Consie

There is a lot that is frustrating about Avatar, chiefly that Cameron clearly didn't listen to anyone after Titanic and essentially made all the same mistakes over again. But I would defend the point of view that visuals alone made this film enjoyable, and maybe even one of the best of the year (perhaps not top 5, but high). And I do admire Cameron's extraordinary attention to visual detail, whether the precise design of the fixtures on the Titanic or the creatures on Pandora. But I too wish that he would give the storyline and script their due attention. I had hoped that Avatar would be more like 2001 than Titanic.

Just wanted to stop by and add my voice to the chorus, Imma Be is utter TRASH, just AWFUL. If it reaches no. 1, it will be the worst to do so since 2007 ("This is Why I'm Hot") and would seriously challenge "Laffy Taffy" for worst no. 1 of the last five years.

I think it's hysterical when dictators condemn or totally ban Western music, only to return to their cushy palaces to listen to it! Sorta like Kim Jong Il in North Korea who spouts daily about the evil Western World and has taken huge strides to isolate his country from all outside influence. This a man who drinks fine french cognac and single-malt scotch while enjoying Hollywood films in his free time! :lol:

Absolutely agreed. And we don't even need to go back in history to find appalling Christian atrocities. Take Uganda for example, a country that is currently debating the "Kill The Gays" bill which will, at best, send homosexuals to prison for life and at worst, execute them. This is not fringe movement but a bill that has huge support in Parliament and has millions of supporters who have marched in huge rallies for it. Uganda is 84% Christian, split almost evenly between Catholics and Anglicans. And worse, a bunch of American preachers may have sparked the movement by attending a radical conference in on homosexuality last year in Uganda, spreading lies and deceit about how homosexuality destroys families (and in Africa, family is a very protected cultural institution). So it's CHRISTIANS who are indoctrinating members of an impoverished, poorly-educated country to, quite literally, KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE.

The only reason there are priests in the first place is because for centuries, gay men have been joining the priesthood. For reasons of guilt/shame but also because it was the only place a man could escape the societal pressure to marry a woman. In Washington, DC where I live, since the district legalized gay marriage, the catholic diocese are going to pull all social services out of the city, including soup kitchens and food pantries and homeless shelters. Isn't that the most pitiful, asinine, childish thing you can imagine?? Using vulnerable, poor people as pawns in a political battle... very "Christ-like" indeed :rolleyes: And the pope himself, he is beyond contemptible. Claiming publicly that condoms make HIV/AIDS worse is among the most shocking, appalling, despicable things any public figure has ever muttered as far as I'm concerned. And he said it LAST YEAR.

Fear of Tigers is a yet unsigned, London based DJ/producer who last month released his debut album for free, available at: http://www.myspace.com/fearoftigers The standout track is I Can Make the Pain Disappear, which samples Robin Thicke: pL1Bp8mJDvg Potentially a HUGE crossover hit, maybe this summer. But the whole album is outstanding. Highly recommended!!

The quote above is not from the Billboard site you linked to. Where did you get that quote? Please don't take offense but I find that really hard to believe, especially, "Taylor Swift is the TOP-SELLING Digital Artist in the history of the world with over 24.3 million digital tracks sold to date" Feel free to prove me wrong with a source :)

2000 Mariah Carey ft 98º - Thank God I Found You Santana - Maria Maria Matchbox 20 - Bent 2001 Jennifer Lopez ft Ja Rule - I'm Real 2002 Ja Rule ft Ashanti - Always On Time Jennifer Lopez ft Ja Rule - Ain't It Funny 2003 Jennifer Lopez ft LL Cool J - All I Have 2006 Beyonce - Check On It 2008 Katy Perry - I Kissed A Girl 2009 Jason Derulo - Whatcha Say

2000 Mariah Carey ft 98º - Thank God I Found You Santana - Maria Maria Sisqo - Incomplete 2001 Jennifer Lopez ft Ja Rule - I'm Real 2002 Ashanti - Foolish 2003 Jennifer Lopez ft LL Cool J - All I Have 2004 Twista ft Kanye West & Jamie Foxx - Slow Jamz 2005 50 Cent - Candy Shop Mariah Carey - Don't Forget About Us 2007 Chris Brown ft T-Pain - Kiss Kiss

"Louboutins" :)

Oh my god, the JLo song is utter TRASH, you can't "throw on" shoes, I am SO HAPPY TO SEE IT FLOP.

Fukk off Jay Z, Gaga was supposed to be no. 1 this week <_<

I am so confused... Video Phone is a Beyonce song feat. Gaga... and Telephone is a Gaga song feat. Beyonce? Are they both being released?

Russian Roulette is not a good song, so it's really her own fault...

I dunno I'm just not convinced this concept is inherently American... I can see the connection to celebrity worship, I guess, also the whole weird child "pageant culture." But I can also see other connections, has anyone ever spent any time in Russia? They dress little girls there like hookers all the time, haha. Plus stiletto heels need not be slutty, and like almost ever fashion trend they were born on European runways (probably on the heels of a 18 year old anorexic girl who looks like she's 12, but with blackened makeup so she resembles a heroin addict skinny 12 year old girl, classy).

