Game of Thrones: Bush's Head Gets a Makeover

mahiskali writes "After apologizing for using a likeness of former President George W. Bush's head in the season finale of the first season of 'Game of Thrones,' HBO has digitally altered the offending scene. After releasing an formal apology, HBO proceeded to yank the episode off all digital platforms, as well as halt distribution of the Season 1 box sets. The episode is now back with an altered head; more hair, less chin. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss later clarified, 'We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.'"

Comments

you what?

[alphatel]

They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush? An apology is one thing, but why the fuck does anyone need to remaster post-release films which contain accidental heads?

Re:you what?

[Volante3192]

Because we're all sensitive douchenozzles.

How DARE someone offend my sacrosanct sensibilities! A pox on their houses! A boycott! A Congressional inquiry!!
I shall not rest until my right to not be offended is acknowledged!

Re:you what?

[Anonymous Coward]

In today's post 9/11, politically correct world, the greatest American president ever is not to be ridiculed.

Re:you what?

[DaHat]

That worthless douchebag hasn't been heard from since leaving office unlike most former presidents.

That's largely been by design.

Unlike some other former presidents who during from 1/01-01/09 spent a great deal of time relentlessly attacking the then President and attempting to undermine him... 43 seems to have opted to allow the current president to succeed or fail on his own.

How horrible is it that a previous President be respectful to their successor... you know... the complete opposite of what this President has done to his predecessor.

Re:you what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's talking about Reagan?

Re:you what?

[Lev13than]

They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush?

Surprised that they chose to digitally edit his nose and chin. Since this is Game of Thrones I just assumed that they were going to add a pair of tits.

Re:you what?

[Sponge Bath]

For all his faults, I genuinely believe that George W Bush would laugh at this and not be offended. He is a goober, but a goober with a sense of humor.

Re:you what?

[XxtraLarGe]

If it had been a fake Obama head, there would have been a much bigger uproar. Personally, while I think it was intentional & tasteless, I don't think it deserved as much attention as it got. The directors probably could have gotten away with it if they didn't mention anything about it in the commentaries.

Re:you what?

[XxtraLarGe]

does anyone need to remaster post-release films which contain accidental heads?

If it was an accident, then why make mention of it in the commentary? I know they said it wasn't a political statement, but they could have just glanced over it and probably nobody would have noticed.

Re:you what?

[Comen]

I think if it had been very obvious that it was Bush or Obama's head, I would have thought it was in bad taste, but when you actually see the head, you would never have known that was a Bush head if they had not have said something.

Re:you what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Respecting his successor by suggesting that the only reason Obama is targeting the "Bush tax cuts" is because it has "Bush" in the name? Or were you asleep when he started throwing his retard around again back in April?

Re:you what?

[demachina]

Seeing as how Bush ran the U.S. in to a ditch and left Obama a thankless, nearly impossible job running a country in ruins, I think Obama has been pretty kind to him. You also glossed over the fact that Cheney did multuple hatchet jobs on Obama so Bush didn't really need to. Cheney has been anything but respectful to Obama.

I'm no fan of Obama but no matter how you look at it Bush-Cheney was one of the worst presidents in U.S. history and almost single handedly started the U.S. on the road to decline and collapse.

I've often wondered if the Bush administration intentionally let Lehman blow. They knew that Republicans were so unpopular at that point they would lose the White House, so maybe they decided to completely wreck the economy on their way out so they could blame the economy on Obama four years later and win it right back.

It will be mind boggling if the Republicans manage to put a vulture capitalist in the White House after Wall/Fleet Street's misdeeds of the last decade.

Re:you what?

[Volante3192]

Yeah, but he's too much a goober to know he should be deeply deeply offended by this, so the vocal minority has to be doubly offended on his behalf!

(On a serious note, I do agree with your point. This seems like the sort of thing that'd just roll off his back. And note we haven't heard HIS side of the story on this, not that it would have ever mattered...)

Re:you what?

[durrr]

They had to keep up with the times.
So they made it look like Obama instead.

Re:you what?

[ArcherB]

OK, here we go again...

Granted, I can't blame it all on Obama. Things went downhill before he ever took office.

So, who's to blame? Well, things were going pretty well for last six years of Clinton and the first six of GWBush. In Jan 2007, the unemployment rate was at 4.6%, the deficit averaged about $400 billion and gas was under $2.20/gallon.
Then, in late Jan 2007, the Democrats took control of Congress. Again, this is after the last six years of Clinton and the first six years of Bush. This Republican controlled Congress led over two presidents of both parties, so you can't blame or credit either president. Just two years after the Democrats took control of Congress the deficit had gone up to over $1400 billion and the unemployment rate was about 7.6%. One year after Obama was elected, with both houses of Congress controlled by Obama's party, the unemployment rate was over 9.6% and the deficit was the second highest ever at $1200 billion, second only to Obama's first year in office.

So the credit/blame does not necessarily fall under Obama or Bush, but with Congress. Obama does deserve some credit, however, as he was able to get his agenda through the Democratic Congress, where Bush could not.

So your idea that Republicans are somehow to blame for this is not backed up by the FACTS. Sorry, bub! Numbers don't lie!

If you have a problem with any of the numbers I brought up, speak up. Calling names does not qualify as an argument.

Re:you what?

[cpu6502]

Same reason Disney edited out the topless lady in the Rescuers and the penis in the Mermaid poster. They don't want to offend anyone (or lose money because of it).

Re:you what?

[amiga3D]

I still remember him laughing when that reporter tossed his shoes at him and he ducked. I laughed my ass off at the look on his face. It didn't really even faze him at all. Later he intervened on the guys behalf to keep him from being punished. I really wanted to like President Bush but his policies just made it too hard and I gave up trying.

Re:you what?

[derfy]

Zing!

Re:you what?

[amiga3D]

Hard to do that one. No one knows what he looked like.

Re:you what?

[firewrought]

So your idea that Republicans are somehow to blame for this is not backed up by the FACTS. Sorry, bub! Numbers don't lie!

If you have a problem with any of the numbers I brought up, speak up.

Quoting numbers without context is a good way to hide assumptions and misrepresent a complex situation. And economies are inherently complex. I think to be a Republican apologist for the 2008-2012 U.S. financial crisis, you have to mitigate a handful of factors:

• A Republican congress repealed Glass-Stegal, paving the way for the bad banking practices evident in the subprime morgtage crisis.
• A Republican administration led the charge to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was very costly.
• A Republican administration instituted large tax cuts during a war.

Of course, probably the easiest way to mitigate these is to point out the unclean hands here... Clinton approved Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Obama extended the Bush-era tax cuts, and the Democratic congress went along with the war effort.

I think the Daily Show called it right once: Republicans are the party of bad ideas; Democrats are the party of no ideas.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

There are so many things wrong in your post I'm not sure I can cover them all in limited time.

Citing the unemployment rate a year in to Obama's term and somehow blaming it on him is one of the more spectacular ones. The economy had just entered free fall when Obama took office. There was absolutely nothing anyone was going to do to stop it in a year, other than squander even larger amounts of borrowed money on stimulus than they did.

"was able to get his agenda through the Democratic Congress, where Bush could not"

Speaking of FACTS you just went off the rails dude. Bush had Republican control of the House for six years, and Senate control for four years. Democrats are pathetic and hopeless in the opposition obstructuing anything. The Republicans are extremely good at it.

Bush gutted every regulatory body in sight, especially the SEC, through executive orders and appointments which contributed more than anything to corporate running amuck. He rammed through huge tax cuts which started the downhill slide in to huge deficits, passed Medicare D which also added to the huge deficits, passed No Child Left Behind which did nothing but damage to the educational system, passed the Patriot act which eviscerated civil liberties, and ran two staggeringly expensive and largely pointless wars whose only lasting accomplishment will be a huge pile of debt and a bunch of traumatized vets.

The only two things Obama managed to pass were Obamacare which was a huge giveaway to the insurance and drug companies & will hopefully overturned tomorrow. And then there was the stimulus package, a mostly stupid squandering of money but considering the economy was in free fall it probably had to be done in some form . Other than the hasn't dont much of anything since he can't get anything past the Republicans in the House. So called "financial reform" and regulation didn't fix anything by the time Wall Street was done lobbying it in to the ground.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the collapse, Clinton, Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Greenspan, Frank and Dodd all deserve some. But you can't change the simple fact the economy spiralled out of control and blew up on Bush's watch, Paulson helped, and they deserve massive amounts of credit.

