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Hello and welcome to the Slate Political Gab Fest for April 12, 2013.

A guy named Plotz makes jokes about a guy named Weiner Edition.

I am David Ploss, the Eddorf Slate, back from one of the best vacations of my life. It really was. I want to thank San Diego. San Diego surprised us. San Diego was great. Yeah. Good job, San Diego. I thought you were in the desert. We were in the desert, too. I mean, the desert was the best part, but the San Diego part was great, too. Okay. I wouldn't want to live there, but it was awesome to visit.

Joining us from New Haven, where she's secretly hoping that some child somewhere is being

bullied is Sticks and Stone author Emily Bazelon, Slate Senior Editor. Hello, Emily.

Hello, but I'm not secretly hoping that. That's not fair.

And then to my right at 172 pounds, John Dickerson,

Slate's chief political correspondent. Hello, John. Hi, David. Was that a good guess?

It was almost exactly right. Sweet. That's nice. That's a good. That's a good lean fighting weight for you.

On this week's show, we had a lot of subjects we could have talked about.

This was such a rich week, but we have a tasting menu of three topics for you.

...