Pain_Man

Great line, ain't it? Definitely in the Top Ten Song Lyrics of all time. (There's another great one from that same album, I'm sure you can fill in the missing part... ____ your breakfast on a mirror (Now if those dildos at the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame would only do Rush justice...)

Hope I had a good time. Was having a good time on my birthday. Got home and put the post. Since I was about three-sheets to the wind I was afraid it wouldn't be as funny stone-cold sober as it was after 4 glasses of 12 yr old Glenfiddich and my favor exotic smoking material.

You have just won the lottery of the nation of Uvebinascrewdastan. In order to expedite your winnings, a small tax must be paid to the government of Uvebinascrewdastan. Pls wire $500 to the following routing/account number: 64651547424313547. As soon as we are in receipt of your tax payment, your entire bank account will be emptied, er, your prize will be forwarded. God bless the Eternal Republic of Uvebinascrewdastan!!! And don't miss our newest investment opportunity...$100 krapona coins made of pure gold. These commemorative coins with Richard Nixon on the face will only be struck for a limited time only. Place your order with the Bend-Over-And-Smile Mint at 1-800-Sucka-ass.

...happy birthday day, dear me...happy birthday to me. Actually I guess I have to wish myself a belated birthday by about 15 mins. I thought I might get a shout out for it. Guess I overestimated my popularity. Ahhh, well, as a certain band put it so well so many years ago*... Fuck it all and fucking no regrets (Well they got the first part right. As John Huston once said, "Anyone who says they have no regrets is a goddamned liar.") *$10 if you can name band, album and song

@MJ: First: THERE'S NO REASON TO SHOUT. I CAN READ YOUR CRAP WITHOUT IT BEING IN CAPS. SO SHOW SOME GODDAMN NETIQUETTE FOR GOD'S SAKE. This is gutter garbage, MJ. Pornographic, gutter garbage. Or, as my late grandfather put it, horseshit. You could make all these points--as ridiculous as they are--without calling the president a "cum bucket". You're middle-aged and your rage like an adolescent with emotional problems. WTF? If you really wanted to engage Conservatives in a discussion you wouldn't use the grostesque language you do. But you don't want that. You just want to yell and scream like some kind of Al Franken clone--thus proving correct everything said about the Leftist-Socialist fringe of this country. You make Ann Coulter--who does go too far on occasion--look like the Flying Nun. Given your pure, unadulterated hatred of conservatives, Republicans, the President, in short any and everyone who disagrees with you, who in their right mind would want to engage you in a debate or read your posts. Cleaning the bottom of my rats' cage is much more pleasant than reading the lies, propaganda and bullshit that you write; and one's much more likely to find a fact amongst the rat turds than in any of your posts. The President has not lied. You can't prove that he has done it a single time. Period. And the Shamnesty bill, that was flogged by your darlings of the Left as well, sadly, as the President. (It was regular Americans who stopped that farce. There were so many calls that the Senate phone system was crashed three times on the last day of debate.) You see the difference between you and I is that you follow the bullshit put out by the Democratic Party and Soros-funded groups hook line and sinker. I, on the other hand, have disagreed with the Prez on a number of issues and have said so. Name a SINGLE issue that over which you've abused ANY Leftist politician in the language you use, ad nauseam about President Bush or Conservatives? Reprint the post. 50 says there ain't a one.

Well, of course! I loathe the Clintons. Dingy Harry turns my stomach. Terry McAuliffe (sp?) has justly earned the nickname given him by Rush, "The Punk". That having been said, I just don't see why you need to abuse people on the other side of the aisle in the scatological terminology of seventh graders. You're an intelligent man. You could make your points without the constant gutter attacks. I just get tired of re-fighting the same battles. "Paying for the same real estate twice" as Patton called it. We both agreed that neither of us was going to convert the other to his way of thinking. So the constant fencing begins to bore me. I put up the speech written by Rush Limbaugh Sr because it's a great speech. It's a brilliant and moving explanation of the sacrifices made by those who freed us from the tyranny of Parliament and the "Madness of King George". I expected partisan bullshit. I just hoped that a reminder of the price(s) paid by the Founders would remind us of our common origin as a nation. That is would, as Lincoln said, bring out "the better angels of our nature" thru the "mystic cords of memory." And also as some info for the non-American members of our little club what the Founders of America went thru to realize the dream of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The fact that it failed to do so demonstrates just how far the gap has grown between Right and Left. A gap that's only getting--like my ex-wife--deeper and wider. But you do care enough to spout your bullshit!

