There's a new movie called The Rite, starring Anthony Hopkins in some version of the Max Von Sydow exorcist role, which was essentially the John Wayne or Alan Ladd role, though instead of bank robbers, cattle rustlers, or hired gunslingers, the hero's doing battle with the lord of the underworld....

Broadcaster/Entertainer/Drug Addict Rush Limbaugh trotted out his intellect in a radio comment on the press conference held by President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao by doing a few minutes of the classic, derogatory, singsong gibberish -- a way of mocking the visiting president's native language; i.e. Chinese. Limbaugh made...

There's a well-known line from Edmund Burke: "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." In the wake of the Tucson shootings, it now has a corollary: All it takes for evil to triumph is for lesser men to turn away and claim plausible...

The 2012 presidential election is on. (As if it's ever been off.) But the unofficial first shot has been fired by former Arkansas governor and failed 2008 GOP candidate Mike Huckabee in the form of a TV spot advocating the repeal of the health care bill. Or, as Huck refers...

On the season finale of Real Time with Bill Maher, Bill O'Reilly said something interesting. No, really. Toward the end of their discussion about the Bush tax cuts and whether the wealthy could withstand the potential 3% bump, O'Reilly responded: "the philosophy is that income redistribution isn't in the Constitution....

"President Palin." Rupert Murdoch's masturbatory mantra, and the rest of the country's nightmare. The polls say it can't happen. That she's a joke as a national candidate, with no support outside the Tea Party. But there hasn't been a major news broadcast in the last two years that hasn't touched...

1. If the 2010 midterm Republican victories represent the "voice of the American people to which the Democrats need to listen," why didn't the 2006 and 2008 Democratic victories represent the voice of the American people to which Republicans needed to listen?
2. If keeping the Bush tax cuts is necessary to...

Levi Johnston made a recent appearance on Lawrence O'Donnell's show. Responding to a list of questions asked of his almost mother-in-law during the 2008 campaign, he grinned his way through a series of non-responses, proving himself to be a most affable idiot, while making his almost MIL look intelligent by...

One reason many people have soured on religion is the collection of villains, thieves, scoundrels, and morons whose actions and comments demonstrate a perverted sense of its meaning and purpose, whether it's Sharron Angle claiming in a recent anti-abortion statement that "rape and incest are part of God's plan," or...

As throngs of fat, angry white people crowded Washington to heed the lunatic ravings of a pudgy, angry white guy who clearly didn't get beaten up enough in high school, and while John Boehner measures the drapes in the Speaker's office, recent polls reflect the prospect of Republican victory in...

Yet another wave in the ongoing terrorist war against the American way of life has been revealed in recently released classified documents that detail an insidious plot in which terrorists have been sneaking into this country on tourist visas while secretly pregnant with gay fetuses, then giving birth to gay...

As a New Yorker living in L.A, and one who has stood at the WTC site and stared at the names of friends on a plaque, I've followed the recent controversy over the so-called Ground Zero Mosque with some interest. And, as with most public debates, it's been quickly reduced...

1) Is there a God? No, there isn't. It's that easy. There's no magical sky daddy who created us and lives in a place called heaven or anywhere else. There are also no angels, devils, heavens, hells, heavenly saints or magic virgins. These categories we've inherited have perverted the discussion...

No single question should fire a thinking person's imagination more than: "What is the origin and nature of human life?" It has driven, provoked, or plagued the greatest minds in history. Yet despite the fact that Western culture is philosophically grounded in a Socratic search for truth, based on logic...

So now Sarah Palin is complaining that NBC News broke their promise to her for not broadcasting the content of her written statement regarding the journalist who moved next door while he writes a book about her. In her Facebook rant, she pouted that NBC didn't intend to air her...

I was sitting in my kitchen after dinner, desperately trying to find something to watch, now that 60 Minutes was over. I even made it through Andy Rooney, who was less demented than usual. I understood what he was talking about. And he wasn't drooling. But there was just nothing...

No, the American people haven't spoken. There are 308,549,107 of us. Massachusetts has spoken. But it was hardly a mandate. There was no message, other than not to blow a double-digit lead in a crucial election. If Scott Brown had beaten Ted Kennedy, that would've been a message. This was...

(Instructions: Circle appropriate details; read at press conference with bowed head, somber voice, and look of contrition that says: "I'm sorry for what I did," instead of "I'm sorry I got busted for what I did." If possible, drag along significant other(s) to sit or stand beside you for support.)...

Once upon a time in America there was at least a tangential relationship between fame and talent. Actors could act. Writers could write. Singers could sing. Of course, there were always freaky novelty acts, but they were in the sideshow, not the main arena. But now we live in the...

Many people have drawn the comparison between Vietnam and Afghanistan in terms of fighting a war without a clear objective. Some accept it. Others reject it. Putting aside how many troops (English translation: young Americans) Gen. McChrystal says he needs to accomplish the military goal in Afghanistan, we're still left...