I disagree with this. Constraints on executive power aren’t toothless - they’re backed by Congress’ powers. The power of the purse, the power to declare war, the power to withhold consent from executive nominees, the power to impeach. The real problem is, Congress has deliberately given those powers away.

In a…

I don’t think it makes sense to cite Iraq as an example of English moral superiority over the US - among many reasons why he was shit, Tony Blair was an enthusiastic lapdog in that matter. Vietnam is also pretty iffy - while the US was clearly more involved there, there were British commandos and RAF bombing missions…

Here is my reading of Eleanor: the flashbacks to Earth never show her saying or doing anything that demonstrates an attraction to women.  She only does that after she dies.  I think she was just lowkey closeted on Earth, but is now expressing her sexuality more openly now that she’s dead (as part of/a parallel to her…

It’s flictonic Klippel-Weber syndrome.  It’s a common disease where children grow horns from trying too hard.

I don’t think “be fucking grateful that they are giving you a small chance to escape the death and poverty in the south” makes sense here. A lot (probably most?) of that death and poverty is directly or indirectly attributable to the US and its actions over the past couple centuries. There wouldn’t be cartels if the…

But I absolutely despise the incompetence of a critic who reviews themselves, which is what “boring” means. Being bored is a feeling, and criticism (honest criticism at least,) is about explaining why you think you’re bored.

I think maybe we’re arguing past each other a bit - I’m not saying that art criticism should be flattened into something like “this has bad politics, so it should be rejected.” Nor am I saying that the political reading should usually be the main lens that we use to look at a piece of art. Rather, my argument is that…

I never got this perspective. It seems to me that the point of art is to resonate with a viewer in some way, and so the point of art criticism is to examine how the art does or doesn’t accomplish that. A modern viewer of this movie/reader of this piece is going to have modern politics, and for better or worse that’s…

CNN reports that beginning in 2020, employers in the state can no longer refuse to hire a job applicant for failing a marijuana screening test, making it the first state in the country to enforce such a rule. And considering it’s perfectly legal in Nevada to purchase and partake in the green leaf, making it a…

Yeah, there’s a specific provision of the law saying that it doesn’t apply where contradicted by federal law - so federal laws or rules about contractors not using marijuana still apply to those people.

Without having seen the movie, I’m going to guess “Gimme Shelter.”

One of my favorite episodes of the old Justice League cartoon (there are a lot though) is the one where everyone thinks Superman dies, and then Lobo shows up to the wake, announces he’s there to replace Superman, and then fights everyone until they’re too exhausted to argue anymore about it.

It’s great, because…

I have not watched the show at all (or even read anything about it until now), but isn’t “time hopping wannabe hero” just Booster Gold?

The Hyde Amendment doesn’t just bar Medicare from paying for abortions - it bars any federal money paying for abortions.  That means Medicaid (a few states pay for abortions entirely with state Medicaid funds, but most don’t); it means federal employees, including the military; it means people in prisons and jails; it…

This actually seems like good news. Schur has frequently talked about how Lost was an inspiration for this show, and I’ve always been afraid that meant The Good Place could end up dragging on too long and losing all its impact. Four seasons is a nice, tight length that gives them just enough time to realize that…

I might be slightly annoyed with season 3 because I feel like they were saying that the absurd standards for admission to the good place showed one of the big inherent problems with thoroughgoing consequentialism as a moral theory, and as something of a Kantian, Chidi should have been all over that, but he never…

One thought I had (aside from how many Nazis are in these comment sections since Kinja happened) is that the Froggie James stuff makes a lot of sense if you think about him as another god. He’s the god of “black people getting murdered by racism” - the more often that happens, the more attention/worship/power he gets.…

I disagree with the “let’s never share information” bit. I thought they did a good job of having characters hold on to information for the exact right amount of time (given that they’re all teenagers who are extra insecure about their personal relationships due to their parents being supervillains) and then disclose…

The point of speculative fiction like fantasy and sci fi is that it’s a mirror that distorts some parts of reality in order to make it easier to think about other parts. Fantastic elements (like dragons and ice zombies) can serve as metaphors for real life issues (like climate change or militarism), and they create a…