Commissar

He didn't need to. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> yeah, he was only impeached, not convicted. the senate chose not to move forward with the "trial." i am curious if he could still be indicted or not. either way, bush would've pardoned him. presidents are like that, regardless of affiliation. it is one of the most exclusive fraternities in the world and all... taks <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Good question. I have no idea what the statute of limitations happens to be on perjury, but I'd imagine it doesn't have one. But it illustrates a good point; plenty of folks in the media and elsewhere are suggesting that this whole thing is a farce because the actual potential felony being investigated isn't being charged. The rebuttal, of course, is that if perjury's a good enough crime to impeach a president, it's certainly good enough to indict a White House staffer. I don't really consider this a partisan issue, I really don't. If Clinton himself was out there blowing covert agents' covers, I'd demand he be burned at the stake. The last thing we need right now is our intelligence people worried that if they report information or come to a conclusion that this or any other administration doesn't want to hear, they're going to be blown.

He didn't need to.

We, as a nation, have suffered. Wounded and confused, we wonder whether life will ever be the same again. But for all our pain, we can heal, if each one of us pitches in. We all have a part to play, whether donating blood, contributing to relief charities, or writing high-quality fan fiction to help a grieving nation forget its troubles for just a little while. Such is the burden I have assumed. Since 1997, through good times and bad, I have been there, creating rousing tales of events that did not actually take place in the official Back To The Future universe but could have. And now, in this time of crisis, I humbly offer these tales to the American people to help soothe their jangled nerves. Certainly, I am neither the most prolific nor the most acclaimed of America's many Back To The Future fanfic authors. But I like to think that my work is among the most heartfelt, the most human. Take my recently self-published fanfic novella Think, McFly, in which Marty briefly becomes trapped in 1975 Hill Valley. Let's not dwell on, for the purposes of this brief discussion, my historically accurate portrayal of the era, right down to the TV blaring All In The Family (a sly allusion to the whole theme of the film series). My depiction of Marty as he discovers yet another layer of the intertwined histories of his hometown and family surely approaches the depth of Robert Zemeckis' own work. In one scene, I have Marty encounter his 7-year-old self and, along with the reader, discover why being called a "chicken" has become such a personal curse. Who else in the online fanfic-writing community has taken such a bold leap of imagination while remaining completely true to the spirit of the film series? Can you name even one? I thought not. But I am not here to cast aspersions on other BTTF fanfic authors. (Not even the wildly overrated Marion Gehl.) Now is the time for Americans to stand tall and united in the face of an ultimate evil, not to nitpick about who obviously doesn't understand what the films are even about. And it certainly isn't the time to actually dare to claim that Claudia Wells was a better Jennifer than Elisabeth Shue. But, then, it never is. (She didn't do anything!) But I digress. Back To The Future is a timeless story of universal human experiences, like the quest for self-knowledge, overcoming adversity, and going to the school dance with your mother. It is this spirit I seek to honor and uplift through my works. Consider my upcoming 1920s adventure, tentatively titled Density. In it, Marty and Doc find themselves in the year 1925, only to meet Marty's grandfather, Cyrus McFly, operating a "speakeasy" out of a familiar-looking beverage hall in downtown Hill Valley. The na

Couple of points: 1. She's not my friend. I finally figured out who it is; wife of a colleague. Going to have to ask him to stop handing out my e-mail. 2. You latched in on the whole Christian rant perspective, not the actual question that I'm asking. That was just my eye-rolling way of introducing the topic; you're right, they can fight whatever shadows they care to. I'm more interested in what folks think of the actual theme of the movie, if what little I know about it has led me to the correct conclusion. Kumquat seems to think I'm wrong in my assessment, and I must indeed plead guilty to not having read them firsthand, but until he corrects me I'm going to stick to my guns and ask again, how's the depiction of morally ambiguous acts committed by the protagonist going to play? Just so nobody thinks I've made a sudden, inexplicable run to the right lately, I'll say that I intend to see; sounds like a good concept to me, and even if the allegations in my first post (not made by me, I'll again clarify) happen to be true, hell, no skin off my back. I don't mind a little metaphor, and squeaky clean heroes are never as interesting as the dirty ones.

