Gee, Hollywood couldn't make an exact replica of a generally inaccessible (to the lay public) epic poem/saga? Go figure...

Anyone who EXPECTS a film to somehow replicate such a murky and intense literary work deserves to have their head examined. Anyone who expects a film to replicate such a murky and intense literary work and then whines on ad nauseum that the result isn't sufficiently a mirror image (after admitting that similar such attempts at replication have been disastrous, no less) needs to first get a clue and THEN have their head examined. Or, better yet, go MAKE their fantasy ideal of an exact reanimation of literature to film into a reality.

Well, we know that won't happen. It's so much easier to carp and type pithy critiques feverishly into a computer than to actually do anything productive...

Comparing literature and film is like comparing painting to sculpture. You can produce fine works in any of those media and each can be (indeed, is entitled to be) it's own separate work of art. That's not to say that works in different media cannot or should not be compared, but to expect one to ape the other is absurd at best and both pointless and disingenuous at worst.

By the way, any truth to the rumor that the Epic of Gilgamesh will be the next big screen blockbuster?

it must be to live in, where one can commit any misdeed; tell any lie; twist, mangle and subvert any truth to serve one's ends and then, at the end of the day, achieve absolution with a published mea culpa that undoubtedly nets a few hundred grand in the process!

Ahh, the American Dream!

Tell me again, why aren't these people being prosecuted or impeached?

Oh yes, that old rubric of expediency...

And thus dies our Republic.

'cause I really can't remember the last time the Germans detonated a roadside bomb or the South Koreans took potshots at passing convoys...

Maybe I should watch more Fox News.

We could chalk it up to the cost of empire, were one inclined to view it that way. Like, say, Max Boot or Jonah Goldberg. You know, guys who like to fight their wars from behind their desks and thousands of miles from any actual danger.

Personally, I think anyone who hasn't had that whole Rudyard Kipling, White Man's Burden, romantic nonsense burned from their soul by the last five year's worth of history needs to have their head examined.

But that's just me.

I realize that you're just over the top giddy at the thought of a female President, but please stop with the gushingly silly paeans. Hillary's sense of entitlement is palpable to those who wish to recognize it for what it is.

Calling hubris confidence does not make it any more palatable. And the Shrub analogy is, I'm sorry, apt. The fact that two different people were raised differently doesn't mean they can't each be huge bags of overweening pride and arrogance.

As for Obama's "gaffe," thanks for the belly laugh. Ooh, he said Albright had experience and Hillary did not. Let's just see what Albright says about that... Well, we can't really because she's not around, so we'll just have to take your word for it, it was a "gaffe." From which he'll have a heckuva time recovering, no less. Uh-huh.

Jeez, and I thought Fox News Channel was biased.

Usually I have to tune in to Lou Dobbs to hear rantings as fervid (although not nearly so literate).

Just one question, though... Dalai Lama excrement, does one find that in the gardening section of Home Depot?

How do Her Imperial Majesty's numbers look in New Hampshire?

After all, it wouldn't be the first time a candidate has lost Iowa and gone on to take, first, New Hampshire and then to capture the nomination...

...shudder...

"But the Statesman's investigation, which included reviews of travel and property records and background checks on all five men, found nothing to disprove the five new accounts. The men offer telling and sometimes similar details about what happened, or the senator's travel records place him in the city where sex is alleged to have occurred, or his accusers told credible witnesses at the time of the incident."

Looks like this paper is doing the job the right way.

Yes, it's a "he said-he said" tale. But it's a tale the basic facts of which seem to have been repeated time and again for many years by multiple parties.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck....

So, what's the thrust here? That true Democrats stand around and wait for someone to "attack" them? And that anyone doing the "attacking" is perforce a Republican?

First of all, taking someone to task for their stand on issues is the life's blood of politics. That's not attacking, that's delineating your opponent's position and, in theory, inviting contrast with your own.

Second, the frontrunner-- whoever he or she may be-- will always be at the pointy end of the stick when it comes to said "attacks" and so should expect it. Artful politicians learn to parry and lunge back with questions/concerns about opposing positions, which in turn delineate their opposition's stands on issues.

This is the nature of the beast. To decry politicians for acting within the confines of the political system is either absurd or naive.

Frankly, this back and forth is child's play compared to what the Republicans have in store for whomever is the eventual nominee.