"I don't want anybody else
When I think about you I --"
Oh.
OH.
So not making a full inquiry about one's own desires is the only way to keep one straight? Well this explains much why they call sexually-aware women dykes, regardless of any preferences shown.
The only straight women fit for marriage *would* be one barefoot and ignorant about pregnancy or birth control.
HR 676, is the National Health Insurance Act, introduced by Congressman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., who represents Detroit. Conyers' Web site states the bill's purpose is "to ensure that every American, regardless of income, employment status, or race, has access to quality, affordable health care services."
http://www.pnhp.org/
What can still happen, as proposed by Anthony Weiner: Take the mess that is the current health insurance bailout act and replace it with HR 676.
http://weiner.house.gov/news_display.aspx?id=1325
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tUmUk-jLDo&feature=related
Anything less is a Wall Street bailout with a stethoscope attached.
To be fair:
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.asp
It mentions that the trades were 'innocuous', but this investigation was part of the 9/11 Commission's work, so I still have my doubts.
It didn't have to be a company with ties to Al-Qaeda; it could just as well be people with foreknowledge of the attacks and a lack of a moral compass, financially. The Al-Qaeda warning report was given to the President in August -- and the FBI monitored the AQ pilots while in training, but were ignored by higher-ups. Arbitrageurs who spend their days piecing two and two together could have put trading programs in place, just in case.
Did I mention owning the term 'nutbar conspiracy theorist', or at least leasing it every once in a while from here?
And #83 Michael Roberts: good work.
"You know, if I was a terrorist, I'd totally be funding some insurance lobbyists. They make sure heaps of Americans die. It's great. Way easier than blowing up buildings."
How do you know they don't?
Someone with terrorist ties knew to short airline *and* insurance companies around 9/11... and we've never, ever heard the name of a person or a company who profited from those trades.
If you wanted to kill America and had a Ten-Year Plan, and you knew that with the repeal of Glass-Steagall any mofo with a hedge fund could effectively purchase and loot any US insurer, given time and a collapsing regulatory system, well, would you lead the charge in every Al-Qaeda operation, or live in one of your many houses, use your vast family fortune to participate in the Meltdown, and issue the occasional tape from your studio cave?
That's why I know we'll never get a full accounting of the Meltdown. If our enemies gamed it, so did our intelligence agencies, just like the drug trade. Our infrastructure and governmental collapse becomes a national security secret. As soon as Obama bought into the lies that keep people renditioned, and criminals held without an accounting of their crimes, in even a closed court, I knew we were in for four more years of gaming the system until it fails.
Sure, call me a nutbar conspiracy theorist. I still have my totebag, and it's still of use.
#42:
An explanation from an interview with Genevieve Turner --
http://finalgirl.blogspot.com/2008/02/driving-miss-stacie.html
GT: You wanna know why? Because when I first moved here I was really amazed by that, too- like, how many fucking donuts can one population eat? It's because a donut shop is the cheapest business you can start that gets you the kind of license in California by which you have the power to bring other people in your family over from wherever they are.
SP: Which is why you see places like "Mom's Chinese Food and Donuts".
GT: Exactly. It's an immigration loophole. I mean, they're real businesses, but that's why there are so many of them. Isn't that a really interesting fact to know?
Dave @80 --
It's not that there's no human contact in the transaction; it's that there's too much, and too little non-mercantile contact outside the screen.
QVC has a spectacular Christmas special that is nothing but the hucksters sitting posed by the fire, opening sumptuously-wrapped packages, embracing their supposed loved ones, and pulling the audience into their circle of intimacy. they explicitly cast their legion of salespeople as a family, just waiting for the audience's sled to come over the hill and pull into the mansion driveway for a visit.
For lonely people it was like holiday crack, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised that their sales exploded the next day. Those cable stores know who they're selling to, what those buyers need emotionally, and just how vulnerable they are to a friendly spokesperson and trained customer service agents. Bet they're so plush they don't even outsource internationally....
I will say One Nice Thing about the reboot: Their Barbie Dolls are nice.
