I find the visual effects too much for my poor little brain. So much flash and shakiness, I wonder if it causes seizures in susceptible people.

I'm kind of done with that Mumford and Sons. I hear that song everywhere.

Yes. I wish Cumberbatch had been given better dialogue. The dialogue of "Wrath of Khan" just sparkles. There's not a bad line in the entire thing.

The dialogue here is fairly pedestrian. At least it's not as bad as what they gave Eric Bana in the last movie, but I wish it had been given a bit of a polish.

Wrath of Khan was full of instantly memorable lines. This one . . . not so much.

Some of the callbacks were purely visual, such as the Enterprise rising out of the cloud bank is definitely a callback to the Enterprise rising out of the cloud of the nebula in "Wrath of Khan." The damaged Enterprise falling to earth certainly was intended to evoke the Enterprise falling to the Genesis planet in "Star Trek III". The ship crashing into San Francisco bay must have been intended to evoke the same from "Star Trek IV".

And if I didn't know better, I'd swear that we saw a glimpse of the half-destroyed Klingon moon Praxis. (STVI)  Thankfully I didn't notice a single reference to "Star Trek V."

However, I was thrilled they used Section 31, which was introduced in Deep Space Nine, still the best of the modern Trek series.

I, too, went in knowing nothing, which was my preference, though I'd heard rumors it was a bit of a remake of "Khan." But I also heard those rumors debunked. (My theory was that it was going to be an update of the classic Gary Mitchell episode. Oh, well.)

So, like most Big Summer Action Movies, it was loud and flashy and had amazing special effects.

It was also, like a lot of Big Summer Action Movies, a bit cold, and the emotion they tried injecting in it just didn't work. At least, not well.

Quinto does a good Spock, but Chris Pine just isn't Kirk. And Karl Urban seems to be playing a guy trying to play McCoy. Really, the only member of the NuTrek crew I've really come to like is NuScotty, and his little alien friend.

As for the plot, not knowing anything probably helped increase my enjoyment, because I could let the story unfold without watching for the referential beats. But I certainly appreciated them when they arrived.

“With all due respect, the fact is, we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or because of guys out for a walk one night who decide to kill some Americans, what difference, at this point, does it make?”

I'd like to point out that neither of the two options Mrs. Clinton gave as the basis for the attack is true. It was neither a protest nor a random act of violence. Yet these are the two options she provided in her response. Because that's what she wants people to think about. She wants them to think "protest about video" or "random act of violence." She doesn't want them to think about a planned and coordinated terrorist attack.

Of course it's also important to remember that she wasn't asked why our people were attacked. She was asked why she blamed a YouTube video. She didn't answer that question. She answered a question that wasn't actually asked.

She's a slippery one. I wish Senator Johnson had called her on it immediately.

This from the Weekly Standard article:

According to Charles Woods, the father of one of the officials killed in the attack, former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, Clinton told him at the same ceremony that the U.S. government would make sure the filmmaker was “arrested and prosecuted.” Pat Smith, the mother of communications specialist Sean Smith, reported that Clinton told her the same thing, “nose to nose.”

As I referenced above, arrested and prosecuted for what, exactly? What did she have in mind? She certainly couldn't have had "parole violations" in mind.

While Nakoula Basseley Nakoula remains jailed, supposedly for parole violations, I can't forget that Hillary publicly declared that we would find those responsible for the video and punish them for it.

She didn't say we'd punish them for parole violations, did she? She made it clear that any punishment would be due to the video's alleged role in the Benghazi attack.

And all the while she was spouting this nonsense, she knew it was a lie.

"Prison for Hillary, Freedom for Nakoula!"

Actually, I believe I heard the IRS screaming "OBAMA AKBAR!" as they took down Tea Party organizations.

Perfect!

Okay, so even if we accept this excuse that there were so many new Tea Party groups, it doesn't explain the intrusive questions asked of these groups, demands that they turn over the names of all members, printouts of group Facebook pages and e-mails, etc.

I can find no good reason for that sort of intrusion.

Sorry for the hijack.

You know, until I read this sentence it hadn't occurred to me to make the connection. In 2012, we wondered what happened to the citizen movement that effected such positive change in 2010. It seemed to disappear. Its power seemed to have dwindled.

And, as you say, now we know. The Obama administration, via the IRS, threw such a burden at Tea Party organizations, that they actually slowed and stopped conservatives from making headway. 

So:

1) I hope we'll see a reinvigorated Tea Party from now until 2014.

But:

2) Given that the Obama administration used the IRS to stop the Tea Party, what other levers of government did they use to achieve their aims. Is the EPA purposefully attempting to slow business growth by increasing the regulatory burden? Some might think that the regulatory burden is just a symptom of a large government. But what if regulatory burden is the strategy rather than the symptom?

And:

3) Don't stop there. Use your imagination. What if all the conspiracy theories turn out to be true?

Of course, I think part of the funny here is that anyone remembers Bulworth enough to understand this reference to it.

I gather that only the political class saw it? . . . and for some reason Obama found something to admire in it?

Anyway, since we've crossed the Rubicon and the trust between citizen and Government has been irrevocably damaged/destroyed, it seems natural to assume that there is corruption everywhere, and the height of craziness to believe any sort of "official story."

Mollie, I agree that it's not as bad as it first sounded, however in practice, isn't it the same thing. They didn't phone tap members of Congress, but they phone-tapped the AP, who would at that location be speaking to members of Congress. So isn't it, in effect, the same thing?

I mean, it's not conversations between Congress members, but it's conversations that would naturally feature Congress members.

Sounds to me like an argument in favor of eliminating Congress.