I don’t have anything to add to any subject at all, except to say that LaserBlast is perhaps the worst movie EVAR.
BREAKING:
So this morning, Rih Santorum called the President ‘elitist’ for wanting to make college available to as many people as possible. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work that way, and that ‘elitism’ would be about making college as difficult to get as possible–like republicans want to do, but I could be wrong.
Talking Points Memo brings us the following story: Flashback: In 2006, Rick Santorum Wanted To Send All Pennsylvanians To College
So Rih is a hypocrite.
In other news, water is wet, the sun rises in the east, and Ronald Reagan is still dead.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled open thread.
arguingwithsignposts
Really? worse than Waterworld? That desert movie with Hoffman and Beatty?
Amanda in the South Bay
My favourite WTF scene was when he blew up the Star Wars sign at the end.
Def one of my favourite MST3K movies.
WereBear
Laserblast was all kinds of bad, all right, but I just learned of the existence of The Human Centipede.
Soonergrunt
@arguingwithsignposts: Yup. It’s even worse than Gigli.
RSA
@Amanda in the South Bay:
It’s hard to put a movie in the “worst evar” category if it’s been good fodder for Joel/Mike and the bots.
Amanda in the South Bay
I don’t think you can top Space Mutiny though…
Omnes Omnibus
@arguingwithsignposts: Ishtar had Isabelle Adjani.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah. And look what happened to her after.
(Nothing bad I’m assuming. She just pretty much disappeared.)
Benjamin Franklin
Via Jeralyn @ Talkleft.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/6479732/Move-to-put-Dotcom-back-behind-bars
The Crown Prosecution, representing the US Government, is expected to push for Dotcom to return to jail.
Is New Zealand a sovereign Nation? Do they know it? Does the US care?
PeakVT
I think the worst b-films aren’t really comparable to the worst major releases. People who set out to make Waterworld and Gigli full intended and expected to make a good film. I doubt anyone expected Laserblast to be good. Instead, the hope was that it would be just good enough make a slim profit.
ETA: for a bad film, the Wikipedia writeup is surprisingly detailed.
Amir Khalid
@Soonergrunt:
I avoided that one after reading the reviews, of course, but also because I didn’t want to be in a theater with people mispronouncing the title as “Giggly”.
BGinCHI
Jesus Christ I hate this asshole (via TPM):
Santorum: Obama ‘A Snob’ For Wanting Everyone To Go To College
TROY, MICHIGAN — Rick Santorum is working hard in Michigan to try and cast himself as the candidate of the working class. At a speech before a tea party audience here Saturday, he made his case by accusing President Obama of trying to turn America’s youth into liberal drones by sending them to college.
The idea was pretty well received by the crowd here at a rally hosted by the Michigan branch of Americans For Prosperity.
“Not all folks are gifted the same way. Some people have incredible gifts with their hands,” Santorum began. “Some people have incredible gifts and want to work out there making things.”
Then he went after the president’s call for making college easier for Americans to attend.
President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob,” Santorum said as the crowd howled with laughter and applause. “There are good, decent men and women who work hard every day and put their skills to the test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor.”
Santorum said he knows the real reason Obama wants more Americans on college campuses.
“That’s why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image,” Santorum said to more applause. “I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.”
Soonergrunt
@Amir Khalid: LOL.
Warren Terra
It can’t be a good sign when (1) I, not being averse to watching regrettable science fiction movies, had never even heard of it; and (2) the one-sentence summary at IMDB is ungrammatical.
robertdsc-iPhone 4
Going to see Act Of Valor later today. Very enthused to see it as US Navy SEALs are a topic I’m interested in.
WereBear
@PeakVT: Laserblast had something of a reputation in the Industry itself; so a lot of people have that Bad Movie Fascination with it.
The thing that reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllly ticked me off about Waterworld (in a crowded field) was the one where the Kevin Costner character showed he had some precious dirt… by holding it up in a clenched hand and letting it blow away in the wind.
That’s some precious dirt ya got there, stranger!
Chyron HR
@BGinCHI:
That’s what she said!
Violet
I love bad movies and used to watch them regularly with a friend of mind before she moved to another city. Some favorites included: Glitter (What was Mariah thinking?), Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (way better than you might think), and From Justin to Kelly (just terrible). I think we skipped the Britney Spears classic, Crossroads .
Edit: We also saw Dude Where’s My Car? , which was ridiculous but made us laugh.
piratedan
@Amanda in the South Bay: agreed, Mike and the bots had a good time with this one and Ron Masak (the sheriff) should be in the That Guy Hall of Fame too imho…
http://www.460xvr.com/tg/not.htm
Suffern ACE
I tend to give low budget sci-fi a pass. I think independence Day is the worst sci fi adventure movie, but I guess since that movie made oodles, there must be something to it.
mapaghimagsik
Birdemic.
That is all.
BGinCHI
Worst recent movie I can’t believe we rented:
Cowboys Vs Aliens.
Amazing how they can fuck up an interesting idea that also has a great cast. Just so fucking terrible.
JGabriel
TPM via BGinCHI:
Tell me again that intellectual conservative is not an oxymoron.
.
jeffreyw
I nominate “Billy Jack”. It does have a Sheriff Cole in it, so there’s that.
elmertfudd
I saw “Laser Blast” at a drive-in on the “1st release” The blasting of the Star Wars poster is the main memory.
Benjamin Franklin
I can vouch, from personal experience: the Mils like Ron Paul.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/ron-paul-military
“Clearly there’s something about Paul that appeals to some members of the military,” says Viveca Novak of the Center for Responsive Politics, which provided Mother Jones with the most recent tally of military contributions. “Whether it’s that he speaks his mind, wants to end foreign engagements, has a libertarian’s view of the world—we can’t say.”
gf120581
“Laserblast” is pretty bad, but nowhere near the worst ever. Hell, it’s not even the worst movie MST3K ever did. Did we forget “Manos?” “Monster A-Go-Go?” “Hobgoblins?” “Space Mutiny?” The Coleman Francis trilogy?
The thing I remember best about the MST3K treatment of “Laserblast” was during the end credits of the flick, when Mike and the Bots note Leonard Maltin gave it 3 stars (WTF, Maltin?!) and list a bunch of much more highly regarded flicks that Maltin gave a lower rating to. (Like “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.) Priceless. It wasn’t the last time they mocked Maltin either; Tom Servo later had Mike dress up as Maltin so he could yell at him for giving the Roger Corman disaster “The Undead” 3 stars. And yet Maltin lated guest-starred on the series. Good sport.