I had written a reply to this post but Vista punked me and it vanished. I've got a headache and I just don't feel like rewriting it. The short answer to your first question is, no I don't think MovieJunkie is an America-hater. I do think that partisan hatred has poisoned his mind to the point of delusion. I simply don't care enough to demolish the kind of horseshit he spouts. About Jefferson, you're conflating two issues: So, clearly Jefferson didn't "risk everything" or else he woulda stood his ground and ensured denunciation of slavery... The British weren't going to hang him for owning slaves! They were going to hang him for rebellion. Furthermore, I find it totally spurious to argue that because the rest of the world was enaging in slavery, that made it OK. If something's ipso facto wrong, it doesn't matter if 6 billion people are doing it; it's still wrong. Moral men and women make a stand and don't protect their incomes. As was put by a man smarter than I, context is everything I wasn't condoning Jefferson's slave-holding or trading. I was merely pointing out the fact that slavery was well-nigh universal in the 18th century. Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire, probably the greatest stateman who ever lived. Without him, the Roman imperium would almost certainly have collapsed and the world we live in would be entirely different. He also liked deflowering 13-yr old slave girls. His wife, the formidable Livia, often picked them out for him at the slave markets of Rome. In 2007, that's a serious crime in every civilized nation in the world. In 10 BCE, it was entirely acceptable. Does it in anyway detract from Augustus' immense achievement? In no way. A man's virtues are his own, his sins are a product of his time. So, clearly Jefferson didn't "risk everything" or else he woulda stood his ground and ensured denunciation of slavery was in the DofI. De minimus, he would have refused to sign the famous document without such a denunciation in it, don't you think? Furthermore, I find it totally spurious to argue that because the rest of the world was enaging in slavery, that made it OK. If something's ipso facto wrong, it doesn't matter if 6 billion people are doing it; it's still wrong. Moral men and women make a stand and don't protect their incomes. Regards

@blu: Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House of Representatives, our lower house (corresponding to the House of Commons in your country, UK, Canada, etc). Senator Harry Reid (by God's disgrace the senior Senator from my state) is Majority Leader of the Senate (our upper house). I'm assuming you don't want a lesson in US Constitutional law, so I'll leave it at that. And they are not a "breath of fresh air That's a delusion. Pelosi is a ideological radical, a liar and a hypocrite. Harry Reid is all those thing. In addition, he and his sons are invovled in some very questionable and shady land deals in both Nevada and Northern Arizona.

You know, at first I was going to respond to your rant in the same rhetorical coin, and demolish your "argument" but what's the point? You've already made it perfectly clear that you will not be confused by the facts. If either of the two people you mentioned wind up being caught in the type of lies like that prick, bush has been caught saying. If they ever, through deceit, cause the deaths of thousands of our people like that scum-sucking, ass-kissing piece -of-crap bush has done. If they ever cause the price of gasoline to more than double just so they, and their friends, can make millions of dollars off of the backs of the poor and middle class people like bitch-boy bush has done. I will then send it to them. bush has screwed up this country so badly I doubt we can get it back to how it was, before that sack-of-shit was elected, in my lifetime. One of my desires is that I outlive that bastard so I can go to wherever he is buried and spit on his grave.

Make sure you cc: Dingy Harry and Princess Pelosi.

@blu: Jefferson not only owned slaves but actively engaged in slave trading, i.e. buying and selling them. Jefferson's spending consistently outran his income and he bought and sold slaves to generate income. He did describe slavery as an evil; but in another piece of writing he also defended it. Clearly he was conflicted about it. But it should be noted that at the time of Declaration, every major European, Arab, African and Asian nation allowed slavery. The Arabs took 50% more slaves out of Africa than all the European countries combined. No country, that I'm aware of, allowed women to vote or to officially participate in government (with the obvious exception of female monarchs). In other words, slavery in the nascent United States was completely acceptable to the mores of the time. Only a few people, like the Rev. William Wilberforce (the man who led the charge to end slavery in England and her colonies and eventually succeeded) objected to it. Things have to be put in context. It's interesting to me that some love to denounce the US for slavery which ended in 1865, yet say nothing about the slavery of black Africans going on as you read this. I don't wear blinders about the history of my country, or my family's for that. My great-great grandfather owned slaves. My great-grandfather was a member of the Klan. And, of course, you're correct, blu, that Parliament offered freedom to any slave who would fight for Britain. Some did. But most fought for the United States--as they have in every war in our history. We have come a long, long way toward implementing the promise contained within that noble document. We're not perfect, but we're trying. That's probably why people are willing to die to live here.

