Plano Skywalker

speaking of constitutional law, wasn't Tony Blair supposed to get rid of the Law Lords and institute an independent judiciary? how is his overall Lords reform going anyway? still stalled out with the Hereditary Peer compromise (phase 1 of Lords reform)? I wonder if he still has the political capital to finish his constitutional reforms.

well, I will not argue against the idea that he has the best of the best when it comes to his supporting cast. I just think that his political opponents do themselves a disservice when they think of him as a buffoon who doesn't know his way around. do you remember when he first visited Putin? He told the press that he was able to look "into the man's soul". I don't think Rove told him to say that but I think it played well with the masses and it also pushed Putin off his game a little bit...in short, it was effective. Things like that, that go somewhat under the radar screen, are a part of Bush's tactics.

yeah, well that's what happens when you are born on 3rd base and have your dad there to bail you out of everything. under the circumstances, however, I think he really has grown into the role. the Miers nomination looks like a mistake....it was intended to....so, yes, I can see how that would add to the perception that GW is dumb. the other stuff "compassionate conservatism", "faith-based initiatives", "spreading liberty" via force is nonsense. you and I know that but it is not intended for us but for the great unwashed who think the Jerry Springer Show is quality television.

i'm not against a betrayal as part of the story....I am, however, against being a limosine driver for someone that I know is going to betray me. we've had 2 KOTORs in which the PC is a limosine driver for a female betrayer. please, no more of that..... betrayal = OK, fine limosine driver for betrayer = no way, Jose

could be.....if you remember, his father, George Herbert Walker Bush, also said some really incongruous things....in fact, he did so more than his son. but this does not mean the elder Bush was dumb either.

......................... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> it's true....he ain't dumb...but he knows liberal elites like to think of him that way and he knows how to use that to his advantage. as far as Bolton goes...yeah, he was "recessed" in. :D

I could be wrong but I see the whole Meiers thing as a strawman set-up job. Basically, it went like this: * Laura Bush comes out before the nomination begging for a woman to be nominated. * President Bush nominates his personal lawyer about whom not much is known except that she was head of the Texas lottery and has given money to both Republicans and Democrats. * Senate Democrats (namely Reid) express a passive support for the candidate but indicate that the hearings will be especially important for this nominee due to her lack of a "paper trail". * Conservatives (mostly religious conservatives) attack the nomination because it is a "stealth" nomination more than anything else. It's not that they don't like her but they don't want another stealth nominee (these people think of Roberts as a stealth nominee). * Others (mainstream Americans and non-religious conservatives) attack the nominee based on the "crony" issue and her general lack of constitutional legal experience (it is not that she was a non-judge but a jurist with little to no constitutional legal experience). * Laura Bush attacks the attackers with a page from the Democrat's playbook "it's sexist!" * GW Bush plays up the fact that she is an Evangelical Christian as reason not to be alarmed. * the nominee withdraws allowing conservatives of all stripes to smugly declare victory while freeing the President to nominate someone with a concrete legal philosophy and, possibly, another white male if need be...(note: however, because Bush played up her religion, a fair amount of Evangelicals think that they were betrayed by other Evangelicals like Gary Bauer who opposed the nomination...good ole divide and conquer stuff here). Rove isn't the only one capable of this kind of calculation. GW is one of the shrewdest politicans alive.

President GW Bush has not vetoed a single appropriations bill to date. It seems that the Bush/DeLay Republican coalition is pragmatic on the issue of pork-barrel politics and tries to coopt Republican and independent voters with foreign policy and/or moral issues. The ironic thing is that it is precisely because the Framers gave us divided government as a matter of constitutional law (they were afraid of over-centralizing government) that it is so easy to slip pork into legislation and so hard to stop the practice. The early Republican Congress passed a Line Item Veto and Clinton actually used it but the Supreme Court struck it down. It will take a full-blown constitutional amendment to give the President a line item veto. I am convinced that a line-item veto is the only hope the American system of federal government has to reign in pork spending. It just isn't going to happen without it.

Yeah, and what about Atris? is she a good guy or a bad guy? Brianna? Is she going to take over the Jedi school on Telos or what? Visas? Strong in the Force is she...what of her story? Have we really seen the last of Darth Ni? I hope not...he had some real potential. The point is that there are so many things from both Revan's story and the Exile's story that need to be resolved that I just think it might be best to let the new comic series wrap it all up. I really don't think a video game can wrap all of this up in a satisfying way. A comic series, however, could do it without any problem. The more I think about it the more I think K3 will have a totally new storyline.