AkaDad
The worst major release I’ve ever seen is Howard the Duck.
Villago Delenda Est
@BGinCHI:
You mean, “Ronald Reagan on a Ritz with summer sausage and cheddar, I hate this guy.”
Let’s hear it for Battlefield Earth!
I used to say that Plan 9 From Outer Space was the worst movie ever, but it’s too entertaining to be that.
EconWatcher
For netflix users looking for something good, check out the series “Lilyhammer.”. Steven Van Zandt plays a mobster who goes into witness protection and moves to Norway. Great satire on both Euro and American societies. Mrs. EconWatcher and I love it. Amazingly, it’s a “made for netflix” production (the first ever).
Firebert
Since Santorum’s gift seems to be slinging bullshit, perhaps he should be shoveling feedlots rather than toying with public policy.
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Yeah, she just disappeared back to France and won three more best-actress Césars to go with the two she already had.
Villago Delenda Est
@Benjamin Franklin:
I think it’s the “I wouldn’t send the troops into idiotic wars” aspect of Paul’s platform.
Also, Paul is the only GOP nominee to ever have deigned to actually serve (although I do believe he was drafted…).
cmorenc
In the truly terrible movies department:
1) A David Bowie sci-fi movie from back in 1976: “The Man Who Fell to Earth”. I went to this movie with a friend who had gone to college with someone who was a senior assistant on the production crew for the movie, and we entered the theater favorably predisposed toward liking it. As we exited the theater, I dreaded the walk from the theater to the car, when I knew discussion of the movie would come up…because I was struggling for a polite way to dress up how embarrassingly terrible this movie was in every way. Fortunately, first thing out of my friend’s mouth was: “that should be called “The Movie that Fell to Earth, I want both my money AND my time back for sitting through that awful POS.”
2) “Blue Velvet”. I know, I know, lots of folks and critics raved about this David Lynch epic, and I kind of liked some of Lynch’s other work and I have a taste for off-beat movies, but…wow, the acting was embarrassingly terrible and amateurish, and the story was incoherent, boring, and downright stupid. Dennis Hopper hyperventilating like a maniac is NOT the same thing as good acting at all. Another 2+ hours and ticket money I would really like to have had back.
WereBear
@Villago Delenda Est: Ronald Reagan with a hat made of spray cheese: Battlefield Earth is the worst movie evah!
Jay S
How about Slither. Nathan Fillion did some really off the wall stuff between Firefly and Castle. I stumbled over Slither one late night on cable and assumed it had to be an early part, but it was out in 2006, a year after Serenity.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
So. You didn’t see the latest Nicolas Cage Ghost Rider movie in 3-D then?
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: Disappeared from Hollywood, perhaps.
Or what Steep said.
elmertfudd
@elmertfudd:
Actually, the animation was pretty good from what I recall.
Mnemosyne
Space Mutiny is pretty hilarious done the MST3K way. “She’s presenting like a mandrill!”
Ishtar does have its defenders — Nathan Rabin has a good piece about it in My Year of Flops that almost made me want to see it, especially since I’ve liked some of Elaine May’s other movies (like A New Leaf).
mapaghimagsik
Christ, your moderation sucks.
Look up Birdemic on IMDB. Then you’ll know suck
piratedan
@gf120581: have to say, that some of my favorite mst3k efforts just came out on the latest box set, included Time of the Apes, a Sandy Frank classic and Mighty Jack, which could have been Woody Allen’s alternative to when he made What’s Up Tiger Lily? packed in the foursome.
Violet
@Firebert:
The thing is, he’s right about that. Some people just aren’t great students, don’t like sitting in classrooms and reading books and writing and so forth. And they might be very good at working with their hands, sports, music, growing the food we eat, creating things we haven’t even thought of, etc. He’s not wrong about that part. People have different skills and excel in different ways. And heck, if everyone was, say, an English major, we’d be hard pressed to know what to do if we needed a bridge. We need people with different skills and talents.
But the way he says it…ugh. And then calling a college education “liberal indoctrination” and calling the President, who wants people to go to college, a snob. WTF? The guy is crazy. The dangerous kind of crazy.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@BGinCHI:
Maybe you and your asshole buddies shouldn’t have outsourced all the jobs where people actually make things with their hands.
Fuckwit.
RossInDetroit
Can’t possibly be worse than The Mod Squad. We saw it on opening night and walked back around the theater in the rain to warn off people standing in line to get in.
Omnes Omnibus
On the other hand, TCM has awesome movies all day today. Maltese Falcon, followed by Bullitt, followed by East of Eden, followed by Grapes of Wrath. Damn.
BGinCHI
From Santorum’s wiki page:
I guess you can be against college, even if you went to PSU, then got an MBA, then went to law school (all at public institutions), and STILL take money off students to make a living.
Asshole.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
BTW, your blog is down — the front page is okay, but if I click the link to go to the blog, I get a 500 internal server error.
Benjamin Franklin
@Villago Delenda Est:
The ‘idiotic wars’ thing seems the most plausible. They are weary of their
role as literal, and political fodder for the Atavists.
RossInDetroit
Battlefield Earth wasn’t just a film that was bad overall. It left you thinking every minute while you watched it “Oh my God I can’t believe how awful this is”. It was comprehensively bad.
Mnemosyne
@Benjamin Franklin:
Have you ever heard of an extradition hearing? Do you know how one works?
Read to the bottom of the article next time.
Benjamin Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
I hate when good movies get interrupted by commercial breaks.
It’s the Marxist in me.
PurpleGirl
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think most sci-fi fans start with Plan 9 being the worst movie ever, then they see it a couple times and come to appreciate that although it is pretty chessy in so many ways, it does make them laugh and make them laugh in a good way. And you can have drinking contests while watching; for example, each time you see the pie plate space ship or each time Bella Lugosi walks through a scene, each time they use the same piece of film.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Villago Delenda Est:
I hope they like President Paul cutting their VA benefits.
