Darwin lives!

Just when I was giving up hope on Darwin I came across Dry-Ice Bomb Won't Explode and Man Leaps From Car to Retrieve Cigarette both in the same day. Now all he needs is a helping hand from Forrest Gump - stupid is as stupid does.

The long dark theater time of the Sith

I'll get it over and done with real fast - I enjoyed Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. Oh sure it had its flaws but really significantly fewer than I or II. Lets face the movie has quite an uphill battle - only three characters of any real significance: Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Chancelor Palpatine, and has an ending that almost everyone seeing the movie already knows and indeed the movie itself clearly "knows" from the start. So really it did a pretty good job to stay entertaining.

Could it have been better? Well yes of course - ditch Hayden Christensen for someone who can do a convincing transformation from light to dark sides, make Portman less of a doormat who just wants to go home and "get the room ready" for the kid(s) (sheez, don't they have birth control in the Star Wars era?), and maybe, just maybe, run the script by an average person or two (like me for instance) to weed out the worst of the awkwardness. We know Lucas pays amazing attention to the special effects - they are indeed top notch, especially the 100% CG Yoda, but does he and no one working for him just not care about crappy dialog? Didn't the dialog get panned enough in the first two for him to get the message? Well, perhaps - it was definitely better this time - in the first half there was even a line or two worthy of Episode IV or V banter.

It was also really hard not to read in some pretty strong political overtones in a few of the conversations about democracy, the senate and good vs. evil. He stopped short of having using the "you're either with us or against us" line from Darth Dubyous, but only just instead rendering it as "you're either with us or with the enemy". And when Padme watches the Chancellor declare himself Emperor she mutters the question "Is where liberty was lost - to rousing applause?". Sigh, I didn't think this was supposed to be a documentary...

I did like how Lucas managed to work in a good number of retro Star Wars visual themes. From bright white ship interiors, and clunky LED like displays and controls, to the wrinkling of Palpatines face, it all helped to remind us to we were on a journey to familar territory formerly known as Star Wars Episode IV, or just plain "Star Wars". Because back then we never even had an inkling there would be another five movies to follow it, and we never even minded that we were supposedly joining a story that was half way through. Indeed quite why Lucas choose to start the story at Episode IV I'll never know. Just how would it have all transpired it instead he'd stubbornly started with Episode I? Would we have had Harrison Ford as Obi-Wan, Mark Hamill as Anakin and Carrie Fisher as Padme? And would we all been bitching about how crappy Episodes IV and V were but that VI wasn't such a bad rousing finale after all?

Anyway, finally I should say that in the closing scenes where loose ends are not being tied up, but instead being hastily tied into the original Star Wars plot line, well I was definitely thinking back to a movie theater a long time ago in a country far, far away. Back then when I was fresh faced ten year old, my late father had, by some means I never learned (perhaps subconsciously, as if by a force unknown...) tapped into the zeitgeist of the time and decided that all the family should go see this hit new movie called "Star Wars". This was something our family just didn't do - it was rare enough to see a movie at a theater, (remember the late 70s were a very low point in theater going history), let alone drag our entire family to a sci-fi movie, a genre that was barely invented at that time. We had to drive to another town, the line was so huge I felt sure we'd never get a seat, the screen seemed emmense and I had no idea what I was in for. Who would think that almost thirty years on I'd still be going back for more of the Star Wars saga? I stopped collecting the Star Wars cards and lusting after Princess Leia a long time ago, but the fun still lingers on.

And you know what the best thing is about getting out of theater having just seen Episode III? It's that you know you're half way through, the going is pretty good and the best is yet to come. More to the point you wont have to wait another thirty years to get it!

Galloway vs. the Senate

Thanks to the Tin Man for pointing me to a story from the Guardian about Galloway's recent testimony at the Senate subcommittee for homeland security and governmental affairs. Apparently he gave them and the entire Bush administration a right royal tongue lashing in a way that only one versed in British parliamentary no-holds-barred debate tactics could. As they'd say back at the Houses of Parliament, "Hear, hear!".

Update: watch the whole 47 minute testimony video at the BBC or the just the "money shot" highlight.

The book is mightier than the sword

I find it ironic that the Whitehouse has chosen to jump so quickly into the fray over the "alleged" Koran flushing incident at Guantanamo. Where were they when it was an issue of abusing actual prisoners, actual living flesh desecrated? They were busy burying the story in secrecy for as long as they actually could. Now, with no photos and nothing thing to lose they are defending a holy book more vehemently than they defended people. The message from the Whitehouse is "Torture good - book flushing bad".

