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Also, if you're going to limit yourself to subsections of shows' runs, I think it's fair to say that only seasons 2-5 of Buffy really qualify.
The top 15 English-language television shows of the post-network era?
Since 1) I have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon besides grade 170 essays and 2) we've been talking about trolls and trolling of late, I thought, "Scott, you should troll your own blog!" So here goes: After watching last night's episode of Fringe and consulting the deep recesses of m...
Ahem: The Shield? The Sopranos?
The top 15 English-language television shows of the post-network era?
Since 1) I have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon besides grade 170 essays and 2) we've been talking about trolls and trolling of late, I thought, "Scott, you should troll your own blog!" So here goes: After watching last night's episode of Fringe and consulting the deep recesses of m...
The magazine, as I understand it, is basically a loss leader and brand identity maintainer. Playboy Inc makes its money on its various cable channels (several of which do not carry the Playboy name) and to some extend on subscription areas of its websites.
(It is indeed a little surreal how awesome their professional staff is: I've had to deal with their tech people occasionally and they were all top-notch.)
My Life In Pornography
Now that Playboy's check has cleared, been cashed, and financed my family's Thanksgiving trip to see my wife's mother in Michigan, I can probably say a few words about my first piece for Playboy. It seems not to be online yet, but if you happen to be interested in Miss December, flip to the very...
"Doctor, does he understand why this war took place? Has he talked about Operation Iraqi Freedom and the meaning. Does he understand it?"
Elegy For A War
Another ungrateful Iraqi: “Our generation has seen enough,” said Baghdad resident Mustafa Hamza el-Ebadi, 21, who will graduate this spring with a degree in communication and engineering and wants to move to the United States. “When we were kids, there were economic sanctions. When we were teen...
Boychik, this is From's entire schtick. He has made an entire career out of being ever so sad about how wrong the conservative movement was a decade ago (especially of course in such a way that betrayed basic conservative principles which are as everyone knows never wrong in and of themselves). The current behavior of conservatives in the moment is, of course, beyond reproach and not even really worth thinking too hard about: there will be plenty of time for that in ten years when his next book comes out.
A Little Public Introspection Wouldn't Kill David Frum
Frum, today, explaining why he wouldn't have voted for the Iraq war in 2002: For Americans, the issue was not Saddam's badness, but his nuclear weapons program. Knowing that the nuclear program was not a real threat, the invasion was too large a commitment. The world is a better place without S...
That is a debater’s rhetorical tact, not a serious policy option.
Is it? I would say it's at the very least a defensible proposition that US policy toward the Soviet Union and its outposts (and vice versa) became a lot more rational after the USSR got nukes.
The problem, of course, is that rationality is not, in and of itself, and end state. Nukes took direct conflict between the US and USSR off the table for as long as the USSR existed thereafter. But both countries found plenty of other means of expressing their differences of interests. An Iranian nuke will take direct conflict between Israel and Iran off the table. But it doesn't exactly guarantee anything else.
Rob Farley: Wrong On Iran
Rob and I got into a Twitter debate over the significance of an Iranian nuke a couple weeks ago. Yale's international journal asked us to expand it into a short series of essays. Rob's entry, arguing that an Iranian nuke is no big deal and everyone should calm down, is here. Mine is here. The gi...
"If we're going to be considered a rogue state, well, what's the difference between Iraq and North Korea?" Cyclops asks. "Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction."
In "fairness", a land invasion of NK would have been a nightmare scenario even before the DPRK got nukes. The north side of the DMZ is one of the most heavily fortified places on earth, and the NK army is well dug into the mountain ranges. And you wouldn't have had the luxury, like Iraq, of quietly building up all of your forces and picking your start date: a sudden movement of US forces into the area with known-hostile intent would provoke an immediate reaction, and you'd suddenly be attempting an amphibious+air insertion under fire, while meanwhile the NK artillery is busily reducing the 6th-largest economy and 3rd-largest city in the world to rubble behind you. And that's even assuming that China would tolerate US military adventurism along its border, which they almost certainly would not.
...which is not to take away from Cyclops' main point: the weak get picked on, and the strong left alone. It's just that WMDs really were never the, uh, x-factor in the decision.
X-Men: The Competence Dodge
In 2005, my friends Matthew Yglesias and Sam Rosenfeld wrote one of the finest essays of the Bush era. "The Incompetence Dodge" was an indictment of so-called "liberal hawks" who laundered the sin of supporting the misguided Iraq war in the blood of the Bush administration's incompetent occupat...
"On first blush, that would seem to be a testimonial to the discipline of the all-volunteer military."
Actually, I think that's primarily a testimonial to the spectacularly unappealing nature of heroin itself. It takes a very particular kind of personality to think that it's a good idea.
Why Aren't There More Uniformed Heroin Addicts?
My Danger Room colleague Katie Drummond has a gallery about the history of mixing substance usage with warfare. And I'm taken by one of her entries: Heroin's Hazardous History These endless fields of delicate flowers might offer a scenic respite from war's stresses, but for centuries, American ...
