After watching this, a classmate said to me that he had felt no sympathy for the children initially because "you know, Pearl Harbor", but that he was tearful by the end. This movie has strength to break even the most hardened, hateful racists.

In her last campaign, Hillary Clinton expressed a readiness to "obliterate Iran". Over a dozen Democratic senators tried to scuttle the recent nuclear talks with Iran. And President Obama has defended his administration's use of "crippling sanctions" (his phrase) against Iran.

Exactly. I wouldn't say I'm impressed or moved by the Democratic Party's phony efforts to appear progressive on those issues, but I do acknowledge their existence.

There are differences of degrees, but generally, the two parties move together.

DADT wasn't the most hideous military policy ever enacted, but it's still a blot on Clinton's record.

The parties are not "equally" bad, but they're both extremely bad. To focus on the few areas in which they disagree obscures the more salient point that on most policies—corporate welfare, the shrinking of the social safety net, overseas interventions, the curtailment of civil liberties, ignoring the environmental…

I got no beef with progressives. Just with the Democratic Party. I don't think it's wise to conflate them, given that the party has a history of ignoring, defying and otherwise jerking around progressive activists.

I'm not saying it was a grand idea of Clinton's. Merely that he evidently cared very little about the rights of gay Americans, to throw them under the bus like that after explicitly courting their support during his campaign. Doesn't scream "integrity" or "progressive" to me.

You're right, there is a difference. And perhaps I sometimes devalue that difference because I'm too focused on the areas where the parties are identical. Which is not very fair of me.

Activists led that fight. The Democratic party only followed when it became politically profitable.

Good points. My responses:

One of them doesn't hate gay people…would this be the party that enacted DADT and signed DOMA?

True, the Republicans certainly don't pay lip service to climate change like the Democrats do.

How does a smart guy like Dan Savage still buy into the fake Democrat/Republican dichotomy?

It's a very poor show – owing mostly to its terrible scripts – and staggeringly overpraised.

Vlastelica writes that Neff, in Double Indeminty, is "a weak man who succumbs to sin and crime", but I think that's an oversimplification that loses some of the subtlety of the film. Neff is actually cruel and cunning and rarely seems to be overwhelmed by Phyllis. They mostly seem drawn together out of happenstance.…

This doesn’t have “Dead Man’s Party,” so I’m at a loss.

I doubt that there were many people who called Manning a traitor but changed their tune when she announced her transition. Is that an opinion you've actually seen? People who support Manning now largely did so before her transition as well. Ditto people who think her actions were treasonous.

My favorite was "Top Ten Paul Shaffer Comedy Takes", which seems to have disappeared from the internet, sadly. But this one is pretty good too: Casey Kasem joins Dave for "Top Ten Numbers from One to Ten".

Bony old behind!
Bony old behind!
Bony old behind!