1. Papillon - Henri Charrière
2. Henderson, the rain king - Saul Bellow
3. Less than zero - Bret Easton Ellis
4. Altered carbon - Richard K. Morgan
5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
6. The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
7. Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch
8. The Teachings of Don Juan - Carlos Castaneda
9. Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
10. The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut jr.

1) WTF Starbuck was when she returned.

I think this was attempt to be faithful to original series and the Crystal Ship. I think she is either related to "God" ala Baltar/Six Angels and/or like the Crystal Six person that appears to Starbuck in that one episode with the pregnant woman/test and the Scilon that he becomes a buddy with.

2) Why was Starbuck repeatedly called the harbinger of death if she actually sent everyone to this lush green planet to repopulate humanity?

This is a much passed around mistake. I think she was only called harbinger of apocalypse. Which does not mean death, but change / rebirth.

3) Was Starbuck's father really Daniel, the last Cylon "child" created by the final five? If so, was her mother human? How did they successfully breed?

Ron Moore was clear about this in some podcast (or so I've read). Daniel was just that, killed by jealous super evil Cavil. Starbuck was not cylon ever. Also the dead/reborn Starbuck could have seen her father/piano man just like the Baltar/Six visages.

----
The only minorly interesting thing about the cop-out ending with "Eve" and crap is that Cylon DNA is literally built into the human nature and could explain how similar humans end up making the same Cylons eventually. It's like secret code waiting to be expressed. Of course the whole concept of Centurions makes zero sense then. I still don't understand why they were cludged into this TV show once skinjobs introduced.

Major plot flaw is that Cavils etc. know they have all the time in the world. Even if they felt tricked or double crossed they would not blow up ship containing Hera. That would be suicide for their race. Plus they downloaded half of the "stream" isn't that a good start? It's still not clear why the people who invented Resurrection could never recreate it. Did it really take all five of them? Also, how did they ever build the one Resurrection ship then? Could they never repair it or study it? What if it got hit by a random gamma burst or something.

I still can't understand.. How did Saul grow old? How did Cavil wipe memories and insert them five like 50 years prior to nuking planet. They clearly could make more clones of themselves even if there is no resurrection, can't they just go clone crazy and share their thoughts anyways??

Also, what would never happen is sending fleet into sun. Also, no scilons would choose to live on Earth, especially if they all have to split up. And I guarantee one captain would keep crazy weapons stash and technology to be supreme ruler of the new Earth. Besides most of these small groups of people would be killed by tribals in no time. I just can't see giving up all your medicine and stuff like that. It's lame throwback to M. Night movie.

>> ^EDD:
^whoa, dft you've completely missed the point of this episode. It was no random piano player. It was in fact a figment of Kara's imagination - her 'dad', if there ever was one. The realization I mentioned in the description is the one of her having memory (imprints) of the song (Hera's notes merely provided cues for her to follow), which quite clearly leads to conclude that Kara IS Daniel, number 7, THE 13th Cylon model (who was artistic (piano, paintings, remind you of anyone?) and whose DNA had been radically altered, as we learned in the previous episode).

Umm... Occam's Razor? Isn't it far more likely that Kara Thrace is, in fact, the first Hybrid, and that Daniel was her father? I mean, she does stuff that Hera does (drawing the supernova over and over as a child). Look--we see him. We see the silly rituals they did when she was little. Starbuck's mom sure thought he was a real dude, and Kara even has a cassette tape of one of his performances. Admittedly, we've never "seen" him before, but he has loomed rather large in her life.

What I really like about this is that they've really drawn out the whole Greek Mythology angle, with the 'final five' (in fact, the FIRST five) lusting after their children and grand-children, unaware that in this, there is only sterility.

I've always thought Kara was a hybrid, but I thought that perhaps Saul Tigh was her real father, and that he had no idea. Rewatching the first season, I see that it puts a whole new spin on their relationship.

Oh, and I couldn't be happier about how all this is resolving. They had me at "naked singularity".

Your video, Def Poetry - Saul Williams (Coded Language), has made it into your personal Highest Rated Videos listing. Congratulations on a job well done. For you contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This pssyass excuse on Obama's part that he "inhertited" a bad economy is just that, an excuse. He wanted the fking job, then filled the slots with tax cheats and other incompetent morons who have only made things worse. Dn't blame conservatives for this clusterfk, Team Obama is the one pissing napalm on a forest fire for two months now.

