Edwin MacPhisto

We absolutely cannot. We can say that they're being taught by a faculty that dominantly identifies itself as liberal or Democratic, but that certainty in no way precludes a "multitude of viewpoints." How do you draw your conclusion? I'm following your assumptions, but not your logic. When the professorship is lacking a viewpoint held by a huge chunk of Americans, YES, you're not being presented all viewpoints. Liberals are insanely bad at presenting a conservative viewpoint. First off, an observation: the question of political ideology really isn't as important as you make it out to be for many disciplines. Political leanings are tertiary in English, anthropology, physics, chemistry, biology, foreign language study, and several more social sciences. I think the only places where your concerns might be significantly valid are history, political science, and to a lesser extent, economics (which, admittedly, are three sizable disciplines nationwide). Even "checking biases and beliefs at the door" has little to do with being a college professor. The issue is in whether you're teaching with a political slant. We're back in anecdotal evidence again with your assertions about how people are unable to understand or convey opposition ideology (which, as a sidenote, I firmly disagree with; a few rounds of Parliamentary debate and anyone can do it), and you're still not operating outside of that, so I'm not sure why you think this is a winning argument.

I love War of the Worlds. My dad brought me up on 50s sci-fi and monster movies, and the shower-head-looking death rays were probably my favorite thing out of all of them. Except maybe James Whitmore kicking the shit out of a giant ant in Them, I guess.

We CAN say, definitively, that students are not being presented a multitude of viewpoints in their education. -=Mike We absolutely cannot. We can say that they're being taught by a faculty that dominantly identifies itself as liberal or Democratic, but that certainty in no way precludes a "multitude of viewpoints." How do you draw your conclusion? I'm following your assumptions, but not your logic.

If everything the Doves had done was as good as "There Goes The Fear," they'd be nearly as good as Pulp in terms of fairly straight-ahead rock. As it stands, I think they're just pretty good.

I was hoping Damaramu's return to this thread would be to say "So I killed a dude."

And I'm saying that all of the anecdotal evidence of liberal bias in college combined with the overwhelming statistical evidence of a liberal slant shows a problem. But, as much as we've all pretty much relied on anecdotal evidence in this thread, we've got to admit that anecdotal evidence is an almost entirely unreliable determinant of an actual trend. You can present tales of the assholes you may have had at USC, and of the ten-odd profs you listed back on page 2 or 3, and I can present tales of professors I've had or have read about who haven't put slanted politics into the classroom. It's a wash. To be frank, none of us using this method are really proving anything, as much as we might like. Anecdotal evidence is thus just pretty weak support for any beliefs we already hold, unfounded or well-founded, until someone releases a study regarding actual educational impacts of political self-identification as corollary to classroom policy. Certainly. And I also believe that even if you grab two college professors--or two humans--liberal or not, they're going to have different views on different issues. They're also going to have substantially different degrees to which these issues enter their interactions with others. If you're implying quotas, I don't think it's the way to go.

The question isn't whether faculties self-identify as liberal; the question is whether that affects the education college students are getting. This study makes no presumption of determining that, by its own admission. We're still in the same place, where some people anecdotally believe that it does and others anecdotally think otherwise.

^ What he said.

Friday, 10 am to noon. Is it wrong that I'm part of an actual money pool on this?

I'm not sure about that Smashing Pumpkins take. It's been forever since I listened to that album, but I remember the best parts being the slightly quirky, kinda twee numbers like "We Only Come Out At Night." I'd sub in a few more of those and cut out some of the embarrassing bombast (do you really need both "Tales of a Scorched Earth" and "X.Y.U."?

That makes more sense. I thought you were referring to Feinstein and Boxer's later senate runs when you said you were a junior in high school trying to keep them from getting re-elected.

Speaking as someone who actually pays taxes, and doesn't live off of their parents, I'm wondering why you even care. Speaking as someone who just bought his second brand new house in three years and has probably paid more taxes than you ever have, there is no wonder as to why the Bush-supported tax cuts have helped my family of four. See what happens you make assumptions? Live off of their parents? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You were 17 in 1998 and you've already bought two houses and support a family of four? I'm not sure if that's dazzling or obscene.

