kimmy

I think that's the essence of it. At the start of the movie, he tells us: "Once, I was a cop... a road warrior looking for a righeous cause. As the world fell, each of us in our own way was broken... I am the one who runs from both the living and the dead. Hunted by scavengers. Haunted by those I could not protect.... A man reduced to a single instinct: survive." He's rather animal-like at this point. He communicates in grunts. He even gets put in a cage and a muzzle. Survival is everything. When he meets Furiosa, they're like a pair of dogs fighting over a single bone, and he's prepared to leave them all to die in the desert. Their alliance is based on mutual survival. Somewhere along the ride he becomes emotionally involved in Furiosa's mission. I think the little thumbs-up he gives Splendid is the first time we see that he's not just in it for himself anymore. Maybe Furiosa reminds him of himself before all of the humanity was beaten out of him. When she says "redemption", that strikes a chord with him. When Furiosa's dreams are crushed, his words of wisdom to her are: "Hope is a mistake, you know?" He might be reminding himself that as well as telling her. Chiding himself for allowing himself to get himself caught up in their fool's errand. But later, he makes a decision that's opposite of everything he's been preaching. It's kind of like Columbus's epiphany in Zombieland: "Of course. It had to be a clown. And it had to be Wichita. For me to finally understand that some rules are mad to be broken." Rule 17: Don't be a hero. Max is a man of few words, but he's not just a vehicle to tell a story around. He's an evolving character with conflict of his own that is awakened through his interaction with Furiosa and the brides. He's searching for meaning. He's struggling with a question: if survival is all you're living for... are you really living? Nux too. When we meet him, all he wants is a death that will get him to Valhalla. But it turns out that he too is looking for more. -k

Yes. They didn't set out to target minorities specifically. They set out to issue as many subprime mortgages as possible. That minorities were slightly over-represented in subprime mortgages is a reflection of larger demographic circumstances (ie, that minorities are over-represented in the economic bracket most likely to use subprime mortgages.) The philosophy was the complete opposite of discrimination. Subprime mortgages for "anyone who can fog a mirror". Black? White? Brown? Broke? Unemployed? No education? It doesn't matter! Mortages for everyone. I doubt they even care about PR. I think their primary concern is with limiting future liabilities and obtaining cost certainty. -k

Just saw Fury Road! I loved it! My heart rate was about doubled during the road battle sequences, and I had to remind myself to breathe at times. Tanya, on the other hand, fidgeted the whole time and got us angry glares when she kicked the seat in front of us; I was just about ready to sell her to Immortan Joe. So annoying. I think I will probably go see it again, but in a bigger theatre in 3d this time, and by myself. All of the action sequences were great, but the battles featuring the war rig were the best thing ever. I liked that they did very little exposition, revealing the setting with a "show, don't tell" philosophy. Immortan Joe's citadel put a whole new meaning to the phrase "human resources". Icky! That was one of my quibbles with the movie... if people are commodities and flawless breeding females are the most precious commodity, how did Furiosa end up as a top lieutenant? It seems more likely that she'd have been groomed from childhood to be like Splendid and the other "brides", not drive war machines. Anyway, that's minor. I loved the sheer visual spectacle. I loved the sheer lunacy of it. I am really looking forward to more. I might have to go back and watch the original movies again to try and figure out the significance of the imaginary kid who kept showing up. -k

For sure. It's easy to forgive them for recycling the formula when the result is so much fun. -k

The new Star Wars trailer is pretty exciting... -k

I was thinking that for Loras, demanding a trial by combat would be a no-brainer. In the books it's stated that he's one of the most skilled knights in Westeros. With Jaime missing a hand, the Hound MIA and presumed dead, the Mountain MIA and presumed undead, the Red Viper dead, Khal Drogo dead, Thoros of Myr hasn't been seen for 3 seasons ...I think Brienne might be the only person left on the show who could match up with Loras one-on-one (she trounced him in season 2 at Renly's camp, if I recall.) What champion could the Sparrows produce that could defeat Loras in a trial by combat? -k

