Author: mongreldogs
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Review: Agents of SHIELD season finale
I caught up on the end of the season for Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD. (Yes, it’s that time of summer when I get to catch up on the shows I missed.) The first season ended with the fallout from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, when the entire Marvel universe was scrambled. Could Season Two match it? Short…
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… and a movie?
I finally caught the last episode of the weird Season 6 of Community as streaming on Yahoo! Stream, called “Emotional Consequences of Broadcast Television”. As could be expected of Community, it was wonderfully meta and self-referential. As could be expected of a series finale, it was actually quite touching.
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Regarding >> “America has a simple ideology”: how one of Russia’s top US experts tries to explain America – Vox
A couple of observations: What might underlie this Russian perception — which I think is over the top — is something far more threatening to the Russian psyche than the idea that America is scheming and plotting to topple them. Far worse indeed is the truth, which is that since the end of the Cold…
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On riots, protests, and the legitimacy of violence (short)
For everyone who has counseled the citizens of Baltimore (and Ferguson and…) that “violence is not the answer” and that it would be better if everyone just protested peacefully: 1) As has now been documented extensively, the protests were by and large peaceful — and even more by and large, ignored by the national media.…
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re: Sexism in science: Peer editor tells female researchers their study needs a male author – The Washington Post
Apparently the study was so flawed that only a man could fix it. Just ’cause, you know, it isn’t science without at least a trace amount of testosterone spilled on it. Or — and this seems more likely to me — the editor is himself hard up for papers with his name on them, and…
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Regarding “Huckabee: The Supreme Court ‘Cannot Overrule God’ On Gay Marriage”
Gov. Huckabee is entirely correct: SCOTUS cannot overrule God. The justices can’t make a gay marriage sanctified. But then, they can’t make a straight marriage sanctified either. It’s really quite simple: To the extend that marriage is a sacrament, the government cannot have an opinion, and the marriage-equality suits do not speak to this. To…
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Josh Marshall, spot-on as always
From Talking Points Memo: Yes, George W. Really Should Remain Silent For all my many criticisms of him during his presidency, I have come to respect President Bush’s post-presidency. He’s kept out of the toxic political battles that came after he left office. He’s had the confidence or perhaps simply the realism and detachment to…
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The madness of World War I
This piece helps make clear how criminally incompetent the leaders of the Allies were during the opening years of World War I and how unworthy they were of the brave men who fought and died under their command.
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Happy Victory over the Confederacy Day
On this day one hundred fifty years ago, a scruffy, scrappy, but determined general accepted the surrender of his well-born, well-dressed, and traitorous counterpart, effectively ending a vast sedition launched in the name of slavery, orchestrated by cowardly politicians, and fought — like most wars are — by poor men dying at the behest of…
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One sentence can pull you out of an entirely fine essay
I actually agree with most of what Fareed Zakaria writes in his Washington Post op-ed “Why America’s Obsession with STEM Education is Dangerous“. We need balanced, robust, well-rounded education, not narrow business-driven training. It will take many different vantages points to see solutions to the problems we face in this hardest century of human history. Students…