JKane

Hitchens has a question for the devout Mormon: But I think we know where Willard's real allegiance lies: $$$,$$$,$$$

Why Obama Now.

Continuation of the meme...

Damn it, they have a point!

Speaking of TV, the (fucking half) season of Warehouse 13 just ended. It was a good but surprisingly dark season. Eager to see where it goes when the other half season airs next year...

Anytime I know beforehand that the makers of Lost are involved in something I avoid it like the plague. I don't have time to invest in season after season of something that brings up interesting ideas/questions but then *doesn't do a fucking thing with them*. Prometheus was actually the quintessential example of what happens...

I agree with the sentiments in this thread, but still feel uneasy. We've backed some despicable people into a corner and we know they'll stop at nothing to gain--but especially to KEEP power. No, he has not, not in the least. A brave, moral, or caring man would have stood up to the forces that are destroying his party with small-minded bigotry, zealotry and misogyny, even thinking it would cost him the election (and we now know it couldn't have made it any worse...). Instead he pandered his ass off and even his own fucking campaign said his positions on things are as reliable as an etch-a-sketch drawing; the only vision he's ever clearly and consistently expressed is of an America that gives even more to the wealthy--like himself. --- IF there is no Karl Rovian master stroke and progressives win a clear mandate I hope to FSM that Obama uses it this time instead of pissing it away. Getting corporations under control and campaign finance straitened out are the life or death of our country as a whole.

I fear this isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what the NSA has been up to *in America* since 9/11.

One of these days I'd like to understand why you are so desperate to see almost exclusively the positive in him. Yes, if you don't count many core teachings of his religion (about caring for the poor, the near-impossibility of rich men in heaven, his documented indifference to others' suffering), yes, he's *otherwise* lead a moral "christian" life. *SO HAS HIS OPPONENT!* So how exactly is this relevant? I think most all of us have come around to feeling Bill Clinton was a better president than either of these candidates are likely to ever be--yet he was the opposite, so fucking what? And you know what, picking and choosing that his womanizing is worse than Mitt's profiteering at others' expense while on the other hand giving Mitt credit for giving money to his cult/religion to proselytize with while ignoring the hundreds of thousands of lives Clinton's Global Initiative has saved in those same countries--without any strings--in order to declare Mitt morally superior to Clinton... I just don't get. But then again I ask so fucking what, because, again, *Obama's* got no history of being anything but a devoted family man and practicing Christian. A man who's work and care for the poor seems a hell of a lot more CHRISTian than his opponents'! Here's a thought, it's fairly easy to agree that the two most Christian Presidents we've had in our lifetimes: President Carter and the second President Bush, were also--for whatever reasons--the worst. So how about we try something else, intelligence and vision, perhaps?

And yet your average voter, and certainly your below-average Fox-watching voter are far more familiar with long-dead Acorn than this and the even worse suppression efforts *currently underway*.

So by this logic, practicing Nazis were just a product of their time/place and share no responsibility? It's not that he was born into it, is "culturally" a Mormon that I'm talking about. He was an active, influential, ADULT, proselytizing member of the church at a time when its membership policies were not much different from the KKK's--and there is no record whatsoever of him protesting or even dissenting their policies at that time. A church which *still* teaches fairly awful things about Native Americans, I believe! There are records, however, of him protesting *in favor of* the draft *while dodging it*...

I also watched Elementary, and was pleasantly surprised. It is *of course* not nearly as good as BBC's Sherlock... I would say it's not even a particularly good version of Sherlock Holmes. But if you figure on that and just watch it as a detective/crime drama, it's better and smarter than most on American TV these days--not that this is saying much. Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu both did a pretty good job, the way she's setup is interesting, at least.

Got around to watching Last Resort last night and really enjoyed it! For anybody who's ever enjoyed a Tom Clancy novel, the pilot at least is a home run! Great production values and VFX, tense, well acted (especially Andre Braugher, of course!) But I'm very worried where it goes from here... it's really to bad it's a show on a regular broadcast network instead of a miniseries (or regular British series) because I'm not at all convinced there's a full season's content here--and I'm sure people are already working on how to stretch it to "6 seasons and a movie!". Didn't realize it's Shawn Ryan (The Shield and, more relevantly: The Unit), so that's a plus too.

I don't see anything positive in televangelist millionaire's megachurches. A dear loved one was suckered into Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggert and Oral Roberts fucking SCAMS. It might be different if any actually taught the message of Jesus--gut then they wouldn't have multi-million dollar empires and make all their money being seen to pray.

Ok, so in your accounting of the things we can and can't discuss about Mitt because they're too mean, are we allowed to discuss that he was a 31 year old member of a church that would not allow African Americans?

Texts From Mitt are a thing now...

Speaking of...

I figured the photo above was an appropriate reply to the continued argument that somehow somebody's magical invisible friend in the sky created the universe should be taught as science... but this pic does it pretty well too:

Young politicians in love...

--Feel free to delete this, posted it then decided it went better in another thread... ;o)

Very relevant to the discussion we've been having (buried in the Paul Ryan/AARP thread)... Koppel's last line, and kiss... FUCKING GOLD.