Re:you what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Numbers do lie. Everybody knows that. Whether your numbers lie or not, I don't know, but you have failed to establish anything other than correlation.

Correlation is not causation, especially when it comes to the multitude of events that shape the course of the nation. Did Lincoln's election cause the Civil War?

Only if you are very short-sighted, and don't remember the conflicts beforehand.

Similarly if you are just relying on your coincidence of events, you might not pay attention to everything that happened, so you'd quite easily be misled.

Next time, try specific allegations.

Re:you what?

[cpu6502]

>>> Game of Thrones I just assumed that they were going to add a pair of tits.

This is the second day in a row I read Thrones and tits in the same sentence. Yesterday someone said it's LOTR with tits. I may have to take a second look at this program because the only ones I recall are the blonde princess near the beginning, and the dwarf with his prostitutes. Oh and also the baby breastfeeding scene..... no wait that was Rome. (Another show I need to rewatch.)

Re:you what?

[kqs]

Well, things were going pretty well for last six years of Clinton and the first six of GWBush.

Absolutely true, as long as you ignore the deficit going from effectively zero at the end of Clinton to very rapid growth during Bush, and guaranteed to get worse as his phased tax cuts continued. And as long as you pretend that the mortgage problems magically started in 2007 and were not a simmering but ignored issue for a decade. And if you ignore that real income for the lower 2/3rds of people was flat or decreased during that time, And if you ignore lots of other warning signs that "things are breaking and will be easy to fix now, but really hard later." Now it's later.

Pretending that things were good for Bush's first six years is a wonderful way of blaming the other guys, but does require lots of selective editing. Not that the other guys did all that well, but lots of indicators went into the red during 2001-2006.

Re:you what?

[sanosuke001]

And yet, his comment said nothing about liking Obama; why bring it up?

Re:you what?

[BMOC]

This was discovered because the directors mentioned it in the commentary?

my mind is boggling somewhat at the silliness of mentioning this AT ALL.

Re:you what?

[tmosley]

*the party of the same ideas.

There has been no significant policy difference between Obama and Bush. Also, the financial crisis has nothing to do with the parties that were in office at any given time. It was 100% caused by overspending by BOTH parties, and the Fed's eagerness to accommodate false growth by gaming interest rates. They have pushed this game to it's endpoint. The freefall we are in now will end with nothing short of a sickening crunch. Obamney won't be able to stop it, no mater what mystical powers anyone attributes to it.

Re:you what?

[tmosley]

The deficit going to zero was a result of increasing income tax gains from the internet bubble, something cause by the Fed. Clinton had nothing to do with it. He did manage to refrain from going into max spending mode like most municipalities did during the same time period, to his credit.

Re:you what?

[dark12222000]

Oh and also the baby breastfeeding scene..... no wait that was Rome. (Another show I need to rewatch.)

No, that was GOT too. It was also a LOT creepier in GOT

Re:you what?

[SYSS Mouse]

And a visit from the Secret Service.

Re:you what?

[nedlohs]

You can't blame the 2007 Democrats either. It's been a time bomb, who it blows up on is essentially random. I guess that group might have been worse at kicking the can down the road than the previous groups (though more likely the problem got big enough that kicking stopped working).

You don't have to like the guy and can think he's just austrian nutter, but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o is from 2006, so before those Democrats took over. Seems unlikely those Democrats just fluked making his predictions turn out true rather than the problem actually already existing.

Re:you what?

[kqs]

That was a big part of it, sure, as well as the infighting between the republican congress and democratic president. And a large part of the current deficits are due to income tax losses from massive unemployment, but I figure that if people are going to blame Obama for the deficit now, then we have to thank Clinton for the deficit in 2000. Or we can realize that the deficits under both presidents were greatly affected by external factors.

The deficit under GWBush, on the other hand, should have decreased in 2003-2006 as the economy heated up with the real estate bubble. Since it increased, he gets to own some of that.

To get back on topic: it looks like the Game of Thrones set designers tried to make the head not obviously Bush's. Since nobody noticed until the commentary track came out, I've gotta go with "people are whiners". If people took half the time they spent being offended by little stuff and spent it cleaning up the litter in their neighborhood (yes, even if you weren't the one to litter; see "whiner") then the world would be a bit better tomorrow than it was yesterday. And that's a goal I think we all want.

Re:you what?

[Dragonslicer]

I haven't seen the HBO show, but assuming that it's relatively close to the books, I would be shocked if anyone that was so easily offended was watching the show. There is a lot of nasty stuff that happens in the story. Having Bush's head on a pike probably wouldn't even be the most offensive part of the episode.

Re:you what?

[Ironhandx]

Even if what you said was 100% true(its not) that one posture could have saved your country. The government might have had capital to re-institute massive capital works projects a la the 1920s highway projects.

As it was they had everything they could do to keep half of the citizens of the US from having their houses foreclosed on for no other reason than the bank holding their mortgage went under.

Government debt is NOT a good industry to keep around. We had analysts supporting the idea that this was a "good thing" for governments to have debt. Its not. Its money gone into thin air every time to pay an interest bill.

Even in these trying economic times, if you didn't have such massive debt the budget would be either balanced or nearly balanced. A full 20% of the fucking US budget goes to interest payments. TWENTY PERCENT. Thats beyond insane.

Its so insane that lets run some numbers real fast:

Your interest paid out annually on debt: 778 Billion.

Your total annual budget deficit for the last 4 years: 300-650b.

You could have INCREASED government spending without actually incurring any further debt if it wasn't for the bush era tax cuts -ALONE-. Lets not mention the fact that half of the debt exists entirely because of the war in afghanistan(which I actually support) and for the vastly larger chunk of it, in Iraq(which no one should support).

Re:you what?

[dead_user]

No kidding. That kid was like 8. Ewwww.... If your kid is old enough to ask for mother's milk, he's too old for it. But it played perfectly into Lysa's insanity. She thinks it's normal. -=shudder=-

Re:you what?

[demachina]

The dot com bubble was a speculative bubble in the stock markets. There was very little Clinton could do to stop it.

The real estate bubble was largely due to predatory behavior by mortgage brokers and bankers. The Fed probably could have stopped it with their existing powers just by stopping abusive mortgage and securitization practices.

The dot com bubble mostly burned investors speculating in the stock market. When you speculate in stock markets you should expect the possibility you will get burned.

The real estate bubble mostly burned working class people who thought they were doing the right thing investing in homes. There were plenty of speculators in the market, and people getting loans they should have known they couldn't afford, but the families who bought homes to live in and were given predatory loans with teaser rates and ballooning adjustable rates that were designed to fail soon after they were bundled in to securities and sold, they were just robbed. So were the pension funds that bought AAA securities that were in fact total garbage.

This UCLA commencement address by Dr. Michael Burry is a pretty good primer. Burry did the math when he was at Scion Capital, a hedge fund, and to him it was painfully obvious there was a housing bubble and he could even estimate when it would pop when the predatory loans started to blow. He made a fortune. Since then he's been hounded by the Fed, Congress and FBI trying to nail him for capitalizing on what was either stupidity or willful negligence on their part.

Re:you what?

[Volante3192]

I would be shocked if anyone that was so easily offended was watching the show.
Prepare to be shocked:

Orgs. like the Parents Television Council literally watch these shows to BE offended just so they can complain.

Anyone rational goes, "Hmm, I don't think I'll like the content of this show." *changes channel*
PTC goes, "I KNOW I'm going to be offended by this show, let's take detailed notes and send them to the FCC because that's what Jesus would do!"

Re:you what?

[F34nor]

...then there was the stimulus package, a mostly stupid squandering of money but considering the economy was in free fall it probably had to be done in some form... um if you ignore Keynesian economics it would be "mostly stupid" but from two historic events it seems to be at least mostly true vs. the Laffer curve which has been shown repeatedly to be totally wrong.

Per Wikipedia, "The costs of the War on Terror are often contested, as academics and critics of the component wars (including the Iraq War) have unearthed many hidden costs not represented in official estimates. The most recent major report on these costs come from Brown University in the form of the Costs of War project,[1] which said the total for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is at least $3.2-4 trillion"

Per the Washington Post the total cost of the tax cuts is about 1,360,704,419,439 or 1.36 trillion.

