quartermainefan

Well this was an episode for secrets. Oliver was a complete idiot giving his company over like that, but that's life. Now that Laurel knows the truth I guess she will be extra naggy. Now that Thea knows the truth I guess it is time for Malcolm to return and for Thea to go with him. I am not sure which way it is going to go but either Malcolm gets redeemed saving Thea and Ollie from Slade or Slade gets redeemed saving Thea and Ollie from Malcolm. Roy's punch barely registered on Slade so perhaps the drug gets stronger over time?

Pretty solid episode but nothing terribly exciting.

It's not like Republicans are going to vote for the opposing candidate (or not vote at all) just because Jindal is a moron.

three words: George Bush Junior

There are more democrats than republicans so if all things are equal the democrats have the advantage. The republicans could not even win more votes with Bush against Gore and he was an uncharismatic flat candidate. Bush at his most popular could only get a million more votes than bland dud Kerry. Studies show the next generation is more liberal and more accepting of other people than the last. The country is getting browner. Republicans can hunker down in gerrymandered districts and pass laws trying to stop everyone but old white people from voting, but that can only work for so long because old people tend to die.

For a republican to win at the national level they will need someone who will steal votes away from the democrat. The republicans think that is Chris Christie, but there is nothing in our history that shows Americans like to vote for angry grumps or people who look like they are one jog away from a heart attack. Hillary has her problems (being a woman, the assumption she is a political Lady Macbeth trying to seize power, her horrible high speaking voice) but she will beat all republican comers.

I'm from New Orleans so let me say that if Bobby Jindal is on the ticket for 2016, you better get your emigration papers ready...

Bobby Jindal??

Jindal is a false hope for the GOP. They tried with him once before touting him as a star politician, so they immediately trotted him out for some TV state of the union response and he revealed he has no charisma, no TV presence, a poor ability to give a speech, and a deer in headlights aura.

A democrat can only hope Jindal runs.

The republicans currently have no one to compete with Hillary. Chris Christie will never be elected president because America doesn't cae for angry politicians and he is perpetually pissed. That and he is obese, which makes his candidacy DOA.

About Obamacare, numbers can be made to say whatever the person counting them wants so we will have to see who these 7 million are and how many of them come from the uninsured he was seeking to help. I have never been a fan of Obamacare because to me it just seems wrong to say "we know our system sucks and the insurance companies are crooks. Just because you young people are too smart to willingly give them your money doesn't mean you don't have to." It doesn't even make sense: "The insurance companies overcharge and rob every single american who has insurance, so lets make it a law that they get even more customers." The idea should have been to go for socialized medicine and put these insurance crooks out of business, not enhance their portfolios.

I think Carl completely understood and that's what disturbed him more than anything. He's (Carl) a "monster" too.

I just realized that Carol, Tyreese and Judith were not at Terminus. Carol to the rescue! She'll get this handled.

Carol is probably pretending to be a cannibal, eating people to establish cred, and figuring out how to cook the cannibals.

This was an intense episode. I don't think there can be any explanation other than Terminus is a settlement of cannibals. That's how they always have meat cooking and it would explain the brief peek at bones. Although creepy, cannibals always make for great villains.

Rick killing the hick didn't traumatize me as much as it did Carl. They were going to rape Carl and Michonne and kill Rick and Daryl..what else was there for Rick to do?

If it were just Crimea, then it wouldn't be worth a major war over. But the thing is that Putin could have Hitler-esque potential (which Hillary seemed to allude to when she compared Russia to Nazi Germany). Once Putin seizes Crimea (which seems inevitable at this point unless troops are sent), he probably won't be appeased, but instead will want more and more. If he acquires too much of an empire, the result could be World War III. And, of course, far more bloodshed would happen then as opposed to a war in Crimea that would take place today.

But yes, I understand that mostly because of Iraq (and also Afghanistan to a lesser extent), the public wants no troops in Crimea. Yet just because a preemptive war was a mistake once doesn't always make it the case.

