The entire Middle East, and I do mean entire, is worth neither a single dollar nor a single drop of American blood. Time to go. Let them kill each other to their hearts' content.

Seriously. What is it that makes anything these people do so interesting to anyone else?

After his pretentious Dogme 95, I didn't think he'd go further into making things unwatchable.

Guess I was wrong. That one doesn't even sound like anything I'd sit through after losing a bet.

The power of Ayn Rand's "philosophy" over poorly developed minds, that is.

Look around you. The leftovers from 2001-2009 are what living in a Rand-styled society amounts to. Massive unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, a vocal and violent latent fascist movement shaping up in some quarters, that's her "legacy".

It's going to take one hell of a repair job, especially since the vandals are continuing to do damage where they can.

Professing admiration for either her writing style or her "beliefs" ought to disqualify anyone from further credibility anywhere in the world.

And most of the "meaningless hate speech" you reference originates at your pathetic fingertips.

What has Mickey Kaus been right about so far?

It's interesting to see the rush to blame the media.

The media, such as it is, is a collection of for-profit entities, who make their money by delivering viewership to advertisers. And nonsense like all the things described in the article draws the viewers.

Ask any honest news director and he'll tell you that viewers change channels during "serious" (analysis and especially foreign) news.

The tabloid stuff? Draws 'em in like a magnet.

Until people stop rewarding drivel like this with viewership, we will not return to the days of unexpressed thoughts.

And Dennis Rodman happened well before Paris Hilton, so the parade of those who got too little attention as children clearly had an earlier start than the article seems to claim.

I wouldn't change a word.

Maybe that's why it's being proposed?

Cui bono?

And he's a "birfer" to boot.

In other news, water is reported to be wet, and a dog bit a man.

Repeat as necessary.

Advocating such a thing in a time of war (Iraq, Afghanistan) is treasonous.

Arrest the writer and the publishers.

Easily two of the very worst people to occupy the Oval Office. Worst Presidents, even worse human beings.

We will be a very long time undoing the damage they and their eager apologists have done to what once was America.

Oh, and "EconCCX" - if Reagan was not involved, what exactly did he do to stop or even ameliorate things? How exactly did he reduce deficits? We should see a downward-trending line of deficits under him, then? Care to point it out?

All that smiling son of Satan did was make some people feel good about being racist and irresponsible.

But one Guinness over a thousand Coors Light!

(full stop)

No racism whatever. That's why the witch doctor poster. That's why the constant "birfer" hysteria - and the inevitable mention of Kenya. The cartoon eyeballs on a black field? The "Obama food stamps"? "Barack the Magic Negro"?

That's all purely substantive, isn't it?

The truth is pretty damned ugly sometimes, and getting uglier with each passing day. While not every Republican out there is racist, they as a group certainly are not above taking advantage of the racism found in a significant segment of their base, and nowhere do I see any member of the Republican "leadership" condemning it, or demanding that it stop.

Nowhere.

Not even one.

Policy is for people, not the other way around. Far too often, the Dems forget that. Those who are interested in the deep details can find them. Tell people instead how this will improve their lives, as it will.

...I think he's one of the sorriest bastards to ever claim a seat in Congress.

Where's my rimshot?

...the Republican hierarchy sees them (in true Straussian fashion) as "useful idiots" who will cause trouble for the Dems on thinly-veiled cue.

No leadership Republican buys into this nonsense. Not the "birfer" pinheaddery, not the "fascist" nonsense, not the "socialism" drivel, and not the "death panel" scaremongering. They know that their poorly-educated, credulous base (was there ever a more appropriate multiple meaning to a word?) will lap this stuff up like a starving dog. And the armed loonies parading around are waiting their next dog-whistle.

It will come, of that I am certain. And the R's "leaders" will again strive to maintain plausible deniability.

Not really. There's a point, usually early on in his films, where I get bored and switch off. (Yes, I watch them, if I do at all any longer, on cable - I won't pay theatrical prices for them!)

He's made some good moments in his movies, but a good overall movie? Not to me.

"Man on dog" - just in case you'd forgotten.

This was Willard Romney's welfare program for the insurance industry.

Got that? Good - moving on:

Insurers are in the business of raising investment capital, not providing "coverage" - which they view as the cost of doing business.

The choice is between the government bureaucrats who may tell you your elective surgery can wait, and the private insurance bureaucrats who will certainly tell you that much like the vicar in the Monty Python "insurance sketch", no claim you make will be paid.

And now, the insurers and their cronies are launching and encouraging proto-terroristic mobs to disrupt public meetings. Wonderful thing for the credibility, that.

What was it in the old lawyer joke? With the facts on your side, pound it into the jury, with the law on your side, pound it into the judge, with neither, pound the table?

Peer review? Reproducible results?

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

The morons who voted in Prop 13.

Want to tell me again why borrow-and-spend is better than taxation?