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Let’s Just Turn the Refs into Lasers

By 2030, I want the games to be officiated by motion sensors and nanobots. And the cheerleaders should be replaced by 3-D holographic .gifs that summarize the most important news stories of the day. And the players will mostly be lizards. Anyway, on to picking games. Full story

The Grandma Party Hotline Is the Weirdest Place on the Internet

When you call the number, it goes straight to the voicemail inbox of what sounds like a nice old lady. “It’s so good to hear from you! I’ve missed you so much! Leave me a message, or sing me a song!” she says. The messages range from children singing songs to “grandma” to people… Full story

The Most Depressing Things in the Democratic Party Platform

The Democratic Party platform is mostly a list of problems that the Democrats would like to solve, but aren't currently solving. And holy crap are there a lot of problems that someone should probably do something about. Get worried, everyone. Full story

Prolate Spheroid Preview

The Giant Insane People of the NFL Are Back, Finally

Professional football is played at speeds too fast for the viewer to follow what is happening. The games are too long and the stop-and-start action is constantly interrupted by homophobic, misogynistic beer ads. The rules are bizarre. And the game destroys the lives of too many p… Full story

What Do the Chairs Think About Clint Eastwood's Speech?

There’s been a lot of discussion and analysis of Eastwood's rambling, ad-libbed speech—and rightly so—but I think everyone is unfairly ignoring a group of voters who were clearly heavily invested in the speech, and I don’t think that’s right. So I walked around the office and cha… Full story

The Silliest, Most Terrifying Things in the Republican Platform

Yesterday, the Republican Party released its official platform, which is a list of stuff they like and don’t like—it’s sort of like a child’s Christmas wish list, only instead of getting presents the child wants to build insanely expensive war machines and stop abortion and gay m… Full story

The Wacky World of the Republican Party Platform

The GOP let ordinary people submit policy ideas to be considered for the platform this time around. A lot of them are terrifying, some of them are smart, some are funny, and none of them will matter in the end. Full story

Paul Ryan, All-American Teenager

Hey, have you guys heard about this Paul Ryan character yet? He sure is divisive! Just a few short days after he was announced as Mitt Romney’s running mate he’s become one of the Top Things To Have An Opinion On. But I think we are being a bit too hard on him, because he is just… Full story

Make Politics Stop, Please

If you’re lucky enough not to be paying attention to American electoral politics, a good visual metaphor for it is that of two diarrheal, toothless pigs trying to eat each other in a pen that’s rapidly filling up with their sour-smelling feces. Full story

ASMR, the Good Feeling No One Can Explain

ASMR is a tricky feeling to describe, and I can only talk about it secondhand. From what I understand from conversations with ASMRers, it’s a tingle in your brain, a kind of pleasurable headache that can creep down your spine, and it's triggered by things like folding napkins or… Full story