Yes I know the Koran is a holy book, and the story caused rioting and deaths in Afghanistan, but seriously do you have any doubts that US guards at Guantanamo would even bat an eye before flushing, burning or pissing on the Koran? Do you really have any doubts that now they are no longer officially allowed to humiliate their prisoners in naked pyramids and forced sexual acts, that if they thought that for one second they could get what they wanted with a mere book - that they would treat it with any respect whatsoever? Of course not.

Like I said I think the only reason the Whitehouse has been quick to jump in is because no one ever thought a guard flushing the Koran was photo worthy for the folks back home - "Look mum, there's me flushing the Koran while the prison breaks down and tells me everything about his non-combatant training camp". For that reason I feel confident in saying "alleged" because I feel sure that one time or the other it happened just it never became a Kodak moment to prove it. Newsweek almost certainly had some anonymous tipoffs that it actually happened, but without anyone willing to step forward and admit to it they had to back down and eat some humble pie or risk being labeled un-American and un-Patriotic by hordes of zealous red-staters who would turn to flushing Newsweek instead of the Koran.

Meanwhile the Whitehouse is putting on a "holier than thou" act pretending as if maybe it would stand by and watch a few "bad actors" torture prisoners but no way would it allow religious persecution. But what happens, I ask you, if stories come back that over in "I-raq" they are busy burning and flushing the Bible? Is that cause for rioting here? Will brown skinned folks be dragged off the streets and beaten by irate right wing religious fanatics? Will we declare war on them all over again to find stockpiles of bibles of mass destruction?

Really its all pretty dumb to me. The Whitehouse should have just 'fessed up because sooner or later someone is going to spill the beans. They should admit they have no clue about Islam and they should send all those prisoners back home. Seriously. Just how long can we justify keeping them locked up indefinitely because they hate America and have expressed ill will against us. Or would the Whitehouse have us go to Afghanistan and seize every single America hating rioter and lock them up indefinitely too? And ditto at home - sure we've already got over 2 million of our own locked up, about half for crimes not much worse than getting bored of America to the point where it was preferable to check out of it on drugs, why not add a few more to the penal melting pot?

All aboard the fastrack to sainthood

Now that the vatican has decided to put the late Pope J.P. on a fastrack to sainthood it got me wondering just how easy they are going to make becoming a Saint. Even buying a gun has a waiting period but Sainthood? No problem! We can do that right away. All it needs is someone who is sick to claim they prayed to JP and then recover in a way scientists didn't expect. That doesn't seem to high a bar to raise does it, I can assure you that every day people survive medical emergencies and recover from illness in ways not expected or explained by current medical knowledge.

Is that really where sainthood lies now - some gap in scientific knowledge creating a loophole leading to a stairway to heaven, and with a wave of the current Pope's hand old JP gets a fastrack to the head of the line ahead of all the other saint wannabees. I guess they are expecting that with all those 1 billion Catholics getting sick and praying and all it will be no time at all before unexplained miracles are being worked.

There lies the rub for me - is that all miracles are these days, is that where beatification, sainthood, acts of god are founded - as mere loopholes created by lack of scientific knowledge. No burning bushes, no walking on water, no water to wine - just some "incurable disease" that gets better for no explained reason. Because science has explained away all that other stuff... no wonder the Catholics made such an effort to persecute scientists, they didn't want all their Saintly appointments to be called into question, or to loose all sources of future appointments. But face facts, with progress of scientific knowledge its going to become harder and harder to find miracles to attribute to saint wannabees.

Yes, if I was terminally ill I'd try everything, even a bit of that good old fashioned blackmail praying, you know the sort - "I don't actually believe you exist, but if you really do now is the time to reach down and do some miracle work... please... I'll give you a second chance if you do". So anyone who gets better who actually remembers the "deal" they offered the deity upstairs might be tempted to attribute it to a miracle.

So I have an idea... why doesn't the Pope start focusing on other types of unexplained miracles, like George Bush getting elected - I'm sure a whole bunch of Catholics were praying for that and most everyone expected the old shrub to miss it by a squeak but low and behold he gets elected in declares a veritable "mandate". Surely that's some kind of miracle. Surely some saint dude was up there commanding a host of angelic minnions moving votes around and putting Xs where they neede to be to make that happen. If a huge stash of WOMD turned up in Iraq wouldn't a whole bunch of Evangelists instantly proclaim a miracle (even if they weren't put there by angelic workers but actually by CIA operatives).

Yes folks, every day all kinds of crazy s**t is going on that's completely unexplainable by science or rational logic and this is stuff that affects everyone, not just some sick person with a vested interested in getting well. Why does it have to be someone getting well after illness? Why not the car that doesn't start on the very day you needed an excuse not to come into work. Or the boss that drops dead the day he was going to fire you. Or the mega lottery ticket win - millions to one against, less likely than a lightning strike - that has to be a miracle. There has to be thousands of such events each daya - lets call these people's miracles.

