(no subject)

You know it's really not fair that The Dresden Files just got interesting like midway through the season 'cause now I'm almost feeling reinvested in it. Yeah it's still ridiculously obvious how each episode is going to turn out about five minutes into it, but at least they're starting to get a little more coherent with the world, the characters in it and the rules of magic.

The problem is that it's so far off book that when the episode leaves huge holes that a little more fleshing out would have filled neatly I can't turn to the novels to fill them. What I need is some well written fanfic to round out each episode and give me the development I need to actually enjoy the show fully. I'd also like them to be a little less clumsy with the characters, in last night's ep you go from 12 year old Harry to 35 year old Harry in the span of a couple of flashback cuts and the audience isn't supposed to even blink. It was utterly jarring. And they had a beautiful opportunity to really flesh out the Bob character and they just chose not to. I can see why, I mean you've only got an hour and the main character is Harry. Fair enough, but there are deft ways to weave in a secondary character's development without taking away from the lead's face time. Sadly, "deft" doesn't seem like something this bunch of writers excells at.

I think I keep watching it (when I remember to) because I want it to succeed...because there is potential there. And because dammit I love Terrance Mann, and dude they hired the guy who used to play Jeffrey Spender on last week's ep and that just made me profoundly happy.

(no subject)

You know after you read this:

The head of the White House Office of Personnel was Kay Coles James, a former dean of Pat Robertson's Regent University and a former vice-president of Gary Bauer's Family Research Council,[2] the conservative Christian lobbying group that had been set up as the Washington branch of James Dobson's Focus on the Family. She knew whom to put where, or knew the religious right people who knew. An evangelical was in charge of placing evangelicals throughout the bureaucracy. The head lobbyist for the Family Research Council boasted that "a lot of FRC people are in place" in the administration.[3] The evangelicals knew which positions could affect their agenda, whom to replace, and whom they wanted appointed. This was true for the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and Health and Human Services—agencies that would rule on or administer matters dear to the evangelical causes.

Stuff like this makes so much more sense:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has identified the Chinese company that it said supplied the contaminated ingredient used in now-recalled pet foods that has sickened and killed thousands of animals nationwide.

The FDA ordered “detention without examination” of wheat gluten from Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd., which is based in Jiangsu province. Xuzhou Anying’s wheat gluten contains melamine, which is described as a poisonous or injurious substance and an unsafe food additive, according to an import notice issued Friday by the FDA.

Oh, and this too:

Del Monte Foods has confirmed that the melamine-tainted wheat gluten used in several of its recalled pet food products was supplied as a “food grade” additive, raising the likelihood that contaminated wheat gluten might have entered the human food supply.

“Yes, it is food grade,” Del Monte spokesperson Melissa Murphy-Brown wrote in reply to an e-mail query. Del Monte issued a voluntary recall Saturday for several products under the Gravy Train, Jerky Treats, Pounce, Ol’ Roy, Dollar General and Happy Trails brands.

Wheat gluten is sold in both “food grade” and “feed grade” varieties. Either may be used in pet food, but only “food grade” gluten may be used in the manufacture of products meant for human consumption. Published reports have thus far focused on tainted pet food, but if the gluten in question entered the human food supply through a major food products supplier and processor, it could potentially contaminate thousands of products and hundreds of millions of units nationwide.

Perhaps the Regent U alumni running the FDA now will hold a prayer meeting over their lunch hour so god can tell them what to do about all this...