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Reading the transcript of the 1993 Peter David vs Todd MacFarlane debate and holy shit MacFarlane is Michael Scott: [𝘔𝘤𝘍𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘢 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘮 𝘣𝘰𝘹, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺. 𝘏𝘦 𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥.]

As if you don't know who they are, I'll introduce our two debaters. [Throughout the introduction, McFarlane is visibly undressing behind his podium and donning yellow boxer shorts and a bathrobe, slinging a towel so that it completely covers his head and shoulders.]
I'll do it alphabetically. He is the writer of The Incredible Hulk and Sachs & Violens and, more germane to this particular debate, the writer of the regular weekly column in Comics Buyer's Guide, But I Digress, Mr. Peter David.
[Audience ovation]
And [Pérez eyes McFarlane's new state of dress, including covered face] - This isn't a rebuttal yet! This wasn't the three minutes you were talking about, are they, Mr. McFarlane? (McFarlane doesn't respond.] And, if words don't fail me now, I guess visuals will have to. OK, the creator of Spawn and co-founder of Image Comics, and easily one of the more influential people in this business, Mr. Todd McFarlane. [McFarlane turns on a boom box, which fails to play. He sits back down, without a word.]

Watching Sam Seder desperately try to coax some sort of unifying policy out of Ezra Klein while the latter just leaps from one hyperlocal anecdote to the next.

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DNC: "We need a Joe Rogan of the left." Ezra Klein: "Say no more. I'll start cussing."

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Art is like sex: if you want it to be any good, you have to be prepared to bring shame upon your parents.

Retrospectives on early YouTubers are all like: "They were universally beloved for their hilarious creations, and their falloff was a true tragedy mourned site-wide." Then they show footage of the person's content and it's just a nonstop stream of the f-slur.

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RIP Peter David, a real one. He somehow kept the Hulk fun and interesting for a decade plus.

Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Look, I am categorically not going to hear anything said after the phrase, "you can all go home now."

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

In today's NYT column, noted ally to sex pests everywhere Steven Pinker mounts an ostensible defense of Harvard that includes this unhinged paragraph:

Most of my colleagues, too, follow the data and report what their findings indicate or show, however politically incorrect. A few examples: Race has some biological reality.
Marriage reduces crime. So does hot-spot policing. Racism has been in decline.
Phonics is essential to reading instruction.
Trigger warnings can do more harm than good. Africans were active in the slave trade. Educational attainment is partly in the genes. Cracking down on drugs has benefits, and legalizing them has harms.
Markets can make people fairer and more generous. For all the headlines, day-to-day life at Harvard consists of publishing ideas without fear or favor.

Cops & Robbers, Cowboys & Indians, Soldiers & Generic Enemies: does every childhood game get the good guys and bad guys confused?

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Fashion is on a 20-year cycle so all I gotta do is be 19 years behind.

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Props to everyone who predicted Joe Rogan's Christian nationalist turn.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

"All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing." It actually takes less than that. All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to seem kinda lame.

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Thoughts on watching the The 1987 Crystal Light National Aerobic Championship for the millionth time: An aerobics championship is like a jogging race, anything too athletically impressive is disqualifying.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

DJ Screw's favorite rapper was C-Bo, which explains a lot. Dude was corny with awful lyrics but his timing was so impeccable it was transgressive, something you only notice when he's slowed down.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Debate bros are really so lazy they had to popularize steelmanning, which is just, "actually in order for your argument to be good you have to make my argument for me."

Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Q: How should we get kids to read? By making good books? A: No, with public broadcasting television shows.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

Prediction: There's going to be a story about an "influencer" who is revealed to have been AI-generated the whole time. The story will be about how people were tricked and betrayed even though the actual account will be both: 1. irrelevant & 2. called out from the beginning.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

Listening to wrestling historians like Jim Cornette is wild because they'll say things like, "Superstar Billy Graham was the first act in the business to use tie-dye."