And the end TOS theme? I thought it was lovely... except they cut the middle out of it, even though they had enough time to play it TWO FRICKIN' TIMES... sorry, guess I canceled the nice thing out.
Lee @147 "It's not your father's (known brand)" has been for decades a means of discarding one brand's target audience for another, without doing the hard work of introducing a new brand into a marketplace. And, as seen in so many articles featuring brands or activities done by a previous generation, the derisiveness towards that generation is deliberately insulting. "Father" is not used with reverence; the tone associates it with obsolescence.
Looking back, the lack of ads now for "It's not your father's pension plan", "It's not your father's job security" or "It's not your father's home equity appreciation" point up how negatively this phrase is used in our culture, when the marketplace insists that new is better.
As for Serge @156, I'm not throwing in ENTERPRISE in with this movie precisely because Berman/Braga knew they'd made a mistake, and allowed Manny Coto to repair some of what we knew was odd about Vulcan culture, through the "Romulan Spies stole our IDIC!" subplot.
Although if one thinks about it, the Romulans would have had to pollute Vulcan culture for centuries, in order to keep hidden Surak's full teachings so an antagonistic posture toward humans and Andorians could be maintained. That's a lot of work on top of the eventual war preparations against Earth, the suppression of their people, keeping the Klingons in check.... in ENT, the Romulans are the chessmasters of the Alpha Quadrant. I wonder if they stay that way in this universe. The ST XI ARG implies that some Romulans tried to warn Earth, but in the wrong time-period -- if that time reach is canon (and who knows what Paramount will decide), then it could happen that AU Romulans might get that technological leg up the Narada had, simply by them adapting Borg tech where they find it.
And Caroline @ 118:
Your view is the majority one on just about every other general SF website I've read.
I'm glad the minority view can be discussed here, without its adherents being insulted ad hominem. Thank you for your respect for my opinion, no matter how unprofitable to Paramount it might be.
And, as for compelling new stories:
How about the reconstruction of Cardassia after its disastrous participation in the Dominion War? The involvement of Section 31 throughout ST history, told from the view of a pair of dashing spies? Worf's son's adventures as an atypical Klingon man in a changing Klingon culture? The repatriation of personnel off a Borg cube, as they struggle to come back to the remnants of their cultures, as the Borg forces slowly re-coalesce?
Howabout any Mirror Universe show? Abrams sure as hell opened the door to the standing AU story in ST, and there's no reason why TNG and VOY (which never did a Mirror episode) couldn't walk right in....
Shar @ 114 and KeithS @ 115 and Janet @ 120: Then it's a sin of omission instead of commission, isn't it?
Um, does Starfleet Academy have an honor code?
Did Kirk call any of those men kin to Regulan bloodworms? He only pointed out how outnumbered he was, and said they should get more -- the complete drunken foolhardy move, not a "let me get my Glock" move. Stupid, bragging, but a tipoff that this clown should be pushed away from Uhura, and encouraged to go elsewhere, not a signal that he should be pounded into the floor.
Once the fight started, yes, Kirk bounced into Uhura and took the chance to grope her. Did that justify her not standing between him and the fratboys, until they cooled down?
And since when did Starfleet officers live in a culture where they beat up townies for minor insults? Beating up Klingons on a neutral space station when the Klingons deliberately provoke a fight, I understand. But just one bum, talking trash? Starfleet egos are so fragile that such insults must be answered with blood?
Any way you slice it, that fight did not reflect well on cadets who are supposed to live in a better version of our culture, down even to the "not hitting first" thing. Bad form, all around.
Lee, #109: It's a serious plot gripe to me, because:
a) It established Uhura as a woman able to verbally fend off a man only so much -- when she gets bored, she lets her Starfleet goon friends pile on him, to keep beating the townie until *they* get tired or bored (which really wasn't happening, Pike or no Pike);
b) It weakened her image as a Starfleet officer. It was the disproportionate use of force that she did not stop or avert, *and* the designation of others to fight her battles for her.
Kirk didn't need beating up; he needed to be kicked out, if he were that obnoxious, which he wasn't. Does any woman on Earth get that level of protection, in a bar, other than a Saudi royal -- and if that level of protection were needed, why the hell was Uhura in a bar, anyway?