Going to war on ifs and maybes and coulds is just another war of choice. Britain went broke, the soviets went broke, America is going broke fighting endless wars. I know America loves war because there is so much money and jobs to be had from it, but enough is enough. If Russia shows interest in EU countries that is one thing, but Crimea is filled with Russians who seem to want to be part of Russia for the most part.

DRW, thanks for sharing that article, but as it mentions, that Congressman thankfully was in the tiny minority regarding his views on Putin. If history is any indication, nobody that extreme could ever win the GOP presidential nomination, but if somebody like that ever did get nominated, he would lose the general election.

This isn't going to be popular, but I actually think that the U.S. should send many troops to Crimea, because I think that is the only way to stop Putin. Few potential presidents (even those well to the right of Obama) would be willing to do this, however, because the American public is so against it.

No way. Crimea is not worth a major war over. American kids should get killed because the Russians want back a piece of Russia Kruschev gave away?

Here is something that will be unpopular: America sent 300,000 troops into Iraq, another 100,000 into Afghanistan, we helped oust the regime in Libya, we stuck our two cents in Egypt and told their president he had to go, and we do many of these things against the wishes of the UN. When we do it it is painted as reclaiming our sovereign rights and not genuflecting to the new world order. Putin sent 6,000 troops across his border, literally into a country right next door filled with Russians...and this is a crime against humanity for daring to go against the UN and using military force to achieve a goal. Well, that is what the US has been doing every decade since WW II ended. The US has in the past ousted democratically elected governments and installed dictators (which is why Iran hates us) and because we write the history books we are the good guys.

Let Russia and Ukraine settle their own business. It's not worth a single american life.

What episode was the "Abby Scale" speach on? I always wanted to see it!

I believe that was her last episode when DM left the show.

This was a fun one. Black Canary vs The Huntress was just fanwank video game stuff, but it is fun to wonder about who would win. I guess we can say Canary would win but Huntress gave a good showing of herself. Now we just need Roy "Speedy" to get into a super strength match up against Slade for a little WWE style silliness.

Poor Thea, she has no idea Ollie is the one who lies the most. I think he chose poorly when it came to Roy and Thea because Thea is the one thing that brings Roy back to his senses, and she was a healthy and needed influence. Now Roy will probably blame himself and go on a solo rampage and get himself hurt in the process.

I love Joffrey. He is horrible and there is not a single redeeming quality to him, but that is his charm. It takes a lot of work to literally be the meanest character on all of TV and I can't think of a single character who has Joffrey beat. His grandfather and mother are no picnics, but Joffrey's sadistic glee at being mean sends him across the finish line. And no character on any other show comes to mind that has him beat either. Meanest of all time perhaps.

That was a nice series finale (even if it wasn't truly the finale). It's a shame it came to this but the show was running on empty for a while so the change may do it good. It was nice to see the original five get their moment, but sad that Tina gets left out. I am unclear about what happpens to Sue and Shue now but I think the show will be much better in NY full time. The only loss out of the new people will be Little Puck.

I'm so frightened of what this will lead to. Hell, I won't be surprised if a Republican House and Senate try to annex us to be part of Russia. They love Putin enough.

Obama lost his halo with that "if you like your insurance you can keep it" lie. After that, nobody pays attention to anything he says and are less likely to believe him. I don't see how the democrats can recover barring a mass acceptance of Obamacare, and that does not seem to be happening just yet. It might happen in time for 2016, but he has nothing to say that anybody wants to hear currently.

I had no idea that woman was Tasha Yar from Star Trek. She sure looks different.

I spotted that white trash group as being Ric's gang from the house two weeks ago. Boring characters and they have boring motivation. Put that together and it is a boring storyline.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fivethirtyeight-senate-forecast/

I loved last night's episode simply because it focused on Diggle and something other than Team Arrow drama. I can not stand Oliver Queen.

You sure you enjoy this show?

Wow what a nice 100th episode. It was so refreshing to see an episode starring the entire real cast all together again. I don't think a single newbie got a line of dialogue. I would have liked a Puck and Coach Biest scene though. After a while of lackluster efforts, this was really nice and nice to see the two guest stars come back.

I think they'd have been fooling themselves. She was a danger to everything around her. In this instance, Carol did what had to be done.