Per the Washington Post as well the cost of the stimulus was about 1.-1.7 trillion,

Re:you what?

[sycodon]

That's doesn't stop the entire Islamic world from going apeshit when someone draws him.

Re:you what?

[Nyder]

They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush? An apology is one thing, but why the fuck does anyone need to remaster post-release films which contain accidental heads?

or vagina.

Re:you what?

[Raenex]

Well, things were going pretty well for last six years of Clinton and the first six of GWBush.

Holy shit, what cave were you living in? In 2000-2001, the dotcom bubble burst, plunging the country into a recession. In 2001, 9/11 happened. The war in Iraq was a muddled and expensive disaster, and we later found out it was on false pretenses. Iraq was probably the predominant reason Bush's approval ratings were so low near the end of his term. Deficit spending was in full bloom (including the giveaway to big pharma for drug spending when Bush was trying to get re-elected in 2004). The deficit spending under Bush, along with lax oversight of the financial industry (both parties are to blame for this), meant when the crash came we were in a big, big hole.

Of course, the Republicans and Romney think we can untax ourselves out of it with tax breaks to the rich. Yeah, that worked for a bit, until it stopped working and left us with an even bigger bill.

It's not that I think Obama has good answers either (yay, more stimulus spending), but trying to pin this on a Democratic Congress is ridiculous.

Re:you what?

[nospam007]

"Personally, while I think it was intentional & tasteless.."

Care to give us a few examples of tasteful heads on a stick?

Re:you what?

[C_amiga_fan]

The Rome breastfeeding scene was sexier.

And who are we to judge? We are grown adults and breastfeed from a foreign organism (cows). Indirectly of course but still... a mud-covered cow. Ewww.

Re:you what?

[C_amiga_fan]

Well if Clinton is not to blame for the dot-com speculation bubble, neither is Bush to blame to the real-estate speculation bubble. Especially since the key cause was passed before he was even president.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

cpu6502 is a troll, That's why.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

Probably not.

And you are correct. It's in the background of a couple of frames, with different hair. Hell, there are thousands of people who look like that.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

Since things have improved steadily since he took office, and what he wanted to do was severally castrated. Why is Obama at fault at all? Because he didn't snap his fingers and make it all better over night?
It takes a few minutes to burn down a house, a lot longer to build one.

I get why Romney would bring up the economy, I don't get why he doesn't get slapped up side the head every time he says it's because of Obama. Seriously, it's not like it a hard to find fact.

Bush was specifically told what was going to happen if he didn't curtail (at the time) banking trends. He ignored it, and when economists got loud he gave them all 300 bucks.

regardless of who changed the regulation to loosen things up, Bush and his administration where well aware of it and ignored it until the end of 07.
At which point he created TARP. Something the pubs where for..all the way up until Obama got elected. Then they opposed it. by 2010 they where proposing everything simply to oppose it.

Yes, in fact it IS backed up by facts. They did nothing when they new about it, did things to distract people from it, and then have done everything they can to prevent Obama from implementing a better correction. And Yet, the changes he did get through congress did help.

Republicans have caused these events to unfold. It's a matter of record, one I suggest you read up on before spouting off on 'FACTS'.

You can't seem to grasp that consequences happen after actions.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

The causes of the real estate bubble were fraud on the part of mortgage brokers and fraud by the banks and rating agencies creating supposedly AAA rated mortgage backed securitues that were actually junk bonds. They were both criminal and or civil offenses, that probably could have been prosecuted in the more extreme cases if anyone had cared, and in all cases they could have been reined in by the Fed under its existing regulatory powers, or brought under control by regulation from Congress and the White House.

It is a very standard regulatory mandate for central banks and governments to set standards for mortgages. Letting people who have no income get huge liar loans, using predatory teaser rates to get people in to loans they couldn't afford, and letting rating agencies rate securities as AAA that weren't were all things that the Bush administration could and should have prevented. The government could have also stopped Fannie and Freddie Mac from creating a big chunk of the market for toxic loans and securities since they are government backed entities.

If people want to speculate in the stock market there is almost nothing the government can do about it. The only power it has is for the SEC to make sure the companies are abiding by securities regulations, which can prevent fraud, but can't prevent speculation. The dot com bubble was speculation way more than it was fraud.

Re:you what?

[AmiMoJo]

The last season seems to be trying to catch up with Spartacus. I wonder how their merkin budgets compare.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

"There has been no significant policy difference between Obama and Bush"
Clearly you aren't paying attention.
Maybe it'
s the fact the the pubs lie and do what ever they can to stop anything from being passed solesly because they don't like Obama. We are talking about a party they drafted a bill, backed that biklll, then then stopped backing it when Obama said he would sign it.

THAT is what is going on. Obama has tried to get several policy changes through, al of which get stopped simply because Obama likes them.

Can you even begin to grasp that mind set and how damaging it is?

" It was 100% caused by overspending by BOTH parties"
No. It was the War, and massive tax cuts. It's pretty clear.

Most people who talk about government and use the word 'overspending' are either incredibly ignorant, or intentional misleading people. I bet you have no idea about de-leveraging, government v. Consumer debt, or any macro economic concept.

Ignorant twat.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

"The deficit going to zero was a result of increasing income tax gains from the internet bubble, something cause by the Fed."
False.

" Clinton had nothing to do with it."
uh, he stood up and told everyone about the internet superhighway that his VP had made public.
Which pretty much got every investor looking at it.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

"half of the debt exists entirely because of the war in afghanistan(which I actually support)"

What is there to support in it? The government the U.S. is propping up is so massively corrupt, incompetent and hated the Taliban is going to topple it five minutes after the U.S. leaves.

And, the U.S. is going to leave in two years.

As soon as the U.S. leaves Afghanistan is going to revert to Taliban control and look exactly like it did in 2001 with one exception. Bin Laden is dead but he probably hasn't even been in Afghanistan for most of the last ten years. There are plenty of other lawless countries Al Qaeda or its successors can use as bases. Its obviously taken us a lot more time, money and blood to deny them one base that it has for them to move to ten new ones in Yemen, Somalia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Phillipines, etc.

If you are going to squander that kind of blood and treasure you need to have a plan to get something out of it that makes it worth it. The U.S. didn't.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

So if we had people in the US plotting to do harm to Afghanistan, you would be perfectly fine with Afghanistan attacking the us and bombing you neighborhood?

Plus it's a cheesy as pussy war. If you are going to declare war on a country, declare war on that country. Then go it and deal with it quickly.

After words, making it a US state.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

"(both parties are to blame for this)"
no.

The pubs had a veto proof vote. Clinton managed to get them to include middle class people and not just the rich.
The fact that he did that is pretty good.

stimulus spending works. Austerity has never gotten any country out of a situation like this. Never, ever.

Stimulus is about de-leveraging debt through works. And de-leveraging doesn't need to equate to a 1 to 1 debt trade off.
Add to the stimulus creates long term tax revenues, and helps with the infrastructure.

Re:you what?

[JabberWokky]

Because it is an annoying error, and it got cleaned up for future releases in the same way that they might remove a watch that an actor accidentally wore, or an member of the crew's hand. It's distracting from telling the story they want to tell, which is the actual goal of the work.

Sure it's post-first-release, but it's not uncommon to do a bit of touch-up with each release. That even applies to 35mm prints. Rocky Horror went through a variety of edits and soundtrack changes (mono to stereo, remixing, adding a cut scene) through the film release. Same applies to any film that goes through a long theatrical release lifespan: Sound of Music, most of Kubrick's works, etc.

Re:you what?

[ukemike]

Unlike some other former presidents who during from 1/01-01/09 spent a great deal of time relentlessly attacking the then President and attempting to undermine him... 43 seems to have opted to allow the current president to succeed or fail on his own.

Perhaps that's because there is a whole industry of vicious dogs that attack Obama 24/7. GWB doesn't need to. Or perhaps it is because the various former Presidents realize that Obama is as centrist and moderate as they come and that he frequently tries to work with the Republicans despite their current state of frothing at the mouth insanity.

And perhaps those former Presidents spoke up in such unprecedented frequency during the dismal Bush years because he was so actively evil. (starting wars, torture, eviscerating the constitution, etc.)

Re:you what?

[Raenex]

"(both parties are to blame for this)"
no.

