A contraction is a separate word, with its own accepted usages in the community. For example, “gonna” comes from “going to”, but is not the same, as “I’m gonna the shop, do you want anything?” sounds wrong

Chaotic evil in the dog waste disposal alignment chart

He should be awarded a prize for services to womens’ horticulture, given the number of women at MIT who filled their offices with houseplants just to keep him away.

RMS doesn’t approve

TIL there was a Kirby vacuum cleaner company

Maybe he could get the chatbot to play not only his girlfriend but their kids as well. Then he can beam proudly as he shows people a chat window on his phone. You do you, buddy!

You know the saying “behind every sign there’s a story”? It may apply to laws as well.

Also, almost no Icelanders have last names (in the sense of family names). Most have just a patronymic that translates as “son/daughter of (father’s name)” (i.e., Björk’s father was named Guðmundur), which is why references to Icelanders in the news refer to them by given name. As the Icelandic name pool is limited (there’s a naming committee which must approve all new names, and they’re somewhat conservative), the population register also includes people’s nicknames.

The Lucrezia Borgia clause

How about “jackanapes”?

“Hey baby, are you the British economy? Because I’d like to give you a weak pound”

I wonder how long until they quietly resume running them

A bit rude of him not to procure some boys for his honoured guest

Though the Germans who, disappointed by the revolution’s defeat, emigrated to the US did end up forming the backbone of the abolitionist cause.

I think he’s Japanese-American in the sense of both his parents being of Japanese heritage.

also, somebody who is au fait with transphobia

I love Weimar America as much as I love Weimar Germany. ICE can have jazz, rock’n’roll, the beat poets, David Lynch, Prince, Bikini Kill, Calvin & Hobbes, etc. when they take them from my cold, dead fingers

By some accounts, the effect is not spread out over everything that is counted as “intelligence”, but has a disproportionate effect on faculties such as impulse control. Which could explain a lot (“we voted for X and things still suck? We’re voting for Y next!”)

To me, as a non-American, The Far Side comes across as culturally far more American (in the tradition of the comics pages of US newspapers) than European (bandes dessinées or Métal Hurlant-style sci-fi). There is of course interplay between these traditions (and, indeed, the Japanese manga and ukiyo-e traditions), though I’m not convinced there’s an outsized influence from European comics culture. As for Gary Larson’s Swedish heritage, I’m not sure that enters the picture; I’d classify the (Japanese-American) Adrian Tomine as closer to the European tradition than Larson.

the lawyer replies “fuck the kids!”, to which the priest protests “there’s no time for that”