Deep thoughts, with Anna Kendrick. -k

At this point I'm wondering why she would even care about Westeros. She's never even actually been there, has she? She's built something completely new in Essos. The work she's doing over there is important. Why would she leave all that behind to go fight a war that was never really hers to start with? Revenge for events that happened before she was born? Reclaim the Iron Throne for a family that she's the last and final member of (the "blood magic" debacle in season 1 left her infertile, right?) That stuff was Viserys's dream, not really hers. I think Littlefinger's primary interest is putting Sansa on his Littlefinger. Winterfell would be a good start; if things fall apart in the south the way they look like they're going to, he would be in prime position to swoop in later. I don't think he has any further need of the brothel business, except perhaps as a hobby. I don't think either he or Olenna can ever tell that story to anybody else. They can't use it to threaten each other because it would mean both of their heads on adjacent spikes on the battlements of the Red Keep. <Scottish brogue> "My lips, my lady, are seeealed. And so are yoooours." </brogue> I was wondering if he might somehow play into this. That would be a lazy-writer way to wrap up this storyline: Franken-Mountain wakes up off his slab, shambles into the sept, and smacks the crap out of everybody. -k

I think that Littlefinger's "gift" was not necessarily Lancel himself, just information about Lancel's various misdeeds with Cersei. No control over Lancel is required; all Lancel has to do is what his new faith requires him to: tell the Sparrow everything. Earlier in the episode, Olenna went to the Sparrow and had the chat in which he informed her that no amount of bribery or threats could dissuade him from enforcing the law of the divines. From the lowest of the low to the highest nobles, all are subject to the holy laws! It is easy to envision Olenna returning to him and mentioning the news she's received regarding Cersei and Brother Lancel. Lancel would, of course, be obligated to tell the Sparrow everything he knows. And the Sparrow would, of course, be obligated to act. All are subject to the holy laws! After the last episode, it was just Margaery and Loras in prison awaiting trial, with Cersei only feigning concern over the situation and counselling Tommen against action. "We're all faced with situations beyond our control." After this episode, with Cersei's own neck on the line, Tommen will be even more desperate, and there won't be anyone trying to hold him back. Keep in mind that Olenna knew full well that Cersei engineered the imprisonment of Margaery and Loras. She knew that Cersei would be acting against any efforts to free them. Now Cersei's behind the scenes support for the Sparrows has been removed and Cersei's allies, whatever she has left, will be wholly behind efforts to free them. At best, Tommen (and whatever help he can rally) can free all 3 captives and put an end to the madness. At worst, Cersei shares the fate of Margaery and Loras. I think that's a better gift to Olenna than some longshot plan involving Gendry somehow staging a popular revolt and becoming king. -k