With all these people's miracles happening all the time almost anyone could become a saint, a people's saint. Pray to your favourite dead person - from Einstein, Ghandi to Marilyn Monroe or even Ronald Reagan and sit back and wait for crazy unexplained miracles to happen. One fastrack to sainthood is on its way... "I got out of a parking ticket by passive non-violent resistance, now I pray to Saint Mahatma", or "I flew to Hawaii on vacation and came back feeling ten years younger now I pray to Saint Albert". Why the heck not? Why should the vatican have the monopoly on such things and like I said, with the increasing difficulty in finding "real" miracles (salt stained freeways notwithstanding) why not open up the field to every day miracles we can all relate to instead of having to pray to some crusty old white guy whose main distinguishing attribute is that he rose to the top of the papal pyramid by longevity.

Peace against terrorism?

I was reading an article about a new group called Global Majority formed to promote peace when it struck me how stupid "war on terrorism" sounds. I mean, what if it said "terrorism on war", why should that be any less acceptable? From the perspective of those engaged in "terrorism" (an ill defined and much debated term) they are simply fighting a war against someone else's war against them. They don't have billions of dollars and a uniformed army marching into battle - even if they could afford one they would usually have had their asses kicked or more likely blown off and handed back to them on a plate.

Its true that some terrorists are fighting for a minority opinion - but certainly not always. And sometimes its just other peoples colouring of that opinion as good or bad that leads us to care about them or even bother to label them as terrorists or not. If the oppressed people of the Darfur region in Sudan started suicide bombing, sniping and laying improvised bombs against the gangaweed militia would we declare war on their terrorism? Probably not. More likely we'd (in this case I'm using the "American we") hail the righteous freedom fighters in Darfur and perhaps slip them a few millions and some truck loads of weaponry. Were the French resistance fighters in WWII terrorists? The Nazis must have thought so - if the term was in common parlance then I'm sure they would have been labeled with it. So why then are the Palestinians terrorists and not freedom fighters?

Surely its because they are using violent means against violent means. But why is that other brand of violence against violence - war against terror - not also judged a bad, nay evil thing?

Some people will tell you that the war on terror is not a violent one. Why then the hundreds of millions spent to invade and occupy Iraq? Ditto in Afghanistan? What of the planned permanent detention of people at Guantanamo, purely because they expressed continuing ill will against the USA (a "crime" that hundreds of millions across the world are surely guilty of), is that non-violent act? If you detain a few hundred people in a remote place that's okay, but what if a few thousand, or few hundreds of thousands, or millions? When does a non-violent safety measure against a state of mind become violence against a state of people?

You see there are so many shades of gray and so little, if any, black and white. It depresses me that this as all been simplified, dumbed down for consumption of the non-thinking American masses as "war on terrorism" - which also just strikes me as bad grammar as well as being pretty darned close to an oxymoron from my point of view.

If you want to pit something against terrorism how about peace? Yes to me peace against terrorism sounds a whole lot better and who knows, as some have discovered (e.g. the British), it may take a lot longer but ultimately when the terrorists are fighting for a widely back point of view, it is much more likely to succeed in bringing about peace instead of just more war.

Prison for profit

Here's a thought: if prisons are to be run as private for profit businesses, such as is probably going to happen in Memphis, then what are the market forces driving their "product" demand and hence the price paid to them for their services? Shouldn't it be how good a job they do at rehabilitating prisoners, that is the rate of recidivism of those released from their system? So in a free-market prison system the corporation that does the best at rehabilitating the prisoners will be the most profitable and most dominant. In ideal world perhaps...

In reality I expect that corporations habit of being an externalizing machine will cause it to maximize profit in other ways, ones that do not benefit the community at large. Imagine a prison corporation that ships its prisons to some remote country where they are guarded and fed cheaply, and where if they riot, escape, or just plain curl up and die, well... out of sight, out of mind. The British tried that once with Australia - stuff them on a ship and sail them over the equator - problem solved. I can only imagine that some lesser form of this tactic is at the forefront of every wannabe for profit prison corporation.

The greatest trick the devil ever played...

If you take a Googleplex of links, shake 'em all up, add a splash of hocus pocus and a mischievous employee or two and what do you get? Well Dave over at Chicken or Beef? has found out. Yes indeed, in their directory Google they have cunningly cooked the books to indicate that the Evangelism section has 666 links, which it doesn't.

I'm wondering how long this "anomaly" will stay around once the word gets out, or indeed just how long its been there.