The magickal polls about The One's enduring teleprompularity say one thing, while the people who actually make the economy run are voting with their dollars: they don't trust Obamunism's jobs and wealth-destroying higher taxes and big government schemes. Many people who are for these scamulus packages doubt their effectiveness, or are starting to.

As for "know your enemy", I'll be doing my part to help the ailing economy by picking up a used copy of Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinksy.

Alinksy was the communist sociopath who 'inspired' both Shrillary AND Barry O. It's the moonbat playbook of the modern taxocrat party.

"I don't need to say it, I shouldn't need to say it to anyone! Isn't it enough that I feel it? I feel it! ... I shouldn't need to spout the words, I feel it less with words. Just let me godsdamn feel it and I'll fill the frakkin room!"

--Col. Saul Tigh

The song is Andrew Sisters - Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen

Yiddush song originally composed by lyricist Jacob Jacobs and Sholom Secunda in 1932. In 1937, Sammy Cahn heard a performance of the song, sung in Yiddish by African American performers Johnnie and George at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and on seeing the response, got his employer to buy the rights so he (together with Saul Chaplin) could rewrite the song with English language lyrics. He then convinced The Andrews Sisters to perform the song (recorded November 24, 1937), and it became a major hit.



This is the original Yiddish performance of the song.

QM never complained about Bush giving us the biggest government of all time.

QM never complained about Bush during FISA/NSA.

QM never complained about Bush stealing from the Social Security cookie jar.

QM never complained about Bush raping our treasury.

Actually, wrong on all counts. But your first language is French so WTF, foo, you can't be everywhere!

QM complains about California, which is run BY A FUCKING REPUBLICAN who was never fairly elected, and only got 20% of the vote after running a Dem out of office for wanting to raise DMV taxes. All backed by Enron and Cheney's energy task force.

Yes, yes, it's only a conspiracy/voter fraud when people elect Republicans. Gray Davis wasn't a corrupt piece of crap, it was all lies. And since Schwarzy acts like a FUCKING DEMOCRAT who cares what his voter card reads? Democrats should proudly stand for what they've done to California! California government schools are some of the worst in the nation, and Democrats get reelected there again and again. Coincidence?

QM should sincerely shut the fuck up and get his pussy ass over to Iraq. But he never will, because he's a chicken-hawk who loves the smell of dead Iraqi kids in the morning.

QM will always call a Republican he doesn't like, a "Democrat emulator" yet every fucking Repub in this country is responsible for the FUBAR mess we're in.

Rs get some of the blame, but no Republican ever woke up and said, "Let's force banks to give the poor houses they can't afford. It's the fair thing to do" (looking at all the taxocrat tax cheats and bribe-takers STILL in office, I guess that spirit of spreading the wealth doesn't apply to them).

You and your goofball Saul Alinksy-wannabe anarcho-whatever radicalist rascals...you're not interesting when you act this way, the ad hominem attacks cut-n-pasted from Daily Komatose's baboonery are tiresome; instead of dealing with the FACTS of the matter you're...just making a fool of yourself. Everyone deserves to go on a wild rant now and again--I don't fault you for it--but wear your seatbelt, airbags won't always save you.

And you know what QM? Fuck you and your "335 million dollar condom scheme." Either you're a fucking idiot and believe that shit, or you're evil and you're lying and obfuscating. Any thinking person knows that that 200mil was for FAMILY PLANNING, of which, a measly less than one percent is for free condoms.

No matter, this generational looting of the Treasury--the second time Congressional majority taxocrats will be voting for one--won't make it through in its present odious form.

I'm simply offering my opinion of what's going on with the scum in DC and the mechanics of their powergrab to rottenseed, who posted the question.

I knew this would happen to liberals when Bush left office. All that titanic machine-against-the-RAGE has to go SOMEwhere. Fox Derangement Syndrome won't absorb it all.

May I suggest picking up a copy of Ann Coulter's new bestseller?

Hey QM: George W Bush appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any other president in US history.

Are these real criminals, that is, people with unrelated criminal records, or libmedia phantasy creations like "war criminals"?

Why doesn't Obama next promote an arsonist for Fire Chief of DC?

Sociopath Saul Alinksy lives on in the sift.

for a fiction list slaughterhouse 5 and catch 22 are also in my top-10 as are Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen Werthers and Faust. The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek also comes to mind. Saul Bellow's Seize the Day, some books by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (can't choose) and ofcourse Bambi, A Life in the Woods by Felix Salten.

