UConn James

Right. That's a great observation. While Bejing was artistic and beautiful --- what I remember most besides the guy running around the stadium facade to light the cauldron was the boxes filled with anonymous people that raised and lowered rhythmically and popped out botanical foliage, and the drums all beating in sync. It was artistic, it was beautiful. It emphasized the collective rather than the individual. But when you look at the waste sites, pollution and human rights abuses, its beauty was a bright shining lie. You can appreciate that Doyle created an Opening that gave much more emphasis to the individual. The great Brit writers, the industrial barons (and the steel ring forging scene... that was really cool, looking back on it), the individual bands, forget the names but... the girl and boy, the highlighting of great British pop culture (James Bond). China had nothing to offer there. They invented so much stuff in civilization, they have so many people, but name a great Chinese individual with a worldwide cultural contribution. Name ONE. Last night was a statement of Who We Are, rather than a merely aestetic showcase. That was the contrast.

One poll. In July. Electoral college state-by-state polling is still favoring Obummer. But think back to how Carter was up against Reagan even into the final week.

Probably the Olympic theme....

The Kinks, too. And Adele is another one who'll never make it. Anyway, as is usually the case, I don't think it was the best, nor was it the worst. I think the Bond bit would have been better and a lot more fun if it had been Doctor Who themed with the blue police box materializing and the queen and Matt Smith stepping out. Joboy, I don't know what you were watching. They celebrated a pastoral tradition, then the Industrial Revolution, which was kind of a big deal. The children in bed thing was to highlight major British authors and the connection with the children's hospital that J.M. Barrie (he wrote Peter Pan) donated all of those royalties to. I do believe reading and authorship was a major Brit contribution. Too bad they gave Shakespeare short shrift.... This wasn't going to be Bejing. IIRC they spent over $200M on the Opening. This one had a budget of £26M.

From swimming to track and field, archery to rowing, synchronized swimming to field hockey, soccer (football) to riflery, who's hot and who's not, from world records to disappointments, from the Opening Ceremony to the Closing Ceremony, post it here.

"Hurry up with my nails and tanning spray, Mario! I've got a date with Simba tonight!"

Maybe if that person knew jackstevestojan about how an Olympics functions. But with security gaffes haing been publicized and workers going on strike, for Romney to be a pollyanna would be insulting to London and might actually hurt his campaign, rather than the outrage being contained among the Brits and specifically the Brit press who are embarrassed by these failures. Nothing's going to be perfect. To act like it is perfect and to ignore / speak-no-evil about real problems for the sake of what people mistakenly believe "diplomacy" means....

EZC

And it's not like Romney said 'London is total stevestojan!!' He said there are a few problems. How is that not the honest truth, told as delicately as possible? That's what a leader has to do. A good one, anyway.

As above, plenty of people did the same at the Salt Lake City games, given the fraud/graft, delays before Romney was called to take over and rest assured that so soon after 9/11 security concerns were in everyone's primary thoughts and questions. But that's somehow different. Huh?

This isn't out of line with what people asked and commented about for the 2002 Olympics. Since this is an event that has attracted acts of terror in the past, there's always little things at a number of Games, the stars have only aligned at the last minute. A strike when the Olympics are a day away? How is it a gross insult or gaffe to say that things have to get sorted out and encourage the people working the events to pull together, get it done and make Britain proud rather than grumble at this inopportune time as a means of leverage? As I've read it, Cameron has next to nothing to do with the Games. Sebastian Coe and the London mayor have been the chairs of the organizing.

The screens cut down the viewing angle; they DON'T make it so that only the user can view the screen. E.g. My LCD screen has about a 150 degree vewing angle. Should they give these computers private viewing rooms? Should the librarians be forced to bleach the spooge off the keyboards? Because you KNOW that's going to happen. At what point does it become a situation of public health and safety over a concern for an UNLIMITED freedom of Internet access?

I believe Romney said that as a courtesy to the office of the presidency, he would not go on the record openly opposing specific U.S. foreign policy while on foreign soil. It gives an unsteady and divided view of America and its interests when it's perhaps more important than ever for us to at least appear that we have a steady leadership. What Romney is doing is more back channel work and introduction, trying to highlight ties to historically-strong-allied nations that the Obama White House has pretty much snubbed in both symbolic and literal ways.

