Superpowers

• "A community...that is populated by individuals who, because they spend so much time hunched over a computer taking politics personally and living intensely inside their heads, are on constant hyper-aware alert—sensitive to slights, prone to excitations, and susceptible to a hair-trigger impulse to dramatize their thoughts and feelings with words loaded into a rocket launcher." [VF]

• "Has anybody ever referred to torture as punishment? I don't think so." [TP] (Sorry I'm late on this.)

• "So Tony Stark's body becomes a metaphor for American power, and the question of whether you can fix the abuses of power by exerting even more power." [io9]

• "THE OBAMA UNIVERSE is governed by the reality that every night, when the Clinton campaign turns out the lights in Arlington, Clinton is not really any close to winning the nomination that when the first intern trudged in at the crack of dawn....IN THE CLINTON UNIVERSE, Clinton has all the green cards... Finally, she's an underdog, and Democrats root for the underdog. This long race is helping the party; Democrats are excited; Superdelegates perceive this, and the tipping point is coming soon." [Ambinder]

• "Question 21, which Gates called 'infamous,' asks applicants whether they have consulted a mental health professional in the past seven years. If the answer is 'Yes, they must list details. Now, troops can answer 'No' if the mental health care is related to post-combat stress or care sought for difficulty adjusting after deployment to war zones." [Reuters]