That was when the movie started going south, for me; it traded a vision of Uhura as a fully-competent crewman for a stereotypical image of a high-maintenance lady who needs men to protect her, promote her and amuse her, despite the competencies she supposedly has.
And, yeah, ST XI fails the Bechdel Test so hard it bounces and circles the Schwarzchild plot-hole radius. Having a man hide under the bed is like a bomb under the table; sooner or later he will participate in the scene, or some girl will talk about him. Feh.
62. "Hmm... I can't say I was exactly bothered by Gaila's near nudity in that scene, but something didn't sit quite right with me about it. Kirk is, after all, rather interested in the female form, and what they were up to at the time justifies it. I think what did bother me was that she's Orionian, with all the green-skinned girl baggage that goes with that."
No, what bothered me was that Gaila said, "I think I love you" to Kirk -- and then it became a bedroom farce.
Then it looks even worse once we learn that a missing scene had Kirk use Gaila to hack the Kobayshi Maru. I've heard it was either through Gaila opening a viral email at the computer center, or by seducing a computer tech, for Kirk's sake. Either way, being the stud who made an Orion woman fall for him, without him going nuts, seems more the punchline to a smutty joke than an event with real people, and real hearts in play.
"Mark, #4: I would bet you that Spock Prime is as aware of this issue as you are, and in all honesty, I don't expect to see Nimoy in the next movie more than peripherally. I think that Spock Prime will go into seclusion as far as the Federation is concerned, and put all his energy toward helping to rebuild Vulcan society. That would make sense from both practical and ethical standpoints."
Well, he might very well want to do that.
But Starfleet Intelligence, Section 31, the Tal Shiar and any other alien secret police force might have other plans. The existence of a man who is the future version of the friend of a brash captain with a weakness for booze, will be held in deeper secrecy than the erased discovery of Talos IV? Not one crewman of Nero blabbed to a Rura Penthe guard about Spock and wormhole, during 25 years of imprisonment? And that the legendary Romulan spy network (hell, Gaila's peeps in teh Orion Syndicate) will never hear of this? Pull the other one.
Remember that the DTI might want to have a word with him, too.
"* I figured that the Spock-Uhura romance was the afterglow of an affair held during Spock's last pon farr cycle. Spock is human enough to still feel some affection after the hormones die down."
Nuh, uh. You think a man who disappointed his parents by fighting as a kid, then by not attending the Vulcan Science Academy, would be so rebellious as to ignore his pre-teen betrothal to T'Pring?
Nothing in nuSpock's timeline prior to boarding the Enterprise indicates that his destiny was different from ogSpock's. His human side would have let himself get a little somethin' somethin', but his Vulcan drives would kick in... and he'd kill Uhura, since she doesn't have the mental talents to control his burning, um, blood.
"It was only in reading a few post-RaceFail things that I really did see where my anger is coming from, and how much of it is tied to the destruction of the Vulcan race."
It was genocide, racist and plain
motherfuck 'em and John Wayne....
My anger has not subsided since seeing it last week, and knowing that these fools killed both the Vulcans and the Romulans for kicks.
Setting aside their xenophobia, or more precisely their perfection of the post-TOS tendency to diss and deform Vulcans as nagging schoolmarms and freaks without emotions (rather than a people trying very, very, very, very hard to keep their more violent than human emotions from killing themselves), Abrams and co. jettisoned one of the deepest stories ST has generated - the possible perestroika between controlled yet compassionate Vulcans and the fascist yet passionate Romulans. Hell, those Nimoy TNG episodes gave me hope that two extremely different peoples were finally doing the hard work of practicing IDIC, even though that work would take place underground.
Then, they destroyed Romulus, for no good reason that it set Nero off.
Then they let Spock get near Nero's vessel with a Big!Red!Ball of destruction... and let him board instead of self-destruct, which nuSpock (no fool him) thought of immediately. Knowing Nero had no good business to carry out, whenever time he had fell into, why didn't Spock use the one weapon he had, to at least curb the damage to the Federation?