With the Fourth of July the day after tomorrow, this essay couldn't be more timely. America! A Note: Rush Limbaugh, the King of Talk Radio,did not write this. His late father, an eminent Missouri lawyer, wrote it. So if you're inclined to not read this because you don't agree with or like junior Rush Limbaugh, I urge you change you to give this a chance. It's a brilliant document which should be taught in every history class in every democracy in the world. Our Founders risked as much as did the those Brits who engineered the Glorious Revolution in 1688, which forever demolished the idea of the "Divine Right" of Kings; this was a key step on the road to the UK's democracy today. I've been waiting for Rush to put this up on his website for years. He's finally done so. It demolishes, completely, the notion that the Founders of this country were simply a bunch of rich guys who wanted to evade British taxes and suffered no consequences for doing so. As one of them supposedly said, "We either hang together or we will certainly hang separately." Fortunately for my ancestors--who made guns for the Continental Army--and the rest of the world they hung together. The Americans Who Risked Everything My father, Rush H. Limbaugh, Jr., delivered this oft-requested address locally a number of times, but it had never before appeared in print until it appeared in The Limbaugh Letter. My dad was renowned for his oratory skills and for his original mind; this speech is, I think, a superb demonstration of both. I will always be grateful to him for instilling in me a passion for the ideas and lives of America's Founders, as well as a deep appreciation for the inspirational power of words which you will see evidenced here: "Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor" It was a glorious morning. The sun was shining and the wind was from the southeast. Up especially early, a tall bony, redheaded young Virginian found time to buy a new thermometer, for which he paid three pounds, fifteen shillings. He also bought gloves for Martha, his wife, who was ill at home. Thomas Jefferson arrived early at the statehouse. The temperature was 72.5 degrees and the horseflies weren't nearly so bad at that hour. It was a lovely room, very large, with gleaming white walls. The chairs were comfortable. Facing the single door were two brass fireplaces, but they would not be used today. The moment the door was shut, and it was always kept locked, the room became an oven. The tall windows were shut, so that loud quarreling voices could not be heard by passersby. Small openings atop the windows allowed a slight stir of air, and also a large number of horseflies. Jefferson records that "the horseflies were dexterous in finding necks, and the silk of stockings was nothing to them." All discussing was punctuated by the slap of hands on necks. On the wall at the back, facing the president's desk, was a panoply -- consisting of a drum, swords, and banners seized from Fort Ticonderoga the previous year. Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured the place, shouting that they were taking it "in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!" Now Congress got to work, promptly taking up an emergency measure about which there was discussion but no dissension. "Resolved: That an application be made to the Committee of Safety of Pennsylvania for a supply of flints for the troops at New York." Then Congress transformed itself into a committee of the whole. The Declaration of Independence was read aloud once more, and debate resumed. Though Jefferson was the best writer of all of them, he had been somewhat verbose. Congress hacked the excess away. They did a good job, as a side-by-side comparison of the rough draft and the final text shows. They cut the phrase "by a self-assumed power." "Climb" was replaced by "must read," then "must" was eliminated, then the whole sentence, and soon the whole paragraph was cut. Jefferson groaned as they continued what he later called "their depredations." "Inherent and inalienable rights" came out "certain unalienable rights," and to this day no one knows who suggested the elegant change. A total of 86 alterations were made. Almost 500 words were eliminated, leaving 1,337. At last, after three days of wrangling, the document was put to a vote. Here in this hall Patrick Henry had once thundered: "I am no longer a Virginian, sir, but an American." But today the loud, sometimes bitter argument stilled, and without fanfare the vote was taken from north to south by colonies, as was the custom. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was adopted. There were no trumpets blown. No one stood on his chair and cheered. The afternoon was waning and Congress had no thought of delaying the full calendar of routine business on its hands. For several hours they worked on many other problems before adjourning for the day. Much To Lose What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the crown? To each of you, the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers. Who were they? What happened to them? I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere. Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were in their 20s. Of the 56 almost half - 24 - were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, nine were landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians. With only a few exceptions, such as Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, these were men of substantial property. All but two had families. The vast majority were men of education and standing in their communities. They had economic security as few men had in the 18th Century. Each had more to lose from revolution than he had to gain by it. John Hancock, one of the richest men in America, already had a price of 500 pounds on his head. He signed in enormous letters so that his Majesty could now read his name without glasses and could now double the reward. Ben Franklin wryly noted: "Indeed we must all hang together, otherwise we shall most assuredly hang separately." Fat Benjamin Harrison of Virginia told tiny Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts: "With me it will all be over in a minute, but you, you will be dancing on air an hour after I am gone." These men knew what they risked. The penalty for treason was death by hanging. And remember, a great British fleet was already at anchor in New York Harbor. They were sober men. There were no dreamy-eyed intellectuals or draft card burners here. They were far from hot-eyed fanatics yammering for an explosion. They simply asked for the status quo. It was change they resisted. It was equality with the mother country they desired. It was taxation with representation they sought. They were all conservatives, yet they rebelled. It was principle, not property, that had brought these men to Philadelphia. Two of them became presidents of the United States. Seven of them became state governors. One died in office as vice president of the United States. Several would go on to be U.S. Senators. One, the richest man in America, in 1828 founded the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. One, a delegate from Philadelphia, was the only real poet, musician and philosopher of the signers. (It was he, Francis Hopkinson not Betsy Ross who designed the United States flag.) Richard Henry Lee, a delegate from Virginia, had introduced the resolution to adopt the Declaration of Independence in June of 1776. He was prophetic in his concluding remarks: "Why then sir, why do we longer delay? Why still deliberate? Let this happy day give birth to an American Republic. Let her arise not to devastate and to conquer but to reestablish the reign of peace and law. "The eyes of Europe are fixed upon us. She demands of us a living example of freedom that may exhibit a contrast in the felicity of the citizen to the ever- increasing tyranny which desolates her polluted shores. She invites us to prepare an asylum where the unhappy may find solace, and the persecuted repost. "If we are not this day wanting in our duty, the names of the American Legislatures of 1776 will be placed by posterity at the side of all of those whose memory has been and ever will be dear to virtuous men and good citizens." Though the resolution was formally adopted July 4, it was not until July 8 that two of the states authorized their delegates to sign, and it was not until August 2 that the signers met at Philadelphia to actually put their names to the Declaration. William Ellery, delegate from Rhode Island, was curious to see the signers' faces as they committed this supreme act of personal courage. He saw some men sign quickly, "but in no face was he able to discern real fear." Stephan Hopkins, Ellery's colleague from Rhode Island, was a man past 60. As he signed with a shaking pen, he declared: "My hand trembles, but my heart does not." "Most Glorious Service" Even before the list was published, the British marked down every member of Congress suspected of having put his name to treason. All of them became the objects of vicious manhunts. Some were taken. Some, like Jefferson, had narrow escapes. All who had property or families near British strongholds suffered.