Watch Frontline's The Warning sometime. The Democrats and Clinton, along with the Republicans, believed Greenspan and his buddies that regulating the derivatives market wasn't required and would harm business.

Stimulus is about de-leveraging debt through works.

It's about creating more debt in the hopes that it will jumpstart a stalled economy.

Re:you what?

[HeckRuler]

Oh yes, the blowback from Clinton's attacks Iraq was what caused us to unilaterally invade Iraq on a lie. Obviously. I mean, Iraq was like, INCHES away from launching nukes at us. That blowback was a'comming I tells ya.

Bin Laden's hatred of the USA was fostered when we ditched him and his crowd after they fought off the Russian's in Afghanistan. Remember the CIA-trained mujahedin fighters? You might remember it from that movie, Charlie Wilson's war? Yeah, that was a bit before Clinton's time. And it's the CIA, is anyone personally liable for the shit they stir?

Funny how Republicans suck at history.

Re:you what?

[HeckRuler]

Can you point out legislation or executive acts that encouraged investment in dot com businesses?

Re:you what?

[Ironhandx]

To clarify: I support the idea of what they were trying to do. Not the piss-poor implementation of it that we have.

Re:you what?

[Ironhandx]

Well, they wouldn't be bombing my neighbourhood, but thats besides the point.

Also; If there were for some reason someone in my neighbourhood that had attacked, say, the pentagon. I would understand when some shrapnel happened to fly my way afterwards.

I sure as hell wouldn't be happy about it, but I'd understand.

Re:you what?

[amiga3D]

I see what you mean. My comment got modded down and I don't even know why. I guess it's not even safe to mention him.

Re:you what?

[ArcherB]

Citing the unemployment rate a year in to Obama's term and somehow blaming it on him is one of the more spectacular ones. The economy had just entered free fall when Obama took office.

You obviously were not paying attention to my post. Obama's first year was the third year of a Democrat controlled Congress. Congress writes the laws. Congress spends the money.

Pelosi handed Obama a shitty economy. Not Bush.

I didn't read past that point because you missed the entire point by the second paragraph.

Re:you what?

[amiga3D]

I think my favorite Bushism was "...my policy, both globally and internationally....", he kills me. Too bad about all the crazy Homeland Security nonsense he saddled us with. Just what we needed, more bureaucrats to watch the watchers who watch the watcher who watches the people who watch the people. No wonder no one knows what's going on.

Re:you what?

[AK Marc]

Personally, while I think it was intentional & tasteless,

Being outside the US, the HBO footage of the scene is blocked, but the stills I've seen make it unrecognizable (it's small, and pointed away so that it's not identifiable to me). Had it been intentional, I would have thought it would be pointed in the general direction of the camera. Instead, the way the stills look, it seems plausible that it happened as described. The head was used. After it was used, someone up close recognized it and pointed it out to the crew, who then mentioned it on the commentary because it was an interesting fact.

But, as I said, I'm unable to see the "official" footage of the scene, and have to rely on the official stills, which are unrecognizable. That would be silly to intentionally put him in in a manner he couldn't be noticed, then point it out in the commentary. As a possible easter egg, it would have been "secret" for longer (or ever, hoping some fan would notice and make a deal of it while they deny it and nobody would ever know for sure because the head is unrecognizable). But to deliberately put it in where you can't see it (hiding it), then pointing it out later is simply stupid and without reason. A far more plausible scenario is the one they presented as the official one.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

Since he had been told, repeatedly, about the predatory issues and took no action to stop it, he is to blame. He was in position to deal with the feds. But the pubs are so wrapped up i the Randian fallacy they didn't listen.

Had it been a stock market bubble then, yeah not a whole lot bush can do. But this was his house, and he did nothing.

Re:you what?

[AK Marc]

I thought it was because the voters hate the douchbag, and every time he gets in front of a camera, 10,000 disgusted ex-Republicans vote Democrat.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

Here is the thing:

The story needed to get so 'boring' bits of exposition out to the viewer.
So HBO decided to have sex going in in the scene somewhere while the exposition was going on.

They call it = sexposition

Seriously.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

hence pasteurization. Because shit flows down hill, and look where the udder is.

Re:you what?

[AK Marc]

You send a deadly shock through a dying heart to restart it, but you would never shock a healthy person - it could kill them.

The problem is that debt works to absorb and smooth the regular economic cycles. But the level of deficit spending in the 80s and 90s was such that we couldn't absorb a bump anymore, and the debt on debt is not going to work, especially when much of the debt added since 2000 was spent outside the country, or the "stimulus" that is in ditch digging. If the stimulus was $3,000,000,000,000 to buy fiber from US compaies (mined, made and assembled in the US) and put it in the ground, laying a national fibre mesh connecting the top 1000 population centers (everywhere with more than 40,000 or so people) with multiple redundant links at 2 Tbps speed, then we'd have a "work". But broken window fallacy doesn't work, especially when the "work" isn't replacing the window, but just cleaning it up and serving Colombian coffee to bystanders. The window still isn't eve there, and we spent lots to end up worse than we started. And no, paying a private company to provide a service isn't stimulus, it's welfare. Paying people to build the Hoover Dam or thousands of city halls (so many small towns still have main buildings built by the WPA) is stimulus. Where is the payment to people to get them putting US fiber into the ground?

We had the opportunity to turn this depression into something good. Instead, we spent so much time on blame that the recesession turned into a depression, and we are still more interested in placing blame than fixing it. "I don't care if we are in a depression forever, so long as I can blame it on the other party."

Screw that. Lets pay off the debt in 20 years. Abolish the standing military, pardon all non-violent offenders and strike all non-violent laws. Close most of the prisons and get the criminals back working, rather than draining the country. Just that, and we'd pay off the debt in no time. If we also saved money by abolishing Obamacare and lowering the age for Medicare to 0, we'd pay off the debt faster, and still have more at the end of the period. But, if those are hard choices, at least make the stimulus work as something other than payouts to GM and other "welfare for the rich" programs. The Great Depression ended when the workers had money, not when the Landed Gentry got more rental income.

Re:you what?

[AK Marc]

There was nothing illegal in the dot com boom. Would you like the government to step in and kill booms?

The basis of the real estate boom was fraud. There was lots of it, almost all perpetrated by the banks. Would you want the government to step in in the case of massive fraud? That investigation falls to the Executive Branch. Who was in charge of that when the boom was big? The boom was a result of greed trying to get returns in the shadow of the com bust, and the worst of it didn't happen until Clinton was out, though Clinton was partly responsible by some deregulations passed under his watch.

Blame Clinton for the dot-com bubble if you like. Bubbles happen. But Bush was in charge of the Executive when the bank-fraud bubble happened, and was in charge of investigating the fraud that cause it.

Re:you what?

[circletimessquare]

Mussolini

Ceausescu

Gaddafi

Assad (soon)

Re:you what?

[Dunbal]

Ahh political correctness. And if only it stopped there.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

You are such a partisan hack there isn't much point in arguing with you anyway.

I'm no fan of Obama or Pelosi, and you will seldom catch be defending them, but your position that nothing is Bush's fault is delusional.

Do you actually believe the stuff you say or do you just regurgitate the crap you hear on Fox News day after day, like a mindless automaton.

About all Pelosi did impacting the economy was to sign off on Bush/Paulson's bailouts. Bush/Paulson no doubt acted on the old axiom, never let a good crisis go to waste used it to transfer billions of tax payer dollars to Wall Street including his former company, Goldman-Sach using AIG as a front. Pelosi just caved to their scare tactics.

What exactly in the 110th Congress did Pelosi do that made it "her" economy. They did a small $160 billion stimulus but that was mostly tax cuts every Republican can love. They increased the minimum wage to $7.25/hr. Is that how she destroyed the global economy?

Re:you what?

[Raenex]

Later??? ...why at the time did the USA not listen to the 190 other countries who were pointing and screaming at the lies and falsities from day one (and they were obvious)?

I knew somebody would respond with something like this. The mantra behind other countries was "give inspections more time". Saddam was not cooperative at first, and it looked like he was hiding something. When the pressure ratcheted up, he gave more access. I've had this discussion before on Slashdot, and have done the research. This idea that everybody knew Saddam had no WMD is bullshit.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

He probably should give his Nobel prize to Bush. The only reason he got it was the people who award it were apparently so glad to see the end of Bush that they chose to celebrate by giving a Peace prize to Obama for no reason. I assume it was there way of giving an anti-Peace prize to Bush.

