundless worn print at an artsy theater, on videotape in some random classroom with…

In retrospect Tuesday feels a bit like Westphalia before the Bulgarians invade.

There’s an elector (or two, maybe) in Washington who were planning on voting for Bernie, which would not really help (though it also wouldn’t hurt at this point).

One of my office mates calls him “Taz,” after the Looney Tunes character. I can’t think of him as anything else now.

Actually was thnking of watching Lisztomania on Monday but after doing a bit of research I decided against it—I was afraid it was the kind of batshittery that requires a “I’m going to watch something very 1970s and I may be able to appreciate in some abstract sense but it will not actually be enjoyable to watch” mood…

Thank you for some continuity in a chaotic world.

Ironically on Tuesday afternoon I finished re-reading Candide on a coffee break. Now on to Zadig, which is just as clever and hilarious, and though it’s less profound the pretty obvious instances of score-settling by Voltaire—even if you don’t know the conflicts (I don’t)—is great (it’s also even more episodic than…

Dullea’s actually a pretty awesome actor.

Noooo—Vaughan was a classic midcentury American liberal and did a lot of campaigning for Eugene McCarthy (IIRC he endorsed Bernie Sanders, too). I hope to God he went without knowing the result.

Honestly this is ruining me right now—one of my favorite screen presences of all time, just the embodiment of debonair with a bit of quirk.