That's why Carol killed those two day players Tyrses goes on about. It had to be done. In hindsight we can see she may have been mistaken but in the moment Carol did then exactly what she did now. That's why she is an asset to the group and Rick was an idiot not to trust her. Carol will move heaven and earth to protect Rick's daughter including killing a psycho child. No one else would have come to that decision.

Great episode. Carol is the toughest of the tough on this show and that's why the whole tangent about Tyrese's phantom girlfriend was a waste of time.

I tend to remember lots of lingering shots of somber, sorrowful faces in very dark lighting. And endless blathering from ponderous twits like Baltar, which was apparently supposed to be profound. By the end there was also extensive airtime devoted to Starbuck solemnly staring into space every time a piano played, which made me feel like I was watching Lawrence Welk on downers.

I have seen every episode twice and to my recollection there was exactly one episode with Starbuck and a piano, and I believe one episode that flash backed to that.

Carl, I don't see a single pretentious aspect to this show, or Battlestar Galactica. BSG played killer robots with a completely straight face. How is that pretentious?

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I found myself FFing a lot of this epsisode. Sasha is a drip, a wet blanket, a character who only says "no". It's boring, she's boring, what she says is boring. Someone says lets go left, she says right. It was an hour of that crap. Bob we got a little insight into and I loved the opening sequence of him on his own. That explains a lot about his POV without needing a speech to tell us.

As for Daryl and Beth, I didn't quite understand why Beth abandoned him. She didn't even look back and he was mere feet away from her car. Or was she taken? Now Daryl has new co-stars and it looks like more wannabe badasses. One thing I wish about the show is that there was more variety to the people they meet. These guys could be the guys Rick was hiding from in the house, and they all are cousins of the badasses who approached Rick and Hershel in the bar back in season two. You do need stock character types to fill out the show but it just always seems to be the same type and it is starting to become a little repetitive.

I guess part of my dissatisfaction with these last few weeks is I want the show to get back to Rick, Carl, and Michonne. Enough with Beth already, it's time she get killed off anyway and she can take Sasha with her.

Another good episode! I love the way the entire team went into action at the house. You would think their Arrow-Computer would detect all these new gadgets in the house but I guess not. Or that Ollie would have noticed him placing them all for that matter.

What makes you so certain that for some of those people it wasn't about religious freedom? Is the next step that gay people will have the right to go into any church and demand to be married?

I'm not saying that there are people who were using it as a cover for prejudice but for those that weren't I think they deserve to be acknowledged as well. And for me it has nothing about shaming other gays. I have own views as a gay person and they don't have to agree with every single other gay person out there. For one thing I don't agree with transsexuality. Sorry I just don't. I think God made us man or woman and that's how we were meant to be.

So while this law in Arizona was vaguely worded and might have had more negative effects than positive I think the underlying philosophical argument/debate should be had. Again I ask why would anyone want to give their money to and a force a business that doesn't feel comfortable with their sexuality to do the service? Is it right that that baker in whatever state is now bankrupt? To me I think the answer is no.

Because religious freedom is only an excuse since the law doesn't address religious freedom in the slightest. There is nothing in Christianity which mandates prejudice. The pope himself said "who am I to judge?" and your place of business is not your house of worship.

Why would anyone want to give their money to a business where they didn't want them? Why did those kids want to go to schools in the 1950s even though they knew they were not wanted? Why did they want to drink from water fountains designated for white people if they knew the white people didn't want them? It isn't this particular business or that, it is the whole idea of legalizing and codifying prejudice. Maybe next they will say "well I am christian, you are jewish/muslim/athiest, I don't want you in this restaurant. Better yet, "you're gay? You are not allowed to live in this apartment building/on this street/in this town".

No one is saying a church should conduct ceremonies against their religion, but how does the exchange of money and services in any way address religious freedom? All that law does is legalize hate and prejudice. Better yet, just imagine christians come to NY and get turned away from a jewish restaurant because christians believe in the messiah and that is against their religion. What do you think christians from coast to coast would say about those jews? I'm jewish, and I know exactly what they would say.