That's an interesting theory, but I'm not sure that I agree with you 100% on your detective work there, Lou. First off, I think we already saw Littlefinger's gift to Olenna: the young man Baelish spoke of is Lancel Lannister. Or Brother Lancel or whatever he's called now. First off, Lancel himself had incestuous relations with Cersei. Second he may have helped kill King Robert by getting him either drunk or drugged on his ill-fated boar-hunting expedition. Lancel is neither particularly ambitious nor particularly bright, and it's obvious he wouldn't have hatched a plan like that on his own. It's more than likely he was acting at Cersei's bidding; nobody wanted Robert dead more than her. And all this happened in King's Landing while Littlefinger was in full effect there; he most likely knew all about Lancel and was keeping that in his back pocket for a rainy day. I'm also not convinced that was the book of bloodlines that the High Sparrow had; I'd assume it would be a scripture book. I expect the book of bloodlines (whatever it was called) is a pretty important document that's not likely to have gone missing from the Red Keep and fallen into the hands of the Sparrows. As for the prospects of Gendry becoming king: slim to none, I believe. I think he would (as Ramsay did) need a letter to legitimize him. He's still a bastard, after all. And who, other than the king, could write such an important letter? If Tommen's real parentage were revealed, I think that Stannis is the first *legitimate* successor to Robert Baratheon. With no son of his own-- yet, at least-- perhaps Stannis would consider legitimizing Gendry as his heir, but Stannis has a long way to go before he's in any position to do that. My purely uninformed guess as to how things play out in King's Landing: I think that in sheer desperation to save his wife and mother, Tommen will make some sort of ill-advised move against the Sparrows. It will fail, ultimately costing Tommen his head and bringing the witch's prophecy one step closer to completion. The High Sparrow will be the reigning power in King's Landing, establishing a little theocracy there. This will last about 3 episodes, until Daenerys W. Targaryen arrives in Westeros with her ships and dragons and Unsullied, to bring Freedom. I think your comments about all of Littlefinger's options are on-point, but I think he has already more or less decided to betray the Boltons. The only question left is whether he stabs them in the back, or stabs them in the face. The thing about Littlefinger is, the driving force in his life was losing Catelyn to Ned Stark. This was really driven home in the book, and to a lesser extent in season one when he monologued about it in one of those "sexposition" scenes while Rather Attractive Roz had hot girl-on-girl action with another of Littlefinger's girls. Getting both physically beaten and emotionally humiliated by Ned Stark in the battle for Cat's heart is what made him what he is. His life's mission is to prove wrong everyone who ever said he wasn't big enough, strong enough, not of noble birth, etc etc. Not good enough for Catelyn Tully? He will prove them wrong. Ever watch the movie "The Social Network"? When Zuckerberg meets with the twins in the Phoenix Club, or whatever it's called, and they tell him that non-members aren't allowed past the bicycle room? And Zuckerberg is pissed off by that, immensely. He's not mad that this privileged institution exists, he's just mad that he's not one of the privileged few allowed inside. To me, that's Littlefinger's deal. He wants to get past the bicycle room. So I think that he will want to kill the Boltons (as well as Walder Frey) because of what they did to Catelyn. And I think that Sansa is the trophy he truly desires. He couldn't win Catelyn, but he can win Sansa. It's validation, redemption, revenge on everybody who mocked him and doubted him, etc. She would be truly the greatest trophy wife he could land. What's he even working for if he can't get Sansa? When he weds her, that'll be his way of showing all of Westeros that he got past the bicycle room. -k

Speaking of kittens, where has Ser Pounce been lately? He's been as rare as dire wolves. So I just re-watched the scene with Jaime and Myrcella, and was thinking poor Jaime must have felt like he'd been punched in the gut when she said "You don't know me." She's right. He gets to Dorne, discovers that his little girl has grown to become a beautiful young woman, and he wasn't there for any of it. And even when he was there, he never got to be her father. He was "Uncle Jaime". I also re-watched the very first scene of the season, where Li'l Cersei visits the witch and demands to be told her future. The witch tells her: -she'll never marry the prince, she'll marry the king. -she'll be queen... for a while. -someone younger and more beautiful will come along, cast you aside, and take all you hold dear. -you and the king won't have children. The king will have 20 children. You'll have 3. -gold will be their crowns, and gold their shrouds <sinister laugh>. Politifact rates the first four statements as MOSTLY TRUE, with the issue being that Cersei hasn't yet lost everything she holds dear. As for the fifth... one of her golden-crowned children already has his gold shroud. Myrcella's life is in danger. And kings don't have a great life expectancy on this show either. -k

Too many distractions? Too many magazine covers and photoshoots? -k

The Boltons are the obstacle Sansa has to overcome. The payoff is, either Sansa wins, or she doesn't. This show being what it is, the latter outcome seems equally likely, if not moreso. Her journey has been as difficult as anyone's in this show, and enduring Ramsay is her toughest test yet. That said, I do find it a little disappointing how thoroughly uncreative the Ramsay character is. He's just an adult version of Joffrey. If Joffey had been a grown man who could fight instead of a weak-ass teenager, he'd have been Ramsay. There's other kinds of effective villains on the show, but it seems as if GRRM felt like putting Sansa face-to-face with psychotic monsters-- first Joffrey and now Ramsay-- is the only way to make the audience truly fear for her. I think it reflects a lack of creativity that he couldn't find a different way to make Ramsay truly frightening. -k

