People have trouble telling when they're in cults because there isn't any real dividing line between religions and cults except convention. The thing about a difference of opinion is that lots, maybe most, people accept that everyone's opinion must be respected. Nobody's really sure what that means in practice, so…

Don't tell me what US policy is. Do learn that Islam and the Middle East are not synonyms. Consider the possibility that the diplomatic corps is composed of upper-class supporters of the government determined to put the best face possible on any inconvenient facts, of unreliable honesty when they are even capable of…

Didn't ask you about your wet dreams dude.

Muslim countries that had Communist systems were Albania, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyz, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. It's been so long since the UIghurs had an independent state I doubt they should count. All those countries had some degree of economic development most Muslim countries can't match even with the…

"It’s a stylistic throwback as well: an old-fashioned, star-studded, big-budget historical epic with an intermission, filmed in a classical style that hearkens back in some ways to David Lean’s Lawrence Of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago."

The big confrontation with Zinoviev is showed as being about Zinoviev watering down the true Communist ideology by pandering to Islam. You misinterpret.

US covert operations in Afghanistan on behalf of the forerunners of al-Qaeda and IS had long been underway before the Soviets intervened at one faction's invitation.

Emma Goldman never did a damn thing to help anybody. I've no doubt she wanted to, but her crackpot ideology made sure her life was futile. All she ever succeeded at was self-promotion. Her fake left assault on the Soviet Union in the end served no cause but counterrevolution, something she would have despised had she…

The malignant influence of the Nolan/Goyer Batman continues, to the point where Lex Luthor channels the Joker. Multiple dream sequences, an idiot plot, Batman heists kryptonite shenanigans pad, pad, pad.

The Great Detective is something like the opposite of "procedural" in any but the most vapid, cliched use of the term. Sherlock Holmes is the greatest example of the Great Detective, and Elementary is not a procedural. But I may suggest, contra Ms Valentine, that the Great Detective who doesn't solve nifty puzzles,…

There are no red herrings in the case. Every seeming dead end, thrown in by writers intent on delaying the resolution to a simple story, leads to the solution.

Rorschach's easy slaughter of his enemies prove the story doesn't think he's suffering from grandiosity and delusions. It shows he's genuinely grand and has a superb grasp on reality. Rorschach instantly sees the hidden hand behind the Comedian's murder, after all. Not to mention, his shrink is shaken to the core by…

Of course Oxymandias' Architects of Fear plot will unravel. Dr. Manhattan tells him so, when he says "Nothing ever ends" in response to Ozymandias' satisfaction that its over. Ozymandias, who is such a complete fool that he can't even give his computer files a decent password, of course doesn't understand, but we do.…

Rorschach's line about them being locked in with him is the snappiest comeback. Clearly, Rorschach's journal undoes Ozymandias' plan, despite Dr. Manhattan joining in on it, so Ozymandias doesn't win. Before that, Ozymandias doesn't even realize that Dr. Manhattan is capable of surviving a disintegration that he has…

The coolest guy is the hero. The one with the snappiest comeback line is the hero. The baddest ass of them all is the hero. The winner is the hero. The most ruthless one is the hero. The one who does it his way is the hero. The one who suffers the most is the hero. The hero is the villain's greatest enemy. The …

The text does no embrace ambiguity and imperfection in all of the characters, just some. And the story endorses Rohrschach and condemns Oxymandias. And the only thing ambiguous about Dr. Manhattan's epiphany is its relevance to the formal plot. I'm sorry, but I think you're imagining stuff in the book that could never…

The fix was a variation on Fail-Safe. The Russians no longer think Dr. Manhattan is the American superweapon because of the attack on NYC.
I don't know why you want the space squid.

The book's plot made Rohrschach the hero, the one who wins. When you put his on the screen and have to finish with him winning, albeit posthumously, you really have to have a villain who oozes condescension from every pore. Otherwise the audience might think Rohrschach is awful (and so are his friends, like Nite Owl.)…

In principle, true. But in practice, pretty much every comic book movie lives for the splash panel scenes, aka money shots. As for Watchmen specifically, the movie I think would fail because there's no real way to make The Comedian's despair at Ozymandias' plan believable without all the rigmarole imported from the…

I don't know, but I am amazed.