Obama has certainly done nothing to deserve a Peace prize, considering he continued Bush's wars and even ramped up the one in Afghanistan. He kept Gitmo running, kept spying on American and is running drone wars all over the world, killing people, including U.S. citizens, on very dodgy suspicions and killing innocent women and children if they happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The only other reason I can see he got it is because he was black and it was a way to celebrate the end of America's slave/segregationist past.

Re:you what?

[mophab]

Not even close. The guy that threw the shoes at Bush got 3 years. Bush never lifted a finger for him.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-03-12/world/iraq.shoe.thrower_1_zaidi-al-maliki-and-bush-shoes?_s=PM:WORLD

Re:you what?

[demachina]

What were they actually trying to do? If you actually know I'd like to hear it.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

Maybe you would understand until the shrapnel killed someone in your family, or maybe your whole family, then I doubt you would understand.

Re:you what?

[ArcherB]

First, I don't get FoxNews. It's a premium channel on Dish Network and we have the basic package. But that is very typical of liberals to attempt to counter arguments they can't refute with "FauxNews" or "Racists!" I know it's a fallacy, but I can't quite tell you which one.

Next, I never said Bush has done no wrong. What I said was that CONGRESS, NOT THE PRESIDENT, CONTROLS THE ECONOMY. The President controls the military, foreign policy, DOJ, etc. The economy is all congress. CONGRESS writes the laws. CONGRESS writes the regulations. CONGRESS writes the tax code. CONGRESS spends the money. CONGRESS CONTROLS THE ECONOMY.

OK, one more time, just to make sure you get the point. If nothing else, take this with you. Are you ready? Here it is:
CONGRESS CONTROLS THE ECONOMY!

Go back and compare economies from 1970 'til today. You will find that when R's control Congress, the GDP tends to increase faster than when the D's control Congress. Reagan is the lone exception, but he had a knack for getting a D controlled Congress to do his bidding. After Reagan was Bush. He had a D Congress and things fell apart, leading to Clinton. Clinton't first two years were a disaster. This led to Republicans taking Congress with Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House. Within two years, there was a huge turnaround of the economy leading to Democrats getting Clinton re-elected with the slogan, "It's the Economy, Stupid!" because the economy was that good. R's still held Congress. This lasted through the rest of Clinton's term, even ending with a surplus. GHWB took over, and held a barely R Congress until Jan 2007... Well, read my first post to see what happened after that.

So, you can blame the President all you want, but all that shows is your overflowing ignorance of how the US political system works. I'm not cheer leading for Bush or bashing Obama. I'm saying that Congress Controls the Economy. Recent history proves that the economy rises and falls with Congress and the President has little to do with it.

What exactly in the 110th Congress [wikipedia.org] did Pelosi do that made it "her" economy. They did a small $160 billion stimulus but that was mostly tax cuts every Republican can love. They increased the minimum wage to $7.25/hr. Is that how she destroyed the global economy?

Well, figure out what turned a $400 billion deficit into a $1400 billion dollar deficit and that will be your answer.

The only time the president may be held responsible is when the president and Congress are in the same party. That's because Congress will pass the president's agenda as he/she becomes the defacto leader of the party.

Re:you what?

[Anonymous Coward]

But that is very typical of liberals to attempt to counter arguments they can't refute with ...

Anytime you start a sentence with something like that, you're going into partisan hack territory, the land where confirmation bias rules the day. And it looks like you stayed there.

Sure, Congress has some influence. So does European economic policy. Chinese industrialization. Y2K. The weather.

To boil that down to four words doesn't make any sense. It doesn't get better if you put those words in caps.

Lag times are a factor as well - the repeal of Glass-Stegall increased the magnitude of the 2008 crash. Congress had a significant effect there, it just took nine years.

BTW - "It's the economy, stupid" is from the 1992 election, not 1996.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

"First, I don't get FoxNews."

Apologies man, when people start ranting about Pelosi and Obama that is just classic Fox News. They do it all day, every day, day after day. You sound just like them.

One reason the GDP goes up under Republicans is they tend to run massive deficits and pour massive amounts of money in to the military. Win win for GDP. Its the way Republican's do stimulus, they just wont admit it is stimulus.

"CONGRESS, NOT THE PRESIDENT, CONTROLS THE ECONOMY"

Dude, you are wrong again. The Executive branch controls the DOD, the DOJ, the SEC and a host of other agencies that directly influence the economy.

Bush's insane push for a war in Iraq, for no reason, did more damage to the economy than anything in the last decade. Congress had nothing to do with it other than rubber stamping it.

When Bush put Christopher Cox in charge of the SEC that was a green light to Wall Street that it could run amuck. The entire Bush agenda was to gut regulation and they did most of it without any involvement from Congress, it was all executive appointments and orders.

I lean libertarian so I'm OK with no regulation but if you are gonna do it you also have to get rid of all the Federal backstops, bailouts and meddling. If the Bush crowd wanted to let Wall Street run amuck that's fine with me, they should have just let them all go down in ruin when they acted irresponsibly. Deregulating everything, letting Wall Street amuck, and then bailing them out at taxpayer expense when it all went bad, wrong on every level.

Bush also nominated Greenspan to his 5th term at the Fed in 2004. If Greenspan had retired in 2004 that would have done more to prevent the crisis than anything, assuming a competent replacement.

"Well, figure out what turned a $400 billion deficit into a $1400 billion dollar deficit and that will be your answer."

The deficits for the last four years are directly attributable to:

A) A crashed economy and high unemployment, which led to crashed tax revenues at all levels of government. Crashed economy leads back to Bush

B) Massive tax cuts. It is stimulatory but it is also hammering revenues. Traces back to Bush though Obama deserves blame for renewing them as is. Taxing the rich at 15% on capital gains while working people get whacked at 20-33% for Federal income tax, plus state taxes, plus 10%+ payroll taxes, plus regressive sales taxes is inequitable.

C) Stimulus spending, and extended unemployment benefits, which is only there because the economy crashed under Bush.

D) Massive military and homeland security spending, mostly traced to Bush and Lieberman

E) Massive health care spending, blame both parties, though Bush and the Republicans rammed through medicare D which was a blank check to the drug companies

F) A tax code that is swiss cheese. Big corporations and the wealthy bitch about U.S. tax rates constantly but the dirty little secret is they seldom pay anything close to those rates. Blame both parties but Republicans especially. They still fight to the death to give huge tax breaks to oil companies that are making massive profits.

Re:you what?

[Larryish]

Let's all draw Mohammed on bathroom walls in airports, with the name in a caption underneath.

This plan is SOOOO made of win!

Re:you what?

[artor3]

The directors are probably rational human beings, and thought to themselves, "Hey, here's a funny coincidence, let's share it with the world!"

Sadly, they forgot that the media exists only to stir up hatred (it brings in the big bucks!) and there are millions of idiots in the world who eat that shit up. As soon as the media catches wind of a story like this, they'll be out for blood, and they will get it.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

The Fed had very little to do with the internet bubble. The internet bubble was caused by a disruptive new technology called the Internet, just like the railroad bubble in the 19th century was caused the railroad.

The Fed caused the housing bubble by A) setting interest rates too low for too long after 9/11 and the Internet bubble burst and B) not doing their job and regulating banks to stop them from issuing predatory loans and junk bonds that were rated AAA by corrupted rating agencies

Re:you what?

[rsborg]

Unlike some other former presidents who during from 1/01-01/09 spent a great deal of time relentlessly attacking the then President and attempting to undermine him... 43 seems to have opted to allow the current president to succeed or fail on his own.

No, he delegates the undermining to former VP (and part cyborg) Cheney.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/10/at-bush-administration-reunion-cheney-attacks-obama-again/
http://www.americablog.com/2011/01/cheney-attacks-obama-for-doing-what-he.html
http://www.alan.com/2012/04/15/cheney-attacks-obama-as-unmitigated-disaster/

Re:you what?

[NorQue]

I've just seen the season one finale last week, I knew about that head and had been actively looking for it, but other than seeing a couple of heads on spears in that particular scene I couldn't make out which one was the Bush head. This was blown way out of proportion, I agree with the GP, if the directors hadn't said anything on the cemmentary nobody would've known.

Re:you what?

[Fjandr]

Actually, I vote for both heads together in the same scene.

