Does anybody even care if astronauts are going to space anymore? What about the fact that we haven't been to Mars in a very long time. Was it just about money, or lack of a strong citizen curiosity? -- verycold

The race to the moon was political theater at it's most absurd and costly, though at a time when we could better afford the cost. Going to the moon was nothing more than the middle finger to the Soviets. Going to Mars would be the middle finger to the American people.

While the world did gain Tang from the U.S. manned space missions, can you think of all that much gained specifically from space exploration/flight that couldn't have been learned terrestrially and has useful application for living life on Earth? How have the repeated trips to the moon, the "international" (paid for mostly by the U.S.) space station and the pointless shuttle flights benefited mankind in general? You can't defend the space program because space exploration borders on technological masturbation. It is the antithesis of the most bang for your buck.

We have so many pressing problems on Earth that could be solved or at least significantly mitigated with the sort of single-minded technological determination that was given to the U.S. space program in the 1960s and early 1970s. Granted, today's NASA budget is nothing compared to what is once was. But unless they've been hiding something that's on the verge of miraculous (Mars really is inhabitable and we've got a new vessel that gets us there in a couple days with no downside), I don't want to see a single penny spent on Mars missions or even new versions of the shuttle. I want the best scientific minds in the country figuring out a non-polluting, renewable substitute(s) for oil, a way of reversing man's contribution to global warming, effective population control and digital cable television that doesn't require a fucking converter box. These things matter. Going to Mars doesn't.

We? Cockroaches? You make it sound like everyone in America, let alone the world, watches this junk or aspires to this kind of lifestyle/celebrity. There are people outside of Manhattan/SF/South Beach/whatever, ya know? -- John Foxborough

But enough people do (at least 25% of television viewers I'd say) or we wouldn't have all these "reality" shows.

What's sad is that Bravo started out as a better television station and now seems to live and die on bad shows like this.

I think Ms. Havrilesky's review is hilarious.

. . . full on bat-shit crazy things the Bush administration did, and while it has already made some changes at the margins, we will see no significant changes in the areas that need the most attention in this country. There will be no dramatic improvement in health care coverage, public education will continue to be underfunded, no meaningful changes will be made towards weaning us off oil as our primary fuel choice, the most egregious and semi-egregious practices of Wall Street and banking will not be eliminated, and the defense budget will continue to gradually bleed the nation white. What hope I had for the Obama administration is pretty much gone.

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

. . . she certainly handled it better than Anne Hathaway with the hideous Havoc.

Is this Hermione's get-out-of-child-stardom card, I wondered?

If she wants to be the next Lauran Bacall, then she should do what every other star who has not gone bat-shit crazy does - get the hell out of Hollywood. -- Steele The First

While American money and production companies may be running the Potter movie franchise, the films have all been made in the U.K.

In any case, I think most actors from the U.K. know that after a modicum of success at home that you go to Hollywood for one of two reason - to make some big bucks so that you can afford to go home to make better but less lucrative movies or you go there, like great novelists, to die.

Someone up thread commented how Emma Watson reminds them of Emma Thompson. Does anyone remember the first big budget film Emma Thompson made in Hollywood, probably for very good money? I'm sure she regrets it to this day except for the saving grace that it was so horrible that they don't even show it on television. Otherwise, her career choices are pretty much above reproach with most of her work being done in the U.K.

Yes.

But a better question is why we even need a surgeon general? Can't this post be rolled into the FDA?

The Chinese economy blasts ahead

Last I read, most of the construction projects in Beijing that were underway during the Olympics (but not Olympics related), as with so many projects in the U.S., had come to a halt.

If it's nothing but the government recycling it's massive cash reserves, that won't sustain the economy, which is still heavily export oriented, until the economies in Japan and the U.S. pick-up. China, relative to the U.S., Japan and Europe, still has little domestic demand.

stimulus Wait so spending money on infrastructure actually works? Why didn't we try that? Oh right - we had to save the salt marsh field mouse instead. -- yeahOKsure

You could have saved yourself from ignominy and snark failure by writing "we had to save corrupt bankers instead."