Nothing to do with flopping, but anyone who thanked Joan Jett for saving rock and roll can take it back. She's shilling for Cadillac now.

Hmm... Led Zeppelin went commercial for Cadillac too. Is this like the old "we know what kind of person your are, we're just negotiating the price" joke? Too much integrity to sell out for Chevy.

Black legitimacy is based on suffering and victimization. Ergo, if someone isn't a victim, they can't be black.

What a bunch of nonsense! You don't have to be descended from certified "victims" to belong to a group which has been historically oppressed. My Jewish ancestors were not Holocaust survivors, because they left Europe before it happened. Does this make me less authentically Jewish?

An even more insidious interpretation of Dickerson's argument is that a black politician that white voters like can't really be black. By this reasoning, no truly black politician can succeed in a white area. This is a recipe for political failure.

"Marie Antoinette", to put it plainly, sucks. It has no plot. You spend have the movie waiting for them to consummate their marriage. I can understand the political significance of the act (since it is repeatedly, pedantically explained), but it does not make for exciting cinema.

"Prairie Home Companion" is just OK.

I haven't seen "Casino Royale", but I don't see how the a James Bond movie can "matter" this late in the franchise, unless it inspires someone to cure cancer.

As anyone who does research on human beings knows, you have to get informed consent if you are subjecting someone to a risk. And when I say "risk", I mean things like having your feelings hurt. In this case, JetBlue was clearly subjecting their passengers to a risk, however small. They were unwitting participants in a study that could result in their deaths.

There is no way that JetBlue and the FAA could argue that there wasn't a risk. If they were 100% certain that the pilots would perform just as well as they do under ordinary conditions, there would be no point in conducting a study on the topic.

Apparently the FAA has different regulatory standards the the National Institutes of Health. (Do they have ANY standards for research at all?) The NIH would never have approved this study in a million years. They would have demanded that the airline get consent from every single passenger on the plane, and put the non-consenting passengers on a different flight.

I hope that JetBlue is severely punished for this lack of good faith in the market. The FAA should reconsider how it does research.

Good Morning, Vietnam was pretty good. The problem was he went on to make Good Morning, Medical Profession, and Good Morning, White House, etc.

I'm not an NFL fan, which may explain why I am missing something. How, exactly, do these games hurt the fans?

The season ticket argument is bogus. The price of a season ticket is set by supply and demand. If season ticket holders don't care about the preseason games, the laws of economics dictate that they aren't really paying for them. To put it differently, how much more are you willing to pay for a season ticket because of the extra preseason games? What you are paying for them is basically the average season ticket holder's answer to that question (which may well be close to zero).

If you are football fan, isn't watch a mediocre game better than watching no game at all? I can see how the injuries would be annoying, but injuries can happen on the rival team, too.

Having the preseason games in other cities sounds like a great idea. They do it in the NBA.

What a strange conflict between theology and biology! Apparently the Supreme Being invented breasts for the pleasure of grown men -- the fact that they give milk is just a coincidence. It is fortunate that humankind invented baby formula. Otherwise mothers would be in a real ethical bind: commit "adultery" with the baby or let it starve.

If you take his argument a bit further, giving birth vaginally is a sin. After all, the vagina is supposed to be hubby's playground, right?

Cyrano de Bergerac. Shallow Hal. You fall in love with someone, then discover that they are physically different than you thought. In fiction, the lover realizes that "it's what inside that counts". In real life, "heart wants what is wants", and doesn't follow politically correct bromides.

If you are going to try to make predictions about how well Democrats can perform in Red States, Connecticut is a strange place to start. It is a solidly Democratic state, so Democrats can afford to be choosy about who they nominate. In Red States, Democrats do set aside ideological purity and nominate more moderate candidates.

Ironically, it is actually the Republicans who need to be worried about losing a Senate seat because of overzealous primary voters. They could easily lose Lincoln Chafee's Rhode Island seat to the Democrats if the nominate the more conservative Steve Laffey. But don't let the word get around. Shhhh....

They aren't telling women to wear nice underwear. They're warning women that if they get too drunk they will lose control, make a fool of themselves, and make themselves vulnerable. Isn't this sensible advice?

It is not really surprising that 8% of Central Asians are decided from Genghis Khan. If you go back a millenia or two, we all share ancestors. There just aren't enough unique ancestors to go around -- my ancestors and your ancestors have to heavily overlap. This phenomenon is called "pedigree collapse"

Incidentally, this is a problem with one of the major premises of The Da Vince Code. If Jesus had living descendants, then Sophie Neveu would just be one member of a VERY big club.