Re:you what?

[firewrought]

You seem to forget that those tax cuts were bi-partisan, went to ALL American tax payers, and were done in the aftermath of 9/11.

Check the roll calls for EGTRRA and JGTRRA.... there's a clear partisan split. Whether it helped or hurt the current financial situation of the US government is up for debate I suppose, but it looks bad.

No, the Republican party is stupid, the Democrat party is evil. I dislike both, but if I must give money and power to one, I prefer the stupid one... it's less likely to be effective in interfering with my life

I think of police-states as more evil than nanny-states, on the balance. Not that I want either, but Democratic intentions are less evil than Republicans, who seem pretty unabashed about empowering the all ready powerful -- big business, big finance, big religion, the 3-letter agencies, military/police, etc. The liberal disposition seems to be "use the government to write a happy ending for every sob story out there, cost and burden on everyone else be damned". The conservative disposition seems to be "I'll give up my second Bentley to build a new variety of mega-bomb, but I'll be damned if you spend it on a social program that improves lives and saves money in the long run". The Tea Party disposition seems to be "Fuck all government ('cuz i live with my guns in the woods and don't ever encounter a strange person or idea)." or just "Fuck taxes ('cuz one day I'm going to be part of that 1%).".

Cynical, but that's sometimes my take on it.... :-\
As always, reality is more complex with good people and ideas (and their hangups) everywhere.

Re:you what?

[Maritz]

This idea that everybody knew Saddam had no WMD is bullshit.

Did someone say something about everybody 'knowing' he had no WMDs..? I didn't see that claim, if it wasn't claimed then this is a straw man. Other countries knew that the evidence 'supporting' an immediate invasion was flimsy and 'sexed-up' (i.e. they lied because they wanted an invasion for other reasons). There was a particularly laughable claim about launching WMDs to the UK with 40 minutes' notice. Insulting to the intelligence indeed, but scream bogey man enough and you get what you want.

Re:you what?

[Raenex]

Did someone say something about everybody 'knowing' he had no WMDs..?

"All the information pointing to no WMD"

That's discounting his evasive actions until he was on the brink of being invaded. It also discounts the general feeling that Iraq was not in compliance leading up to the threat of war:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/French_address_on_Iraq_at_the_UN_Security_Council :

"Progress like this strengthens us in our conviction that inspections can be effective. But we must not shut our eyes to the amount of work that still remains; questions still have to be cleared up, verifications made, and installations and equipment probably still have to be destroyed."

Re:you what?

[circletimessquare]

clever troll?

or genuine retard?

you decide

Re:you what?

[C_amiga_fan]

If you check the Congressional record, you'll see that the Repubs made several attempts to rein-in the mortgage lenders, but the Democrats accused them of "racism" and "against the poor" and other name-calling. (See youtube; it's all there to be watched in glorious 480p.) AND it's also worth noting the reason mortgages were eased-up & made easy was because of a lawsuit brought against the administration in the 90s.

In 1998 Clinton's HUD secretary announced he would make make it easier to get a home loan & prosecute banks that said "no". Hence the start of the bubble because from that point forward, virtually anyone could get a mortgage.

Re:you what?

[tmosley]

I didn't make myself clear--the Fed caused the 90's boom with cheap money, which caused the 2001 bust which continues to get worse to this day. They are trying to fix a debt problem by adding more debt.

Who is in office has nothing to do with it, because both parties spend all the money the Fed throws at them. Clinton didn't, and as such he is probably the best of the modern presidents. That isn't saying much though.

Also, if you think 20% is bad, imagine what would happen if the Fed stopped buying (ie monetizing) the debt. Interest rates are almost zero. If they went to 5% the US would collapse like a rag doll under a menhir.

Re:you what?

[tmosley]

Hmm, they both had the same word in the description, they must have both been the same!

I'm not sure how you can see that the Fed caused the housing bubble, but can't see that they caused the internet bubble. They held interest rates artificially low to manufacture a boom. Cheap money flowed into the new industry at a much greater rate than it would have if money had been priced appropriately. Remember that margin is credit.

Re:you what?

[tmosley]

When you claim something is false, you should say why, rather than pretending like you have some sort of authority on the subject.

Not to mention that you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. The internet existed before the start of the Clinton Administration. Don't you remember those old modems that fit to rotary telephones? TCP/IP was released in 1982 ffs. You going to claim that Reagan invented it back then?

Re:you what?

[Grishnakh]

I vote for both heads together, and also throw in a few more: Romney, McCain, and Palin. Might as well throw Clinton's head in too, plus Bush I, Reagan, etc.

Re:you what?

[Grishnakh]

And it's the CIA, is anyone personally liable for the shit they stir?

They're part of the Executive Branch, so I'd say whomever's President is personally liable for the shit they stir. Unfortunately, if you look at the CIA's track record and how long they've been stirring shit up, that means that most or all the presidents over the last 50+ years are liable.

Re:you what?

[Ironhandx]

Oh, I would understand still.

Doesn't mean I be pissed and try to kill the bastards responsible.

But I would understand.

Re:you what?

[Ironhandx]

Oh, I'm aware of what would happen with the interest rate increasing.

Also: The recession didn't start in 2001. What mostly happened in 2001 was a lot of rich people got a little less rich, a few formerly-rich people went bust, but overall nothing too serious for the average american. Bush cut taxes which decreased tax revenue directly, if the tax cuts weren't incorporated tax revenue would have leveled off for a year and then continued to climb.

Clinton is the best of the modern presidents. He got rid of the actual red tape that was impeding progress. Bush then hit the regulations with a nuke from orbit, creating a perfect storm for things to spiral out of control quickly. If the clinton-era red tape cutting hadn't happened, we still would have had the same result, it just would have taken longer.

At least you see the problem. Its a vicious circle that isn't going to end until china and co decide the green back is now totally worthless.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

Interest rates weren't particularly low in the 90's. Here is a a chart.

Here are LIBOR rates

LIBOR rates were a little low in '92-'93 but that was long before the Internet bubble started. The interest rates in 2003 are where the real estate bubble was born. It also wasn't just interest rates. The Fed completely failed at its basic regulatory duty letting massive loan and securitazation fraud occur.

There was very little fraud in the Internet bubble, there was just a lot of mania.

Re:you what?

[Forty Two Tenfold]

But, yes, he did have a genuine sense of humor.

"Oooh, please don't kill me."

Re:you what?

[Fjandr]

More heads make for a better scene.

Re:you what?

[KingBenny]

what happened to the disclaimer 'any likeness etc. etc.' that was present in about every movie and eps ? not good enough anymore. The world is turning towards a dangerous level of douche and panzyness if you ask me
i'm gonna commit mortal sin because a previous post has already been archived. I can see why people would try to watch it if they have to wait two to four years before it appears on tv here. I heard a lot of complaining about these young criminals all having seen spartacus already thanks to that damned and blasted terrorist internet ... about when they started airing the first season here last year.
so yea, why would anyone do that ... no idea ... why would anyone alter post release? no idea, i thought you guys overthere had to pass more commisions than street stones when moving something from a studio to the broadcast... someone missed it then?

Production costs

[Krau Ming]

Is this why the complete season purchase price is so much???

Re:Production costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Hang on to your first-run Blu-Ray set, it's now a collector's item.

Collectors edition

[wjousts]

Does this mean the copies already bought off-the-shelf have just become instant collectors editions? Expect to see "Game of Thrones - George Bush's Head Edition" on Ebay for about x5 the list price.

Re:Collectors edition

[plover]

I'd hang on to your copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, too. To me, it's always looked like they used a model of George W. Bush for the face of Grawp, Hagrid's giant brother in the woods, then mixed in a little Alfred E. Newman to disguise it.

Trust me, once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Eunuchs

[jimmerz28]

This is either some kind of "clever" ploy to make already existing box sets scarce or a way to push people to pirate the unedited versions.

Or HBO really just has no balls and can't stand up for themselves. Probably that.

Re:Eunuchs

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's to be expected that HBO would be spineless twits. What surprises me is that, in their capacity as profit maximizing spineless twits, they decided that this recall/re-edit/lament/apologize/etc. tactic is more cost effective than just issuing a generic "Yeah, we are making a blood-drenched swords-n-sorcery series, so we buy prop heads by the fucking truckload without carefully vetting them for non-resemblance to any persons living or dead. Who cares?" and going on with their day.

