Look, I love bashing on Glenn Beck as much as the next person. But this one really takes the cake.

On his radio show today, Glenn Beck heralded and promoted the work of Nazi sympathizer Elizabeth Dilling, who spoke at rallies hosted by the leading American Nazi group and praised Hitler. Today, Dilling is heralded by White Supremacists and White Aryans who revere her “fearless” work against Jewish people.

…Dilling has a long history of rabid anti-Semitism, such as calling President Eisenhower “Ike the Kike” and labeling President Kennedy’s New Frontier program the “Jew frontier.”

…This isn’t just beyond the pale — it’s probably the most significant major-media endorsement of American fascist ideology since the 1930s.

I don’t even have the words to describe how angry this makes me. It’d be one thing if he was just some crazy nut job with a website, but the fact that he’s on the goddamn radio talking about this shit. Further, I find it totally ironic that he would accuse the current government of fascism and all that, only to then promote and publicize it.

But what I find most amazing is that he gets away with this. Every single day I read about the latest crazy thing that Beck has done so it all sort of blends together, but come on – how is this one not the worst ever?

In an epically epic rant on his Fox News show today, Glenn Beck said the following:

Do you remember what happened right after 9/11 with Rudy Giuliani? Do you remember Saudi Arabia came and said, we want to help. This guy [pointing at Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud] came over and said ‘I want to give you a $10 million dollar check.’ Rudy Giuliani said, you see that over there? I don’t think we want your help. You already sent us help. And you flew that help into the plane, into the the trade centers.

Now see, the funny part is that, according to Wikipedia, that prince owns 7% of News Corp – the company that owns Fox News. Way to bite the hand that feeds there. God I hope someone smacks him down for this.

It’s pretty safe to say I’m a big NIN fan. I’ve been listening for eleven years now and have seen Trent Reznor live five times. I may not fap over his music the way some people *cough*ETS*cough* do, but overall I like his sound.

Anyway, his new group, comprised of him, his wife Mariqueen, and Atticus Ross released their new EP today. Six tracks, free to download. And honestly? I didn’t really like it. Overall, the mood of the album is dark and beat-heavy. It’s all slowed down and laid back; when I listen to it I get this image of emo kids having sex… or cutting themselves. Maybe both, I don’t know.

I think more than anything, though, the album is just forgettable. There are no tracks that really stand out, no interesting hooks or anything like that. I suppose BBB could end up being an anthem of sorts to annoying teens, what with its repeated line of “Listen to the sound of my big black boots”. Clever lyrics!

Although nothing in particular is excellent, I do like some parts of some tracks. There’s a bunch of glitching sounds in The Believers, and the beat to Fur Lined is pretty reminiscent of NIN’s Only (from With Teeth). I think I would have liked the album a bit more if it had been just an instrumental and they had swapped out the vocals for more weird stuff.

I know that HTDA is its own group and not connected to NIN directly, but you can’t help but draw comparisons, especially when you can hear influences from the latter. I guess there’s potential here, and of course I’ll keep my eye on it – but I’ll still be waiting for more of what Trent Reznor does best.

And just as a side note, I’m marginally pissed that they have a boatload of shirts for sale on their site, including a limited edition T-shirt for $50. That cash gets you a “handmade silkscreened hand-numbered with a custom HDTA tag” shirt, whatever that is. A band releases six tracks and you sell a shirt for $50? Did I miss something?

We finally got around to finishing FlashForward tonight. Pretty decent season finale overall, but definitely unsatisfying as a close to the series.

At this point I’m ambivalent to the show, but overall I think canceling it was the right idea. The first half of the season was slow moving and all over the place: we didn’t really know what was going on, and it was frustrating to watch these characters struggle to figure out anything. After the winter break the show really came together, and it was enjoyable to watch. I cared about the characters. But somewhere at the end – maybe in the last four episodes – it just went back to how it was in the beginning. And by the end I really just didn’t care anymore.

For me, getting to the point where I don’t care about a show is a big deal. In all honesty, I watched every episode of Heroes – yes, even the last two seasons – if only to see how the show came together. So to then be able to walk away from a show like this with only lukewarm feelings is fairly sad.

The other thing is that the characters got exceedingly stupid towards the end. No, Mark, don’t have that drink of alcohol even though you know it’s a terrible idea! No, Olivia, don’t kiss that guy even though you know that you’re cheating on your husband! At the end I think we compared it to Pan’s Labyrinth where all of those characters do really dumb things as well. Yes, let’s mess with the Pale Man even though everyone said never to do that. Do people in media just not listen to directions anymore?

I think the biggest loss for me is the cast. The show really did have a lot of good people on it, my personal favorite being John Cho. Maybe it’s the slight nostaglia for Lost kicking in, but Dominic Monaghan and Sonya Walger were pretty good too. Joseph Fiennes was fine – he played the part decently well. Oh, but big thumbs up on getting some BSG alums in there! (James Callis doing a rather strange American accent, and Callum Keith Rennie being evil as usual)

Anyway, there’ll be one less thing for me to watch in the fall, and I guess that’s kinda sad. Here’s hoping the cast moves on to bigger and better thins.

The Internet is all abuzz right now: Guillermo del Toro won’t be directing the two Hobbit films. Big bummer – I thought he would do the series some justice. I don’t anticipate them picking Peter Jackson to direct them, though, as New Line and him were at odds over it.

On the other hand, I’m seriously hoping that they take this chance to make the films not be in 3D. This new fad is really killing my soul, as I feel it’s just excessive and a marketing ploy of sorts. Further, when I saw Avatar with those glasses on, it just felt very blurry – like none of the edges were sharp or something.

Anyway. Sorry to see del Toro go from this one, but here’s hoping the films are still awesome.