You think I'm off base? I haven't put forth a single opinion yet other than that I thought the trailer looked slick. I've been quoting other people. But how am I off base, exactly? I fully admit to not having read the comic books - a practiced I stopped when I was about 12 - so I don't know the full story, no, but I did reat plot synopses of the three of 'em. Since I'm unlikely ever to read them, fill me in, man.

So I got an e-mail on my work account today from someone whose name is vaguely familiar. It was essentially another one of those chain e-mails, pissing and moaning about how the liberal Hollywood elites never make any family-friendly, Christian entertainment anymore, and included several upcoming releases that were cited as examples of the moral decline permeating Tinsel Town. One in particular stuck out, since it was the only one I'd actually heard anything about: V for Vendetta, the Wachowski brothers' latest effort. I recall seeing the trailer and thinking it looked pretty damn slick. Anyway, the crux of the argument against this particular movie seems to be that it depicts the protagonist committing several acts of terrorism against the British government. It left out the fact that the film's set during a general dystopia, and the British government is a fascist regime, but all the same. She (or I guess I should say, whoever the original author is) claims that the "grey [sic] haired Leader is obviously supposed to resemble President Bush" and "the female lead, Natalie Portman, is interrogated in a setting clearly designed to evoke thoughts of Guantanamo Bay" while "the military is represented as nothing better than Nazis" and "our sympathies are clearly supposed to lie with the terrorists." It goes on to conclude with the usual evangelical call to arms. I'd basically just seen the trailer before, and decided to do a little digging; apparently the graphic novels on which the movie is based have as a central theme "the rationalization of atrocities in the name of a higher goal, whether it is stability or freedom," according to good ol' Wikipedia. The main character's something of an anarchist, running around blowing up stuff while wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, and he also happens to be a victim of state-conducted medical experiments. So I suppose I'm rather curious how you folks think this'll play, or even if it's crossing a line or something like that, given the current state of world affairs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051031/ts_nm/bush_leak_plame_dc Just for trivia's sake, I went to school near Camp Peary, "the farm." Doesn't look like anything special from the outside.

Pff. Keep it as hereditary, and just let them deal with only the most trivial of issues. One of the things that's great about you Brits is the whole monarchy thing. I know you'll still have that as long as you have a monarch, but c'mon. House of Lords. Nobody else has a government body named that.

Interesting link. But it won't happen. Blair doesn't have the votes to get through anything that wasn't in his manifesto, and I don't think this was. It's a shame. More democracy is almost always a good thing. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Now, I know absolutely nothing about the British parliamentary system, but I always got the impression that the House of Lords was, well, a house of lords precisely because lords aren't elected. Don't they have very little power compared to Commons, anyway?

It's probably news to taks too, since he said the top 20% were conservative. " Conservative and Liberal are really awful terms to be using nowadays, as they're far too broad to place people in. Old small-government Republicans get lumped in with reactionary neo-conservaitves, while moderate liberals get lumped in with the far left of the Democrats. People should use more specific terms, like "Market Liberal" or "Social Democrat". They're still pretty broad, but at least you wouldn't find such extremes under the ideological umbrellas. Oh, and the whole red/blue thing is bloody annoying. The rest of the planet and even the US itself not so long ago understood that the people on the left are red! This concludes the tangenital rant on rather unimprotant things. We now return you to your previously scheduled flamewar. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> D'oh. One track mind. Fixed.

The top 20% of wage earners in this country are all conservativel? That's news to me. Edit: Also, knock off the defense. You guys got to have eight years of fun with, "Clinton's immoral! Clinton needs to find Jesus!" We can knock on the president for appearing to have the intellectual capacity of rotting fruit if we want. Second edit: Switched 'liberal' to 'conservative' so as not to appear bat**** loco.

that was will ferrell, saturday night live. nice try though. taks <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I know. It was too good to pass up.

