....to quote everett ulysses mcgill.

it's a damn tight spot to judge the best coen bros. film. it's like picking a favorite beatles song. just can't do it. but the top contenders

the obvious ones:

lebowski

fargo

the crowd-pleasers:

o brother

no country

the over-looked:

barton fink (buscemi's tiny role as chet is too good for words)

the man who wasn't there

intolerable cruelty (screwball at it's finest, imo)

the bad law was in 2004, when the house changed it in case kerry won the presidency.

if a governor isnt held to appoint a successor of that same ilk of the one being replaced, that is a clear circumvention of the people's wishes: they voted for a liberal dem, so why would a GOP governor be able to appoint a right winger?

the problem was in 2004 they didnt change the law to what is is now: the gov can appoint a short term appointment/seat warmer who cannot run in the special election.

a) you get a senator who is beholden to no special interests and will be acting in the good faith of his predecessor.

b) you take another chink out of the ridiculous armor of incumbency, which is slowing killing off our political system.

i agree that it looks like opportunism, but viewed in this light, it's merely correcting the mistake. if we switch everything around -- take alabama as an example -- would GOPers really want it any other way?

because Patrick must appoint someone who will not seek to win the seat in a special election.

Dukakis has, for his entire career, worked to solve the problems that hit middle and low income Americans hardest, and health care is at the top of the pile. It would be a fitting salute to a man whose great career was overshadowed by that fucking tank attack ad in 1988.

What a great way to say thank you, from all of us Massholes.

how does it feel to protest and be totally ignored, wingnuts? granted, you are ignored cause you're crazy, and the 1.5 million i marched with in NYC in 2003 were ignored for completely different reasons, but i digress.

we had a war criminal for 8 years, royally screwing those at home and abroad, and then when a smart young black guy gets into office, and tries to give everyone health care, you call him a fascist/marxist/insert another contradictory title here.

the majority has spoken. now go home and shut up if you don't have any constructive criticism. your kind is hopefully becoming extinct.

for the GOP today. mcnamara came of age in WW2 and so was understandably enthralled by the awesome power of the US military, so why couldn't it be used to bomb vietnam (and SE asia) into submission?

likewise, with the GOP chicken-hawks so awed by the US' advanced weapons, the easy victory in Iraq War (the Original Recipe) two decades ago, etc, why shouldn't we expect such a massively misplaced response (smart bombs vs. boxcutters; abrams tanks vs. IEDs) to our new geopolitical reality.

the sad fact is that mcnamra seemed caught up in his own ego and intelligence while trodding what he thought was a respectable path to stop the spread of communism. it's hard to believe -- and that's not to say we should forgive -- that he operated with the same carelessness, violence and ignorance that characterizes our current warmongers.

i work in this field, and i would say that just about every person who is serious about climate change and wants a policy that significantly decreases carbon emissions would love to support a carbon tax.

a carbon would be fair (non-regressive), simple and efficient. but its a political non-starter. so the least bad alternative is cap-and-trade.

you knew this had to be the case. "Standard Operating Procedure" is all about Abu Ghraib. easily the creepiest part is when a young MP describes how unidentified americans routinely brought dead detainees to be held overnight without any documentation that they, or the deceased, had ever been there.

if it can happen just one time, it's easily happened many more. this is exactly why we need a torture commissions, trials, and punishments.

was it una mjuer, o un hombre en argentina, senor sanford?

for dead hookers. at this point its a toss-up on the gender.

she got famous for being gorgeous, skinny, and a little bit better than average singer.

now that she's "overweight" (whether by 5 pounds or 500 pounds) and no longer in the public eye due to the fact that she is no longer physically attractive as she once was, she goes on a sojourn across the world to discover what "real" beauty is?

this sounds like an Onion article. what a joke. and the joke's on journalists who take it seriously. if you think she's going to get into an intellectual conversation with nebraskan girls about burquas, you haven't been paying attention.

"You are literally too stupid to insult."

are the Colorado reps and senators willing to take the gitmo prisoners? if not, they're chickenshits.

should basically render her unfit for the job.....what kind of judgment does that show?

why stick one's neck out for groups to the left of the Dem party? not that i don't think he should -- there are a host of instances where obama has let his left flank sit out on a limb very unfairly.

but where does it get him? it wins him support for the groups who have no (real) choice but to vote Dem, and it alienates a huge swath (hate to say it) of the electorate that they are trying to attract.

again -- i ain't sayin' it's right -- but if you're looking for cold political calculation, here it is.

laura has never read any kurt vonnegut, or much sci-fi for that matter. who hasn't read storylines about aliens building the pyramids?

no wonder we get such poor excuses for journalists in the msm.