ER. Oh my God. That show is written entirely by plot generating dice. The writers roll, and the same six situations keep coming up over and over. Everyone has had romantic relationships with everyone else in every possible permutation. A helicopter fell out of the sky and crushed a doctor one time. For crying out loud! That was a few seasons ago, yet the show goes on. Please, make it stop!

Also horrible, and has been from the start: Crossing Jordan. Starting from the premise that coroners are also primary detectives on cases, to the impossible computer technology at their disposal, to the obligatory cheap thrills of cadaver fakery, it's just awful. The only thing more awful than one episode of Crossing Jordan is the episode that vomits out over the airwaves the following week. It's really time this show dies and takes it's place on the autopsy table.

Can't say that I wouldn't be nodding off either.

Can't say that I wouldn't be nodding off either.

What it must have been like in the office that day.

"Nancy, look at this! What do you make of it?"

"I'll tell you what I see - a Legal Bombshell. This is an enormous Legal Bombshell."

"Okay, umm.. I'm sorry, I'm not sure what that means."

"What's not to get? It's a Legal Bombshell."

"So that means, what, that it's a bombshell that is allowed by law?"

"No, it means the prosecutor dropped a Legal Bombshell that could have blown up this case forever."

"So the Bombshell exploded? Wouldn't that have made it a bomb? A Legal Bomb? Bombshells don't explode."

"No, it's a Legal Bombshell and that's all there is to it. You have to understand the fine points of metaphor. Fortunately, I'm so much smarter than you. And in any case, you are so fired right now. You just committed an act of career genocide."

"I what?"

I don't know if it amounts to censorship, but the MPAA can be amazingly inconsistent sometimes. Of what use are the ratings when they don't really make sense?

For instance, "Whale Rider" rated PG-13 for "brief language and momentary drug reference." I'm not sure where the language occured, but the drug reference amounts to, and I counted them on DVD, essentially 50 frames, about 2 seconds, of someone hiding a bong. If you didn't know what a bong was already, you would not have known what the hiding was about. In other words, the MPAA was protecting children from something they would already know about.

A quick search of recent PG-13 movies brings up, among others last year's "War of the Worlds," a brutally intense film featuring disintegrating humans, total destruction, mob violence, the death of hundreds in a Martian attack on a ferry, children in peril of being eaten by the Martians' organically powered war machines, a literal rain of blood of already devoured humans, and a child forced to watch as a parent is nearly devoured in front of them - Not that there's anything wrong with any of that!

The point is, the MPAA board somehow looked at these two films "through the eyes of a parent" and apparently were completely unable to see any difference between them. This is insane. Sure, no one is "required" to submit their film for rating, but lots of luck getting it released in theaters without it.

Well, I will go negative so that Lamont won't have to. Joe, you blew it. You are a joke, a loser, a blight; repugnant and disgusting.

So we're supposed to just sit back and think about you saving jobs, improving health care and keeping us safe? Why? Are you trying to say that after "Eighteen years of honest leadership" this time, THIS TIME, you are finally ready to get around to doing some of those things?

You pompous jellyfish, you delusional chimp; we all know by now that this administration and this war, and everything connected with it, from the lies to the planning to the amorality of continuing — the whole mishegas — is a giant shit sandwich served on a moldy and crusty month old bun. Why do you continue to insist that all we need to do is take bigger bites and stand behind the person who served it to us? How the fuck do you intend to "keep us safe" when you refuse to challenge — and I mean challenge in a spitting mad "fuck you, this bullshit stops here and now" way — the people whose only purpose in this life is to absorb, control and wield power for their own aggrandizement? Can it be you still detect any degree of good intentions in their stated goals and actions? What is wrong with you?

You need to go, Joe. You seriously need to drop this race, if for no other reason than that after five years of total bullshit, you still don't seem to understand that there is no middle ground, no accord, no bipartisanship to be had anymore. Seriously, man, don't you know that? How can you not know that?

Once again, Heather proves why she's one of my favorite writers on Salon. She always calls 'em like she sees 'em, and sometimes her columns are way funnier than the material of Dane Cook. I'm thinking in particular of a review from I think about a year ago, written in the manner of a Deadwood script.

The only thing I disagree with her about in this review is the part where she says that with Cook, you are always in on the joke. I've seen bits of his act twice on TV now and it is most assuredly banal and mundane. The audience was going nuts, but I have no idea why. Perhaps they are misting the air with some kind of pheremones, but in the comfort of my home I was most definitely not in on the - for lack of a better word - joke.

Ah well, his time too shall pass.