There’s a reason I look back on the Army as being full of some really odious people, not the best people.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: Rih also fails to understand that liberal ideal about education – big shock, right? It is not that every must or should go to college, but that anyone who wants to go should be able to do so – that education should be affordable and available for all, not just for a privileged few. The man is an ass.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: Thanks, I know, been reported to my hosting company. Ack!
It’s a great day to discuss bad movies: we’re sorta snowed in, I have leftover cilantro fries from my favorite restaurant, marinating some Montreal chicken, and we just got Mr WereBear’s “sorry you’re having trouble kicking that pneumonia” gift, Movies for the Man Cave.
Raven
In a memorandum, an Army ombudsman wrote that a doctor from the base hospital, Madigan Army Medical Center, said that one diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder can cost $1.5 million in benefits over a soldier’s lifetime. The doctor also counseled his colleagues to be good stewards of taxpayer money by not “rubber-stamping” such diagnoses.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benjamin Franklin: TCM is commercial free.
Raven
The Titanic is the worst fucking movie evah!
Benjamin Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s why I watch it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: It is on my list. I hate that film.
Violet
I take it no one’s seen Quiet Cool, a mid-80’s action classic. It shows up on cable stations every so often. Just terrible. Not quite in the so-bad-it’s-good way overall, but there are parts that definitely fit the bill. Cop who rides a motorcycle. Ex-girlfriend who needs his help. Marijuana growers causing mayhem in the Northwest. Good stuff.
Soonergrunt
@Violet: Nothing the President said about making college more affordable could, by any sane person, be construed as attacking artisans or skilled laborers. The fact of the matter is that our economy needs more people with higher education than people without. That’s just the way it is when even the machinists have to have Computer and CAD training.
@Amanda in the South Bay: That’s what I tell anybody who thinks they like him. “So, you want your disability and education benefits deleted? Cause he doesn’t believe in them. Say, why don’t you just quit your job here at VA, cause he would delete this agency.”
Benjamin Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
A bit defensive, aren’t we?
YellowJournalism
Have you people never seen a Pauly Shore movie? Bio-Dome, anyone? It has the craptastic Stephen “Born Again in Hannity’s Image” Baldwin, who also starred in the horrific movie Threesome.
(Okay, I like Encino Man and Son-in-law, but those are in spite of him.)
Yutsano
@Raven: Madigan has had issues with poor quality and mismanagement for a really long time. The fact that this came out of there is unsurprising. Disheartening, but unsurprising.
Raven
@Yutsano: Tip of the iceberg me thinks. That was probably a bad passage to pull out, the article is about the military using the “Personality Disorder” diagnoses to avoid PTSD judgements.
rob!
Laserblast co-starred the late, great Rainbeaux Smith, one of my very early childhood crushes.
Steeplejack
@Benjamin Franklin:
That’s great for you, then, because TCM runs its movies with no interruptions at all.
Raven
Fear and Loathing was pretty bad.
bemused
@BGinCHI:
Hmm, does this mean that his howling with laughter audience consists of parents who don’t have kids attending or wanting to attend college? If some of them have kids in college or kids wanting to go to college, are the parents and kids snobs?
maus
The now-Rifftraxed Laser Mission (starring Brandon Lee!) is much worse, surely.
BGinCHI
Anyone know where Santorum’s kids go, or have gone, to college?
Google isn’t helping….
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I’ve got the flu myself, though I do feel a little better than I did yesterday (sleeping most of the day helped a lot, especially with Nurse Charlotte keeping an eye on me). I have this Gloria Swanson movie to watch from Netflix, so I may do that if I feel up to it.
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: East of Eden is such a shadow of the book.
WereBear
That’s an excellent way of summing up; lots of bad, big budget movies have some crucial thing going wrong, surrounded by pretty good things. The Phantom Menace has some stellar actors, so it’s pretty much lousy Directing that made them so wooden. Catwoman might have one of the worst scripts ever penned by 28 people, despite an Oscar Winner in Halle Berry, and numlicious bit of man candy in Benjamin Bratt, who can actually act, too.
But Battlefield Earth sucked on every possible level it was possible to suck. Amazing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: Yeah, I am planning on just catching Bullitt and Grapes today. I watched the Maltese Falcon recently and East of Eden is not my fav.
Violet
@Soonergrunt:
I wasn’t trying to imply that the President did say anything against skilled artisans or laborers or anyone else. I was pointing out that Rih wasn’t wrong about a segment of what he says. And that’s the dangerous part of what he says. It sounds eminently reasonable in some ways. “Hey, we’re all different and have different skills.” Nothing wrong with that. And then veers into crazyland with “liberal indoctrination” and so forth. But the reasonable-sounding part is what sucks people in. Or can, anyway, if they’re not paying attention.
Soonergrunt
@Raven: They need to look into Carson Army Hospital at Fort Carson, CO. then as well. The thing about Madigan is that it was apparently policy to do this, that came from the department chief.
@BGinCHI: I don’t think any of his kids are old enough to go to college yet. I could be wrong, though.
Joel
I think “worst movie” has to be something that aspired for better. For example, the Blind Side qualifies.
For what it’s worth, John posted a Plinkett review some time ago, and he’s done several since. I think Plinkett’s review of Avatar is incredible, spot on.
Politically Lost
This has to be the most depressing thing I’ve read in awhile. There is no persuading educated wingnuts. Education makes them more likely to deny science… Ugh
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/24/the_ugly_delusions_of_the_educated_conservative/singleton/?mobile.html
Mnemosyne
@Benjamin Franklin:
Dude, I’m not the one trying to imply there’s something shady about two countries that have an extradition treaty with each other holding an extradition hearing to try and get an accused criminal extradited from one country to the other. What was New Zealand supposed to do, violate their treaty with the US and refuse to even hold hearings on extraditing the guy?
Frankly, it makes you and TalkLeft look like you have no fucking idea how the law works, and it’s embarrassing.
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: A Leo McCarey! Nice choice. I have seen the remake, with Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman. Good luck!
Amir Khalid
@Suffern ACE:
The strangest thing about Independence Day was the way Jeff Goldblum managed to hack the alien invaders’ system: who would have suspected they were Mac users?
Suffern ACE
@BGinCHI:
From a group of people who cannot gather together without invoking Ronaldus Maximus, their fear of the pagan cult of Obama seems glass houses- meet stones clueless.
RSA
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Total classic.
Villago Delenda Est
@PurpleGirl:
“Earthlings are stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”
It’s difficult not to like a movie that speaks such truths.
