I'm glad the proud owner of an MBA gets to overrule the supposedly most knowledgable lawyers in the country on what is or isn't legal by virtue of his office. Ya know, the same guy who called the Constitution "just a piece of paper."

Absolute contempt for the law. That is the defining characteristic of the Bush administration.

There are people who seriously think this woman was chosen by God to single-handedly save this once-great nation. I just read their comments over at another website.

Nothing has ever caused me to question my faith as much as the evangelical Palin-boosters. I'm going to go stand in a corner and cry.

There's generally more going on in a Tarantino film than most people appreciate, which is why they inspire so many interpretations and are so divisive. When it comes to him and PT Anderson, I just enjoy watching what they do--we can debate their "greatness" further down the road.

That being said, I am offended by the notion that Sergio Leone's westerns are overrated. Not only are they incredibly influential, they stand up as great fun and well-made 40 years or so after the fact. And to the person who suggested that Tarantino's work "sprang from nowhere" based on this list: Tarantino at one point in time refered to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as the "best movie of all time," or something to that effect.

I got into college on a scholarship based on my high school GPA and my test scores. I didn't have any advantage beyond that. I got into law school on a scholarship based on my undergrad GPA and my LSAT school. Again, no further advantages. But if you can't hack it in the real world, I'm sure it's some non-white person's fault.

Signed, a white male with three more years real world experience than you.

It is a travesty that The Shield got nothing in its final season, which was by all accounts amazing (I've only seen bits but it does look pretty amazing, plan to catch up on DVD). IMHO Breaking Bad was the best thing on TV this year. Anybody who isn't watching it is missing out. There were only seven episodes in the first season and 13 or 14 in the second, there's still time to catch up on DVD! Cranston should never have a hard time finding work again, if he ever did, but Aaron Paul does very good work on the show as well.

On the comedy front, It's Always Sunny... had an uneven season, but it's still better than most of what passes for comedy. 30 Rock seems pretty much untouchable, but I am glad that How I Met Your Mother got a nomination. Did Neil Patrick Harris get an individual nomination? Because he is just tremendous day in and day out on that show. The rest of the cast does well, too. I can't comment on the second season of Flight of the Conchords, because I haven't seen any of it.

My late grandmother told stories of her, her sisters, and her mother hiding from the Russians after the war. She was just a tween at the time, and her mother was just trying to keep the farm going while her husband was off at war (he was killed in a battle with Russians), but I'm sure they all deserved it for having been born in Germany.

Seriously, these comments are absolutely disgusting.

By your logic (Chavez is evil because he supports FARQ), the U.S. is also guilty. We supported Hussein in Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Contras in Nicaragua, and of course Pinochet in Chile. All of these people were responsible for murder at home and abroad. Pinochet went so far as to assassinate an enemy in Washington D.C., in spectacular fashion. But of course it's ok when we do it.

And I think this article highlights the fact that we don't nearly have the full story about this CIA program. Obviously there was significantly more to it than what has been claimed publicly. If I was to hazard a guess, I would say it involved (or would have involved, if indeed it was never implemented--another thing I'm incredulous about) assassination by special ops and not drones, and targeted people who would not be thought of as military targets (intellectual and/or spiritual leaders and allies of terrorists). I would also be unsurprised to hear there were operations planned or executed within the United States. Isn't that one of the things Hersh alleged?

I believe you've misstated some basic theology. Your description of (1) total depravity is close enough, although I would change it thus: apart from God, people are capable of doing good deeds, but are still overwhelmingly evil, slaves to their sinful nature, and incapable of pleasing God. The part where you go astray is (2). The evangelical concept of being "saved" (a term I really don't like at all) includes the idea that the believer is no longer a slave to sin and is thus able to overcome it. Not all the time, of course, but to some degree.

Thus, the ability to resist temptation and avoid sin does not result in anyone's salvation, but is evidence that God has intervened in the believer's life. Since the core of a "personal relationship with God" (another one of those phrases that has been turned into a sad cliche) is love ("we love him because he first loved us," as the verse goes), Christians should be especially troubled by their sins, which are personally offensive to the God they supposedly love.

This article is more proof that the Church in America has been hijacked by elites who appear unfamiliar with rather basic principles of Christianity.