If we could get rid of the Senate (which gives a stranglehold over progress by rural sparsely populated red states), the effect on the ability of the government to make serious progressive change would be wonderful. Of course it has to go hand in hand with removing gerrymandering and voter suppression and the…

I agree completely and also believe we should move to a parliamentary system

I think moving away from the cult of personality and more towards looking at a candidate’s ideas and policies is a really good thing. This country puts way too much emphasis on personality.

When I moderate panels, my standard spiel before opening for Q&A is “Questions should be two sentences or less and end with a question mark.” It usually works. More or less. 

I assume you have attended academic conferences? Because ugh lord, they’re the absolute worst for “My question is really more of a comment”. 

In my imaginary fantasy Q&A, I repeatedly tell non-question askers, two-part question askers, and stupid question askers to sit the fuck down, then pull a Graham Norton style lever that sends them hurtling out of the aisle.

Imagine the sweet, sweet relief if the moderator said “NEXT, please!” the moment “...more of a comment...” was uttered.

That’s very mature. If I hear anything other than an enthusiastic yes, I run to a dark corner to self-immolate.

“We’ll see” is short for “I’ll see you in hell first,” guys everywhere.

I was once at an author talk and a woman did this and she went on for a solid five minutes. It was pure “look at me, I am so erudite.” People were outwardly huffing and rolling their eyes (the woman on one side of me rolled her entire head). And after she was finished the author was like “ ... That’s fine. Next…

We’re eventually going to get more non-serious candidates being blatantly non-serious, and I’m OK with that. I think Gravel 2020 is an interesting experiment that maybe won’t have the full impact that it should or would any other year. Not until the “extremely online” become the majority, which will happen, and we’ll…

UGH the “I don’t have a question” people should be taken out back and shot.

I mean, I definitely have some concerns about these kids playing Vincent Adultman in a digital skinsuit of a geriatric man, but anybody willing to call Henry Kissinger a “a man whose appetite for corpses is dwarfed only by his gluttony for division” is alright in my book.

I know, right? The moment I hear anything less than “Yeah, I’d totally love to go on a date”, I mentally move on to other things.  Like, what I’m going to have for lunch.

I’ve never understood how people don’t get that.

When my kid was still in kindergarten, she figured out that “we’ll see” means “no.” 

“Is that a no or a maybe?” he then asked. “We’ll see,” she said.

A personal favorite is the “Hi my name is John and I don’t have a question, it’s more of a comment and...” followed by 3 minutes of self-referential drivel. 

Obvious solution = never going to happen. And, fwiw, I agree; it would be trivial to implement at essentially no cost at all, would streamline the Q&A, would keep the discussion on topic, and would avoid creepy situations like this. Thus, it’s never going to happen.

“This is really more of a comment than a question...”