It seems part of the problem here is Grassley turned what could have been handled with a phone call or two into a public spectacle. Why? Because that's good politics in some quarters — attack the eggheads, keep scientists and academics on the back foot.

Technically, you are correct and in a perfect world, I'd agree.

I think people are iritated about the inquiry because all it would have taken would be to ask their finance department who funded the picture. If there was nothing on record; due to the photographer fronting the bill, that it'd be safe to assume there were no misused funds.

Now the easy counter argument to that would…

Meirtal — You understand you shouldn't do that either, right? Just because these ladies asking you not to insult them doesn't mean they approve of insulting anybody else.

That's kind of the point. It's being consider a flop in America because it's not beating Grown-Ups 2, even though its kicking ass internationally and has some major markets to go. But the perception of the movie as a flop, even if its just in America, may well be enough to prevent a sequel from getting made.

He's always been good. People ding him for his acting in Star Wars, but he's really good. He makes you believe he is that naive farmboy. The scene about "more wealth than you can imagine" between him and Ford is, for the adult version of me, the best part of the movie.

I know this is a terribly unpopular choice, but I nominate Taylor Kitsch of John Carter fame.

I almost never comment on Kotaku mostly because of the idiots from its peanut gallery.

I wanted Sgt. Hatred to become a full-time mom/nanny and Gary to be the new bodyguard.

No there isn't. Maybe you just weren't likable.

That is quite possibly the stupidest picture I have ever seen in my life

"Who the fuck is Gary?" was the funniest thing of the episode for sure. I was definitely underwhelmed with this episode though. In fact, while there were great individual episodes in the Venture Universe, the lack of interaction between the Ventures and Brock or The Monarch just left me feeling this was a weak season.…

I can guarantee you that Netflix is NOT doing this. The studios give Netflix a master. These days the studio gives netflix the encoded video. I used to work at a place where we supplied encoded video to places like Hulu and we had to send it already encoded to their specs. So therefore it has to be edited before…

Yeah, you're last paragraph fills in some of what I was trying to say. That type of storyline tends to pair with a "mad scientist" who is "playing God." In the end, they all somberly learn that "there are some things man is not meant to change."

Very lovely insights. Also: "In addition, we're the only creature (that we know about) that use memes as a cultural repository." I certainly hope that's the case. I think cats are helping the spread of memes as a way to inevitably take the human race down as we gradually sit by a computer more and more staring at…

This is great. I think the unique part about Star Trek is that it considered it an unambiguously good thing for humans to continue evolving and getting better. Most other (popular) shows would grind that down into some kind of Aesop about how the most important thing is to remain "human," as if that means just one…

As a practicing Buddhist & meditator (since 2005), I feel the need to clarify some points brought up in this thread.

A couple of points here, while Buddhism and Taoism both came up around the same time there aren't a lot of records dating back to the 4th century BC so it's debatable which came first. Also Gautama was Hindu and would have been more influenced by that culture.