There is no requirement from God, Elvis or the Flying Spaghetti Monster that a sales tax or VAT be flat or regressive. It can in fact be made progressive: just offer a full refund plus interest on sales tax to anyone making under $20k/yr (modulo dependents etc).
A Note: Prolegomenon to Any Useful Discussion of Modern American Finance
In a standard economic transaction, it is no mystery where the value to both sides comes from. When I buy a double espresso from Café Nefeli for $2.25, the coffee is more valuabe to me then $2.25 is. Were I to consider only the experience and not worry about fairness consideration--that is, if I ...
LS: you can answer that question for yourself by going back through the archives of this very blog. The answer might surprise you.
Treat Pakistan Like The Enemy It Is
My friend Eli Lake has a conceptual framework that, I think, explains the U.S.-Pakistan relationship rather well. While its formal institutions -- the presidency, the top generals, etc. -- cooperate with Washington when it suits their interests, the "deep state" of the security apparatus is at w...
Fucking hell. I've been calling the GOP "our domestic Phalange" for years now as a JOKE.
I guess that will teach me...something.
With Walid Phares, Mitt Romney Plays With Fire
The Adam Serwer era of Mother Jones begins with Adam's monster expose of Walid Phares, the former apparatchik of a bloodstained Lebanese Christian militia who now co-chairs Mitt Romney's Mideast advisory group. The piece has too many holy-shit quotes to excerpt at length, so you should ju...
So an "anemic" defense budget is where we only spend, what TWICE as much as the next ten largest countries combined on "defense"?
Some anemia.
Jim Carafano Is History's Greatest Monster
It gives me no pleasure to say this. Jim is my boy. If the Defense and Homeland Security departments had only listened to him, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrine might not have been as devastating as it was. Whatever the difference in our politics, he was right and I eagerly said so in p...
Thank you for this.
Steve Jobs' Passing & The Legacy of the Lesbian Erotic Revolution
Fall, 1984 On Our Backs publisher Debi Sundahl always liked to say, “What would Steve Jobs do?” I had no idea who, or what, she was talking about. This “Steve Jobs” was her number-one favorite man in the whole world. I had the impression she must know him personally; she quoted him so exte...
You can be legitimately proud of this one, man.
Danger Room Gets Results
So in response to my ongoing expose for Danger Room (f/Noah Shachtman pon di mix), the FBI has released this statement: The FBI is currently conducting a comprehensive review of all training and reference materials that relate in any way to religion or culture. Additionally, the FBI will consul...
Okay, gotcha: any Muslim who appears to be friendly or reasonable is actually practicing Taqiyya and is secretly conspiring to implement sharia law and make us all dhimmis in our homeland. So any evidence of Muslims acting reasonably is actually more evidence of how sneaky they are Brilliant! I love completely non-falsifiable hypotheses! Evaluating evidence on a case-by-case basis is haaaaaaaarrrrd!
Islamophobic Email of the Day
In a weird way, it's worse when they're addressed to me in a respectful tone, because this one gets real ugly real fast. Spencer, Contrary to a large group perception, Islam is NOT tolerant or a religion of peace. Those Muslims who would like to update the religion so that death is not the ...
In fairness, Spencer, the way you tie your lures always did strike me as a little swishy. :)
Blowjob Tips from Islamophobes
Hate email of the day: Spencer, Don't forget to wipe your chin off when you get done blowing the jihadis. Nice way to go thru life. WILL YOU PLEASE HURRY UP AND DIE FOR THE SAKE OF AMERICANS. I gather this guy speaks from experience, but I'm not really interested in his technique. ...
"To the degree you are a good Muslim, as defined by rigorously following and promoting the entirety of the Koran (with Islam lacking as it does any centralized institution to contextualize those 7th Century scriptures in a 21st Century world, what other definition could there be?) it becomes increasingly difficult to be a good citizen."
O RLY? So uh, I seem to recall there's this other major monotheistic religion that also has a somewhat musty and bloodthirsty central text and that also lacks a central authority to interpret it. How'd they do with that whole democracy thing, anyway?
Civil Rights and Counterterrorism: Mutually Supporting
Let's make this really clear. In response to my piece about the FBI's anti-Islam training, Neptunus Lex writes: Mr. Ackerman clearly sees this as a civil rights issue rather than one of understanding the threat to the Republic – and you’d have to be willfully blind to think there is no threat, ...
And by the way: I pretty much agree on all counts. The two great themes of ASoIaF are "living in the middle ages basically sucked" and "leadership is hard." In the latter category we have, well, basically every male Stark of adult age. Jon, much like Cersei, convinced himself that acting like a badass was more important than actually watching his flank. Jon's motivations were "better," but what of it? Practically his first act as Lord Commander was to make a point of alienating and distancing his friends and supporters, and he followed that up by repeatedly pissing in the faces of people who were potentially friends but also potentially enemies. No shock how it worked out.
Must There Be A Jon Snow?
More spoilers for 'A Dance With Dragons.' Lots of them. Do not read this post if you didn't read the book and want to. It gives me no pleasure to contradict my friend Alyssa Rosenberg, but she's way off the mark in her assessment of Jon Snow. But she's off in a way that reflects well on her c...