You may have a point, but to be honest I see the connection dating further back to the European worship of the monarchy. Long before Hollywood stars were fawned over, the Queen strutted around the world to near frenzied adoration for no damned good reason. Hollywood stars and celeb worship is just an Americanized/modernized version since we don't have a monarchy or a class system. And while I am not offended by the "only in America" commentary in the least bit, Tyler has a point because the article clearly states, "In the two weeks they have been on sale, the 31-year-old mums have sold more than 2,000 pairs to customers in London, Ireland, and Belgium."

It was on The Office last night...

Dawkins makes an interesting connection between religion and insecurity. When someone is great, skilled, talented, or extraordinary, people say he is "blessed" or "God gave him his talents" just because they can't accept the fact that someone is better than them. So they just got lucky, "God" just happened to provide it. Every hospital and clinic in the developed world has at least 1, if not a whole fleet of MRI machines. We just take it for granted. Do ya know how an MRI machine works? every atom in the body has protons rotating around a nucleus, but when exposed to a magnetic field, all the protons stop rotating and align in the direction of the field. An MRI machine exposes the body to a strong magnetic field, which causes protons in every atom to align. Then, the magnet turns off and the protons begin to rotate again. MRI's capture an image of how quickly the protons move back into rotation. Tumors, non-human cells, return to the rotation at a different speed as the rest of our bodies, so bingo, the image captures cancer or tumors in an instant. IT'S FUKKING BRILLIANT!!! It's a testament to how extraordinary humans are, how far we've managed to go. We are an incredibly intelligent species... look what we can do in an ordinary hospital. We did it without divine intervention, we did it without God, we don't need a god.

Ugh, trying to keep up with the pope, it's exhausting... there's a post from a few months back filled with memorable pope-bashing, someone care to find it so we don't have to repeat oursevles? :)

Don't you have to be, you know, diplomatic to earn such a position?? There are some great leaders coming out of Africa who are really trying and succeeding to reform and improve their countries' situations, but the UN chooses this idiot from Libya. It should be noted that this guy is not the Secretary General, the actual head of the UN, he is just in the rotating position for 1 year... And by the way, 6 African nations have signed the declaration to decriminalize homosexuality: Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritius, and São Tomé and Príncipe. Further South Africa has legalized gay marriage. There are many progressives in Africa and they should be given special attention in the UN.

I agree, and yes I do live in Washington, DC. I guess I would just respond by saying I think there are enough of us non-crazy people in those cities to make the Darwin film a success. How many idiot, intolerant right wing Christians would ever see an intelligent, well-made biopic anyway?? Unless it were about JEEEEESUS :) heGcvWu_JMs

Absolutely agreed, although it's important to remember that the producers are allegedly struggling to find a distributor not because the film would be illegal but because they are afraid it would be unprofitable. And I struggle to understand why... I feel like there must be more to the story. The producer says, "Oh well they're all just religious" but I am just not buying it...

Give me a break. The article cites "Christian web sites" as evidence? WTF? Far more controversial films have been released in the US, including the (American made, produced, written) "Religulous" which was given a wide theatrical release last year and is the 7th top grossing documentary to ever be released in the United States. If we're going to have a debate about religion in the US, of course I could never deny that it's a shamefully, pathetically backwards place in many ways. But this article is sub-standard journalism fueled by idiotic comments from the film's producer: "It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There's still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It's quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America. We live in a country which is no longer so religious. But in the US, outside of New York and LA, religion rules." I haven't seen the film and I can read plainly here that it has been well received by critics but it is very difficult for me to imagine an intelligent film could by a man who would make such a breathtakingly stupid comment.

We weren't always this way... It's greed and entitlement left over from the 80s. Unfortunately we never got over it, mostly because corporate/right-wing interests used it to hijack many institutions (media and government being the two most significant). Richard Nixon (a staunch conservative) enacted a health care plan in the 70s that provided better benefits and greater security than the plan Obama is about to fail to pass even with huge popular support and an enormous majority in Congress. It's so sad but this country has become virtually ungovernable... corporations and powerful individuals control the media and the congress. It's legalized corruption on the scale of a Sub-Saharan African or Latin American country. To be fair, Americans don't hate Europeans. But the right wing will continue to propagate anti-European sentiment in order to discourage Euro-style reform that threatens its interests. And finally a word of warning, don't think for an instant that the UK could never experience the same thing. I've watched the American-style commercialization of the media the past 10 years in the UK... it's a worrying sign that the UK could end up ungovernable and entrenched in corporatism in a decade or two.

I think the problem is that in a lot of places, religious institutions are the only institutions who provide certain services, such as summer camps. Which is why I support this Dawkins venture. To broaden the point and comment on the situation here, churches are frequently the only places that provide social services in many of America's poorest urban and rural areas. The state has totally failed to provide decent schools, security, welfare and everything else. In the last bastions of American poverty and suffering -- the inner city ghettos -- churches are the only institutions left. They provide health care, job training, babysitting, activities, even pro bono legal representation and other services. Conservatives and libertarians and the right wing have been deliberately and meticulously killing off all public services since Reagan's 80s and even in many cases giving money to faith organizations to pick up the slack, fooling everyone into thinking churches are the only places that could help the poor and suffering. In my opinion, the state and the government should be responsible for the safety, prosperity and welfare of its people.