That is the disturbing bit, to my mind.

Re:Eunuchs

[amiga3D]

I agree. When I watch something like Game of Thrones it's to escape from the real world for a while. The last thing I want is to see shit from today's political goat rope brought into my entertainment. Leave that shit on FOX, CNN and NBC etc. where it belongs.

Re:Eunuchs

[amiga3D]

Damn! It wasn't all that bad. Of course I think what pissed everyone off is that it could have been so much better. All those years of waiting only to be let down made a lot of people bitter.

Re:Eunuchs

[Achra]

Mod parent +1 ex-fucking-xactly.

Re:Eunuchs

[GameboyRMH]

Remember how Lucas shit on the prequels by making it into "Palpatine is George Bush". I can only speak for myself, but I kind of wanted to watch a Star Wars movie, not watch Rachel Maddow interview Sean Penn.

I find it hilarious that you thought this at all.

"Palpatine and George Bush are both older white men! Great, now all I can see is a liberal wankfest, I bet they were planning this from when they made Palpatine an older white man in the original trilogy!"

Re:Eunuchs

[bky1701]

Every science fiction/fantasy I can think of has a major political commentary, usually on current events. Star Trek TOS talked about the Cold War, BSG has far too many to note, hell LOTR is supposedly about WWII, and I am sure it seemed a little like it when it was just out. A barely noticeable head of GWB should be the least of anyone's worry, unless you're unable to see the intentional undertones.

Re:Eunuchs

[dohnut]

I dare you to place The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into historical context.

Re:Eunuchs

[amiga3D]

I grew up watching the original Star Trek series and I don't remember them ever being partisan about politics. I was young then but even rewatching it later I don't see them taking sides much. The movies were different.

Re:Eunuchs

[geekoid]

seriously?

Taking someones land by force because its for the 'greater good' has no historical context?

demagoguery leadership doesn't have any history behind it?

Really, you need to get out more... or re-read the books.

Re:Eunuchs

[geekoid]

Don't turn that idiotic rambling into a liberal thing.

Re:Eunuchs

[dohnut]

Yes, fair enough.

I was thinking more along the lines that the characters and chain of events in the series did not seem to be mirroring or recasting any particular period of human history or mythology.

And I certainly plan to re-read them many more times.

Re:Eunuchs

[LordKronos]

Remember how Lucas shit on the prequels by making it into "Palpatine is George Bush". I can only speak for myself, but I kind of wanted to watch a Star Wars movie, not watch Rachel Maddow interview Sean Penn.

Sorry, but I don't remember it that way at all. What Bush did was actually minor to what Palpatine did. It seemed pretty clear to me that if anything, the prequels were modelling Hitler and Nazi Germany (though maybe there's an even better historical comparison I'm not aware of). Palpatine tries to overthrow the government but fails. He then becomes a politician, used a false flag attack to sieze control, strip away rights, wage ware, and attempt to wipe out an entire class of people. The story's not a perfect match, but it fits Hitler a lot better than it does Bush.

Re:Eunuchs

[Lithdren]

I'm fairly sure there's a clause within the HHGTTG that states that if the actual historical context is ever discovered, its instantly destroyed and remade in an even more bizzare comentary about modern political life. Some have argued this has already happend.

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[SJHillman]

I see nothing saying the former president is even aware of it, much less has a beef about it.

Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment is stupid, selfish, and full of foul stenched bitchism. Putting Obama's head in there is devoid of any rational sense and must be based purely on your personal hatred. Such an act cannot be tolerated in the show.

Everyone knows there are no black people in Westeros. Putting his head in there would ruin the suspension of disbelief. What are you, nuts?

Re:Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[CanHasDIY]

Everyone knows there are no black people in Westeros.

I don't. Of course, I also don't waste my life obsessing over poorly-written, over-sexualized drivel.

Re:Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[ColdWetDog]

I don't. Of course, I also don't waste my life obsessing over poorly-written, over-sexualized drivel.

I didn't think we were talking about Slashdot - just a TV program.

Re:Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[amiga3D]

How can something be over-sexualized? Actually most of the sex in GOT is pretty casual. The violence is the real driving force. It's a brutal environment and your favorite characters are subject to get dead at any time.

Re:Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[CanHasDIY]

Meh. If I want to be entertained in such a fashion, I'll stick to Anne Mccaffrey.

Re:Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[geekoid]

Interesting point, I don't think there has been any gay sex in GOT.

Re:Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[CanHasDIY]

Yet...

Enjoy the mental imagery! Mwahahaha!!!

Couldn't see it.

[IorDMUX]

Okay, I watched the clips. I saw the before and after pictures.

And I didn't see the faintest hint of resemblance. Am I the only one?

Re:Couldn't see it.

[LateArthurDent]

Okay, I watched the clips. I saw the before and after pictures.

And I didn't see the faintest hint of resemblance. Am I the only one?

Probably. Maybe it'd also fool Lois Lane, I'm not sure if hair makes more of a difference than glasses.

Re:Couldn't see it.

[93 Escort Wagon]

Nope. The head was mostly facing away from the camera, and had a big wig on it. Someone had a lot of time to waste if they picked out, from a slight profile, a fake George W. Bush head.

It's amazing what some people will spend time doing, just on the hope of a slight chance of finding something to complain about.

Re:Couldn't see it.

[XxtraLarGe]

I noticed the similarity, but only after I saw a still frame. If nothing had been said in the commentaries, I never would have noticed.

Re:Couldn't see it.

[EasyTarget]

Yeah.. very true..

On the other hand, now they have found it, we all get to laugh.

What's the minimum clip length needed for a 'fair use: satire' exemption? I was thinking of putting a 14.59min rolling loop of this on someones tube, with the single comment 'LOL' and then claiming it was protected satirical speech if HBO objected.

Re:Couldn't see it.

[gatesstillborg]

Certainly the weakest "issue" I can recall seeing in a good, long time.

Re:Couldn't see it.

[amicusNYCL]

No one wasted any additional time other than the time it wastes to watch the episode normally. The fact that they used a GWB head was pointed out in the commentary on the DVD, it wasn't something that someone just noticed.

Re:Couldn't see it.

[Tom]

No, same here. Looked at the before/after pictures and thought "seriously?"

Political Correctness

[Anonymous Coward]

Political correctness rears its ugly head again. Oh noes! Some neo-conservative might think this is a slur on Bush and get offended! (Neocons seem to be perpetually offended at everything anyway, so this wouldn't be anything new.)

Re:Political Correctness

[kaatochacha]

I've never really associated Political Correctness with Neocons. Now, the people shouting "shame on x", or "shame on Y', yeah.

Re:Oh geez. ADD a head not subtract one.

[DaHat]

I hope the International Criminal Court presses charges.

I bet you also hope for unicorns, a Ron Paul presidency and Pandora to be a real planet... keep on hoping, none are going to happen.

Stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst part is, nobody would have ever caught it if the commentary had not pointed out the likeness. Butthurt over something you didn't even know about until somebody told you is the worst kind of butthurt.

Re:Stupid

[Millennium]

This. I think that although the choice of head was deliberate, it was never supposed to be obvious: just something the crew could look back at in later years and snicker among themselves, and if someone spilled the beans it could be chalked up to an urban legend.

But two things went wrong. One, the head wasn't quite turned far enough away. Two, some idiot blabbed on the DVD commentaries: the one place where every single person with a copy of the series could easily go to find out about it.

You brought attention to Bush's severed head...

[RavenLrD20k]

in a public forum... and THEN stated that you are editing out the likeness in a public forum...

I for one have never seen the GoT series, and until now had no interest in it. Thankfully, we have the season in question recorded (my wife likes it). Now I'm gonna go through and find that scene, and make sure it never gets lost from the archives of the interwebs. Muaaaa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!

Cue Streisand Effect in 3...2...1...

Lib'rul bias!

[Anonymous Coward]

they would have left Bush's head there and digitally-added Obama's head right next to it

Left Bush's head there? But that's offensive and unfair!

BOTH of these men deserve the ultimate punishment

You're saying Bush deserves punishment? But that's offensive and lib'rully biased! Why are you so unfair to us conservatives? Why are you unfair and unbalanced?

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt he watches much outside of The Cartoon Network...

Hmmm...

[FrAnkRYzzO]

I'm pretty sure this was feature and not a bug...

Re:Oh geez. ADD a head not subtract one.