Then, Vulcan. Does no one at Paramount remember that:
a) Vulcans pair-bonded through pon farr suffer a psychic break when their mates die (and since T'Pring bonded with Spock prior to puberty, that bond still holds, and even if she didn't die, would he feel what grief she felt?);
b) That in the Immunity Syndrome Spock fainted when a Vulcan science vessel was destroyed in close proximity? If those few deaths made him weak, what should happen when six billion Vulcans die a planet away (and *don't* get me started on how a mining site near the *edge of the fucking galaxy* is close enough to see Vulcan as larger than our moon); and
c) That in All Our Yesterdays Spock lost control of his emotions because the Surak reforms on Vulcan had not yet occurred, when he traveled back 5000 years? A handful of people holding onto the katra archives ain't enough, and it's shameful that the writers traded exploration of these richer emotional states for Kirk's "nyah, nyah, you didn't love yer mom, did you?"
If you want to plunder the canon, plunder it.
If you want to reboot, do it and have done.
But don't make excuses when you refuse to do your homework, from Vulcans to black holes (what, temporarily stable wormholes too good for you?), then bitch because you were too lazy to fact check, so we could truly leave our minds at the door for your popcorn movie. I didn't even need pretentious exposition, just getting the details that mattered correct.
Now I have to hear all this crap about 'oh, no, the canon hasn't been changed, it's just an alternate universe'. An alternate universe that Paramount will now focus on, as the past series' stories are now shoved away in the ghetto of books and comix.
So, yeah, Abi, you speak for me. Don't even start on Uhura; she broke my heart.
Aggs Maggs, hey!!
Don't bite! It only teaches us how to bite....
Who knows what abomination Nancy Grace might spawn if she accidentally crossbreeds the Tot Mom and Pandemic memes in her dark, noisome media lab....
Well, I heard on the CBS Morning Show that the Octomom was considering getting a pet pig for her kids.... No, I'm not kidding.
Irony: suffering from the mild miseries of an ambulatory cold virus (since I am ambulatory and non-feverish, I assume it's a cold), afraid to cough or sneeze, even into a kleenex, in public.
Megadittoes, Sara. Had fever, stayed home, but even with leftover coughing I feel unclean if I just cover my mouth with my sleeve or if I wear a mask (which would alarm everyone around). I stopped being contagious last week, I bet, but I'm still wearing sleeveless tops because it's too hot for a hoodie outside. And, yeah, I got sick leave, but not a week's worth I can just spend like mad money. *sigh*
Would delivering groceries by mail/UPS/Fedex help or hinder quarantine? *scratches head* It'd keep people home, but the postman could be a disease vector and he'd be visiting every home and handling every package.
Those ads are awfully presumptive that a just-in-time supply chain dependent on hourly employees with little sick leave would remain intact during an epidemic.
If there were generous sick leave, then employees wouldn't infect the chain, and if they actually staffed well instead of lean, warehouses and delivery companies would still be able to function. With our present economy, everyone up and down the chain who'd get fired if they did not show up would be part of the infection -- and I include the army of janitors and cleaners every office in the world depends on.
We are so much more vulnerable to an epidemic than we think, because along with the investment hooey we absorbed from the financial industry, we took their advice about HR management, lean operations, and callous behavior generally. If the meltdown doesn't level us, a serious airborne epidemic will.
Now do you see why the GOP deleted public health preparedness from the stimulus package? They believe their enclaves are surrounded by HEPA filters and armed guards, when they're too cheap even to buy alcohol gel.
I'm perfectly comfortable with both the conspiracy theory that the lack of management/oversight over industries that spawned a fearsome viral remix was deliberately done by people who want to drown government in its own pool of hog waste, *and* the fact that those still wanting to support a capable and responsive government need all necessary aid to implement a public health solution that saves lives.
If I didn't, then I wouldn't see clearly the damage the Bush Administration deliberately caused and what massive tasks lie ahead for the Obama Administration. I thought we understood this. The damage is not rumor, and those who want to hinder a government response are the same crooks who had crowbars in their hands last year.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 36 |
| 2008 | 13 |
Total: 49 comments. View all these comments on a single page.
The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by cgeye:
Show all comments by cgeye.