…but they don't mean to - the words "pandemic" and "epidemic", that is. Neither one means or even implies that anyone is dying of anything. "Swine Flu" made that point about "pandemic" earlier, and is exactly right. The talking heads clearly have no idea what these words really mean, and when they use them it just points to the fact that they really have no idea what they're talking about. I don't know about anyone else, but I sure as hell will not take health advice from such willful idiots!

I'm sure that certain Justices of the Supreme Court are giving very black looks to certain other Justices of the Supreme Court over this. While it may indeed be folded into the whole issue of what the FCC can and cannot fine in terms of that agency's definition(s) of decency on the airwaves, the clear imbecility of it cannot be masked by such a maneuver. The Highest Court in the Land must be able to discern the difference between what is worthy of its consideration and what is just abysmally stupid. So far that ability is not manifesting itself.

Lord, how to say anything that hasn't been said about Star Trek in all its incarnations prior to seeing the new effort? I guess, as a matter of what's been said in reference to this review, I would just add that time travel was probably the THE poison pill for the whole franchise. While the original series, and the films that continued it, used it sparingly and with very little damage (real or potential) to ongoing continuity, the follow-on series' belabored the device to greater and greater disadvantage. By the time of Enterprise it was clearly a crutch the writers seemed unable to discard, preventing them from using their two perfectly good legs - or even from finding out if they had them.

On that score alone, it was definitely time to call a halt. I just hope that the new movie, in resorting to this device yet once again, will also be the last time we'll see it. I know I, for one, would love to see some fresh ideas ventured along with the fresh start.

As for the new film taking any liberties with "the canon", I don't see why it shouldn't. The original series took so many liberties with itself that it spawned an entire division of fandom activity known as Nitpicking. The original series was making so much up as it was going along, under the pressure of tight schedules and budgets and out-of-production-sequence airings, that it's no small miracle there was any consistency at all. Part of the whole fun of Star Trek continuity to this day is trying to piece all the resulting disparate parts together into any sort of reasonably coherent whole.

I've always been uneasy about anyone making it a "practice" to abort fetuses/embryos/babies (whatever term(s) you feel best using), as Dr. Tiller did. My own scruples aside, such services are needed for the very reasons touched on, but it has been the objective of the Pro-Life factions all along to destroy a woman's practical ability to get a medically competent late-term abortion. This has been been brought one giant step closer to being achieved with this murder.

It's been lamented that these people should mind their own business. Unfortunately they see the perpetuation of human suffering as their business - we must suffer, for we are sinful (and women very very much so), end of story until the End of Days. And their God, the ultimate homicidal/genocidal busybody, won't let them forget it.

spoodles:

I 100% agree that the posts to this article would make a great book on marriage…maybe one of the best ever written. Even the bickering exchanges would be vastly more informative and affirming than most of the "advice" given by anyone who's ever dared to claim to be an expert on the subject.

I've been on FaceBook for a few months, and while I do think parents who post potty-training pictures should have their head examined, I've yet to run across anything like that myself. No doubt it has a lot to do with the friends I've hooked up with, but all the same I have to side with those who say "If you don't want to see such things, then don't look."

Oedipus Schmoedipus;

"...wouldn't be nice if, just every so often, the Hollywood system produced a romcom in which two people meet, get to know one another, fall in love, move in/get married, and just live their lives in a charming fashion while we in the audience get to watch?"

That, I gather, is one challenge no Hollywood writer could possibly meet. For them, it seems, romance and marriage - not wedding, MARRIAGE - are wholly incompatible, which strikes me not as following demonstrated Hollywood wisdom but failing to break their imaginations out of the pointlessly constricting boxes in which they've placed them. And maybe just plain chickening out.

So why can't Paula Abdul stick around and American Idol go away?

Euroreader:

Been to Europe a few times, and while I'm what you would consider a typical American big eater, I've never gone hungry while overseas. I never ordered "extra" of anything either, though I could readily afford it. And the only time I was in a fast-food joint was a McDonald's in Copenhagen that was, best I could tell, patronized heavily by the locals.

So as far as my own empirical comparison of the quantities of food served to Americans and to Europeans, there is no meaningful difference.

As for the rest of the discussion here, the state of someone's physique has never, in the course of human history, been anything close to a reliable indicator of his or her moral character. It is no more so now.