Violet
@Suffern ACE:
The modern Republican really is nothing but projection. Whatever they’re screaming about, that’s what they are. They pretty much hate themselves.
ThresherK
@WereBear: My video is down, but I hate to be the one to tell you* there is a sequel.
*(If I’m reading your link correctly.)
Benjamin Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
Well then, you should ask yourself why they needed SOPA, when it is merely a redundancy on top of the AUMF, and their extradition treaties.
Maybe because they step on diplomatic toes. I think Megaupload was a case in point.
Yutsano
This is not bad at all, just massive old school. And even here you can see the bases for all of modern animation.
AliceBlue
In all this discussion of “good” bad movies, I can’t believe no one has mentioned Showgirls.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Film critic Danny Peary makes a pretty good case that Ed Wood was actually trying to criticize American culture with his films, but lacked the talent to do it well or coherently. Notice how the human’s response to the alien’s accusation that humans think violence solves everything is to punch him.
Chris
@Violet:
“We need to realize that not everyone can go to college” is a popular line among Republicans.
Of course, the reason so many people are going to college isn’t because President Obama’s telling them to, it’s because it’s increasingly seen as the only way you can earn a decent living. Fifty years ago, unions and welfare state being what they were, you could make a perfectly good living with a working class job: it’s a lot harder these days.
Villago Delenda Est
@Raven:
This is standard DoD policy to get those broken soldiers off the books (and DoD’s budget).
The institution has its priorities, which are basically to lavish swag on defense contractors before bothering to take care of the troops.
Chris
@Raven:
Worse than Gone With The Wind?
Steeplejack
@Yutsano:
Cool film. Also great links to others on that page.
redshirt
@Suffern ACE: Independence Day is a GREAT movie and I will defend it vigorously. Every character is well developed (if a caricature) with complete storylines – beginnings, middles, and end. Yes, it’s not a complex movie by any stretch – basically just a retelling of War of the Worlds – but it’s so well done, so thoroughly perfect for its genre, I am always agog when someone declares it terrible.
Tell me why it’s terrible.
Hacking the alien ship? Sure, unrealistic, but it’s also a movie with alien ships. Hence, fantasy. In fantasy, you must let go certain preconditions in order to enjoy the story.
And the story is great. The Goldblum character is set up all along as a super genius. He’s the only one who figures out how to counter-attack the aliens and is in many ways the main hero of the movie (and there are many heroes – pick a main character).
I simply adore the movie – 9.2 out of a 10.
I’m a huge nerd though too, so there’s that, also.
WereBear
@ThresherK: Saint Ronald with a flat tire next to a mad scientist’s house!
Thanks for letting me know NOT to go there. Bad movie sequels are rare, though; nice sighting!
Mnemosyne
@Benjamin Franklin:
You mean the same SOPA that Obama threatened to veto, which was shortly followed by this arrest that was done under the existing law and shows that SOPA is unnecessary? That SOPA?
But, yes, I realize that you are incapable of understanding that Obama was actually on your side with SOPA and you have to insist that, no, he was totally in favor of it! After all, what does it do to your self-image to have Obama agreeing with you?
Violet
@Chris:
There’s a difference between not everyone can go and not everyone wants to go to college. The goal should be that everyone who wants to go can go and it’s affordable. That is far from the case at the moment.
Amir Khalid
@EconWatcher:
Steven Van Zandt has said that Netflix wants a second season; but, since he won’t be available for filming until the E Street Band comes off the road, Season 2 wouldn’t go out until 2014. That must mean Bruce & Co are touring for a good part of 2013 as well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benjamin Franklin: What does AUMF have to do with a standard criminal extradition hearing?
Violet
From Soonergrunt @ top:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha! I love this stuff. Poor Rih. The internet is the bane of his existence.
Raven
@Chris: Oh hell yes! Try swimming around in north Atlantic seawater for about a half-an-hour, sheesh.
Soonergrunt
@Raven: I must respectfully disagree. while the character of Rose is one of the most morally and emotionally bankrupt characters in modern cinema, Titanic had Kate Winslet topless. LazerBlast did not have Kate Winslet topless. I would’ve remembered that.
Linda Featheringill
Santorum:
Santorum is talking about a rigid class system. You will do what your Papa did, no more and no less. Obama is talking about social mobility.
Personally, I support the idea of continuing education because it can make even a very modest life more interesting. You just see more when you look at the world around you. And interesting is good.
That doesn’t have to be in the setting of a formal college lecture class, of course.
The Prez wasn’t pushing the idea of making everyone go to college. He was promoting the idea of making college a viable option for more people, giving people more choices.
Republicans don’t like choices?
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
I am proud to say that I have two film degrees and yet I have never seen Gone With the Wind.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt: You make a compelling point.
Cassidy
@Soonergrunt: @Raven: That has been going on for years, as far back as after the invasions.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Geez, I skimmed right over that part. Hopefully he will explain how the AUMF applies to internet piracy.
PurpleGirl
@AliceBlue: I rented that on tape years ago because I liked Kyle MacLachlan.
ETA: I often forget that I’ve seen it. I had to go to IMDB to refresh my memory.
Benjamin Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
There is nothing standard about this entire business.
@Mnemosyne:
Don’t make me more cynical. State and DOJ want to stop the horse before it escapes the barn (SOPA) so that arm-twisting of Sovereign Nations is not necessary.
bemused
@Politically Lost:
There is no persuading wingnuts, educated or not. Their brains are wired to compartmentalize so efficiently, they lock the doors and throw away the keys.
Violet
@Linda Featheringill:
Not unless:
1. They choose for you
or
2. It involves them and their lives.
Otherwise, your choice is the one God gave you. In the Bible.
Benjamin Franklin
AUMF is the baseline for the license to kill. Nothing else is necessary.
Soonergrunt
@Benjamin Franklin: Well, if they’d killed the guy, your claim might have some basis then. As it is, it looks like a garden variety extradition hearing, such as goes on in courtrooms all over the world, including here.
Yutsano
@Benjamin Franklin: Your shit, she has been lost. Extradition happens all over the world and is meant to keep countries from turning into havens for criminals. The fact he was breaking New Zealand copyright escapes you too no?
Soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: Ahh, but have you seen LaserBlast? Cause otherwise, I’m not sure your “Film Degrees” are worth the paper upon which they are printed.*
*Hyper formal grammar in recognition of your august educational achievements. Also the word ‘august’ as an adjective.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benjamin Franklin: Huh? It is a standard extradition procedure. You may argue that the nature of the crimes charged are unusual or are things that should not be crimes, but the procedural steps being taken are standard.
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
Don’t know, so in the Republican tradition I assert the entire home-schooled Litter del Santorum is attending Santorum Yew(tm) a for-profit, pro-gawd and freemarketz edifice of higher learning located in Kentucky, midway between the Creation Museum and Rand Paul’s self-certificated eyegouging practice.
On Zombie Reagan’s pate-like corpse I swear this to be teh truf.
arguingwithsignposts
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m just going to throw out an “Obama is worse than Bush! He sold us out” and call it done.
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan:
I was hungry. Not so much anymore.
Mnemosyne
@Benjamin Franklin:
Huh? State and DOJ don’t give a shit about SOPA. SOPA was driven by the big entertainment companies, who don’t want to have to change their business model to adapt to new technologies.
When something SOPA-like comes down the pipe again, unfortunately my House member will probably vote for it. Not because of pressure from the State Dept. and DOJ, but because his constituents include Universal, Warner Bros. and Disney, and they donate a hell of a lot more money to his campaign than State and DOJ.
ETA: Disney has its own freakin’ PAC, so don’t tell me that SOPA was driven by DOJ and the State Dept. Yeesh.
Linda Featheringill
Franklin Graham [yes, that one] is now declaring Obama supporters less than Christian.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/25/1068180/-Franklin-Graham-questions-Christian-commitment-of-believers-who-vote-for-Obama?via=siderec
The logical extension of Franklin’s philosophy, of course, is that you’ll go to hell if you support Obama.
When he was on Morning Joe, he was asked how much time he spent judging other people and he replied that was his job. Maybe he believes that. I don’t know what happened to “Judge not lest ye be judged.” And even if we do judge each other [we do], we cannot see into the inner workings of another person’s thinking, feeling, believing, etc. You’d have to be omniscient to do that.
It’s beginning to look like Frankie Boy really thinks he has been given dispensation to judge the world. Hmmmmm.
Edited for clarity and for spelling.
arguingwithsignposts
btw, the entire Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, extended edition in swedish with subtitles, is on Netflix streaming atm. It’s no LaserBlast, to be sure.
Chris
@redshirt:
They could’ve satisfied that “plot hole” easily by just saying that a lot of modern technology was reverse-engineered from alien technology they got off the ship at Area 51 (they did have it for fifty years). Hence the compatibility between the laptop and the mothership.
Sure, it’d still be contrived, but this is sci-fi, the genre of TNG’s technobabble-of-the-week plot devices.
KG
Word is that John Carter might surpass them all.
Mnemosyne
@Soonergrunt:
I have to admit, I’m not sure I’ve seen LaserBlast. It doesn’t sound familiar, but I’ve watched so many MST3K episodes that I may have forgotten it.
gnomedad
@bemused:
Well said. A definitive metaphor, I’d say.
Shazza
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Check out the fun this podcast had with ‘Ghost Rider: Vengeance’-
http://nerdylittlesecret.com/main/the-super-jawncast-39-silica-gel/
Chris
@Linda Featheringill:
Unless, of course, the people being judged are Republicans, and the things you can judge them on include things like starting wars, paying people less than their due, using appeals to God to justify policies God never said anything about (cough abortion cough cough). They, for some reason or another, aren’t supposed to be judged. Can’t imagine why, it’s almost like he’s a partisan hack instead of a voice of morality.
gnomedad
Does Star Trek V: The Final Frontier suck on an absolute scale or just a Trek scale?
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: ‘Tis awesome in its mega-awfulness; and a fun MSTK episode too; though I’m easy to please there!
Be well.
RossInDetroit
Count me among those who don’t count Gone With the Wind among their personal favorites. It’s not horrible, but there are far better schlocky, overwrought melodramas.
Benjamin Franklin
That’s the extent of your deductive reasoning, absent salient facts to support?
Your opinion, carries no weight behind your assertion. Bureaucrats don’t like
messes, especially international messes. That this is a standard hearing is just laughable. Yes SOPA is being driven by the Entertainment industry, and they pay a lot of money to get politicians to back this
[email protected]Soonergrunt:
Don’t think you are trying to be glib. Does AUMF always result in a ‘kill’?
Is that your only defense of the umbrella of AUMF covering a multitude of sins, making SOPA a redundancy?
Soonergrunt
@gnomedad: It’s pretty high up there on either scale. Of course, it’s an odd-numbered Trek movie, so there you go.
WereBear
@gnomedad: I would say it sucks on an absolute scale, because if you are a fan, we are easy to please at that point; some Bones-Spock badinage, some Shatner emoting, and we’re good to go.
Amir Khalid
I just don’t get what Holy Shit Santorum is thinking. So he says Obama is a snob for wanting all kids to go to college. If working-class parents in America are anything like working-class parents here, it is their fondest
wishambition to see their children graduate from college, to better prospects in work and life than they themselves had. It would mean that they succeeded in giving their kids the right start. Does he believe that these parents are snobs like Obama? If so, he is out of touch with people to an extent I wouldn’t have thought possible.lol
@Amir Khalid:
IIRC, there’s a deleted scene that explains that our computer hardware and software is based on the tech from the crashed alien ship.
Violet
@BGinCHI:
His oldest daughter Elizabeth goes to the University of Dallas, which is a Catholic university. I think she’s taking time off to help with the campaign. Not sure if the rest of the kids are old enough to be in college or not.
gnomedad
@Soonergrunt:
I’m aware of that meme, but STV is in a class by itself. I can’t recall squirming through the entirety of another Trek flick.
Soonergrunt
@Benjamin Franklin: No. I’m trying ‘glibly’ say that I’m not buying your overwrought melodrama. The guy is alleged to have violated both US and New Zealand law. the US is attempting to extradite him. This kind of thing happened long before the AUMF, it happened quite frequently after the AUMF and had nothing to do with it, as is the case here, and will continue to happen long after the AUMF is revoked or expires.