I find myself agreeing almost wholly with AJ here. TDKR holds its own and is a great conclusion to this trilogy, that seems to close the arc that they created. The pissing and moaning about smallish details may well be made moot when DVD extras are available, and as when people ragged on LOST for not showing/explaining Every Little F'ing Thing I just have to shake my head about the pedantism that can't conceive that some things happen off-camera and aren't really, really important so as to add more time to an already long flick. WRT the 'which was the best of the series?'... Am I alone in how I see a group of movies like this as a cumulative effort where each builds on and relies on each other rather than seeing them as seperate entities? It is all part of a whole that's simply divided by time constraints. Judging a Best in Show here is futile. Now me, I'm a story guy. And what I haven't seen here is much discussion of that. Some points: A) Do a lot of people seem to miss that our hero had been suffering with the effects of the fall and general wear'n'tear... but that unlike Bane, Bruce Wayne doesn't resort to drug use to ease his pain. Or at least, we don't see any. I was reading some commentary on IMDB that was arguing that Batman of the comics would never give up like that. Some people are arguing that the ending was so very un-Nolan-like, with the reveal at the end. I appreciated it. It leaves the door open for continuity of this awesome series, and fits into Bruce Wayne's ideal in this arc for why he created the Batman. As a symbol, as someone who will stand up and fight for right and then be able to return to the shadows when legitimacy is restored. He wanted a day when he no longer had to be the Batman. As for future films, there's awesome potential there, especially if key people remain committed and the vision isn't totally thrown out akin to a Joel Shumacher flaming neon concept pieces "Batman & Robin"/"Batman Forever." Hopefully Nolan will have some role in future projects, even if it's limited to reading a script and offering pointers. This has been such a great series, and it's sad that it goes out with such a real-life event connected to it. Just like the Joker attempted to get people to turn on each other and to create mass chaos, the coward Aurora killer is sorely mistaken. I loved how they used the closing lines from Commissioner Gordon from TDK... that Batman was the hero that Gotham deserved, but not the hero that it needed. And that Harvey Dent, omitting his crimes as Two-Face, was the hero Gotham needed... (and didn't deserve(?)). The critical moment when Gotham is broken during Bane's attack was not when he bombed the stadium and other targets --- it's when he read the speech that Gordon had earlier penned and wanted to deliver... indeed that thought that the city was ready to hear and for him to make his exit because of the deceit. The city needed that archetype and when they stopped beliving in Harvey Dent and nothing was there to replace him, the will to fight back --- along with the means that Bane had taken --- was lost. Losing the will to fight is utter defeat. It was a nice storyline close to have the statue of Batman in City Hall, a tribute that this anonymous citizen (to the general public, at least) was the hero Gotham needed and deserved. It runs counter to Bane's use of an 'anonymous citizen' who held the trigger for the bomb. So much hatred stemming from Ras al Ghoul, who appointed himself the arbiter of all things immoral and due for destruction. One would think that Ras's treatment of them would make his daughter and Bane hate him, rather than carry out Ras's dying mission. But, the world is a weird place. In Gotham, we get a peek of Occupy Wall Street protesters' dreams. The rich are eaten and sentenced to death. The movement's leader promises to give the city back to the people whose toil makes the rich... rich. And yet his goal is not equality of opportunity or even equally of outcome --- it's a deep-seated self-loathing and the Jonestown-like usurped determination that everyone in the city are better off dead. This is what comes of trashing all means of social stability... in the words of Shakespeare, this is what happens "when envy breeds unkind division, there comes the ruin, there begins confusion"... Mr. X has money therefore he is bad! that we're seeing today in many sectors, even from our president. It's sick. Break down those core components, put the yoke of tyranny on the productive and this isn't far from what you will ultimately get. Capitalism ain't perfect, but it provides more stability for more people than anything else that's come along. Don't mean for it to become a political thread by any means, but that's my read. I'm sorry if this doesn't read very well WRT organization and is a bit stream-of-consciousnes. Writing on the ipad and I'm finding that it doesn't work well for longer posts.

