Based on the reviews I've come across so far, you're the only one who's tried to judge the work on its merits, not some vague idea of what the film should have done, or how Zack Snyder should have pushed the envelope. In fact, it seems like critics are repeating "too faithful to the source" like GOP pundits with a talking point on Fox News.

A criticism from a non-reader of the comic is that it drags near the end, as the various threads are nearing their conclusion but before the final confrontation, and I think that's a fair point. I didn't think it dragged too badly, but then I've read the graphic novel more times than I can count. I think Snyder went a little overboard with the gore and even the sex, but that's a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things.

If you liked the comic, there is no question at all that it is worth the price of admission. And I say that as someone who's been disappointed by his share of comic book movies.

Let him go for it. If he's determined to run South Carolina into the ground in order to launch a 2012 presidential bid, then the onus on stopping should lie with the South Carolina legislature and, ultimately, its voters. I'd like to see just one of these no-talent assclowns pay the price for their pandering.

Cramer knocks Stewart for being just an entertainer, a comedian, but let's face it: Cramer is an entertainer too, along with everything else.

When director Jon Favreau needed a commentary on the craziness of the fictional mogul Tony Stark's decision to get out of arms manufacture in last summer's Iron Man, he did not cast an actor or actress to anchor a fake financial news show. He got Jim Cramer to do a "Mad Money" segment, treating Stark Industries as if it were real. If Cramer didn't have a "shtick" he wouldn't have gotten into a blockbuster movie.

Now, I'm not faulting Cramer for doing that bit. But I am saying it seems a bit disingenuous for him to now try to don the mantle of Serious Financial Journalist while knocking Jon Stewart for being "just a comedian." Jim Cramer, in his own way, it just as much of an entertainer, it seems to me.

I was going to post in the Joe Conason thread that Meghan McCain is the only sane voice coming out of the GOP camp right now, her father included. She's certainly more articulate than Michael Steele by far.

I don't agree with her politics, but Ms. McCain is someone whose voice I can respect.

My 82 year-old grandfather is a Kentucky-born good ol' boy Southern Baptist who lives on a steady diet of Fox News (Bill O'Reilly being a particular favorite). Mostly, we avoid politics when I get to see him; there's an unspoken mutual understanding that with them living in Ohio and me in Texas visits don't come too often.

However...on a visit home about a year or so ago I muttered a comment about Billo the Clown that my hard of hearing grandpa could actually hear (figures, right?) and the exchange was not ugly but it was heated. We are both alike in that we're stubborn when we are defending what is right. After some cool down time, though, he gave me a hug and apologized and I did the same. Life's too short.

Our civic discourse has been poisoned by people who search for and exploit issues that drive people apart. We not be able to control that, but we can control it when it comes to our family.

"A Handmaid's Tale" will be her signature movie role for me, too. The rare movie treatment that does a formidable book justice. Her chemistry with Aidan Quinn in the movie is electric, not to mention the fact that she manages to own a movie who includes not only (as you mentioned) Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall, but Quinn, Elizabeth McGovern and Victoria Tennant--not exactly lightweights themselves.

As someone who loves actors and actresses who lose themselves in a role (as Richardson does), I will miss her.

I'm not an anatomist, but I have a layman's interest in paleoanthropology, so Vasumurti's dental comparison seemed off. Having just finished reading Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey's Lucy, about the famous fossil.

This is relevant because Johanson's specialty as a paleoanthropologist is teeth and jaws, and he's done extensive anatomical studies between apes, humans, and extinct australopithecines. There are profound differences in the dental architecture between genus Australopithecus, who were largely frugivorous/herbivorous and genus Homo, who were/are omnivorous. Australopiths, esepecially the more robust species, have sagittal crests to anchor the more massive jaw muscles needed for chewing tougher foods like fruits, nuts and vegetable matter, and their molars are also correspondingly much, much larger.

Anyway, Johanson goes into far more detail on the differences between Autralopithecus, Homo, and other great ape teeth and jaws in the book.

In my case, it's Studebaker (the Hawks, Larks, and 50's-era Champions particularly), a brand that fled my hometown of South Bend, Indiana in 1964 (a good 8 years before I was even born), dying for good as a car maker in 1966. Like Saab, they had a reputation for economy, reliability, and distinctive design, and looking at what's happened to Saab (not to mention Studey spinoff Avanti) makes me realize that death might have been a better fate than being sucked up by GM or one of the other Big Three.