It seems, frankly, like you are looking for something to be outraged about.
handsmile
A very modest defense of Battlefield Earth. While an abomination in virtually all categories by which any movie is evaluated, its production and art design was not without creativity and imagination. In that regard, I find it similar to another colossal, nay, galactic cinematic failure, Dune, a film that its director, David Lynch, refuses to speak about.
On the issue of US extradition, here’s an uncommon case:
Christopher Tappin, a 65-year old British citizen and retired businessman, was extradited to Texas yesterday to face trial on charges of conspiring to sell components for Iranian surface-to-air missiles. The case has provoked debate and scrutiny over US-UK extradition treaties. Tappin himself who claims to have been entrapped by US agents, fulminates “I have no rights. If I was a terrorist, I would not be going to America.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/feb/24/christopher-tappin-police-extradition-us
And finally, shorter Santorum: Arbeit macht frei.
Rick Taylor
He’s getting harder and harder to parody.
Obama wants all kids to get plenty of nutritious food, with school lunches and food stamps and such. What a snob! Not all of us want to eat arugula with brown mustard. Obama just wants to make folk dependent on him.
piratedan
well this is just me I suppose, but I never understood all the fuss about Broadcast News but I have to agree that there’s bad (Star Trek V) and then there’s OMFG, what have you done? (The Andromeda Strain remake)
FlipYrWhig
Rick Santorum does realize that there are universities at which you can learn practical, applicable skills like how to grow better crops, how to refine ores, and how to derive energy from fuel sources, yes? My great-grandfather got a PhD in agriculture so that he could modernize his farm in Arkansas. Was that kind of education elitist, or liberal indoctrination? Santorum is such a bonehead.
Corner Stone
How can it be a “standard extradition hearing” when:
?
This is a bond/bail hearing.
Amir Khalid
@handsmile:
An even more modest defense of Battlefield Earth: It was brought to you by pious Scientologists.
Soonergrunt
@Amir Khalid: Hell, college graduates want their children to do better than them. I think that’s mostly a parent thing, regardless of culture.
Unless one is a Conservative, that is.
Benjamin Franklin
@Soonergrunt:
Yeah, well; ‘worst movies’ seems outrageous enough.
BGinCHI
Just checking back in to say that Rick Santorum is a hypocrite and an asshole.
Thanks Soonergrunt for the update up top.
Gosh, anyone think Independents will cotton to his “keep your children out of college” idea?
I hope this asshat wins MI.
FlipYrWhig
@Amir Khalid: My wife’s best friend growing up, in rural New England, was repeatedly warned by her parents that college was hoity-toity, a waste of time, and full of immoral influences. And they were hard-drinking, foul-mouthed people, not Church Lady types. They were doing everything possible to stop their daughter from leaving them behind. That’s the audience for remarks like Santorum’s.
Soonergrunt
@gnomedad: Not even Star Trek Insurrection?
ThresherK
@WereBear: Don’t thank me, thank Roger Ebert, taking one for the team again.
On the descending ladder, there’s “so bad it’s good”, “not even a good ‘bad’ movie”, and then Human Centipede and the sequel. I don’t think it even achieves the status of “rising below vulgarity”.
(h/t Mel Brooks, who quipped that to a moviegoer after she complained about the “vulgarity” of 1967’s The Producers. How times have changed.)
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: The real lesson here is religious nuts should not make movies. Leave it to us godless heathens. For the sake of the children of course.
WereBear
Too true. Small town disease.
RossInDetroit
@BGinCHI:
Oh, we’re working on that…
PurpleGirl
@Soonergrunt: If the parents are already sufficiently high-up in the wing-nut welfare hierarchy or Village culture (for example Megan Mcardle or Mika Brezinski, Bill Kristol, etc.), a sinecure will always be found for the child.
ETA: A place in a college, Ivy League or not, will also be found. A tradition of Legacy must be continued.
Soonergrunt
@PurpleGirl: This is true. Of course, for those types, the forms must be observed. Bill Kristol, Mika Brezinski, Luke Russert, and yes, even Mr. and Mrs. McArdle have college degrees.
Roger Moore
@Linda Featheringill:
I think he’s among the large number of “Christians” who think red lettering means that part of the Bible is optional.
BGinCHI
@RossInDetroit: GOTV! Ratfuck edition.
Violet
@RossInDetroit: Is there any movement by Dems to crossover and vote for Santorum? I know Markos’s suggested ‘Operation Hilarity’ raised quite a ruckus at GOS. Not sure how it’s working in the real world.
@FlipYrWhig:
Yep. They feel they’re being left behind by the rest of the culture. They don’t want their kids to leave them too.
different-church-lady
The dog whistle salad just never stops with these guys. “Blah blah blah ELITIST something something MAKES AMERICA LESS SAFE rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb TAX AND SPEND custard custard…”
Chris
@lol:
… oh.
I didn’t know that when I wrote what I just did. Great minds think alike, apparently.
gnomedad
@Soonergrunt:
Good point. STV feels more like a deliberate act of sabotage by Shatner.
BGinCHI
So let’s summarize.
Santorum’s parents (his father is from Italy) were a psychologist and a nurse who worked for the VA (from wiki). He was born and raised on government salaries and government benefits. He got all of his advanced degrees from public higher ed. He’s been a politician, getting paid and taking benefits from taxpayers for a large part of his life.
Yep. Hypocrite and asshole.
marv
This is what the internet is for: to expose my most deeply-held beliefs as false, but I have known for the last 15 years that The Snows of Kilimanjaro is the worst film ever made. It is based on the excellent Hemingway short story and stars Gregory Peck and the immortal Susan Hayward (well, she’s dead now but probably only because she appeared in this film) and if any TCM watchers or other folks here have seen it and think it’s good, it will rock my world, but I suppose in a good way.
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
This. Shorter Frothy:
rikyrah
I said this last night and I mean it.
you go ahead, little Ricky, and feed that mess to the working-class White rubes that listen to you?
me, I’ll be working to get as many Black kids into higher ed as possible.
we KNOW the only ladder for advancement, if you aren’t born rich, don’t know how to dribble a ball and have no musical talent.
but, you keep on feeding that to those rubes who take you seriously,.
Chris
@rikyrah:
It’s weirdly sick enough that they’re torpedoing their own chances for success, but it’s not enough, they have to torpedo their kids’ too.
To paraphrase Golda Meir, we’ll be able to have nice things in this country again when conservative voters love their children more than they despise liberals and all the nasty unwhite constituencies they represent.
