I’m okay with your doing that, FWIW. :) Don’t wring your hands too much, I personally believe your intention was clear.

As other people are pointing out, it’s very complicated. Some Jews I know do believe in G-d; some atheist Jews I know are pretty observant of all holidays (holding seders in your house before the Passover meal, for example, and making sure no bread is left in it) -- actual belief is beside the point.

Starred for the meta-joke of what looks like a still from Torn Curtain (1966), where he played a physicist. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s minor Hitchcock, but has a some cool sequences. Also if you ever wondered about how Julie Andrews would play opposite Paul Newman as his love interest, this is your movie, and…

Not really — it’s not gory at all. It’s more like Jason Kendall putting his right foot on backwards in ‘99. No bone sticking through the skin. But obviously gut-wrenching and visceral.

This is a garbage list. There is no way the cost of living in Austin, Texas is “low,” even compared to California. Show me where one is supposed to live in Austin’s city limits to enjoy this allegedly low cost of living, honestly, unless you’re living in a hole in the ground. Also, “culture” is Houston is “below…

That, and the fact that every single one of these luxobarges would experience problems that led to them smoking harder than Dennis Hopper in Waterworld.

“...wealthy Republican finishing school” — deadly accurate. As a friend of mine says, “It’s just hard enough to provide a good education, but not too challenging such that the big donors’ kids can’t get in.”

I had the same thought. I visited the country 4 years ago, and one thing that struck me was the non-universality of Mandarin phonology. China has at least 14 to 15 major dialects. One phonology will not work in another part of the country just a couple hours away. On CCTV, all programs are necessary to close caption…

Yes, given its stridently anti-capitalist bent, and also it’s one of the first films he watched.

Thank you for spelling out why we all feel (I’m sure) comfortable with those waves of schadenfreude we’ve been experiencing re: Theranos. This all just seems depressingly familiar, and it confirms the sort of thing we’ve seen for years with STEM fields being vulnerable to this sort of hype. Nobody likes to be wrong…

I believe that Hartman was in the original Pee-Wee stage show (as in the early 80s) as Sailor Bill; certainly he was when it aired on HBO back then.

You can start about anywhere, but probably Fear of Music is a fine place to do it. The later things are good in their own way, but I’m repeating rock-crit cant here by stumping for the Eno-collaboration records as the best ones. Remain in Light still scares the shit out of me, and there’s a reason why people refer to…

Glider, holy crap. Totally absorbing “casual” game, though we didn’t quite call it that back then...amazingly durable (at least for me) and I remember it had a cult following off sorts.

Christ, wow. Don’ t know how long this was ago, but nowadays even your average state school has a well-developed protocol for documenting and intervening in such cases, protecting both faculty and students. It may have been possible to pull that sort of move (wealthy donor getting someone to pull rank, or trying to)…

Thanks man — another commenter corrected me on this.

It’s what my debate coach said, when greeting us on the first day. Given the research-intensive footing of lawyering vs. debate, which is virtually all about thinking on your feet, sometimes debate people are deluded into thinking rhetorical firepower is all there is to the legal profession, when it’s about 5% of it,…

Did not know that and thanks for clearing that up. (Where in the hell would we find that out if not for the comments?) Different animal of course. Lot of forms in college debate but that’s the one I was most familiar with & just blithely assumed that’s what he was doing.

Former academic debater here, same era (different region) as Cruz. The policy debate format would be the same as what you had in secondary school forensics [pro side goes first, then negative, then questions for the other side, etc.] except the actual speaking parts would be running 4 times faster. Imagine John…