Why is that first phrase necessary? You can admit liking LOTR. (And only someone who likes it knows the acronym.)

MERP. Middle Earth Role Playing, not Middle Earth Role Playings. You might be confusing it with Steve Jackson’s GURPS.

Counterpoint: all soap is the same.

Classical music is one of the most misogynistic industries out there (made worse because it is insular and ultra-traditionalist). If that ever changes the lion’s share of music directors/conductors/star soloists out there are getting their asses sued into oblivion. Last year (I think) it was Charles Dutoit. Before…

How does thinking of him as a human prophet rather than the son of god reduce his fame? Is there some threshold where fame crosses into offspring-of-god-ness? Wait, do you think Oprah is god?!?!!??

That is most definitely not “fair to assume.” 

Oh god me too. I think there was an SI cover with Klingler holding a football with lit sticks of dynamite all over it.

Your team: [Terry Bradshaw voice] THE BINGLES

They’re thinking about “mental health” and not guns? What planet do you live on?

They mispelled by fucking name!

“Price point” is awful. Never thought about that.

Ratcliffe doesn’t have very much intelligence experience at all

You’re just restating point C above.

I have never had white privilege before.

Your comment reminds of an old joke about a headline referring to a women’s sport contest between Washington and Oregon: “Husky Women Subdue Ducks.”

“Editor”? What is this “editor” thing you’re on about? Some last-century voodoo?

Yes, that’s a bad take. If you spent half an hour reading any relevant primary sources, you’d (I hope) notice the racism that drove slavery.

A small but instructive fact that this dickhole gets wrong: female slaves consistently brought higher prices than male slaves, especially after the legal end of the slave trade in 1807 (because they could produce more slaves).

That’s marvelous. But also ivory-tower-ish. There’s a hell of a lot of crap academic writing out there. I wish there was more good writing for a popular audience. (Tom fucking Friedman certainly ain’t it.)

So, in effect you’re saying: don’t try anything different! Don’t strive to do what’s right! Just give up!