Another example of Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is shit." There's another SF writer who you should check out. Absolutely brilliant. Especially his take on the next step in human evolution, More Than Human. He's got the intellectual brillance of a Niven or a van Vogt coupled with the humanity of Faulkner. You could almost call his work "SF Gothic." One of his short story titles, and my personal fav, was: "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let Your Sister Marry One?" A take on incest considered quite daring in the 50s. Finally, if you haven't already, give Cordwainer Smith a try. His real name was Paul Linebarger and his life was as fascinating as his fiction. He created what is probably the most original, most brilliant and most bizarre fictional universe ever. Except for one novel, this vast canvas of thousands of years is told in short stories. A lot of people don't find him to their taste. But if you do, you'll find yourself ordering his "Complete Short Stories". There are a number of shorter, paperback collections out there as well. Could NOT agree with you MORE about the "The Scourging of the Shire." I understand why Tom was left out (as well as the Barrow Wights and the "Old Forest"), while fascinating on paper, it really didn't advance the movie in any absolutely necessary way. And it probably would have entailed a lot of exposition about the Maiar and how Gandalf, Saruman and Tom are Maia... I did like the fact that the Valar were referenced several times with no lame explanations.... I wanted Jackson to do it so badly but I just knew he wouldn't. It should have been done but it would have added at least another 20-30 mins to the RotK. Still, it's always been my favorite chapter in the entire "book" (since, of course, it's one book that was chopped into three by Unwin-sp?). Many have speculated that it was Tolkein's allegory about "fascism" (by which they mean, of course, Hiterlism); he always vehemently denied this. And after having read it closely at least a dozen, maybe more, times, I agree with JRR. The parallels simply aren't there. Saurman didn't really do anything to the Shire he didn't try to do to Rohan, i.e., establish a monarchy of his own. (Tho' I've always wondered that if Saruman had succeeded in all his plans, how would he have dealt with Sauron? After all, Sauron had something like 500,000 troops (250,000 of which were hurled at Gondor at the Battle of the Pelennor Field--'scuse the spelling, too late to grab the book). Saruman had 10,000, almost all of whom were slaughtered by the Rohirrim and the Ents--and I was overjoyed to see that the full involvement of the Ents in the Battle of the Hornburg was in the "extended" version. Why doesn't that surprise me? Leave it to the French to figure out the best way to kill jobs, bankrupt companies and wreck their economy. They've got permanent 12% unemployment. Their government takes 50% of the GDP (the US gov't, by contrast, takes only about 22%, about 35% counting state/local/property taxes). ONE OUT OF FOUR (!) people under 30 have NEVER had a job in France. NEVER! They've been on welfare the entire time since getting out of lycee or college. That's staggering. And they accuse we "Anglo-Saxons" of heartless and evil economic policies. OK, let's see: US unemployment rate: 5% UK unemployment rate: 6% Who's fucking up here? Us or the frogs? <ribbit>

How long till changing a diaper's a felony? Some total stranger's "instinct" could bring Child Protective Services to your door... (And you thought it was taking a chance being alone with an unrelated girl...) What Feminism Hath Wrought June 27, 2007 by Rush Limbaugh BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: There's a story now here from the Virginia Pilot newspaper. "For years, campaigns to stop child sexual crimes have focused on encouraging children to speak up about abuse. State health officials are trying a new tactic. The latest push, at least in Hampton Roads, is to educate adults on how to spot - and stop - sexual offenders. The 'Stop It Now' campaign - just launched locally - will urge people to call a help line if they see an adult whom they suspect of having a sexual relationship with a child. Billboards --" and I've got the picture of it, let me show this to you for those of you watching on the Dittocam, let me zoom in here so you can get a sharp eye on the poster. Now, if you look closely, what you see there is a young girl's hand, we are to believe, and her father's hand, and that is the billboard accompanying this "Stop It Now" campaign, stop father abuse of daughters. That's why I showed you the picture. I'm dead serious. "Billboards and posters show an adult hand holding a child's hand, with the words: 'It doesn't feel right when I see them together.' A national help line number is listed, and through it callers can get advice about what to do. Rebecca Odor, who directs the sexual and domestic violence prevention division for the state Department of Health, said officials hope to reach people who might feel uncomfortable reporting a relative or acquaintance to law enforcers. 'We want to teach them to trust their instinct and, if it doesn't feel right, take action,' Odor said." If you're out in the mall somewhere, and you look at something, you see a father holding hands -- now, does anybody think that a mother holding hands with a son would arouse any suspicion? Of course not! Nobody's going to say, "That doesn't look right to me." But you're going to have some oddball feminists or people that believe that garbage running around the malls, the grocery stores, dads in there holding a little girl's hand after being educated on this sexual abuse campaign to stop it, "I feel something's not right about that." So you call this number, and this poor guy is going to get a visit from somebody. "You were seen walking in the tomato section holding your daughter's hand, and some people have bad feelings about it." This is where it's been headed. This is how this stuff all starts. Men are predators, fathers beat up their daughters, sexually abuse them. This is the most innocent looking picture you can find, this billboard. Here's the way to deal with this, folks. We gotta cut to the chase. In order for fathers to have any sense of security and freedom as they go about their lives as men, we need to ban father and daughter activity, zero tolerance ban on father-daughter activity. If they display any affection whatsoever for their children, red flags ought to go up on everybody's brain. While you're at it, stop men from holding hands with their boys. I mean, you know where that leads, you know it, and I know it. Actually, that would be okay. In our culture today, that would be progressive, that would be cool. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You know, we had this story before Father's Day from TIME Magazine, in which two female writers talking to three female shrinks, biologists, anthropologists, sociologists, zoologists, or whatever, went out there and said that, yeah, Father's Day is coming up, but fathers may not deserve the award. They may not deserve the honor, because so many of them are absent; so many of them are just shirking their responsibilities. Well, it seems to me now -- given what we've just learned from Hampton Roads, Virginia, about this stop abuse campaign -- that TIME Magazine should retract their anti-Father's Day story. It seems to me that these fathers that are absent and not hanging around. They're doing the right thing by staying away from their kids. Seems like these guys are ahead of the game. These guys are prescient. These guys get it. Fathers are doing the right thing by staying away from their kids. They're not getting any trouble, they're not going to be said to be abusers -- and of course they just set up the libs to expand the welfare state. Liberals ought to love these guys that have nothing to do with their kids.

