I've just finished the first seven books and Queen Sophie is older than Eric (which is why she is queen and he's just a sheriff) She tells Sookie that she was born 1,100 years ago in what would become France. And, Eric was a late term Viking (viking age 783-1300 AD) So, mathematically, They would be almost identical in age if Eric was one of the very first Vikings, but I'm sure he was from the mid-to-late viking age. -This is, of course, the books and what Alan Ball does with it seems to be completely different (a different perspective from a different story-teller)

the Democrats risk becoming their own worst enemy

Too late - that happened a long time ago. The democrats have proved over and over and over again that they'll cave to any Republican or MSM corporate shill who says "boo". They've lost the reason for being and only care about getting more bucks into their coffers. There's no more party of the people: just the party of the corporate lobbyists.

As many other posters have noted: look how well ignoring rumors fared for the swiftboaters, the birthers, etc etc.

Even when Farhad was pushed to the "tech" side here, he was constantly spewing unresearched garbage and rumors himself.

It makes me ill to hear/read how Obama wants us to return to democracy, while he himself says by his deeds that, in fact, we are not going to return to democracy's founding principles. We're still going to hold people without habeas corpus, we're going to not have transparency in our government because we're going to hold back photos (ordered by a court to be released) that prove we've been torturing prisoners, we're still not going to treat all men equal by not prosecuting federal crimes committed by the previous administration, and we're still going to claim "state secrets" to avoid exposure that the king is wearing no clothes. (Just what is a state secret in a democracy? - If everything were open, we would not have had the troubles we've had, nor caused other people trouble if our government had no secrets.

Eight years was enough, words mean nothing, actions are the only thing that mean anything and so far Obama's fancy words belie his true spirit of the continuance of the destruction of our constitution and of separation of powers. I'm truly ashamed.

I read these books and loved Angels & Demons much more than the DaVinci Code because the former was fun filled with impossible situations whereas the latter seemed to be filled with too much - "This is the truth so be scared of conspiracies." I mean, the helicopter scene from the book made me burst out laughing with it's tongue in cheek "I bet you'll never read anything as implausible as this" feel. It sounds (from Stephanie's review) that this was taken as a serious film rather than the joyful suspended disbelief that the book had.

Even though I enjoy works of these two men, Tom Hanks and Ron Howard, they clearly were the wrong people to do these films. There needs to be much more fun involved. Maybe the Tom Hanks from "Big" would have worked fine, but Tom Hanks from the "painted face on a volleyball" film is so so so wrong for this part. And Ron Howard from "Splash" and "Cocoon" would have been much better than Ron Howard from "Frost/Nixon".

Thanks Stephanie for an hilarious review. I'll look forward to RENTING this movie.

Nearly 30 years after Ronald Reagan took a chainsaw to federal spending, Democrats and members of the media have internalized conservative nostrums about the dangers of deficits.

Come on! A chainsaw to federal spending? Just do a google search and it's easily verified that federal spending increased 25% in real terms during his presidency and income decreased. All he did was run up incredible deficits.

As heru-ur already pointed out, we tried prohibition once. It didn't work then, and it sure isn't working now. Why has it taken so long for the talking heads to even allow another point of view? Money, lobbyists, and the complete and utter disfunction of our two-party (what you mean there's a difference between Republicans and Democrats?) system with the extreme help of the passive press.

It's time for another revolution just like Thomas Jefferson has said - though this revolution is quite a bit late under his terms. "God forbid we should be twenty years without such a rebellion.." http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff0300.htm

Don't knock the female condom unless you have actually tried it.

1) the failures are due mainly to improper use. (see link in story)

2) they're made NOT of latex to which a lot of people are allergic, but are made of polyurethane (which warms to body temperature unlike latex which always seems cold)

3) "It looks like what you might get if a jellyfish mated with a slinky" Puh-lease! how is it different in looks to a male condom unrolled?

4) you can insert it hours before sex.

5) It feels more like natural sex than latex male condom.

Try it, and you'll never go back to the old condom.

With Citigroup's first billions of US taxpayer bailout monies given to them without strings in October 2008, they purchased 2 Costa Rican banks. How many other foreign entities did they buy with the US taxpayer's free money? Who knows?

Now, someone tell me why we shouldn't take it over and just split the company up into the many pieces that make up the group.

Pete Thelen

Costa Rica resident & US citizen