I think it's to do with Cersei herself afraid of becoming marginalized. She hatched this scheme after Tommen started talking about her returning to Casterly Rock. When Tommen started talking about her returning to Casterly Rock, Cersei knew for sure that Margaery would get rid of her one way or another. She worried that as Tommen grew into the role of King, she would be replaced by Margaery as the real power in the Kingdom. (and perhaps, she fears being replaced as the woman in Tommen's life.) It wasn't a big picture strategy move (the big picture strategy move for Cersei would be to go ahead with the sham marriage to Loras, and to let Tommen father a bunch of children with Margaery.) Rather, it was a move motivated by personal jealousy and insecurity over her diminishing role in the kingdom. She can't accept being pushed to the side. When she's apprehended, she screams "I'm the QUEEN! I'm the QUEEN!!" just like Margaery did. She hasn't been queen since Robert died, but in her head she never stopped being queen, and she refuses to be swept aside. -k

heeheehee -k

AH HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAAHAHA!!! -k

HAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!! -k

On the one hand you want to argue that the banks got into the subprime market because congress made them do it, and on the other you want to argue that the private banks wanted to get "a piece of the action" because Fanny and Freddie were doing it. That's hilarious. The cognitive dissonance in your position is so immense that it's visible from space. A quick reminder of some of the facts that are inconvenient to the "congress made them do it!" claim: -mortgages required under CRA or any other government requirement constituted a small fraction of subprime mortgages. The vast majority of these mortgages were entirely voluntary. -in the mid-2000s the private lenders were issuing so many subprime mortgages that Fannie and Freddie's market share in subprime mortgages almost vanished within the span of a few years. -subprime mortgages lent by private lenders defaulted at a far higher rate than subprime mortgages lent by Fanny and Freddie. That's because the private lenders didn't even care if the borrowers defaulted, so they shortcut their due diligence process to accept as many applications as possible. That last point seems confusing to some people. They can't understand why banks would issue mortgages to people who were at high risk of defaulting. They might say something like... Anybody who bothered to learn how Mortgage Backed Securities worked understands exactly why banks wanted to lend money to people who they knew were likely to default. They made these loans because they were able to sell them and pass the risk along to somebody else. That's the part you bank apologists refuse to acknowledge. They engaged in extremely risky behavior because they found a way to pass the risk along to somebody else. They wanted to originate as many mortgages as possible, due diligence be damned, because mortgages were just raw material that they could bundle to create securities that they could sell to suckers. They put high-risk mortgages into pools which were known internally by nicknames like "Subprime Meltdown", "Nuclear Holocaust", "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out", and "Sh!tbag". Then they bundled them into securities. Then they called up their friends at Moody's and Fitch and Standard & Poor's and got AAA ratings for their mortgage backed securities. Then they sold them to investors who were completely unaware of the actual contents of these securities. And that worked great for several years... until people started realizing how risky the MBSs actually were, investors stopped buying them, and banks were left holding stacks and stacks of toxic mortgages and no way to pass the risk off on other people anymore. The result was "TARP" -- Troubled Asset Relief Program. The "trouble assets" that were bought from banks were high-risk mortgages that the banks knew were likely to default before they were even issued. Obviously politicians and the general public were grossly unaware of how risky banking practices had become. But now that the details of what actually happened are understood, there's no excuse for being so uninformed. And yet you keep trying. -k

He's not even a senator anymore. He retired due to poor health. This is only in the news because she's an attractive 26 year old woman who achieved a modest level of infamy when she married a septuagenarian senator. And to that extent I agree with bjre on the premise of the media being a joke. -k

Cut from the same cloth as other great Ottawa women like Helena Guergis and Eve Adams. -k

Perhaps the details of the cause of the fracas are not known yet. The article does helpfully point out some of her prior history with the law. A temper tantrum on an airplane, threatening paramedics who were called to her home to help her feeble old husband, threatening police, kicking the window out of a cop car, refusing to show up for a court date. -k

