I dunno, Mark. My terriers are pretty good at communicating--even complex things like "please move, and put a pillow there, and a blanket, but not that blanket, okay, belly rub me."

My comment wasn't directed against her (or autistics) but against people who don't bother to communicate clearly, then blame their failure on others.

No, but it broke into little bits. Fortunately, no real pain, just a PITA. I once lost a crown while working on a roof. THAT was fun. But my awesome dentist met me on a Sunday and took care of it. Those were the days.

The scary thing is how many working stiffs the oligarchs have convinced to fight their battles for them. News flash, if you're working overtime to pay off a mortgage, "death tax" and capital gains are never going to me your problem.

And it's not even that. Socialism is "Nobody should be so poor or so rich that it harms all of society."

The problem is more conservatives pretending that "socialism" means both communism and evil, neither of which is true. The true evil is not how you balance individual and communal needs, but failing to even try.

Indeed. Unrestrained capitalism--or really power of any kind--is inherently corrosive.

Kasparov was objectively wrong. Socialism, like capitalism, is an essential component of any functional real-world economy.

To remain stable in the long term, any government must alloy central control with democracy, socialism with private markets. Where to draw the lines is the only question. Demonizing either as fundamentally evil or unworkable betrays childish thought processes.

Indeed, communism is unambiguously good in the right application--like a family or church.

I've enjoyed meeting many of my childhood literary heroes since I got into the business. Ursula is one I missed, to my very great regret.

Ah... I made it too easy. Yes, we aren't buddies, but I do know George. Yes, technically speaking, Astronaut Stan Love worked for me briefly on a writing project. But no, I published a song arranged by David Crosby from Spider Robinson's novel, Variable Star," not by the whole band.

That's me on the left, George on the right. ;-)

I need an AI to autoblock channels that abuse AI.