'Fraid I have to part company here. I simply can't stand these Dune "prequels." Imo, Herbert jr has completely thrown out his father's 20 years of research and writing; a titanic effort that created one of the most fully realized fictional civilizations ever (it's the only one that comes close to LotR imo). Instead of the complex interplay of economic, political, religious and historical factors, the young Herbert gives us: Giant cyborg robots with the brains of humans controlling them!?! Holy Transformers, Batman! A multi-galactic Skynet ("Omnius") that has turned humans into slaves?!? WTF?!? The Butlerian Jihad was not about a war against a Borgesque machine culture (Paramount should be suing!). It was a war against reliance on "thinking machines", a reliance that was turning human beings into a cerebral vegetables. It was also illustrative of how religious fanatics quickly become convinced that the "ends justify the means." We only have to remember 9/11 for a real-world example of the ethos of the Butlerian Jihad. And Brian Herbert chucks all of this out the window to write cheap, third-rate space opera? I'm afraid I only read about 40% of The Butlerian Jihad before I gave up and gave it to my Dad. I just couldn't take seeing one of the series that helped me through a dreary, lonely adolescence, being milked for every last buck in it. But people are buying them, so more will be written. What's Brian's problem? Dad not leave him enough in the will? I admit I was awaiting a "Dune 7" when Herbert unexpectedly died (apparently of a broken heart as he died not long after his beloved wife). I could live with what he left us. I just can't live with the shallow, hackneyed volumes Brian's churning out for what are, doubtless, seven figure advances. If you haven't already, buy The Dosadi Experiment. In it, Herbert creates a multi-species universe, unlike the H. sapiens only Duniverse. It's simply fantastic. It's a shame that he didn't get a chance to write more about this universe. There's a "preliminiary" volume about this universe called Whipping Star. I recommend you read that one after Dosadi. Strange as it may sound, the first book will make more sense after having read the second (plot-wise there's essentially no connection).

Ahh, gotcha. In a recent interview (sorry I don't have the link), Moore confirmed that Tigh, Anders, Tori & the Chief are Cylons, but refused to elborate further: e.g. whether they are somehow different from the 8 models we've seen; whether there was some kind of conflict, civil war?, between the Cylons, etc; gonna be wait and see. As for the quality diff between BSG and 99.5% of the rest of so-called "dramas" on TV, you're right there. Although, you Brits do seem to enjoy higher quality dramas than we get (for the most part) here in the "Colonies". After all, Elizabeth I and Charles II: the Power and the Passion or [/i]The Last King[/i] (and the truncated version broadcast on A&E over here was called; I loved it so much I actually ordered the Brit version from Amazon UK so I could see it uncut; thank God WinDVD can "read" PAL). Those two were absolute gems. Showtime's The Tudors is an Anglo-Irish-Canadian venture and is also very good--if not on the level of the first two I mentioned. Another excellent thing about Brit historical dramas is the relative historical accuracy. Obviously for a movie or a mini, certain history facts and persons are going to have to changed, fudged, adjusted etc. But Brit productions are, on the whole, more fastidious about trying to stick the basic facts. Perhaps that's because Brits are actually taught our common history which we Americans are not and thus can spot major historical boners more easily. The only really big one I caught in Charles II was the script having James II--when Duke of York*--openly declaring his Catholicism. In fact, he didn't do this until after he succeeded to the throne. But it doesn't really slaughter the history because James was all but shouting his Catholicism from the rooftops before making it to the throne. An example of an American film saying the hell with history (ironically directed by Aussie Ridley Scott), is Gladiator. As an action pic, it's a helluva a good time. As history, it's utter bullshit. Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix's character) did not murder his father Marcus Aurelius. And Commodus was not killed in the arena, he was murdered in his bath by a concubine and a slave who were afraid they'd die next. (Ironically, they were executed anyway by his successor). And there's no way that a powerful, political enemy of the reigning Emperor would have been allowed to continue living once he was discovered as having survived. He would have had his throat quietly cut or been poisoned. He would not have been allowed to become a Roman "rock star." Sorry for the rant! B5 was on a tenter hooks at the end of each of the first four seasons. Every seasons JMS & crew thought would be the last and it would be picked up. And of course during S4 he was told by WB TV that B5 would be canceled. Thank God, good taste prevailed. this is how we got one of the greatest hours of TV in history, The Deconstruction of Falling Stars. (OK, the 140 yr old Delenn was pushing it, but the rest is gold, esp the tribute to A Cancticle to Leibowitz in the final segment. Yeah, Andy K was a lifelong smoker and it killed him (unlike most smokers who die after their expiration dates) before his time. He also played a Romulan commander (Tomaluk, sp?) on several NexGen eps. I always considered G'Kar something of the moral compass of the show--after Narn's second occupation; in season 1 he was a violent, cunning, conniving politician and racist. His transformation was an amazing piece of acting. One which, of course, was completely ignored by the Emmys (shocking!!). Yeah, it realize it amazing how long it's been since B5 wrapped. Way to prematurely imo. And not just mine. An email I got from Jerry Doyle expressed the same sentiments: he felt the show had one, probably two more seasons left--just wrapping up the mare's nest of loose ends that JMS left us with.