While "We Are Idiots" is obviously the focal point, I think "Judge Greer = Poo Head" on the left is the high watermark.

THAT MICHAEL SCHIAVO IS SOMEWHAT QUESTIONABLE

I just caught the tail-end of the video for this. Weezer's playing at a party, guys! At least the last album had muppets.

For me, the fact that the tombstone (of Brendan Gleeson's son, the very first few shots of the film) said "1890-1897" was a surefire, factual representation of when the time was, and had no reason to use those false dates otherwise. I guess as a "psychological experiment" the adopting stuffy puritan ways makes sense, but there's still no explanation for the need to pretend to be in the 19th century unless William Hurt and company really needed that to remind them that, yeah, you're not supposed to be in 1970 and beyond.

Awfully specific there. Maybe Ripper is hard after all.

The Village was one of the cheapest, most abysmal excuses for a film I've seen. Awful script that relies on gimmickry, designed solely to deceive the audience in ways that don't even make sense. My big gripe, copied from what I said about it back in August was always the retarded insistence that it’s 1897. Why would any of this matter? The “elders” have created a society that’s entirely separated from the rest of the world. There is no comparison point; unless we’re intended to extrapolate that all the elders are some dorky LARP fans, there’s no reason for them to effect that formal, stiff, self-consciously ancient style of speaking, nor is there any reason for them to arbitrarily decide that their little village will occur in the 19th century. Call it 1897 or call it the year 8000; how will time period or an era mean anything to a generation of children without a frame of reference? It's trickery aimed at no one but the audience, and it is neither clever nor ultimately honest enough to be seen as anything but lazy filmmaking. It's also really dumb. I kinda liked Signs for being so weird; not as a serious movie, but Joaquin Phoenix in the foil hat and the similarly retarded weakness of the aliens just made it this bizarre exercise in incredibly low-impact terror. Can't say the same about The Village.

Nah. Pitchfork goes for indie stuff, but pretty much hates anything proggy or that virulently, actively pretentious. The first Mars Volta album pulled a similarly low rating, around a 4.0 if memory serves me properly.

Isn't that just slashing the interludes and "Third Eye"? There are only 9 tracks I'd consider real songs on that album. Tool somehow seems wrong without bloat. Edit: I hate you godthedog, and your heathen alacrity.

Beat me to it. I was just typing "Heavens, no!" On-topic: I really, really like that Matt Jones pick.

Songs heard live in the last year edition: Prince - "Purple Rain," April '04 Interpol - "Not Even Jail," March '05 The Arcade Fire - "In the Backseat," January '05 Pixies - "Debaser," December '04 The Cure - "Pictures of You," July '05

I probably like Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain more than Slanted and Enchanted, though I'm fond of both. Malkmus and Kannberg take all the fuzzy screamness and skew it towards the best pop hooks of their careers on that one. S&E is an interesting case because of how quickly it alternates between jagged bits of noise and poppier numbers. The juxtaposition of "Conduit for Sale!" with "Zurich is Stained" is one example. On first listen I found it frustrating, then I progressed to thinking it brilliant, and now I'm back in the middle. "Summer Babe" remains one of my favorite opening tracks ever.

Incandenza will be upset if this becomes a U2 thread (and I will too, I'd say), so: Massive Attack, Mezzanine 1. Angel 2. Risingson 3. Teardrop 4. Inertia Creeps 5. Group Four (cut 6 tracks) This is a great album, but the first four tracks are really great. Little else on the album introduces new concepts--it's kind of "Angel" part 2, "Teardrop" part 2, etc. "Group Four" stays because it's long, epic, fantastic, and pretty much encompasses all the moods of the first four stunners, leaving 30 perfect minutes.

The blown-up replay was just too unclear. Three OTs and a fourth great game; what a weekend.