juppiter

To me the most interesting stories the last couple of days have been international ones. The Socialists regaining power in France after 17 years is huge. There is not actually much in the way of socialism they CAN do without leaving the EU, but it'll be interesting to see how the dynamics change and if France-Germany will still be BFFs. And of course the disastrous Greek election is the biggest clusterfuck democracy has given us in years. I hate what the Greek people are going through, I saw a pictorial on life in Greece a couple weeks ago that just broke my heart, but their crisis just fascinates me.

I absolutely agree about Tanya. She should be proud of her performances at 1991 US Nationals and especially 1991 Skate America. They were absolutely amazing performances. It is sad she is remembered for what came after. I don't know what she knew and when, it is possible that she was helpless to stop the Nancy Kerrigan attack as she claims. I do know that she cried wolf so many times that it's hard to believe anything she says. But I know that she did not have the most supportive friends/family and I think ultimately what happened is that she gave in to her demons, believing she wasn't good enough, after 1991. I'm just happy that she has those two incredible performances, and that nobody can ever take them away from her. They were two of the best performances I have ever seen.

Anyone watch the 2012 Worlds? I was only able to catch the men, unfortunately, I do prefer the ladies. I thought Brian Joubert was sexy as hell on ice, and I know he is unsure about continuing to compete but for the sexiness quotient I hope he will, and I gotta wonder about Patrick Chan getting the gold when he fell and the silver medalist did not. Code of Points removes subjectivity but when the gold medalist skates a flawed program and the silver medalist skates a clean program I have to wonder. I didn't get to see the ladies, but Alissa Czisny in 22nd? Yikes. She's gorgeous, but she sucks. I keep waiting for the US to produce another great skater. We dominated this sport for years and years, why is it so hard now to find a talented lady who is competitive?

What about Charity Rahmer

I'm sure James DePaiva wouldn't be if asked judging from that interview that was posted here a couple weeks ago.

Details please. I haven't seen those 8 years, but I watched all of his one month in 1988 on SoapNet and it was fantastic. He not only salvaged unsalvageable storylines, but actually made them good. It was seriously impressive.

I have no idea what you're talking about but an amazing read nonetheless. Thanks.

Gotta say this sounds like classic JFP to me

ATWT was really bad with the instacouples during that era, and Paul/Rose was a prime example of that. Scott Holroyd was a good actor who was set up for failure by bad writing for his character. They didn't think Holroyd had enough of an edge to play Paul, but they didn't write him with any edge. How was he supposed to play something that wasn't written?

The rewrite didn't bother me either. The birth happened off camera so it was plausible. It certainly made more sense than say OLTL's rewrite to create Natalie since that all happened on camera.

The problem with Rose is that she was conceived as a short term character, a non-character, the anti-Lily. And in that role, she succeeded. During the initial storyline, which went on wayyyyyy too long and was dragged out seemingly forever but overall I enjoyed, she served as the voice for the audience. All the things that we the audience had noticed that was absurd about Lily, Rose commented on. Her best line was, "Your mom gives you a beautiful necklace and is falling all over herself apologizing, saying, 'I know you don't like presents.' What's the matter with you? Ya don't like presents?" After that storyline, she should have been written out. She served her purpose, Lily had grown, the audience was satisfied that its complaints about Lily had finally been addressed, etc. But then they chose to make her the star of the show for the next three years, and she would. not. die. But when she did, oh, was it glorious... Funny thing is, Leah Laiman is despised as "Lethal Leah," but she hated the Rose/Lily storyline and wrote it against her will. Maybe she is smarter than we think.

Martha is a bit of a limited actress, I certainly don't consider her a master thespian or anything. But in terms of playing spoiled, immature, idiotic, selfish, uptight, yet strangely lovable Lily she took the cake. She WAS Lily and I couldn't fully accept anybody else in the role. She was like that annoying little sister who made the same stupid mistakes over and over that you couldn't help but adore. Martha as Rose was WAY too over the top for me though.

More than a little irony in the Republicans cheering for the Supreme Court to "legislate from the bench" as they so despise and strike down their own idea.

Almost as funny as "Better Homes -- Than Yours" on The Simpsons.

Why oh why did CBS daytime ditch its softcore porn ads of the 90s and early 2000s? I wanna be told -- nay, ORDERED -- to "get it on" again

This is true. The progressive phase of Barack Obama's presidency was 08-10. It's over and will likely not come back during his second term, as I don't see the Democrats taking back the house this year, and it'd be downright bizarre if they were able to in 2014. But the Republicans had no incentive to work with Obama during his first term. Their goal was to defeat him in 2012. If they're faced with another 4 years of Obama and no chance at Obama's re-election after that, there is incentive to compromise. When people talk about the great compromises of Clinton and the GOP in the 90s, they forget that those compromises did not happen in 94-96. 94-96 were just like the past two years. Most of the great compromises and the elimination of the budget deficit happened only during Clinton's second term. For me I want a second term for Barack in order to block a lot of the scary things the GOP is talking about doing. He has no chance at any progressive reforms in his second term, unfortunately, so it is just about blocking what the GOP wants to do for me.

LOL that is hilarious. He's soooo fake. He may like grits but are the trees the right size there?

Bravo. I don't think anybody would call Obamacare a good law. The only thing good about it is that it is not as brutal as the status quo. If the GOP has any ideas for a different law I'd love to hear them, but all they can talk about is repealing Obamacare and going back to the status quo? Are they that jaded to believe that we should essentially just give up trying to improve our healthcare and keep in perpetuity a system that has already been proven not to work? I think it is pretty clear you are the "party of no" when you want something repealed and don't even offer up any other kind of alternative system.

There was a really great piece by Maureen Dowd today about how the GOP has fallen out of touch : http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/dowd-ghastly-outdated-party.html?_r=1&ref=maureendowd The problem with her logic is that they have a shrinking base, but they know how to mobilize it. I believe that if voting were compulsory, the Democrats would win the presidency every time. But so many liberals and moderates just don't care to show up.

Feels like she's been away for a while. Come back Brit we <3 you.

It is not alleviated at all. We had 8 years of Bush's awkward guffaws and that was enough for a lifetime.

The Republicans DID punish Florida this year, it lost half its delegates IIRC. Florida's lawmakers are so dumb for moving it up again. They got nailed last time and they knew they'd get nailed again this time, why move it up to get "more influence" when a. Florida is already ridiculously influential in every election ever and b. losing delegates just makes Florida less influential lol. Seriously though, I'd like to see the primary system reformed. There was a "rotating regional" system thought up a couple years ago by Larry Sabato that had a lot of merit IMO.

I wish they'd just skip ahead a few months... And I'm impatient because P&G will probably pull this by the time they get to the good stuff. I agree I don't want to relive the tail end of Sheffer but the beginning of Passanante was a very good period.

You definitely can't call this recovery "roaring" compared to the early 2000s recovery or the early 1990s recovery or the early 1980s recovery, which had made up more ground by this point. But since this crisis was steeper than any of those I don't think it's appropriate to draw a comparison to the past recessions. Instead we should compare to Europe. Europe tried austerity and is either teetering on the edge of a double dip recession or already in recession, economists aren't sure. The US had the stimulus and is in a better position than Europe. Obamanomics has not given us a roaring recovery but it did keep us from the debt deflation spiral Europe is experiencing.