RFK Jr is a flake who damages democrats. His perpetuation of the junk science theory of an autism/thimerosal link is a disgrace that has been repeatedly debunked by scientists who have no connection to Big Pharma. It disgusts me that Kennedy repeatedly gets published with his sloppy research and slanted analysis. It makes democrats no different than rightwing morons who carry liars like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter on their shoulders.

Kennedy's position on autism's causes are just as ridiculous as a fundamentalist preacher's position is on "creationism." Both Kennedy and the fundamentalist preacher will ignore the bulk of sane scientific evidence (and in Kennedy's case, he will ignore the results of a an entire country's child population -- thimerosal was taken out of vaccines in Denmark and autism rates did not drop but in fact, rose) and rail against the conspirators out there who are trying to silence them. In RFK's mind, it's the World of Science against Robert Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy fancies himself the only truthteller. Except that Kennedy has to deliberately slant his research, or find research that is ready-made slanted, and ignore the majority of work that shows him to be wrong in order to push his conspiracy theories. That is pure unadulterated egotism, just like a fundamentalist preacher, just like Rush Limbaugh and his ilk.

Has RFK taken graduate level statistical analysis, research theory and research critique courses? If not, no periodical should be publishing his fevered junk as analysis. If so, I want to know what school he attended.

A letter writer named Karen a few pages back says Salon did not question RFK Jr's hoohah about autism. Is this so? If so, shame on Salon. You do more than a disservice to your readers if this is true; you actually help perpetuate a lie that has repercussions for the health of the general public. The thimerasol/autism link is pure bunkum. How many MDs do you know who withhold vaccines from their children? They love their children as much as everyone else does, and if they thought for a minute that pharmaceutical companies were involved in a scheme to cause a neurological damage to children to preserve profit, you'd see the entire medical community advising the public not to immunize children.

Do your homework. RFK Jr is a half-baked child of legacy, as oblivious to responsibilty as GW Bush is. Both he and Bush believe their opinion makes it so, and why not? They've got legions of fans propping them up and cheering them on.

Try to be a little more discriminating when it comes to rich guys from famous families and their opinions on science, 'kay? It's kneejerking at its finest to decry one rich dope's backing of creationism and take the other rich dope at his word about autism because the other rich dope happens to be a democrat.

I understood the irony of the Christmas scene. People sitting around counting their blessings and looking all comfy with each other while they are lying to each other, cheating on each other, doing drugs, killing people and sitting pretty in a house paid for with blood. OK. I get it. But I've gotten the irony before, at least two dozen times in this series and let's face it, we've had it pretty much spelled out for us in capital letters in the scenes where Carmela visits a psychiatrist. Though Melfi tries to get Tony to give up the life, she softens it a bit, tiptoes around it, while the first therapist Carmela saw verbally bludgeoned her (and the audience) with what her life really is and refused to take her blood money. In the second scene where Carmela sees a (different) therapist, she is the one who spells it out. There are much bigger crooks than my husband, she says. She knew Tony's game from the beginning when Tony brought her father an expensive stolen power tool as an offering for dating his daughter. Carmela's fealty to the Church is another irony - we get it.

She could have had a different life. Tony could have had a different life. The kids could have had a different life. But they don't.

We get it.

Time passes, bodies pile up, the feds make one blunder after another, mob bosses succumb to or are afflicted with various diseases of aging, middle-aged Tony survives a shooting and is as fat and hearty as a twenty year old couch potato, Carmela continues her charity work for the church while passing judgment on the recipients of her faith-based largesse and Uncle June is an institutionalized old fool.

I'm beginning to think the series will carry on until these characters are in their 90s, with the producers and writers doomed to come up with new and more boring set-piece scenes of Mob Family Irony.

They're getting really tiresome this late in the game. The "Goodfellas" homage in the scene where Sil and Carlo kill Dom was halfhearted and this week's lame "Vertigo"-homage kaleidescope drug deterioration of Christopher and Julianna wasn't nearly as good as Scorcese's Rolling Stones-fueled deterioration of Henry and Karen Hill, even if Chase used a Rolling Stones drug song at the beginning and end of the episode. How many films and flimmakers can you reference in one episode?

You think Ann Coulter isn't cackling with glee that the liberal blogosphere is in an uproar over her remarks? She is getting a huge amount of free publicity for her book. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd handed the inflammatory excerpt about 9/11 widows to Lauer before the interview and said "Be sure to hammer me on this!"

Coulter knows how to sell books. And everyone knows how to help her by magnifying her remarks. Just like there are people who go to air shows hoping to see planes crash, there are people who will buy Coulter's book for the shock value. You just gave her a boost.