I don't think it's a "remake", as it's a completely different story. The setting and Mad Max character are shared with the original 3 movies, but it's a different story and a different continuity (ie, it's not a sequel to events in the original 3 movies). I think they call this a "franchise reboot". I'm really excited about seeing it, but I got strong-armed into seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron instead last week. One thing I think is neat is that it's the original creator of the Mad Max series, George Miller, at the helm. Even after a successful career that has gone everywhere from "Babe" the talking pig, to "Happy Feet", to documentaries and TV, he's come back to Mad Max after 30 years. Another thing I think is neat is that I have read they used a minimal amount of CGI, in favor of doing as much live-action film as possible. When you watch this, you're watching real working machines being destroyed, and real living stunt-people risking life and limb for your amusement. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! So next time I get to choose the movie and we're definitely going to Fury Road. As for Avengers: Age of Ultron, it was ok. My favorite aspects of it were James Spader as the voice of Ultron, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor, particularly in the down-time scenes when they're just hanging out. Thor, God of Thunder, is a fearsome sight to behold. But Thor, good-natured bro, is a guy I'd love to have a beer with. I think the scene where the Avengers unwind at a party and take turns attempting to lift Thor's hammer as a drinking game was my favorite in whole movie. The action sequences were generally quite exciting as well. I did feel like some parts of the movie dragged. The part of the film where they rest and regroup at Hawkeye's home was kind of dull and didn't really feel like it went anywhere. I also wasn't really feeling the romance between Natasha and Dr. Banner, and the time the movie spent with those two together generally felt kind of wasted. I don't think it was wretchedly awful like Tauriel the elf and Kili the dwarf in the Hobbit movies, but it wasn't great either. I liked Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, and was less enthusiastic about the Vision. For some reason I had assumed the Fox "X-Men" franchise had the rights to the Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch characters, particularly given that Quicksilver appeared in "X-Men: Days of Future Past" last year. -k

... I think these are good ideas, particularly categorizing stuff. I don't see a problem with packaging a bunch of tax changes and housekeeping stuff in with a budget bill, but the idea that changes to the access to information act or anti-terror measures should also be bundled with the budget defies common sense. -k

We've gone over this many times before but what's the harm in one more? The above post deals with all of this in detail. Read it today and remember it tomorrow. The private lenders were lending subprime mortgages so rapidly that Fanny and Freddy were left in the dust. Fanny and Freddy's market share shrank dramatically between 2002 and 2006, because the private lenders were originating so many private mortgages. That's where the bubble happened. They were lending to (as Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo put it) "Anybody who can fog a mirror." They were so enthusiastic about getting subprime mortgages, they short-circuited their own due diligence processes. You can point to the Community Reinvestment Act as a factor, but the truth is that CRA-mandated mortgages made up a small fraction of subprime mortgages. You can point to lower lending standards, but the fact is that the banks gave out more risky mortgages because they wanted to, not because anyone forced them to. Why did the banks want to give out so many subprime mortgages? Because they had invented a way to spin straw into gold, and they needed a whole lot of straw. Through the magic of derivatives and mortgage-backed securities, they were able to package up all these risky mortgages and sell them to mutual funds and other suckers. You can point at deregulation as a cause (which is funny in itself, coming from the forum's biggest Romney supporter. "Let's free our financial institutions to create prosperity by unshackling them from the regulations that hold them back!") But the thing is, Alan Greenspan lobbied the Clinton administration for deregulation in the belief that the financial institutions could be trusted to act prudently. His expectation was that ensuring their own long-term survival would prevent financial institutions from acting recklessly. His big mistake was assuming that when the executives and traders can all make millions of dollars in bonuses by acting for short-term gain, the long-term survival of the firm became an afterthought. Deregulation was a mistake, we discovered, because it turns out that the firms couldn't be trusted to limit risky behavior after all. But calling the government "complicit" in the disaster that followed is ridiculous. It's like saying the government is complicit in a shooting-spree because they relaxed gun-control laws. "They scrapped the Long Gun Registry, so I had to go shoot all those people!" The government never made any lenders fake their due diligence process. The government never made lenders plunge so heavily into subprime lending. The government never made anybody bundle up worthless mortgages and sell them to suckers as "AAA-rated securities". The government never made ratings agencies give AAA ratings to worthless mortgages. Trying to blame the government for this stuff is absurd. -k

This article has a summary of fines paid by major banks in the US over the past 7 years. They're paid to a lot of different places. The Department of Justice has collected the most fines. Other major recipients have included the Securities Exchange Commission, Housing and Urban Development, Fannie Mae (settlements relating to repayment for fraudulent Mortgage Backed Securities), the Treasury, the State of New York Financial Services department, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (whatever that is.) -k