As far as I can recall, the issues of slavery and/or the 3/5 compromise were not in play between Tom Daschle and John Thune. Nice red herring though. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It was actually more along the lines of sarcasm than a serious point. Though, to be fair, what's that old saw about the definition of a conservative? A man with two perfectly good legs who's never taken a step forward in his life, I believe. Daschle was a good guy. Shame he's out.

Tom Daschle was an absolute disgrace. Coming from a state that was redder than Jupiter and blasting everything that those folk stood for. Using his power as party leader in the Senate to buy votes with pork. They got fed up and they gave Tom what was long overdue. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah. You're going to have to work pretty hard to convince me that someone's a disgrace just because they don't support the three-fifths clause.

Hey, slightly back on topic, one thing that just occurred to me about the whole Supreme Court thing is that at least it means Alberto "Captain Torture" Gonzalez doesn't have a chance of being nominated; the paper-thin Executive Privilege argument that's supposedly forced Miers into withdrawing would apply to him as well.

Yes. Well over 90% of incumbent senators win reelection if they seek it, if memory serves. Tom Daschle is a rather spectacular example of the very few who do get kicked out. I still don't know what the hell's up with South Dakota. I guess that's just Jesusland for you. Whereas the House tends to be pretty tumultuous, the only way a Senate seat changes is if said senator dies or decides he's made enough money off of various lobbying groups.

I don't think that's a very good idea. Might as well abolish the union at that point, because it really would look like one country named Jesusland and another named the United States of Canada. You'd have the coasts and a small section of the midwest going liberal on all of those, and flyover country going conservative.

Strategery.

Doesn't look like he's going to be at the moment. However, a theory I heard this morning runs as follows: Libby's the only guy with whom the prosecutor has a case he's convinced could not possibly end in acquittal. Libby's obviously not the end of the chain, but right now the evidence against, for example, Rove or even Cheney or Bush, is too thin to guarantee conviction. So he's putting the squeeze on Libby (and I'd imagine a potential 30 years and a million dollar plus fine is some kind of squeeze), and is going to let his legal team realize that he's going to lose no matter what, and then offer him some sort of plea bargain in exchange for testifying against the higher ups.

Really? I would've figured you'd favor a Democratic president now because you're a fiscal conservative, and I doubt whoever the Democrats throw up could possibly spend more money than Bush. And you've got to believe that if Rove can stay out of jail, he's going to find a way to turn this around. Hell, he managed to turn the 2004 presidential election into a referendum on boys kissing, the indictment of a White House advisor will be a cake-walk.

uh, doubtful. as far as i can tell, we're the only ones discussing it, and barely at that. pointless, sure, but they have to do their job in the end (they being the secret service). his poll numbers aren't just low btw, they are cratering. taks <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Perhaps. I give them more credit for the subtle things, though. The Onion's widely read; any portrayal of Bush as some kind of moronic stargazer at the moment wouldn't be in the White House's favor, and The Onion makes it a point to pillory Bush at every opportunity. Perhaps it's descending a bit too far into the realm of conspiracy theories, but I could see them doing something along these lines to begin rebuilding the image, yeah.

See? This is what happens when you use anecdotal evidence. In my defense, I don't follow basketball, and've just always heard that story. Mea culpa. Right man at the right time, or else simply the man of the hour in terms of abilities...either way, is anyone seriously making the argument that Miers would've fit into either of those categories?

Not at all. From what little I was actually capable of reading on her, she sounded like a perfectly capable, workmanlike lawyer - but nothing that hard work and dilligence wouldn't have gotten any other lawyer in the nation. You're a conservative, and I wouldn't consider you dumb - misguided, sure, but not dumb. Roberts would be a fine choice, if his testimony to the Senate truly reflects his judicial philosophy. I suppose time will tell. If he was simply toeing a line to get his invitation aboard, then things will be different. As it stands now, though, I have no real problem with him.

Well, "Prussian Blue" made Real Time with Bill Maher tonight, as an example of the evils of home schooling.