Xbox 360? Probably. However, I think it would be a mistake for it to be console-exclusive. I think it should have the kind of "preemptive" exclusivity that the other 2 titles had....then, a port to PC. However, they need not rush the port job....that is one thing that gave K2 a black eye....the Xbox version was more or less fine but the PC port job was rushed. And they need to do something about the "dead zone" between titles....downloadable content for a fee, rather like NWNs Premium Modules (but much more seamless to implement), would help keep the wolves at bay.

I mean, it's one thing to have a pink lightsaber mod or restore some cut content (that was on the Xbox cd but not the PC cd) but to actually write your own sidequests complete with voice-acting....WOW, that is ambitious!

it's amazing how K2 has become a modder's paradise. :D

not sure this has anything to do with K3, but LA just announced a major restructuring to their fora: http://forums.lucasarts.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2141265 their K2 forum is absolutely cluttered with K3 stuff...I suspect that is the main reason they are doing it...trying to get people back "on topic".

most continuity is "C canon". however, there is "G canon" which is anything from GL including the movies and even unpublished director's notes. G canon trumps all else even if the other stuff came first. unless there is a continuity mistake or an Infinities label, EU stuff (including video game content) is C canon.

great point....the KOTOR era is not exactly the right era to be having "last of the Jedi" kind of stories. It needs to show the Jedi as strong, vibrant keepers of the peace. I think having a number of splinter groups (factions) would work wonders....the focus would be largely on the internal problems of the Jedi Order and/or the central government on Coruscant. actually, the Onderon story in K2 would have been excellent material for an entire game in this era.

it means "officially recognized". it is, essentially, a term borrowed from religion. many like to use the term "continuity" to refer to EU stuff while reserving the term "canon" for things from the movies.

Wiki is not official. Here is something from their main page: "Welcome to the Star Wars Wiki, a Star Wars database that anyone can edit." All SW is continuity, unless it is a continuity mistake or unless it has an Infinities label. However, I do not have enough evidence to consider M4-78 as official continuity. EDIT: OK, doh! It is the SW Insider mag that is the proof....the Wiki article mentions this as the source: Medstar: Intermezzo is a short story written by Michael Reeves and Steve Perry, published in Star Wars Insider #83.

the genie is out of the bottle....they committed the cardinal sin of SW games....they gave us a pregen who already had a name. all Star Wars is continuity and by having a character who already commanded the power of the Star Forge (before you even played him!), they had an EU character that they were pretty much forced into fleshing out. A similar thing happened with Kyle Katarn....introduce a pregen (with a name) into a SW game and you are stuck with an EU construct that the fans will keep pestering you about until you flesh him out. Exile is really just a backstory....they don't really HAVE to tell his story. HOWEVER, I think they pretty much have to tell Kreia's story (she essentially killed Vrook who is already in SW comics). Since they pretty much have to tell Kreia's story, they will probably end up telling the Exile's story as well. Now that they have put this story into comics, I wouldn't be surprised if K3 has a completely new story arch.

yes, the Tales of the Jedi is the "ancient setting" or one of them at least. I see KOTOR as a subset of the ancient setting and I think it is appropriate to think of Revan as the central character of that subcontext.

If you think about it, K2 introduced so much new continuity, it's not even funny. I wonder if K3 will, in fact, wrap up the current story arch. Perhaps not. Perhaps LFL would rather a seasoned EU comic writer wrap up the present mess we are in and have K3 be a totally unrelated story. As long as the story gets wrapped up, I don't really care what media it is in. There will be a K3 but it may not wrap up K2....the comics may do that.

Let us not forget that Revan is the primary protagonist of this era. They really can't just have him hovering around the margins...his story is destined to be told in full.

with the comic series, I think the chances of a "hard coded" Revan with an actual appearance, gender, surname, alignment (LS-redeemed), etc becomes much more likely.

excellent point...they could definitely spin it that way....K2 is, when it is all said and done, the story of a former Jedi Master named Kreia....she might have been making it ALL up. (however the "echo" thing was not just a figment of her imagination....it was an actual phenom because all the Jedi sensed it.) I hope K3 gives us more of Kreia's backstory (the true backstory).

well, it is a monthly and it is set 8 years before K1 (which is actually less than 8 years before Revan and Malak are trotting around the galaxy). I don't think there is any question that the series will eventually catch up with Revan and Malak.

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