Wilbur Whateley

Was last night the first time Trevor made that goofy little whooshing noise as he transitioned from segment to segment, or is this just the first time I noticed it?

I reread the end of the article - it doesn't really say. They've lost all their money and all but a handful of personal possessions. They're now living in a room in their daughter's house. But if they aren't suing the shit out of Parks, they should be!

The article says using this ex-parte trick had become routine in Clark (not Clarke, sorry!) County. Hundreds of cases like this. ETA: After thinking about it for a while, something that's even more terrifying to me is the way she acquired her "wards." She got tips from corrupt hospital social workers and medical staff (who profited from the scam) as to rich old people she could victimize. So if you were a senior interacting with hospitals or elder-care, anyone you dealt with could potentially be sizing you up and getting ready to help destroy your life. Jesus Christ.

That New Yorker article that I found & mentioned above goes into it in more detail. Basically Parks filed something called an emergency ex-parte petition, which provided an exception to the rule that both sides have to notified of any argument before a judge. Then she got a corrupt physician's assistant and a corrupt doctor to submit letters fraudulently saying the couple had dementia. Parks then had them committed and given heavy drugs (corrupt staff) to keep them quiet while she sold their home, billed them for everything and spent all their money. BOOM, trapped. Their daughter tried to get them free, but Parks maligned her as a drug addict and an unfit guardian and a corrupt judge agreed. (Remind me to never go to Clarke County, Nevada, where apparently every profession is corrupt!) Finally the daughter got an expose in a local seniors paper, and that got them sprung - eventually.

Following up on my above post - looks like last night's episode was heavily based on an article from the October 9, 2017 issue of the New Yorker, "How The Elderly Lose Their Rights." I'm reading it right now - horrifying stuff. To answer my own question, looks like Parks just hunted them down.

Maybe I missed it - did they explain exactly how their example elderly couple were turned into wards? All I caught was one day someone showed up at their door and presented them with the three options. Was it neighbors or friends or relatives reporting them for some reason? Or did that Parks woman just do it preemptively somehow, hunting for victims to exploit? I didn't catch their names, and I've already deleted the ep from my DVR, or I would research it further myself.

never mind

239 lbs was Trump's purported weight on his recent physical.

Interestingly, according to an interview with Darren Criss I heard, there is apparently no extant video of Andrew Cunanan. (I suspect there probably is some home video - from graduation at least - that's out there somewhere, but obviously the holders either destroyed it or are keeping it private.) Sort of ironic considering his lust for fame. He lived and died just before that would become completely inconceivable, I think.

It's great to see the return of the "Hungry For Power" segments - they're consistently hilarious & were an early highlight of the show in the time when, frankly, it wasn't otherwise very good. But shouldn't they have started this up again a lot earlier? Staff have been leaving pretty steadily for a while now. Lots of missed opportunities. But I guess the firings and departures from this White House are an endless renewable comedic resource.

So I've been watching this on the Sundance Channel recently. I was a bit too young to appreciate them when they first ran, being just a little kid, but I'm really enjoying them now, especially as a time capsule of the mid-to-late seventies and early eighties. The early eps especially take you back to the whole "Ford To City: Drop Dead!" era. At one point a character says something to the effect that "all the honest people need to move out of town and then we can wall it up and just turn the whole city into a prison." Not that I'm claiming that was the direct inspiration for Escape From New York; I'm sure it was a general sentiment at the time. Just amusing in retrospect. I love Dietrich explaining the weird new concept of in vitro fertilization. There's one ep, "The Sniper," where the B-plot - about a con-artist who's selling charter flights to Saturn - is clearly based on the group that later became the Heaven's Gate cult. (They were in the news briefly at the time recruiting members.) There's a line that's wince-inducing in retrospect. They're asking the cult leader about their bodies being left behind on Earth while their spirits are whizzing off to Saturn and he breezily says, "Oh, they're biodegradable!" So they were. Even though I didn't really appreciate it at the time, I did catch a few eps first-run. I remember specifically the Agent Orange two-parter (first time I ever heard of AO), and the one where the grad student built the A-Bomb (watching it as an adult, so scientifically ridiculous!). I've seen those again on Sundance. But there's one I vaguely remember that I'd like to see again, and so far, I haven't run across it in the reruns. It involves a crank (of course!) who's earnestly explaining to a detective his plan to remake the United States by reducing the number of states to twelve (I think). The detective asks, "What about New York?" The crank responds NY is one of the states that's going to be eliminated and the detective responds dryly he doesn't like that, he lives there. Obviously a bit wittier on the show - I was just a little kid and can't recall the actual repartee. They cued the laugh track up after the line, so it was obviously (meant to be) funny. Anyway, does this ring a bell for anyone? I'll really love to see it again. If it's in rotation I assume it'll turn up eventually, but I'd love to know which one it is ahead of time.