[CAIMLAS]

I couldn't agree more (with the intention and sentiment). I LOL'd at your proposal, and I think it's a strikingly good one.

The irony is that the last decade of warfare has basically been continuous and at higher cost than Vietnam with much broader collateral damage. Unfortunately, Bush and Obama can not be held singularly responsible for this: US Congress as well as the people involved on the OF side.

The real tragedy is that it's being waged for political reasons, not actual stabilization. See: the jihadist coups of Egypt and Libya thanks to our benevolent administration. Jingoism is bad, but jihadism is probably a bit worse in terms of negative effects (deaths, poverty, enslavement, etc.) on the grander scale of history.

Fan Edit?

[CopaceticOpus]

I'm hoping this leads to a fan edit in which every dead character on screen is replaced by Bush! I say this not because of hatred for Bush, but because HBO and various commentators have taken this amusing situation way too seriously.

Re:Fan Edit?

[avandesande]

There is the old saying 'bad publicity is better than none at all'
This sounds more like an HBO publicity stunt than anything....

Re:Fan Edit?

[teslar]

I was secretly hoping it'd turn out they did the same thing to the scewered Bush head that Firefly did to carbonite Han Solo's (one in every episode). I'm still looking, but the boobies keep getting in the way of the bodies...

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[CanHasDIY]

I doubt he watches much outside of The Cartoon Network...

If so, he's far more intelligent than I previously gave him credit for...

Pussies...

[Jawnn]

So..., what? It's wrong to have latex likenesses of former presidents in motion pictures now? Well, OK, if that's what it takes to make sure there's never a remake of "Point Break".

Re:Factual error

[allcoolnameswheretak]

And I forgot to mention that they are devious, lying bastards.

Four words

[freeze128]

Abraham... Lincoln... Vampire... Slayer!

orly?

[pkbarbiedoll]

You LIE!

It's perfectly OK to be disrespectful to a sitting Democratic president, but god save your soul if you dare to suggest anything negative about a past Republican president.

They should use a likeness of ...

[Skapare]

... Jerry Sandusky. Or maybe Bernie Madoff.

Actually, it looked more like ...

[Skapare]

... some slashdoterdood named Anonymous Coward.

the black man won...

[publiclurker]

get over it and stop trying to infect everything with your hate.

Re:the black man won...

[Johann Lau]

If what he said is incorrect... then why are you distracting from it?

And you know what, even a broken clock is correct twice a day, so even if the motivation for pointing out the bleeding fucking obvious WAS racism, and nothing but racism; so what? He's not asking to marry your daughter, or whatever the fuck you read into it.

Re:the black man won...

[C_amiga_fan]

I'm happy a black man won.
Just would have preferred it be Dr. Walter E. Williams - someone who actually understands economics, and that running-up a 20 trillion dollar debt is not the solution.

Re:the black man won...

[publiclurker]

What he said was the distraction. Please try to be honest. I don't let my children get away with trying to change the subject, so I don't know why you think I would let you or your friend do it either.

Re:the black man won...

[amiga3D]

I love Dr. Williams' column. He uses logic like a razor sharp knife. I can't see anyone like him being President though. Logic is very unpopular.

Re:the black man won...

[Reziac]

Never heard of him, but sounds like another Larry Elder, whom I greatly respect...
[goes off, finds Dr.Williams' column]
Yep, off in that same direction.

[plaintively] Since there clearly are plenty of sensible black folks available, why didn't we elect one of them instead??

Who *did* they make it look like?

[whitroth]

And why didn't they have a Cheney head beside it?

                mark

Re:Who *did* they make it look like?

[geekoid]

because it will take more then a beheading to kill that monster.

T-shirts?

[ArtuRock]

Bush's head (was) shot (as in filmed) first!

W.T.F.

[dargaud]

Yeah, land of the free, free expression and all that, but use a plastic head shapped like the worst president in history and everybody is offended and running around in circle crying for their mother. GROW UP!

Re:W.T.F.

[gangien]

I wonder how many presidents qualify as worst president in history? I've heard it mentioned about every president in my lifetime, multiple times.

Re:W.T.F.

[geekoid]

everyone ? know. Only people with persecution complex..i.e. fanatic GOP Christians.

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[GameboyRMH]

I can haz screenshot?

Re:Oh geez. ADD a head not subtract one.

[GameboyRMH]

All political stuff aside, the lulz would be epic.

Re:Game of Fagets

[GameboyRMH]

And don't faget it.

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[roman_mir]

So you don't think he likes porn?

Re:Factual error

[Killjoy_NL]

Hah you don't keep things bottled up do you :)

"there ought to be limits to freedom [of speech]"

[Quila]

That's what he said around 2000 when a site called gwbush.com was making fun of him. He sent a C&D and got the FEC involved.

Re:Oh geez. ADD a head not subtract one.

[kaatochacha]

Why is this marked Troll?

Re:"there ought to be limits to freedom [of speech

[AK Marc]

That was before an election. It wasn't about humour, but ridicule to affect the election.

Halloween

[skine]

Also, John Carpenter is going to be releasing a digitally edited version of Halloween that replaces the William Shatner/James T Kirk mask with an unidentifiable mask.

Re:Oh geez. ADD a head not subtract one.

[geekoid]

yes, clearly its the president who comes into term and then works to bring an end to the wars fault.
certainly not the pubs who have tried to stop every move to get our troops home in a rational manner.

I need to know ...

[Anomalyst]

How seeing a likeness in a TV show episode is more offensive than his actual presidency.

Re:I need to know ...

[kenj0418]

And I think Hodor reminds me of George W. Bush more than that head on stick does anyway.

Re:Total BSS

[geekoid]

Setting aside I never saw any of that stuff o his website. I didn't go there often.

He had no input into this. none at all.
Why would you think the author of the book would be making set design decisions? why do you think that is more likely then what actually happened? The got a call for a bunch of fake heads, so the grab all they had, slapped some wigs on them, and put them into the set.

The scene they are talking about is a few frames, with the head in the background and turned. You can't even see half of a side of the head.

Seriously, find something real to get offended about.

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[AK Marc]

Where do you think he gets his porn. Manga!

Re:Total BSS

[Charliemopps]

Sure... they didnt talk to him at all... he was never on set. They never met him, never talked about politics over beers, and had no incentive to throw a little joke his way because he was basically responsible for them all having jobs. right.

I never said I was offended. I could give a shit less. I just said they were pansies for doing it and then not owning up to it. If you're going to suggest someone should be killed and their head put on a stake because you really think they did something awful, the fucking say so. If you're just trying to impress your yuppie friends but don't want to lose your job over the whole thing, then maybe your convictions aren't quite as die-hard as you thought.

If I thought you'd done something so bad that your head should be removed and put on a stake, I'd cut your god damn head off an put in on a stake. I wouldn't suggest the idea behind your back and then pretend like I never said it. It's called integrity. Something that, whomever did this, clearly has none of.

Re:Total BSS

[artor3]

If I thought you'd done something so bad that your head should be removed and put on a stake, I'd cut your god damn head off an put in on a stake.

No, you wouldn't, because you're an angry little coward spitting venom from behind the safety of a computer screen. Tough talk like that always comes from the cowards.

Bush was a terrible president. He may very well have dealt the death blow to this country. We're still shambling along for now, but the harm he did... in racking up deficits, undermining civil rights, making enemies, deregulating everything, stacking the court with activists... I don't think it's really survivable. It's pretty clear from how offended you are that you voted for him. So did I. The difference is, I'm brave enough to face my mistake. You're a coward who runs from his mistakes and insists that it's everyone else who is wrong.

Re:Oh geez. ADD a head not subtract one.

[CanHasDIY]

yes, clearly its the president who comes into term and then works to bring an end to the wars fault. certainly not the pubs who have tried to stop every move to get our troops home in a rational manner.

FISA, PATRIOT II, "Kill Lists," etc.

Not the knight in shining armor you think he is.

Re:"there ought to be limits to freedom [of speech

[Quila]

It wasn't about humour, but ridicule to affect the election

Satire and parody done in order to affect the political process has a protected status going way back. Thomas Nast's cartoons against political figures were brought up as free speech precedent in Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, and Hustler won.

Re:"there ought to be limits to freedom [of speech

[AK Marc]

Once he won the second election, he was a lame duck. He probably didn't personally care, but the handlers did.