I haven't installed it on Vista. Probably won't. The DVD burner that came with the laptop is nice, esp since it can write DVD-RAM discs. But it's slow. So I can't see myself burning to many DLs on it. I'm sure I would install it on Vista. It's always been squirrely, a little, under XP. Given the obnoxious mess that is Vista, I shudder to think. Already half a dozen of my most necessary apps malfunction under Vista, some times catastrophically. Other times just annoyingly. I hate the damned thing. If only Apple hadn't been run by morons. It'd be a two OS world and quality would be higher all the way around. Funny thing is, 65% of PC problems are not caused by Windows (pre-Vista that is). They're caused by "fucker coding". A highly technical term designating sloppy, patched together code, some of stolen, some borrowed, some cannibalized, and often held together with the digital equivalent of scotch tape and bailing wire.

All da sudden, whether I've read or written an image with IB, the "DIP button: no longer displays the graph. I've been using 2.3.2.0 since it was released and have never had this problem before (or with any of the past releases, for that matter). Even using the command on the File Menu doesn't work. I have to locate the auto-generated graph manually or copy the address into the CLI to make it open. No major systems issues. (Only recent weirdness was Winamp flipping out when I installed DFX 8.35 and track were coming out randomly as static on my XP machine regardless of format; on my Vista* [Home Premium] laptop, static only happened when I played an MP3.) Anyone else run into this? Or are the 'Puter Gods having fun with ol' Pain Man again...? *>>slight digression<< VISTA SUCKS EQUINE (& canine, feline, ursine and ruminant) ORIFICES!!! Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Also, FINALLY got my "free" upgrade to VISTA for the rig I purchased in NOV on last year. It was supposed to be hear FIVE months ago. Got here yesterday. In a way I'm thankful that BestBuy replaced our eMachine laptop (which was a lemon; yes, I was pretty amazed myself, but they gave us a $900 credit because they had to do four repairs on the damned thing; BestBuy has its problems, surely, but they definitely live up to their warranties!) with a Toshiba Satellite A205-S406--the burner even writes RAM discs--which had Vista. Now there's no way in HELL I'm going to use Vista on my Desktop. I'll probably follow Minter's advice, install the upgrade, "activate" it and then immediately restore XP with Acronis TI.