DMcK
My good/bad movie barometer is pretty simple: is it boring, or interesting? LaserBlast did a good job of capturing the deadening ennui of being a teenager in the late 70’s, and it had some well-done low budget special effects (by Dave Allen, who also worked on the totally awesome Q: The Winged Serpent). It’s an interesting movie! Whereas Gladiator was an ass-numbingly dull, cliche-ridden, soulless heap of crap. And don’t get me started on Tarantino’s puerile wankery.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Did anyone say “standard extradition hearing?”
Amir Khalid
@Yutsano:
I thought of The Passion Of The Christ, another movie made by a religious nut: pornographic levels of violence, presented in all sincerity by Mel Gibson as an act of devotion. I’m aware that many Christians saw it, and still see it, as an intensely spiritual film. I’m also aware that it’s partly based on a specific Passion play, from a genre often criticized for antisemitism. But what stays with me is the physical violence continually inflicted on Jesus. I saw it (in a land that practises censorship, bootleg DVD is the Malaysian cinephile’s friend) and said to myself, “Crikey, this guy is out to lunch.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: You used the word “crikey?”
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
@FlipYrWhig:
those kind of daughters make college fun.
WereBear
HALP! A BJ shoutout to IT folks…. my wordpress blog is throwing a 500 internal server error… I’d get in to shut down some plugins but I can’t get into the admin, either!!! I don’t see a spike in traffic, but I have been climbing of late… any ideas?
The shell won’t take my password, so I can’t even see what it going on. Did a robots.txt thing… stymied!
Benjamin Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Omnes Omnibus
@Benjamin Franklin: Procedure =/= hearing.
Frankensteinbeck
@Benjamin Franklin:
Man, don’t double down. If Mem is mad, it’s because gut reactions to stories out of context that create false narratives is the biggest problem on the liberal side of the aisle. It’s a story about an extradition situation, in another country where who knows what the actual trial laws are. None of this suggests overreach. I’m guessing by the mention of SOPA that you don’t like this guy being prosecuted, but there’s still no hint in this story that it’s anything but the standard application of existing laws.
Soonergrunt
@WereBear: No clue. Sorry. If the server were throwing OS errors or warning lights I could help you, but the only thing I know about FYWP is that I won’t use it if I ever start my own blog.
PeakVT
@Soonergrunt: Insurrection would have been acceptable as an episode of ST:NG. As a major film, it was just deadly dull.
Benjamin Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
uh-huh……
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Now that I think about it, maybe not “crikey”, but some other word that meant more less the same thing in context.
RossInDetroit
@Violet:
Well, the Republicans are afraid we’ll meddle and tip the results to Frothy to deny Mitt Inevitable another win.
The Detroit News’ resident grumpy crank’s using his column to complain about it.
WereBear
@Soonergrunt: Thanks, though! Got a help call into my host people. Trying to figure out if I should spring for the increased memory before I do.
Southern Beale
The Wilson County school board (outside of Nashville, one of our “ring counties”) is standing in the way of a high school gay/lesbian support group. Students want it, teachers will sponsor it but Nooooo … because, as a school board member says, “those people” are not “normal” like “regular, average Joe” students.
This is what happens when stupid people run for school board and win.
I think we need more progressives/liberals running for office at EVERY level: school board, city council, dog catcher, you name it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Benjamin Franklin: The extradition hearing is but a part of the whole extradition process. There are other things that happen, both before and after the hearing. If you can point to some way in which this procedure differs materially from other extraditions, I would be interested in seeing it. Again, I am speaking of the procedural aspects of the case not the substantive legal aspects.
Soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: @Amir Khalid: I used the word ‘crikey’ once. I think I was about 14 or so and had just watched an episode of Danger Mouse. But not since.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soonergrunt: God, was Danger Mouse a great show or what?
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: Fun fact: most foreign teachers of English in Turkey are from Australia. So they tend to pick up the more interesting bits by osmosis. I just charted the phrasing up to geographical proximity. :)
@Omnes Omnibus: Penfold = greatest. assistant. ever.
Benjamin Franklin
@Frankensteinbeck:
My aim is to start the discussion. Let the chips fall where they may.
The thrust of many of my comments follows the heuristic path of New Journalism, which postulates that Faction is more true than non-fiction.
It is the blend of instinct with available facts. Mea Culpa. I smell a rat; ergo the visible ‘facts’ take a more minor role than is tolerated here.
Amir Khalid
@Yutsano:
But, but … Strine isn’t real English!
OzoneR
So what you’re saying is he’s the perfect candidate for America.
Soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: It was!
Mnemosyne
@Benjamin Franklin:
You realize that you did a 180 between your first sentence and your last one, right? How did you get from “there are no salient facts to support the idea that the entertainment industry was behind SOPA” to “Yes SOPA is being driven by the entertainment industry”?
This is why I’m not a libertarian — being one requires you to twist yourself into knots to prove that the government is behind everything bad even when it’s crystal clear that it’s corporations that are pushing the bad legislation on the government and not vice versa.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s pretty sad burnspbesq, even for you.
Mnemosyne
@Benjamin Franklin:
Ah, silly liberals, with our insistence on “facts” and “evidence.” You smell a rat, so therefore you can hand-wave any facts aside and present your paranoid fantasies as to what’s really going on.
You should probably invest in a better grade of tinfoil to line your hat.
Corner Stone
Capt Mnemo flat out lied about the context of the “procedure”, which was actually a bond/bail “hearing” as described by reports, and then other people just harumphed their way onto the reading fail train.
Because they don’t care what is actually happening, they’d rather just bash.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: U r oppressing his rights to rip off whatever free movies and music he wants! FASCIST! :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Oh, I am so sorry. In the future, when someone mentions something as though it was an outrage, I will simply fly off the handle and freak out rather than applying any thought to the matter. I will make sure I do this on legal matters where any knowledge of the topic that I might have is entirely irrelevant.
FWIW, I probably should have used the word process instead of procedure in my original comment. It may have made it more clear.
Benjamin Franklin
@Mnemosyne:
Salient fact fail; I’m a soschulist, maroon. And we all know where USC lawyers fall in the identity politics game
Anyhew. Didn’t I request you ignore my comments? You do remember what happened the last time you did, right?
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m glad you’ve decided that in the future you will actually read what’s being discussed.