- the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett; also Good Omens, which he wrote with Neil Gaiman
- Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (first part of Takeshi Kovacs' trilogy)
- Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut (hard to single out any of his books, they're all great imo)
- Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
- The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
- The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch (a four-strand theory of everything)
and then some

Oh, it's one of my favorites on here. That's why I noticed the dead link.

In reply to this comment by RhesusMonk:
*fixed. Thanks for the heads-up. If you haven't seen that vid yet, check it out. It's pretty awesome.

*fixed. Thanks for the heads-up. If you haven't seen that vid yet, check it out. It's pretty awesome.

Saul Alinsky is glowing!
Vote for BO and join the ranks of Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers, Frank Marshall Davis, and Jeremiah Wright.

This is the guy who thinks the US Constitution is defective.

Sad day for this country.

Like all Big Government liberals, Barry O is against citizens owning firearms. For many that alone is a key indicator of whether we're dealing with a potential tyrant.

Obama believes in an all-powerful centrist government. There's nothing government can't fix, if only they have the money...

He uses accusations of "racism" whenever he loses an argument (tho not exclusively a Marxist principle). I safely predict Orwellian hate crimes and hate speech laws will strengthen under his rule, the closest to outright banning free speech we'll have.

He uses class warfare. A question for Obama supporters: let's say he gets his way and increases taxes on only "the wealthy". Do the middle and lower classes really think they won't suffer any adverse effects by having their employers' earnings slammed?

Obama is nearly a lifelong member of a "church" that promotes Black Liberation Theology. Few things lie closer to believers' hearts than their faith, whatever it may be. How is it Barry has to disavow his church? Could it be because it's backwards and against not only basic Xtian principles but American principles?


Wiki: Stanley Kurtz of the National Review criticizes black liberation theology, saying, "A scarcely concealed, Marxist-inspired indictment of American capitalism pervades contemporary 'black-liberation theology'...The black intellectual's goal, says Cone, is to "aid in the destruction of America as he knows it." Such destruction requires both black anger and white guilt. The black-power theologian's goal is to tell the story of American oppression so powerfully and precisely that white men will "tremble, curse, and go mad, because they will be drenched with the filth of their evil."


And there's this:

"Barack Obama was a founding member of the board of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife became executive director of the Chicago chapter of Public Allies in 1993. Obama plans to use the nonprofit group, which he features on his campaign Web site, as the model for a national service corps. He calls his Orwellian program, "Universal Voluntary Public Service." . . .

The pitch Public Allies makes on its Web site doesn't seem all that radical. It promises to place young adults (18-30) in paid one-year "community leadership" positions with nonprofit or government agencies. They'll also be required to attend weekly training workshops and three retreats. . .

But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation — the tactics used by the father of community organizing, Saul "The Red" Alinsky. . .

Public Allies promotes "diversity and inclusion," a program paper says. More than 70% of its recruits are "people of color." . . .

The Obamas discourage work in the private sector. "Don't go into corporate America," Michelle has exhorted youth. "Work for the community. Be social workers." Shun the "money culture," Barack added. "Individual salvation depends on collective salvation." . . .

It's a lot of talk about race, a lot of talk about sexism, a lot of talk about homophobia, talk about -isms and phobias."

One of those -isms is "heterosexism," which a Public Allies training seminar in Chicago describes as a negative byproduct of "capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and male-dominated privilege."

The government now funds about half of Public Allies' expenses through Clinton's AmeriCorps. Obama wants to fully fund it and expand it into a national program that some see costing $500 billion."


What I'm addressing here has nothing to do with why people support Obama. Facts and logic are out the window, Obamites are electrified by these vague messages of "hope" and "change" or still part of the "Anybody but Bush" mindset. Still more sifters are from countries that are already socialist, so there's no conflict of interest there. And lastly, there are the deluded peaceniks who FEEL that the USA is morally no greater than Red China, and that despots can be 'reasoned with' if only we bring them a bouquet of their favorite flowers.

The 'Obamic equation' is symptomatic of a larger malaise gripping America that will likely culminate in a second civil war, which so far has remained only a cultural war of values. His election or defeat will merely hasten or delay the inevitable.

Should Obama win, I happily vow to be here to remind you all every day, as things worsen with his repetition of past economic and policy blunders, that they didn't have to be this way.