Yes they do, God bless 'em. Oh, yeah, I agree with you there. I just think that there's more than one more season of stuff there. One more season of story to be told. IMO, JMS made a BIG mistake when he closed up Babylon 5 after the "Five Year Arc" supposedly ended. In fact, it didn't end; the show just stopped. There were more loose ends that I can remember (the biggest, of course, being Garibaldi's revenge upon Bester). The first of a series of straight-to-DVD B5 movies is do out soon. Hopefully we'll get some "closure" on some of the story lines. Unfortunately, of course, the B5 feature crashed and burned with the deaths of Richard Biggs (Dr. Franklin) and Andy Katsulas (G'Kar). How could you do a NexGen movie if Brent Spiner and Marina Sirtis had died? It would have been, well, sacrilege to recast the roles. I hope JMS isn't dumb enough to recast Jerry Doyle, Claudia Christian, Biggs and Andy K.) I just REALLY hope that Moore/Eick don't leave us hanging with lots of unaswered question. Have to totally disagree with you on this one, friend. I loved the cliffhanger. The use of Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" was a stroke of genius. I remember listening to the snippets that we first heard. I knew it sounded familiar but I couldn't place it. As soon as Tigh said, "We've got to get out of here..." (I think that's the line), it clicked and I went, "That's the Dylan song covered by Hendrix!" My wife, not exactly a big fan of such like tunes didn't get it at all. I actually have a theory about the four who are apparently Cylons: perhaps the "Missing Five" are really earlier generations of the "skin job" models? And perhaps there was a split, a civil war, some kind of conflict and they booked. The Cylons, in the original series, weren't "created by Man", they were created by a reptillian race (apologies if you know all this) who were then exterminated by their own creations during a 1000 "yahren" (God I'm glad they ditched that silly time units in the new show!!) war against the humans. In this show the Cylons and Colonials had apparently been fighting for a very, very long time. They would have had to be. You can't just conjure up fully functional clones/cyborgs in 40 years. It would probably take centuries to "get the balance right" (as Depeche Mode once put it in another context). To create units that would be indisguishable, even on a pretty deep inspection, from "organic" humans. And, even then, the Cylons appear to have only been capable of creating mules--i.e. they can't produce their own children. So they need humanity. That's always been one of my opinions: the Cylons didn't completely annihilate humanity because they need something. After all, why create those "Baby Farms" where they imprisoned Starbuck? Why put Boomer/Sharon #2 with Helo in the hope that nature who, ah, take it's couse. Which, of course it would. Two people who find each other attractive, who have nothing else to do. Naturally, they're gonna end up doing the horizontal mambo. (Boomer #1, she shot Adama; Boomer #2 is the one who got preggo by Helo; I numbered them to keep them straight in my head. I didn't give numbers to the other Sharon models (No. 8s?). I think Dean Stockwell has to be given serious kudos for his stand out performance as "Brother Cavil." God that guy can play slimy evil so well. Really enjoy watching him. Recently rewatched some of the best Old Trek eps. And yes, even as silly as the sets (every planet but Earth has a friggin' red sky?) and costumes could get, the good episodes are still so good*. The sly humor in some of those episodes is also wonderful. The episode where Spock's brain gets, ah, stolen, is filled with humor. The concept was so overboard that I think David Gerrold (the writer, if memory serves) realized it couldn't be played straight. So they did it with a light touch and the result was wonderful. It could have been turgid and ridiculous. Instead it was fun. I love the show and have been watching it since I was 3 or 4 years old. In fact, I don't remember a time when it was on some channel sometime. (I was born in '70, after it was cancelled.) Another interesting factor--this one revealed by Ron Moore--is that if Nielsen had used the metrics back then that they use today, Old Trek would have been a monster hit and probably have run for 6 or 7 seasons. But the way they measured ratings back then they completely missed the big audience it was attracting. (And this was in the days before letter-writing campaigns could save a show--a la Cagney & Lacey in the 80s. *And the quality of the DVD transfers is amazing. I was very impressed. (Which gives the lie to this bullshit that Lucasfilm put out about releasing the "original" Star Wars on DVD. They used the Laserdisc version and transfered that. As a result, it really doesn't look too good. The sound is good, but the picture leaves a lot be desire. The point is this: if Paramount could keep 80+ hours of film in pristine condition for ten years longer than the original Star Wars film, I don't buy for a minute that the latter's print was so "damaged" that they had to destroy it (!) in order to use it for the "revised" version released in 1997. I mean, come on! The most valuable film in HISTORY and they just chucked it in a corner in a shoebox? It wasn't kept in some vault with xenon gas instead of oxygen (like the Mona Lisa or the Beatles' masters)? Come on George! At least make the bullshit plausible. sorry, that's my little rant on Lucas' petulant refusal to release the version movie that so enthralled me at age 6 (and changed the entire industry forever). I have a lot of admiration for the man and I really liked Episodes 1-3, esp. "Revenge". But sometimes his arrogance gets the better of him. On the other hand he is worth $4 billion and, if one isn't careful when one has that kind of money, you soon find yourself surrounded solely by ass-kissers who do nothing but tell you how great you are, how brilliant you and and your very breath is essence of rose. Ditto. The first book I ever bought (by myself with my own money) was in seventh grade. It was a collection of Arthur C. Clarke short stories called Expedition to Earth and it has the story "The Sentinel" that 2001 is based on. Unlike so many of Phillip Dick's short stories--which, imo, opinion are often terrible--"The Sentinel" is filled with the basic ideas that Clarke and Kubrick so brilliantly elaborated upon in 1968. BTW, still have the book after 25, 26 years. I paid $1.95 for it! Most paperbacks for $7=$8.99 these days.

@crooner/mmalves: I'm not trying to bust anybody's balls here, but we don't want to cause Lightning any grief. He spends a helluva lot of personal time on IB and the, ah, previous prog. And he doesn't make a dime off of it. And there are a number of sites where one can get the kind of help you're looking for. Especially this one here.

That would take just a bit of coding to do...

BRAVO!!!

