Well, a little overheated. Rudy is just a craven politician exploiting his advantage like everyone else. It's his persona like McCain always falls back on being a POW or Hillary falls back on, well, being her.

The fact is, there's really no such thing as terrorism in the US. You can count on one hand all the so called terrorist attacks. That's not terrorism, that's an accident. This is really what amazed me about the Spanish elections after the Madrid bombings. Here's a country that lived through a civil war and dictatorship in living memory. And other than a low level guerrilla war in Western Sahara and the occasional ETA bomb hasn't had much of anything to worry about for decades. It's a persona. Neither the threat nor the responses to it are real, they're just how people want to be perceived.

Rudy wants to be seen as the guy who's 'tough on terrorism'. That's his brand. It doesn't matter that there's no such thing. And if there were, it would be obvious. It would be busloads of chubby bottle blond soccermoms in Iowa blowing up every month. And we obviously don't. Hell the fact that Ground Zero is still a hole in the ground means we really don't ascribe anything significant to it all beyond the rhetoric. It really is a small scale event. But that's what personas do - they latch on to something. It's branding.

Next there will be a homemade sex tape. Then a reality TV gig. Then she can be lawyer like Starr Jones. America is a great place if you work the system just right.

which is more than you clowns are capable of. Such insufferable self serious pomposity. It sucks the air out of the room. Yes yes, end of the world, fascism, martial law, tanks in the streets, genocide, tomorrow morning 9 sharp. Gotcha.

Nicole Kidman should have all the work she wants. Why not. You're all swine and culture is wasted on you. Show you philistines a pretty face and be done with it.

Good jorb hippies.

that's what they should have done against Kobe Bryant. Just keep pulling new charges out their asses and empanelling one GJ after another until they got him for something. Littering, not using a turn signal, something.

Because what good is power if you can't abuse it? I mean, think of the Children, dude.

That's a numerical fact. That there were a few high profile racial cases in New York City, was what? Shocking? Alarming? A never before seen catastrophe? Holy moly Debbie, I watched West Side Story a few days ago and guess what? They made fun of racist cops who weren't that interested in doing a great job. I do declare I am faint with the vapors. [thunk] That's the sound of me falling off my chair

I guess what you losers are getting at is either:

It doesn't matter, what's a little crime if black people do it.

or

It must be a lie and crime actually went up and there was a massive coverup by The Great Conspiracy.

or

People should commit crimes if they are brown/black and the cops are mean to them.

they will play guitar hero. Soon we will play games about characters who read books instead of reading books. Oh wait we do that now. Never mind.

It's called a 'book'. If Amazon and the rest of the online vendors can't screw me out of 'shipping and handling' they'll screw me some other way. Call it a copywrite fee or whatever. It still won't make any sense and it will leave me feeling cheated. Except in the eBook world, there won't be any local face to face alternative. I'll be stuck having to order the eBook from the vendor who decides to allow me to buy it. In other words less flexibility not more. And if you think that eBooks are going to voluntarily price themselves at the used book market level, you're dreaming.

I am absolutely outraged that these capitalist running dogs attempt to seduce the workers with their 'advertising'. It is a scandalous violation of the party's protocols and these lackeys should be sent to Kolyma for political reeducation.

Love live the Party!

First off, whether or not it's great literature is largely subjective. I've found the author to be unreadable which has never stopped college profs from asserting it's the greatest thing to get jammed down my throat, ever.

Secondly, great books make crappy movies. They ALWAYS make crappy movies. Why? Because they're books. Not movies. Movies are movies, they are 2-2.5 hrs of entertaining sounds and pictures. Not books.

Third, movies as art, are as different from books as art as paintings and dance are different from one another. Just because actors speak words does not make it the same thing as literature.

Bad books die (except in college) while bad movies are immortal.

"kids" today are dependents and childlike if not outright childish well into what we used to call adulthood. No one's even pretending to get out of undergrad in less than 5 years anymore. And it's our fault for infantilizing them far too long. Now they're helpless and slow. I'm left scrambling how I'm going to get health insurance for a 23 year old student 'dependent' who lives on my dime. Just get out already. So are the 'worth' the cost? Tough call, I really wish they would leave the damn nest and leave me and the spouse to divide up what's left and go our separate ways already. Otherwise I feel like I'll be taking care of my kids kids soon enough.

On going services are expensive. Daycare, gym memberships, tuition, car insurance, health insurance, summer camp, cell phone bills. That sort of thing. I bought an expensive crib 22 years ago, still have it will probably give it to one of the kids for their kids. But so what? Isn't that my job?