Crow: I'm willing to believe that ONE of the deaths at the end of ADwD are fake-outs, but not BOTH. Between the demonstrated ability of the Red God's priests to occasionally resurrect people and the drawn-out prologue chapter that established that skinchangers can resurrect themselves, I think we can safely expect Jon to survive his temporary case of steel poisoning. Ergo, Stannis is dead.
Must There Be A Jon Snow?
More spoilers for 'A Dance With Dragons.' Lots of them. Do not read this post if you didn't read the book and want to. It gives me no pleasure to contradict my friend Alyssa Rosenberg, but she's way off the mark in her assessment of Jon Snow. But she's off in a way that reflects well on her c...
I don't pretend to have good answers to any of these questions, but I'd like to propose a counter-question:
What the fuck, precisely, is Littlefinger up to?
Varys has, at least, kinda-sorta tipped his hand to the narrator. But Littlefinger? He clearly has two goals: be king and have incredibly creepy sex with Sansa Stark. But other than the admittedly not-bad-on-its-face step of hiding out in the most fortified castle in the world while his enemies slowly kill each other off, we really have no idea of how he intends to reach the end goal. And no matter who eventually wins the multi-way civil war, they're still likely to have a bigger army and a better claim by blood to the throne than Littlefinger. So... which one of them is actually his agent?
Two Theories of The Spider
Seriously, don't read this post if you haven't read A Dance With Dragons and intend to read it at some point. I have nothing for you but spoilers and minutiae. Seriously. The epilogue scene in the fifth book of A Song of Ice and Fire confirms that the new central political question surrounding...
The song is awesome, but nowhere near as awesome as the "OH NOES YOU RUINED HARDCORE 4 EVER" wailing from the more-punk-than-thou brigade in the youtube comments.
You Ain't Makin' Any Sense At All
Now this is how you cover the classics. If you're familiar with "Malfunction," chances are your face has melted off after hearing this, after your brain already froze and shattered. I remember a few years ago there was some New York Times story about how contemporary bands don't cover ...
I'm not sure what wigs me out more: the fact that the "Liberal Jews are the enemy / reactionary Zionists are our allies" meme appears to be well on the way to mainstream in the American public discourse (thank you, Glenn Beck), or the fact that it's happening with basically no pushback from mainstream orthodox/conservative organizations. Thanks for making it a self-fulfilling prophecy, guys!
Breivik and the Jews
So, one kind of important difference between Breivik and al-Qaida looks way less of a difference on further inspection: Were the majority of the German and European Jews disloyal? Yes, at least the so called liberal Jews, similar to the liberal Jews today that opposes nationalism/Zionism andsup...
Jaime: the meme comes from an effusive, utterly uncritical article about Israeli airport security that made the rounds of the blogosphere a year or two back:
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother
It's about 1 part actually useful suggestions (better baggage-handling procedures, avoiding long queues and bottleneck points, armed marshals on all flights) to three parts moronic chest-thumping: "we totally deter terrorists by careful profiling of behavior", which anyone with the slightest clue about how things work in Israel knows means "eyefuck anyone who looks slightly Arabic, detain anyone who looks nervous and who cares if it's actually having any more of an effect than the air marshals", but which TSA-tired Americans desperately interpret as a sign that Israel has some magic sauce that we can sprinkle onto JFK, LAX et al.
(The fact that TLV, on the busiest week of its life barely carries the same number of passengers that LAX does in a single day is also conveniently glossed over.)
Profiling: A Terrible Idea That Just Doesn't Stop Being Terrible
I interviewed my friend Daveed Gartenstein-Ross for Danger Room about his forthcoming book, which kinda-sorta argues that al-Qaida is #winning. (He toned it down a lot.) It's a long interview, and Daveed's a smart guy, so he makes lots of good points, even if I found the book ultimately uncompel...
Hey, 7/30! That's my birthday. An excellent day to get hitched-- mazel tov!
You Absolutely Cannot Play 'Nagasaki Nightmare' At Your Wedding Reception
Putting together a wedding playlist is much harder than it looks. A conservative estimate would make 90 percent of my taste in music completely inappropriate for a day when I really want to hear only the music my wife and I want to hear. Do you know how little Born Against you can play at a wedd...
The Captain America movie is, sadly, set entirely in the WW2 era; I presume that fishing him out of cryogenic storage will be the opening hook of the Avengers movie...
...except that I'm willing to bet money that one or both of Captain America and Thor will tank badly, Marvel will get cold feet and the Avengers movie won't get made.
(And I'd consider an outside bet that Green Lantern fails badly enough to actually kill off superhero movies entirely for a while, save of course for the inevitable third Nolan bat-film.)
Sentinel of Liberty
This? This I did not expect during the Super Bowl. Not really impressive, right? First, Cap's uniform might be too corny for a movie. Second, in telling the Cap origin story, you have to do more than make a good comic-book movie. You have to make a good World War II movie. And the stand...
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