What a horrible day to be literate.

Can't issue a gag order. It's an official act.

I would vote for anyone opposite Trump.

I don't believe that a plurality of voters would vote for anyone opposite Trump. I'm not narcissistic enough to think everyone thinks like me. I recognize that most voters don't follow politics, don't engage with the news, and don't really care much about learning who the candidates are.

The most important factor for all elections everywhere is name recognition. People want to feel like they know what they're doing, even if they have made zero effort to engage in the process.

It is far too late for anyone other than Biden to introduce themselves to America.

Trump doesn't need to convince people to vote for him. His acolytes will show up to vote. Trump just needs to convince everyone who won't vote for him that it's pointless to go to the polls. One neat little gift the DNC could give to Trump would be to say to all Democrats that their primaries don't matter and there's no reason to vote. Annointing a new candidate now, after people have cast their votes, would be a giant fuck you to every voter who has been screaming for better candidates over the last 6 years. Nothing will kill enthusiasm for voting quicker than passing the buck to someone new.

And let's say they do pick someone else. They haven't been vetted or tested. They haven't campaigned in any states. They haven't built the infrastructure or donor network or legal team. What if the new candidate has a scandal? Does the party hand the baton to yet another candidate? Should we leave the ballots blank? Do like a MLB trade, where we all vote for "A candidate to be named at a later date."

Like it or not, we are stuck with Biden for this one. February 1st, we can all start talking about if he should step down, who should be Harris' VP, whether the Dems have someone that can win in 2028, etc.

I'm curious, though, who is your candidate? You get to hand pick the name on the ballot across from Trump, who is it? Whitmer or Newsom? Buttigieg or Shapiro? If they are so great, why aren't you calling to replace Harris on the ticket? I mean, that's the stronger play, right? If you wanted Harris, you could just argue that a vote for Biden is a vote for Harris, because he's really old and can resign as soon as he is sworn in. That's the best of both strategies.

But it's not Harris. So why not replace her on the ballot with your dream candidate? It solves the primary problem, since people were casting votes for Biden, and he's still on the ballot. Plus, then the new person can introduce themselves to America, and Harris can retire to write her book.

Extremely sad. But that's still the standard, which is why I'm still voting for Biden. Maybe after the election, and Trump and his cronies are actually behind bars, we can worry about 2026 and electing some actual progressive leaders. But the puppet masters behind Trump, the Project 2025 dipshits, they're not going to go away quietly. Fascists never do.

I'm so tired of people trying to get famous by dunking on Biden.

Is he old? Yes. Out of touch? Yes. Does he misspeak? Frequently. Is he publicly supporting Israel while Netanyahu engages in human rights atrocities and crimes against humanity? Also yes. Is Biden a centrist oligarch who represents a status quo continuation of the devout capitalist policies that are rapidly destroying the world? Sure.

But he's still better than Trump. And he's the best chance we have at defeating Trump. America can survive a second Biden presidency. We will have a lot of work to do, but it will be worth doing. The USA will not survive another Trump presidency. It will be the end of the experiment, and the beginning of a whole new nightmare.

So Biden must win.

To that end, I have a modest proposal for the armchair pundits on Xitter, all the comics and authors and panelists hoping to make it to the next cable news roundtable as a contributor. When Biden does the next stupid thing, makes the next gaffe, fucks up again (Jesus fuck, did he say he's a minority woman?), whatever, whenever you come up with that perfect burn, the clever observation that is going to go viral and get eyes on your name, feel free to share it. Biden is not King, regardless of what the SCOTUS* would have us believe, so he is not immune to criticism. But when you post it, include the addendum "But I'm still voting for him, because Trump would be worse." Make it part of your signature, or shorten it to BISVFH to conserve characters.

Doing this will help all the rest of us reading your comments, so we don't feel the need to explain to you why you should still vote for Biden. It will also help us more quickly identify the foreign agents and online trolls who exist to stir up discord and assist Trump.

Biden sucks. He really does. But I'm still voting for him, because Trump would be worse.

Remember when they stripped Lance of his win, and they were going to award it to the next place finisher who didn't also cheat, but they didn't have one?

Dup duh duh, dup duh duh, Let the boys be boys!

I watched the movie. I am the target audience for the movie. I want an expanded spiderverse.

The movie was bad. Really bad. Direct to VHS bad. Terrible movie. The actors were OK, but the script was garbage and the plot was nonsensical. Why did the bad guy sound like Schwarzenegger in Hercules in New York? Why did the special effects look so bad? None of the super powers made sense. The costumes looked ridiculous and amateur.

The movie was bad.

There are a lot of misogynists online that took special glee in watching the movie fail. They piled on to make everyone aware of how bad a female-led superhero movie was.

There are a lot of film critics who are tired of comic book movies and enjoy trashing every comic book movie as it comes out. They also piled on in the hopes that they could signal the end of comic book cinema.

So, she's not wrong. This movie never stood a chance against all of the people online who were hoping it would fail, because this movie was a hot, wet, splattery fart.

If we want to talk about the way people trashed The Marvels, that's a different conversation. The Marvels wasn't great, but it wasn't nearly as bad as critics and misogynists wanted it to be. Pro-tip, anyone using the word "woke" in their critique is a dipshit with an agenda. Disregard their opinion whole cloth.

It's not about the food, it's about the assumption.

If you have watermelon, friend chicken, and grape soda, and you offer it to people, you're not a racist.

If you assume a black person would prefer watermelon, fried chicken, and grape soda, because that's what black people like, that's a form of racism.

If you avoid offering watermelon to your black friend, you're being racist. Not because of the watermelon, but because when I said "your black friend" you thought of that one friend who is black that occupies the space in your memory as "your black friend." It was a clever trick to catch you being racist, you racist.

But seriously, good food is delicious, and you should enjoy what you like. Share what you like with people, and find out what they like. Don't make assumptions about anyone.

Our best understanding of neurology is like a blank map. As we grow and learn, we discover places on the map. We discover where the feelings on our fingers grow, and how to imitated the noises we hear. We discover the balance and coordination to walk and run and flip. Each place on the map is connected like pathways through a forest. The more we run along the path, the wider and more permanent it becomes.

The true power of the human mind is the ability of language. We have a superpower, to create an infinite number of sounds and shapes that arbitrarily describe an unlimited set of concepts. There are things we never dreamed of that our grandchildren will name, and it is this capacity to observe, remember, and describe things that has given rise to every great human accomplishment.

You learned the word "airport" as a place on your map. You never needed to connect it to the etymological history of the word, so you never needed to walk those paths. They were always there, which is why it seems obvious to you now, and also why a lot of people have the initial inclination to say "duh, of course." That's an expected response.

But we should all appreciate and marvel at the enormity of civilized history that has us here, scribing words on glass and light and copper, sending them instantaneously around the world, to discuss how the place where our flying machines engage in cooperative commerce and transport, how that concept is so mundane that you never even bothered to glance at the constituent words as separate concepts.

This is an amazing world, and we are all marvelous creatures. We are the absolute quintessence of stardust, and our progeny will look back on us as quaint.

Man, these are good drugs.

I wouldn't say "most." I just think the loudest voices are the assholes, and that applies to every group across all ideologies. That's not unique to vegans, but so much industry is built on suffering and has deficated time and effort to painting all vegans with the same brush. And it's not just animal suffering. Every capitalist knows, and fears, that if consumers begin caring about animal rights, human rights are a natural extension.

The illegitimate Supreme Court brought it back. Don't forget that Republicans stalled for a year to get one of their Justices, and we have two known perjurers, two that have openly accepted bribes, and an insurrectionist flying fascist flags outside his home.