Thank you.
edited
trollhattan
@BGinCHI:
He never seems to ref his parents, just his coal-minin’ grandad. Gives him blue collar cred, I suppose. If I bragged on my old man’s Navy service–he singlehandedly beat Tojo, donchano–I have military experience?
BTW, what the hell with the enlisteds’ lurve of Ron Paul? He wouldn’t do a damn thing for them and has stated as much, time and again.
“Abolish the VA and GI Bill!”
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: Yeah, you might consider it yourself.
Mnemosyne
@Benjamin Franklin:
And yet you have the same “government is the source of all evil!” worldview as the most Rand-obsessed libertarian. Why is that?
I have no idea what you mean by “USC lawyers.” I did go to USC, but my degree is in Cinema-Television Critical Studies. I am not a lawyer, and I don’t play one on the internet. Did you mix me up with Omnes?
Not really, no. I guess it didn’t stand out in my mind as a very interesting exchange. But if you’ll try not to post egregiously paranoid “facts” about New Zealand’s extradition treaty with the US, I’ll try to ignore your comments.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Seeing as I read the links and pointed out to you, counselor, that extradition papers hadn’t even been filed yet, that seems a spurious and undignified comment on your behalf.
But I’ve noticed you’re quite the asshole lately. Wonder what could be causing that?
Amir Khalid
@trollhattan:
Young, impressionable, don’t know the whole story, etc., etc.
Yutsano
@Amir Khalid: Will end all foreign entanglements and bring them home etc. Never mind the fact that once they’re back they’ll be jobless and poor dealing with the endless goldbuggery.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
Also employed at the single most soshulist institution in the entire United States, which makes it a lot easier to be a certain kind of libertarian.
And like many others have said, a decade of murky and mismanaged wars => fertile ground for Ron Paul’s isolationist ideology. (God forbid anyone turn to the Democrats, you know, the guys with the president who ended the Iraq war and is winding down Afghanistan).
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: The fact that extradition papers haven’t been filed yet does not change anything that I said. You’ll note that I did say that I should have used “process” rather than “procedure.”
As far as your second point, I hear what you are saying, but I disagree.
Benjamin Franklin
@Corner Stone:
So, he’s burnie?
Rita R.
Late to the thread, and everyone’s made the arguments against Little Ricky’s latest screed nicely. But also want to mention that President Obama doesn’t only talk about getting more kids to be able to go to college, he’s also repeatedly highlighted the importance of two-year community colleges and vocational education — the kind of thing Santorum is referring to when he talks about being good with your hands. (What’s his fascination with hands, anyway?)
Obama hasn’t said this just once. It’s been an integral part of his education approach. So Rick is either uninformed or a liar, or more likely both, in the advancement of the tired “Obama is an elitist snob” trope. To be fair though, uninformed and/or lying has been the standard in the entire pack of third-stringers — and the Romneybot — who’ve been this year’s GOP candidates.
Frankensteinbeck
@Benjamin Franklin:
Well, it WOULD be irresponsible not to speculate.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Looky here, a corner stone sighting. Lemme get my idjit stick.
PaulW
But… but… LaserBlast got 2 1/2 stars from Leonard Maltin!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Benjamin Franklin: No, I am not. I believe CS was suggesting that I was arguing the way that burnspbesq does and meaning it as an insult.
Benjamin Franklin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Didn’t think so. You maintain an even keel.
Omnes Omnibus
Bailing on blogs. Bullitt is just starting.
jake the snake
@redshirt:
Sorry, but Independence Day is just War of the Flying Saucers on steroids. However, I am fond of Mars Attacks
which is pretty much War of Flying Saucers on Acid.
virag
laserblast is not worse than ultraviolet even if ultraviolet had a totally gratuitous view of leeloo’s behind.
ET
I am not sure there is an understanding the word elitist.
Paul (@princejvstin)
Solar Crisis is my vote for worst movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100649/
Kane
Countless studies show that college graduates live longer and healthier lives. College grads are also more likely to have better career opportunities and are more likely to travel the world. College grads are less likely to be arrested, convicted of a crime and serve time in prision. College grads are less likely to be victims of crime. College grads are more likely to own a home and live in safer neighborhoods. College grads tend to have the skills that employers seek and they spend less time unemployed. College grads are more likely to be financially stable, and they tend to be happier with their lives. College grads are more likely to have children who graduate college.
Tell me again why President Obama is wrong for wanting all Americans to have these opportunities.
Amir Khalid
@Kane:
In the eyes of Holy Shit Santorum, President Obama is wrong not because he wants this thing in particular, or that thing. He is always wrong, because he is a Democrat in office; the goal is to defeat him and remove him from office, and one means toward achieving that goal is to assert his wrongness on everything. If he reaches out to the Muslim world, he is a “secret Muslim”. If he tries to regulate anything, he is plotting to choke the private sector to death. If he wants to raise taxes on the rich, he is punishing “job creators”. If he says the sun rises in the east, …
gogol's wife
I’ve been avoiding this thread all day because I just don’t know how to participate in the discussion of worst movie ever. I LOVE bad movies. I even attended an all-day bad movie festival once. “Terror of Tiny Town,” anyone? But then there’s the category of not really bad, just boring, which is so huge that it’s impossible to pick just one.
HobbesAI
In defense of LaserBlast, the concept isn’t inherently bad.
I’d like to suggest as worst recent movie: Jack and Jill.
ruemara
You’re crazy. I loved Laserblast. Then again, my whole day has been a blur of cooking/baking, failing to get artwork to import into anime studio and watching SyFy movies. You want bad? Nearly any movie that involves the words RomCom.
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
And if he kills islamist terrorists by the truckload, he’s still a “secret Muslim.” If he backs off this or that regulation and agrees to carve out exemptions in the name of “religious freedom,” he’s still plotting to choke the private sector to death. If he maintains the Bush tax cuts and puts out a stimulus whose single biggest component is tax cuts, he’s still punishing job creators.
priscianusjr
@ET:
priscianusjr
@Omnes Omnibus:
Omnes Omnibus
@priscianusjr: Doesn’t make it right.
maus
@Politically Lost:
The continued existence of the Young Republicans as a recruitment tool didn’t prove this already?
Smart people are even better at cognitive dissonance than dumb people. Greater ability to rationalize.