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Harvard's task force reports have arrived, and the anti-Arab & anti-Israeli sides have very different findings: One side is scared of being doxxed. The other side wants to make it easier to dox.

The task forces agreed that protest policies should be updated, but diverged on how Harvard should change them.
The task forces both reported widespread concerns among students over protest policies and the University's system for filing complaints of bias. But the reports diverged over how best to ameliorate the issues.
The anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, and anti-Palestinian task forces found that doxing has contributed significantly to a climate of fear and intimidation on campus. In response, the group suggested that Harvard offer all affiliates, including alumni doxed in the 2023-24 academic year, free legal services for combating doxxing attacks. It also proposed training sessions on how to combat doxing for faculty, staff, and students.
The University did not immediately appear to endorse the recommendation, but pointed to updated guidance on doxing that it released in September 2024.
The antisemitism task force, meanwhile, urged Harvard to ban masks at protests, a move that would allow the Harvard University Police Department to more easily identify protesters who violate University policies. The group argued that enforcing protest guidelines more stringently would ensure demonstrations don't grade into "harassment, bullying, or intimidation."
Masking is a common practice at many pro-Palestine rallies, and banning it was a central point in the Trump administration's demands to Harvard. The recommendation, which has not yet been publicly endorsed by the University, could draw significant pushback from protesters concerned about doxing.

Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

Re: Brett Kavanaugh & Ethan Klein There's a certain audience that sees a clearly unhinged white dude & their first reaction is, "Oh no who could have done this to you?"

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 04/05/2025

I don't have the patience to be a birdwatcher. Maybe a birdnoticer.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Ethan Klein hasn't just commodified this behavior, his entire support system depends on the revenue stream. Hard to have sympathy for him right now but I hope he has people who have his best interests at heart.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Starting to understand Ethan Klein's fanbase. There's something empowering about seeing someone publicly embarrass themselves so thoroughly and then shamelessly continue undeterred.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

I'm watching Ethan Klein try to win a debate against Hasan Piker solely through presenting out-of-context clips. I know he's trying to make a gotcha moment but is this the logical end of a content farmer's career? Like they can only perceive truth through snippets of edited video footage?

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Conservative debate culture is in such a funny place right now because their movement is based on anti-intellectualism but they still feel the urge to adopt an intellectual's airs when proselytizing.

Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

When they say that Walter Cronkite was trusted as the "voice of God" it implies a nonpartisanship. Meanwhile dude was using God's voice to protest the Vietnam war.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Universities should be places of open inquiry free of dogma but also if the freshmen don't read and love Moby Dick it's literally WHITE GENOCIDE.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

What's the biggest self-own here? 1. Voting for Trump 2. Being friends with Bret Stephens

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

This is so funny. Bret Stephens thought he could drum up sympathy for his Trump-voting small business-owning buddy and instead there's a boycott organizing in the comments. bsky.app/profile/nyto...

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

The Breitbart Doctrine says that "politics is downstream from culture" but there's way more of a 1:1 relationship than we ever would have guessed. Turns out controlling the narrative around a handful of Star Wars movies will directly award your party the Oval Office.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

This is pretty funny just for this dude Daniel, the only one with a bit of a clue. Clearly resents being aligned with these idiots. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Tariffs, immigration, and Trump’s First 100 Days: 14 Former Democratic Voters Discuss

The participants discuss President Trump’s second first 100 days in office.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

Days the New York Times has gone without platforming a eugenicist: 0

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

I apologize for saying the Harper's Letter writers were useful idiots for the right. Turns out the were useless idiots. www.semafor.com/article/04/2...

semafor.com

The group chats that changed America

A loose private network on Signal and WhatsApp helped usher in the new alliance between Silicon Valley and Donald Trump’s new right.

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Botany Boy @botany-boy.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Even so-called conservative intellectuals like Ross Douthat end up writing about pop culture all day because they understand somewhere inside that their entire movement is being tenuously held together by the misinterpretation of a few Star Wars movies.