Think about it: who benefits from disenfranchising minorities and who is in charge of fixing said disenfranchisement. The fact that we’re being directed to instead look real hard at “how terrible it is waaaaaay over there” makes perfect sense.

And the poorly-written dystopian novel just keeps piling on the unrealistic plot twists and crudely drawn, overly-simplistic characters. Is this a novel or a morality play? We get it. That orange character is “cartoonishly evil yet incomprehensibly inept.” Who’s writing this trash?

I suppose your perception of cost depends on where you’re coming from; I’m from northern Wisconsin by way of Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland. So, PGH is midwestern-y and small, but quite affordable, while I don’t think I’m capable of counting high enough to describe the rent a friend in Palo Alto was paying…

There’s been a surprising amount of tech in PGH, even before Google moved in, thanks to Carnegie Mellon University and a strong biomedical sector. The good news is that the cost of living is a pittance compared to the Bay Area, and for a place that has all four seasons, things aren’t too extreme, or they weren’t…

I tried to go back and edit some typos and add two more books from the sale pile: the complete Lord Peter stories and Pittsburgh Noir. I live in the latter, but would happily trade to go live in the former.

I think you have to be smarter than half the players in this farce to manage an operatic denouement, or, y’know, pronounce “denouement” correctly. I, personally, will happily accept any sort of slap-dash, “And then it was revealed that the last few years were all a terrible dream sequence” dissolve, or someone…

I read at least four things at a time, usually from wildly disparate genres. Oh, and I read a lot for/at work, on top of that. Mood and “oh, I hit a slow spot” or other random factors determine which thing I pick up. Other people tend to look at me like I’m a crazy person for doing this, so I get where you’re coming…

Late to the party, but I’m reading a couple of things right now:

Though it is an unpopular opinion, I lack an appreciation for poutine. More for those who do, while I raid the Tim Bits? I’ve not been to Montreal, but I’ve got friends in Vancouver who are long overdue a visit, which brings us to the original issue of our borders and aircraft being so vigorously defended from those…

Quite possible I goofed. Sorry! Someone up-thread was talking a peaceable exchange with our Northern Neighbors for Tim Hortons. I am there for the Tim Bits.

I hear this. I’m sporting “faintly Moose-Lamb” looks and an Arabic name; I am not setting foot outside the country until shit gets resolved (even though mom’s side of the family came over with a land grant from King George and then immediately hooked up with some First People, which means I’ve got, at minimum, ~10…

I had never heard of Deep Springs College. I am both fascinated and horrified. It probably would do him a world of good.

I have several pieces of quartz (see-through rocks!!! Blew my mind as a kid and led to a degree in environmental geology) with visible fluid inclusions — liquid trapped in there from millions of years ago when the crystal was forming. Isn’t that magical enough for you people?

And the “mystic crystal” crowd are woefully ignorant about basic geology, which given that they’re assigning crazypants powers to random rocks is pathetic.

You say that like you expect him to understand cause and effect.

It’s the unholy alliance of a tragically stunted vocabulary and a non-existent grasp of history, current affairs, how government works, how finance works, etc., swaddled in narcissistic delusion. To recreate it, all you need to do is find yourself a toddler who hasn’t had enough enrichment and let them dictate tweets.…

Vaguely related to topic and purely antidotal:

I think that, right there, explains all his people. Not only is being an actual professional, and doing your job, not welcome (because he knows best), but no one who isn’t huffing the gold Sharpie veneer of “wealth and power” willing to put up with his BS for more than 5 minutes. Even if they were, no competent…

“Eat my ass!” a teenage boy yelled at the U.S. Capitol rotunda on Wednesday morning.

Gotta say, having been subjected to the insane number of TV spots leading up to this election, I wonder how much the anti-Lamb attack ads, most of which never mentioned his opponent’s name, actually helped Lamb from sheer name recognition? Seriously, they’ve been repeating his name for what feels like a century,…