And he came back - don't recall the episode name, but this time the character was convinced he was possessed by a demon. Cue the exorcist parody, complete with demonic voices (which I didn't care for - too OTT and not in the relatively realist tradition of the show).

A pre-Facts of Life Charlotte Rae played a ditz who signed up to go to Saturn in "The Sniper." Jeffrey Tambor (much younger of course, but still bald) played a conspiracy theorist who feared the Trilateral Commission in "Field Associate." A very young James Cromwell plays a doctor (cardiologist?) in "Stress Analyst." Saw that one recently - he plays it relatively low-key for BM, and if I hadn't recognized him he would have made no impression on me at all. According to IMDb he's also in "Strip Joint," "Liquidation," and "Group Home" -- different characters in each one, apparently -- but haven't seen those recently so no comments there.

This week was Stephen Miller/Jared Kushner, next week appears to be Ivanka. Looks like they're focusing on a different member of the Trump circle every episode. I personally dread the inevitable Don, Jr. ep. They seem to be doing all of them as 'affable evil' (if I recall my tvtropes correctly), even to a certain extent Miller. Minor detail, but I love how even though it's the middle of winter, every outside shot of D.C. shows green foliage on the trees. I'm sure that's deliberate.

I bet when Bob fully sobers up, he won't believe it either.

Surprised that apparently nobody on the DS team knew that Gila monster is pronounced "he-la." Oops.

So, what did Walking Dead fans think of last night's special? Never watched TWD and know nothing about it. I was mostly lost, though I figured out a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire is a major character. Generally RC sketches work for me even if I'm not really familiar with the original material; not this time.

If you trust Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Flag_Code#Pledge_of_Allegiance_and_National_Anthem), AnaRow is right. Those were the rules I learned growing up, but since people were disagreeing, I was willing to believe that maybe I was taught wrongly or that things had changed. Apparently not.

So did anybody else see that video hijacking on tonight's show? For those of you who didn't catch it, it came right after Trevor's bit about dads and cigarettes. They suddenly break in with a ballerina spinning on top of a music box. The URL thepresidentshow.ru is displayed (have not visited, thank you kindly), and there's a swift cut to a pic of Soviet soldiers, a tank, and a creepy shot of a man in a horse costume. There are various menacing deep noises, a la The Ring. Then we're back to Trevor. It's maybe seven seconds long. Viral marketing? A genuine Russian intrusion? It was damn creepy.

Putting on my history-nerd hat here ... Somebody above said we were never part of the British Empire - that's not quite true. The thirteen colonies were the major part of what's known as the First British Empire; most of what's the Commonwealth now were part of what's known as the Second British Empire, mostly acquired post-1783. Notice the other major former British colony that's not part of the Commonwealth - the Republic of Ireland. Rhodesia revolted against the British in the sixties, trying to maintain white control. As part of the transition to black majority rule, Britain made it very briefly become a colony again and then granted it independence according to proper procedure. (It's known as Zimbabwe today.) It would be ... interesting ... if that was what we would have to do if we wanted to join the Commonwealth! (Edited - twice! - for clarity & accuracy.)

OK, I totally agree with you then - segment fail. Maybe they're deliberately doing some myths halfheartedly so they can go back and redo them later, thus ensuring future episode content? Hope they're not reduced to that, but who knows ...

It's legal because FREEDOM! Also, PUNCH A HIPPIE!, I'M A MAVERICK, BABY!, and SOCIALISM!! Hope that clarifies matters. (Edited because I can't spell hippie.)

Also, I'm surprised they didn't do something with a short in the wiring of the vacuum - I think they mentioned that as a possibility in the setup. (If they did do something along those lines, sorry I missed it - my dog was distracting me a lot during that segment.)

According to Keith Decandido (ST writer & tor.com DS9 recapper), Langella "did the three-episode appearance for his children, and so worked for scale with no credit."

I don't necessarily think that was Oliver trying to be bi-partisan so much as it was just him plain reporting the way the system works. Lobbyists like to buy off leading Congressional figures from both parties, and looks like that's what the supplement industry was doing here. No matter which side is in control in Congress, they have a ranking bitch on the Senate committees to protect their interests. Who's your daddy?