Maybe he should ask for the Christ Jesus discount. I once delivered a halfcord load of firewood to a guy at a campground. He wasn't there at the time, and I had been accustomed to this and simply getting the payment later. I go there a few days later and the guy says the wood doesn't burn well and wants me to knock off half the price that had been agreed to. I don't roll like that. I reloaded the wood and delivered it to another customer there who had been a Hartford firefighter for 20 years and was a repeat customer. He said it "burned beautiful!!!" Despite being asked, I will never do business with that guy agIn and I tell this to any and all that do business at that place for services, repairs, etc. I don't give out coupons and freebies. NF should be grateful to this guy? Just another POS.

They can't get a fair hearing because their names are no longer publicly anonymous? That's stevestojan.

I wouldn't sneeze at it. Maybe it's the next big thing. Few teams could stop Gronkowski and Hernandez. It was like having bigger, stronger WRs without too-too much of a sacrifice of speed. Would create mis-matches in coverage against smallish CBs or stretch a team that doesn't have much for pass-coverage LBs. Just, their OL would have to buy Brady marginally more time. And yet, through his career Brady hasn't had too much of a problem with pressure. Pats* have had some losses on OL this offseason tho.

Ride around, Sally! RIP

... and has literally NO other way to make any. Even a shoe-shiner has to be able to count.

Tho, re: "moral bankruptcy" there exists the mitigation argument that she was pulled into all this by Walt and his fatal flaw refusal to accept health coverage from his former business partner/friend/ex-girlfriend(?). Beyond the whole Fugue state and a second phone --> Get out of the house / separation / IFT stuff... which has to be a pretty normal reaction... What exactly is she now "judgmental" about? She's in this thing. Asking Walt whether he was behind the Fring bombing and saying bomb-BAD are two different things. I don't really recall her offering a moral judgment. Especially in light of the scene with Ted, while she was relieved when Ted said that he would never say anything (about the tax monies or about her/Saul's hired goons that precipitated the accident and coma), Skylar didn't really gush about how sorry she was. There was a passive intimidation thing there. Just to note that while she was pulled into it initially by Walt's actions, there's a threshhold beyond which she's responsible and she can hardly see the door anymore. It could go a few different ways now. She could be viewing this as the end and simply cutting off the loose strings and no more cooking and they run the car wash. But it seems that the rest of the series might be centering around her and Walt trying to partner in the kingpin business with her handling some of the money side with the car wash as a front--- with obvious checks and balances given what she did with the money stash. Walt's "I forgive you." at the conclusion of ep 1 was quite unclear in how he meant it and what he meant by it. We'll see.

TBD screen names that this character has gone through? More like 40.

There's also the obligatory re-watch binge before the series finale.

Thanks to government tidying up, there is a ing mountain under the rug. These boys get out with drastically reduced time, and then proceed to do it (or worse) again. Catch and release. It keeps lawyers and judges in a job. Same with diddlers and other sex offenders, same with gun crimes where mandatory minimums are waylaid, literally six-time DUIs keep their licenses and are sent to programs... until the time they finally kill someone and don't just smash cars, same with sundry crimes that are nollied or reduced to "ensure a conviction / reach a plea agreement." I get that these are tools in the prosecutorial toolbox to use their limited time and resources more effectively, but damn! If government is going to take on the mantle of justice to help ensure a civilized form of punishment rather than families doing tic-for-tac or resort to sheer vigilanteeism, then violent crimes at least should respect the wishes of the victim and/or their family in the prosecution.

I see the Russians have finally caught up to 1985 fashion and hair.

Well, happy to see someone else got the point of "Fly" --- which was Walt's extraordinary obsessiveness, (especially) even when there are serious consequences for our duo from a dude who cut a guy's throat with a boxcutter right in front of them. IIRC, they had an entire week's production due in 48 hours and they still hadn't started b/c of the fly. Walt is *that* nit-picky. This is a guy taking big risks, which we're seeing again here in S5 already and we question this less because we've seen before that this is how Walt is and he's not going to apologize for it. Walt, to use a metaphor, is a volitile chemical that requires the *perfect* situation/combination to produce its compound. You may decry how this was shown, but that 'Guy and Four Walls' ep went a long way toward developing his character where I think we're about to see the payoff; Walt has seen the operation of an own-product-use kingpin, dipstevesojan kingpins and distributors, cool and calculated kingpins, violent kingpins, sloppy operations and fine-tuned distribution via front business, and many combinations of them all. What kind of kingpin is Walt going to be? You can bet that perfectionist will be part of it... and yet with a penchant for gambling.