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Like St. Patrick, Jesus is pointing to the clover to symbolize the Holy Trinity. It's a good think St. Patrick didn't find a four-leaf clover --I'd hate to think about the theological implications in that.

Pip, Pip! Cheerio! Awfully decent of you! Jolly good!! But where have you been for the last 3 years, you *&#($*@&(#$&!

Calling Dr. Howard...Dr. Fine...Dr. Howard...

I self-abuse myelf every night..what's the big deal?

"Despite lacking the cartwheel or metal tools, the Maya built pyramids, palaces and courts for a ritual ball game."

Such an innocuous prhase that -- "ritual ball game." It give no inkling of what the true story is...which, of course, is what you would expect from the MSM. Here's a few facts about that "ritual ball game" via Wikipedia...

"The ball game was extremely violent. Players wore heavy padding. Even so, there were often serious injuries, and occasionally death. On some occasions post-game ceremonies featured the sacrifice of the captain and other players on the losing side. The association of the game with sacrifice and death was particularly marked on the Gulf coast. A loser's skull might be used as the core around which a new rubber ball would be made. (Guides at Chichen Itza assert that the prize for the winning team was to be deified by losing their heads, supposedly at the hands of the losing team."

Come to think of it, it sounds a lot like Australian Rules Football...

That illustration looks like a Popular Mechanics cover from the 1950s. I used to love those illustrations of future technology, like personal autogyros for commuting to work or bases on the moon.

"Okra, this is Uma...Uma, This is Okra."

Soup for none.

A good list...except for Dean.

And for youngsters here who might question the inclusion of Louis Armsrong -- known nowadays mostly for a tame rendition of a bad song (Hello Dolly), from the mid-1920s to the 30s he was a trailblazer of modern music. He was hot! From the 40s on, he was a unique entertainer whose charm, good nature and musical talent earned him the love and respect of America and the rest of the world. He was a breakthrough black artist at a time when breaking through for any black man was a risk. He's well worth checking out on Amazon.

I dunno...looks pretty much like my campus student union billboard from 1972. The more things change...

"She was up to her neck in water for three days."

This is such an obvious lie. Nobody spends three days up to their neck in water unless they're bobbing in the ocean in a life jacket. Did she sleep up to her neck in water? Did she eat and drink up to her neck in water? Try treading water for three days without eating or drinking or sleeping. Or maybe a Carls Jr. Double-double and a Sprite floated by, along with the boots and bible. The credulousness of reporters is...well..increadable.

Is posing for a two-page spread in Vanity Faire discreet?

They must have been showing a different movie the night you attended because you sure didn't see the same War of the Worlds that I saw. Most of your points are the exact opposite of what actually appeared in the film.

1. The Tim Robbins line is "Occupations never win." This echos the fact the Cruise's son is writing a paper on the "French occupation of Algeria" (considered by many to be an immoral failure) and Robbin's own opinion of the United States "occupation" in Iraq. The United States will not win in Iraq because "occupations never win."

2. Robbins is killed precisely because he wants to fight the invaders. For one thing, he wants to shoot them with his shotgun, and Cruise's character stops him. And that brings up another favorite liberal theme of the film. Guns are bad. Cruise brings a gun with him, but it only causes trouble for him and in the end citizens start shooting each other with it in a scene of violent chaos. Yep, guns are bad in the hands of citizens. Moreover, they are useless in the hands of the military because...

3. The military is completely useless fighting the enemy... until the very end of the film when the enemy is already dying. The scene of the big military attack is a completed defeat for the US military. We see tanks and other military vehicles charging over the hill, and seconds later every vehicle is sent rolling back down the hill on fire. From the scene it is clear that every soldier who attacked the aliens has been destroyed. Which makes it all more laughable that the son should appear in Boston at the end of the film unscathed from the battle that he went to join.

Yes, it was good that the son wanted to fight, but remember Spielberg is making the point that fighting was completely useless. It was not fighting that killed the aliens, it was simply a natural reaction of the earth. Spielberg makes this point early on in the film when the daughter gets a splinter in her finger. Cruise wants to remove the splinter but the daughter says that when the body is ready it will simply push the splinter out. This is what happens to the aliens -- the earth simply push is the aliens out. Attempting to remove the occupiers by force was useless.

4. Cruise does not slam the door in the reporters face. It is the reporter who slams the door in his face.

Look, this film is not pro American. In the film the ordinary citizens are a panicky mob and nobody acts heroically except the military... and all their heroics are useless against the enemy. Don't take my word for it that this film is anti-American -- just search Google news for what the writer of the film has to say about it.

And I haven't even begun to touch of the complete lack of respect that the filmmakers have shown for the intelligence of the audience. Here is something I've found on the Web which makes the point nicely.



Dear Alien High Council President,

I am a lowly pilot that was deployed to "Earth" via the lightning to get rid of the humans.
However, I found that my deadliest ray guns failed on cotton clothing but suprisingly melted steel and humans with high accuracy. Despite being bullet-resistant, I think our tentacles should be made axe-proof. Just slightly more, sir.

Also we seem to have some difficulties with our human suction device as a few people apparently figured out a way to defeat one, by simply "holding on" to each other. I propose we execute humans on mass instead of individually killing them with our mightiest "anal probing tentacles."
Also I request we re-calibrate our targeting mechanisms as one human easily seemed to dodge every single death ray at him.
Perhaps we should also make our 120 feet tripod walks outpace a 2 legged 6-foot tall human. We seem to have great difficulty catching people.

From captured earthlings, we found out these creatures have a procedure called a "Vaccination" before sending them to war. I highly recommend we assimilate these procedures before we are sent to war.

I also recommend we stop the practice of our sickened soldiers coughing on every other soldier because apparently we all got sick at the SAME EXACT time and shut down simulataneously.

I hope this letter reaches you, High-council President.

Also please re-configure our shields so that it suddenly doesn't turn off when the pilot gets ill.

Yours dearly,
Alien # 135-SZ35.

Irish and Cyprian terrorists posed no threat to us. Terrorists aligned with Iraq did. Is that so difficult to understand?

Do you HAVE to keep USING CAPS when you WRITE? It makes your otherwise VALID post LOOK AND SOUND like the PHOTOCOPIED FLYER of a STREETCORNER CRANK shouting about the coming ALIEN INVASION. You will be taken much more SERIOUSLY if you stop the TYPEOGRAPHICAL DRAMATICS.

Clarity of argument and a distinctive style is what will make your wrting compelling and persuasive, not the use of caps. There's a reason why people like Mark Styne and Ann Coulter don't use them. Learn from them.

Much more on the topic of germs, heart disease and antibiotics here.

My dad was an "early adapter." I remember his Tandy CoCo (first 16, then 32K) and his Coleco Adam computer, which he still has fond memories of.

I'll happily embrace 64-bit technology when it becomes readily available. I'm just a home office computer user, but every year I see the need for more and more power and memory in my own work.

Digital photography and multi-tasking are just two reasons why I'd welcome signifcant improvements in power and speed.

Heck, I purchased my first DVD-burner a few months ago, and already I feel constrained by the 4.7G limit. I want more than just 1 hour of DVD quality when re-mastering my old VHS videos, and I don't want it to take 3 hours to do it. I want to back-up my hard disk on 1 DVD disc, not 5 or 6. Bring on the blue lasers and the 64-bit processors! And while we're at it, I'd like to do my own private weather forcasting, too.

Where's the "Oh, Jeez...not the sh!t again" guy?