There’s a nice fat Tumblr post here serving up all the dudgeon about the fact that the show version of Tommen Baratheon has been aged-up sufficiently to consummate his marriage with Margarey Tyrell (in the books, Tommen is only eight at the time of his succession, and so Margarey manipulates him in other ways). The… Read More Why Aging Tommen doesn’t Bother Me: A Game of Thrones Pondering
Since Scream, there’s been an expectation of a certain level of meta-horror film, a film that turns the tropes upside down. Parodies of the genre have become almost old hat. Films like Cabin in the Woods and Funny Games are of a piece with this idea, that the “genre is dead” and that deconstruction is necessary and possible,… Read More Horror Movies: A Mood, or a Series of Tropes?
Unexpected good news is the best kind….
It’s such fun as a cord-cutter, having HBONow, watching GoT like a real show, instead of bingeing it a year later. It’s also sort of fun as a book-reader, now that small divergences are leading to major divergences. Pretty much all of Brienne and Podrick’s current arc did not happen in the books, and this… Read More The Game of Thrones Celebration Post de Jeur
Dear Mr. Cook, We’re an Apple family. My wife and I have been using Macs exclusively for years (saving the Dell laptop I have from work). We use iPhones. We even have a Time Machine. We’ve all but decided to swap out our old Roku for an Apple TV. We’re not techies; neither of us could… Read More An Open Letter to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple Computer
Thanks to the Daily Caller for sparing me the trouble of reading the Super-HRC Supporters manifesto of fail. Is Hillary Clinton polarizing? Always has been. Kind of a no-brainer. Is Hillary Clinton calculating? I should hope so. Politicans that don’t calculate are failures. What I think this means is “insincere”, so let’s move on to…… Read More In Which I Say All the Things I’m Not Allowed to Say About Hillary Clinton
McArdle on not being stupid about de-incarceration: We’re hampered by the rampant perception that all we need is to wise up and stop incarcerating people for simply possessing drugs, something many of us feel shouldn’t be a crime at all and certainly shouldn’t merit prison time. At the event I attended, someone who has actually… Read More As it Turns Out, People In Jail Commit Real Crimes
When Medieval Inquistion (of the non-Spanish variety) rode into a town beset with heresy, everybody got 30 days to confess without punishment. This was known as the “Term of Grace”. Anyone who came in out of the cold during those 30 days and admitted their heresy was considered saved through the mercy of the Church.… Read More Confess Your Whiteness
It’s time to deal with some unpleasant truths, Song of Ice and Fire fans. The Shows are going to Lap the Books. This is going to happen. We are going to get spoiled by a show in which there is no Lady Stoneheart, no Brave Companions, in which the Greyjoys except Theon hardly exist and have… Read More Leave George R.R. Martin Alone
I need a nap. In the Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley argues that fossil fuels are not going anywhere. In a nutshell: they’re getting cheaper to get, the alternatives are either false or not feasible yet, and the climate catastrophe is probably overstated. This quote struck me: Although the world has certainly warmed since the… Read More Mad Monday Linkfest
