Barack Obama’s Pre-Super Bowl Interview With Bill O’Reilly

Above is the video of the interview with Barack Obama. Perhaps the top exchange:

O’Reilly: “Are you a man that wants to redistribute wealth?”
Obama: “Absolutely not.”

Thought For The Day

If the country is ready to watch Glee after the Super Bowl, I can’t believe the country is not yet ready for full marriage equality.

SciFi Weekend: The Romantic Triangle of Fringe; Cobie Smulders of SHIELD; Nolan and Sorkin Win Awards; V To End on Cliffhanger; And Daleks

On Fringe, Olivia expressed the belief that she had difficulty competing with Fauxlivia due to being less fun after having been experimented upon as a child. While Fauxlivia definitely is the hotter of Anna Torv’s characters, Olivia needs to understand that the real problem is that she has been pushing Peter away. I had even been rooting at times for Peter to get back with Fauxlivia, until we learned in this week’s episode that possibly only one universe will survive and it will be the one with the version of Oliva which Peter chooses. Actually I suspect the show will end up with both universes surviving, but it now does sound far too risky to root for Fauxlivia, regardless of how much hotter she is than Olivia.

A major component of the episode involved an excuse to bring in someone who could read minds so that they could read Peter’s thoughts. This led to the scene in the picture above where Olivia read that Peter still had feelings for Fauxlivia. The mind reader might have been more helpful if he also pointed out that Peter clearly also has feelings for Olivia.

Strange that Fringe, which is probably the top American science fiction show now on the air, has essentially turned into a gigantic love triangle.

In an interview with Jimmy Fallon,  Samuel L. Jackson revealed that there would be a female side kick for Nick Fury in the upcoming Joss Whedon Avengers movie. The latest rumor is that Cobie Smulders of How I Met Your Mother is the front runner for the role of SHIELD Agent Maria Hill.

Olivia Wilde is rumored to be in consideration to play Lois Lane in the Superman reboot.

Christopher Nolan and Aaron Sorkin won major awards last night at the Writers Guild Awards. Christopher Nolan won for best original screenplay with Inception and Aaron Sorkin won for best adapted screenplay with The Social Network.

Sorkin is currently working on a pilot for HBO which goes behind the scenes of a cable news show. Sorkin has shown interest in this type of show in Sports Night and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Going to a cable news show would allow him to include the type of politically-oriented stories he wrote for The West Wing which didn’t work as well when mixed into Studio 60.

Although it is far from certain that V will return next season, the season will reportedly end on a cliffhanger. This could turn out to be like the original series, which ended on a cliffhanger. By that time the series had gotten so bad that nobody really cared. The Cape also appears in trouble of not coming back, being reduced to only ten episodes. The return of The Event is being postponed until after The Cape concludes its brief run.

Community had another great genre-oriented episode involving a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The episode even included a shot with a picture of a Dalek on the table.

Ironically, this occurred the same week on which Jim Parsons, whose show The Big Bang Theory is on opposite Community, admitted in an interview with Craig Ferguson that he doesn’t watch Doctor Who (video above).

Last week I had a video of kids and Daleks. It appears that Steven Moffat is looking into this trend.

Here’s a must buy item. The Doctor Who Site reports that this Tardis mug is available for pre-order. For unexplained reasons it is available in the United States and Australia but not the U.K.

Comparing Democrats and Republicans On The Economy

Numerous comparisons between the economic outcomes of Democratic and Republican controlled governments have clearly showed that the economy tends to thrive under Democrats and stagnate under Republicans. This makes this analysis by Chuck Spinney partially redundant, but still worth pointing out considering the number of people in this country who regularly vote against their economic self-interest.

Spinney does add one important contribution to the numerous studies which compare the outcomes of Democratic and Republican governments. Many look at just who occupied the White House while this study also takes into account the percent as to which the party controlled entire government. The results are in this table (with the two paragraphs below the graph also from Spinney’s comments). Click on the graph if you need to enlarge it.

As Spinney pointed out, the Democrats easily win this comparison. Other than for Carter, Democrats provided stronger economies when they controlled the White House. The next best situation was generally to have Democrats controlling the Congress when there was a Republican president. It is too early to rank Obama, but regardless of where he winds up ranking he deserves praise for the manner in which he kept the country out of a depression after inheriting a disaster from George Bush.

This comes as no surprise, based upon both multiple similar comparisons in the past as well as the philosophical differences between the two parties. This is a simply a sign of victory for the party which supports capitalism. Despite all their rhetoric, the Republicans actually support oligarchy and their policies have been hostile to rational market policies. Policies based upon transfer of wealth to the wealthy and opposing regulations necessary for the market to operate properly ultimately are not the policies which are good for growing the economy.

Quote of the Day

“We don’t need birthday tributes to remind us of Reagan’s legacy – the homeless do it every day.” –Andy Borowitz