Jesus, I don't how these get so long. I don't set out to make them thus, but when I'm done, I realize I've written War & Peace again. I know some people won't read posts that are too long; given how wrong I rub some people, I guess that's not entirely a bad thing. Fair enough. I think the whole 'power woman' thing has been done to death and would expect the brilliant writers on BSG to come up with something different. Having said that my all time favorite's Sam Carter of SG1. She can to it to me anytime... "I am woman, hear me roar" has gotten a little old. OK--a lot old. I think a lot has to do with how it's handled. The fact that Starbuck had some very real weaknesses (the boozing, the brawling, constantly fucking up her career with insubordination; in the actual military one really would have to be the best pilot in the service not to get a Dishonorable. (Don't know the British equivalent of a Dishonorable Discharge.) Or even Leavenworth, er, military prison. In a world where the Emmys weren't a joke, Michael Hogan would have three of them for supporting actor. He's done some amazing powerful work on the show. It would been very easy just to play Saul Tigh as the boozy loser and phoned it in after the mini. But he didn't do that. I hope BSG's success--and critical notices--gets him some really good post-BSG parts. I definitely want to see more of him down here. I remember that episode when I realize just who Starbuck was boinking. Both my wife and I said, "Eeew! Good God how could she do Baltar!?" I suppose I could understand how a guy like Baltar, with fame, money (and that incredible house!) could get the hotties pre-Cylon Holocaust. But post? His sleaziness was just so obvious. Doing him was just more of Starbuck's self-destructive behavior. And we've all known people like her in real life. Really talented people who just hate themselves and make sure that they screw up every good thing in their lives; hence Starbuck marrying Anders after the night with Lee... (my eldest brother-in-law is one of them; he came close to making the Olympic team for '84 but shit his talent away on coke and booze. He's spent four of the last five years in jail or the joint) Again, in peace time, the Chief would have been Article 15'd (that's "non-judicial" punishment in the US military) if not court-martialed. And Lee certainly would have been court martialed for drawing his weapon on Tigh during the "coup" when Adama overthrew Rosalyn. And Callie getting only 30 days in the brig for popping a cap in Boomer #1. The real Army's putting people in prison for what's basically frat hazing that happened at Abu Ghraib! And Callie murders a POW and gets lightest of slaps on the wrist. But the situation obviously isn't normal. It's completely insane. So a lot of the rules go right out the window. One the things I've loved about the show was the effects of the situation on the characters. It was completely unprecedented and Adama was obviously critically short on trained personnel--especially fighter pilots, it takes two years to train one in the real military, so people were going to get away with stuff they never would have in the "normal" world. To stray a little bit, its well known that sexually active gays get the boot in the US military and have for a long, long time. But during WWII, there was such a shortage of trained personnel, that many gay men did serve and the brass simply looked the other way. I remember an interview with one GI who related that his platoon's First Sgt was totally out of the closet and never caught any grief from the officers. Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of great NexGen eps. ("Best of Both Worlds" pops up immediately, but that was S3-4). But as the show got older, it was clear the writers were beginning to scramble to keep it fresh. I'm rewatching the entire series--thanks to Blockbuster--so I can see how the shows hold up 15+ yrs later. But what really tore it for me, probably the lowest point in NexGen imo, was the not-even-close-to-subtle parallels with so-called Global Warming* when Starfleet discovered that Warp Drive was "damaging" the Space-Time Continuum (why not just call Q and have him/them fix it? Wasn't that one of their jobs?). I about fell out of my chair, mouth agape at that one. That's when I knew it was pretty much time to wrap it up. I really was not interested in political sermons from Gene Roddenberry. Or the storyline with Work and Troi getting horizontal. I saw an interview with gorgeous Marina Sirtis were even she said, paraphrasing here, "I didn't get [the whole Worf-Deanna thing], nothing against Michael Dorn but Klingon's aren't exactly hot." And I was glad they finally let Riker and Troi get married in Star Trek X. And while I will miss BSG, one good thing about it ending after four seasons is that--KOW--we won't see the show Jump the Shark as NexGen did in the above examples. They're going out on top and it's always better to see a series end on a high note rather than get cancelled because the production company was trying to milk every last dollar or wrack up as many eps as possible for syndication. (I guess, by the usual cable math, it's actually closer six seasons since Season 2 was 20 eps instead of 13, and Season 4 will actually be 2 cable seasons worth of eps). *(I'm not in the least interesting in opening that debate. One either believes its happening, or one doesn't. And neither side will listen to the other, so there's practically no point in discussing it with people one doesn't agree with.) Nothing wrong with that, especially since you have good taste. Danke.

I forget who said it, but good health really is the best thing in the world. Certainly better than money or fame or power. If you manage to achieve any or all of those things, it's not going to be much fun if you're not healthy. (Obviously, I understand that having money gets you access to treatment, but if there's no cure for your condition, as there isn't for yours and mine, we could each be worth $10 billion and it wouldn't matter. We can't buy a fix for what ails us. I hope you can get this done, I really do. And I hope it works for you. A lot of [getting these things approved] is just being a royal pain in the ass. Call all the time. Email, write letters; just generally make a nuisance out of yourself--if nothing else works. After awhile, they'll approve the procedure just so you'll go away. Too many people give up too quickly. Screw that! Keeping swinging at the ball, eventually you'll get the pitch you can hit.

That's just the way we right-wing gun fetishists like to do it: start 'em early. Why my daughter had her own Mac-11 (machine guns are legal in NV) before she was out of diapers (bit hard on babysitters tho', three killed in the first week). But seriously, this is a prime example of the IQ drain that seems to occur whenever someone becomes a bureaucrat. I have a feeling if this guy had sent in a picture of his pet guinea pig, the giggle pig would have gotten then permit as well. I mean, look what happened with that piece of shit @VA Tech! Dude had been certified by a VA state superior court judge as a "danger to himself and others" ( ) which should have barred him from purchasing any type of firearm (until he'd gotten a clean bill of mental health). Yet because some nimrod paperpusher just stamps "approved" and the guy walks out of the store with a Glock-17 (that's 16 in the mag and one in the chamber) and then a .22 mag pistol and murders 32 people. The merchants, in both cases, followed the exact letter of the law. But what good did it do? The citizens of Virginia shouldn't have to pay for whatever the school did or didn't do, the bureaucratic dickhead who failed to flag this chump in the system should be sued. That's the person, in my considerable opinion, who should be held accountable. How about 32 counts of negligent homicide? After all, why should the taxpayers of the Commonwealth have to pay for laws they wanted in place?!? Frankly, I find more than a little disturbing this rush to profit from the death of a parent, child, sibling. It seems that's the first thing we do in the country (and not just this country of course) before even the funeral: call a lawyer to see how much profit can be realized from the "tragic loss." Not every reacts that way, of course, but even a cursory glance at the boob tube these days will show you the swarm of ambulance chasing vultures. These guys wouldn't be around if there weren't a huge demand for their opportunistic services. We need to do it how the Brits do it with tort cases: if plaintiff loses, his lawyer (barrister) has to pay all the defense legal and court costs. It would cut down sharply on the bullshit lawsuits.