I really appreciate hearing what I suspected from someone inside this. But I have a couple of questions: the first is, are you referring to the pledge drives, or these infomercial and other two types of shows that run within them, or both?

I'm not complaining about pledge drives. I'm used to them. I remember one of the most obnoxious ones ever, during the first rerunning of THE CIVIL WAR in(I think) 1992, which had a really hectoring announcer and a break every 20 minutes. But you know what? I kept watching because it was something worth watching, and had I not been horribly broke(I was 23) I'd have donated then. Now I possibly could, but I don't see any reason to. Kind of lost me the first time I saw Wayne Dyer where my PBS should have been.

And the argument some have made that this is almost a hostage situation, that we should donate to stop these shows, well, that's invalid. Because it won't stop them. if you donate during those shows they'll think that works and do more of the same. But THESE don't work and they do more of the same too. Do these shows get funds? What's really going on between CPB and these snake-oil people?

The second is, if CPB thought penis-enhancement infomercials, if delivered by a well-dressed person walking on a classy stage, would do as well, would they run those too?

The GOP burrowing out PBS' heart was smart. Because people like me, who was a kid who'd watch PBS voluntarily when he was home sick(and very educational PBS, but that was SCETV in the 70s; I'm talking shows like THE METRIC SYSTEM I'd even watch), now see little in it. If PBS has lost people like me, it's already gone.

And this is not the first try at fusing a modern quasi-American story with the Bible in a literary rather than religious way--it's called EAST OF EDEN and it's a work of genius which in no way is trying to convert anyone--it's just using a rich theme. The stories in religion are resonant not because of God but because they express universals in our existence on Earth, whether God was involved or not; they express the way we look at the world, in the way that when we talk about how we conceive God, we're really explicating who we think we are, not the ghost in the sky.

I'm an agnostic--because I really don't care whether there's a God or not, and resent being forced to decide on what I think is an irrelevant question(I'm also not a sports fan and would similarly resent being forced to choose between teams when I care about none of them)--but religious themes to me are perfectly fine when confined to aesthetics, and that's all they are here.

I've seen atheists--committed ones that are as missionary as any fundie--losing it over this show mentioning God. Do they freak out over Galactica? Shakespeare? Sorry, guys. It's always going to be part of art, even if religion finally loses its hold on real life, as it should. As art, there's nothing wrong with that. This is a fantasy work, look at it as a fantasy element. (In works where the purpose is other than art, like LEFT BEHIND, well, then it's propaganda. This isn't)

I also might add: you new-model missionary atheists make me even sicker than the religious right in that you know better than to try to shove beliefs down people's throats. They don't. If you're done with God, then why not just stop wasting YOUR life on him too? Because time spent witnessing your disbelief is just as long as time spent witnessing for Jesus or whatever.

And besides, anything that lets me watch Ian McShane and Dylan Baker on a regular basis already had me before it began.

I should also add: if I keep watching, this would make it the only network show I DO watch. I'm happy there's something that doesn't make my eyes scream for once, and besides, with GALACTICA gone soon, and ROME and DEADWOOD dead, I really need a weekly fix of episodic drama that someone's at least TRYING to write.

The minute they were taking bailout money, their bonuses were a raid of the public treasury. But they took them anyway. This makes them thieves.

So this is what happens to thieves.

They were pigs and fattened themselves for the slaughter.

They've just been stripped naked, steaks tied to their necks, and left among the hungry wolves. As they deserve, because the instant they took the bailout, these bonuses--not their salaries, which would be more than enough for anyone and which no one's questioning(yet)--became a raid on the public treasury. And they honestly didn't believe they'd be punished, so they went right ahead.

Now they are getting the treatment thieves deserve. It's right.

And you're all missing this: it hasn't passed the Senate yet.

So the purpose of this is to frighten them into giving the bonuses back before that happens. The point of this is to show what they're willing to do, and that's smart.

Given that they appear to have lied about the bonuses, and Andrew Cuomo now has a list of their names, I feel they will.

WHY did they have to tack on that epilogue? I was willing to forgive all unanswered questions because the ending, till then, was touching.

Also--TWO Earths? Could Starbuck at least have recognized this fact and said, "Oops, wrong the first time, my bad" or something?