MAJOR SWe3:ROTS PLOT SPOILERS AHEAD -- YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

Went with the family to see Star Wars III last night -- oy, what a waste of $39! It was every bit the huge disappointment I had feared. 2.5 hours with only a couple of momentary points of good storytelling. It should have been so great -- the theme of a good man's descent into evil made me want to watch Lawrence of Arabia and Citizen Kane again, or read Heart of Darkness. And the parallel theme of a democratic society degenerating into empire, "ripped from today's headlines" as they say, could have had a great epic sweep, but this movie has no meat on its bones; it was like watching a comic book on the screen. Anakin's reasons for siding with Palpatine are exasperatingly unconvincing -- "I had these bad dreams, so I'll turn to evil!" -- "If I hack up these here Jedi kids you'll teach me how to defeat death, right?" -- "Oops, you tricked me into letting you kill Mace Windu -- what have I done? Oh, right, I've become your apprentice -- well, that's cool. Who should I betray next, master?"

And watching Natalie Portman try to act was just excruciating. I was almost grateful when Young Darth did his remote-strangulation thing on her, just to shut her up -- maybe my mind is being twisted by the dark side, too...

I did enjoy the moment where Young Darth says to Obi Wan "If you're not with us, then you're my enemy" -- with its obvious dig at Dumbya. But I couldn't believe Darth's anguished "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!" when Palpatine tells him that he killed Padme; it was just too much of a movie cliche -- there was laughter in the audience -- I mean, was it a reference to the scene in Toy Story 2 where Buzz finds out that Zurg is his father?

The movie left a lot of loose ends frustratingly untied: Why does Leia grow up to be a "Princess" if she's being raised by an exiled former Senator? When/where/how does Chewy meet up with Han Solo (who is never mentioned). Who is Uncle Owen, how does Obi Wan know or find him, and what's his (and his nameless wife's) relationship to Anakin's dead mom? What does the population of the galaxy think about all these goings-on at the summit of power in Trantor, I mean Coruscant. Isn't there ANYONE else in the Senate (besides Bail and Padme) who try to resist Palpatine's power grab?

I was also really hoping for a few scenes of gritty future-city life at street level (as in Blade Runner, Fifth Element and Total Recall, and as at least attempted in Episode II), but most of the plot seems to take place on the 500th floor. But at least Lucas & Co. has given us all something to complain about.

At KillerMovies Community Forums > Star Wars > Star Wars: Episode III, starwarsfreak34 suggests a fascinating idea:

palps [Palapatine's] word about the manipulation of the force by [Darth] plageuis (SP?) could this be how anakin came about? my theory is, if it is, that anakin's destiny was NOT to destroy the sith and bring balance to the force that way. the balance is upset because he wasn't meant to be alive at the time and the equilibrium was upset, thus he had to DIE to bring balance to the Force.

I want my blank keyboard ("No inscriptions on the keys! 100% blank! UberGeeks only!") to identify me to all who gaze into my cubicle as an "elite programmer who can write sophisticated code under tight deadlines". And in the dark, too, I guess. Isn't there a way in most operating systems to swap in different keyboard mappings? This suggests a FunHack(TM) to try after the UberGeek has gone home.

Attention, chocoholics: eat your heart out!

Attention airline passengers: Don't Eat Pink Slime.

Spread the seeds of the Organic Rebellion -- watch Grocery Store Wars and learn the ways of The Farm from freerangestudios.com

Letter from Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) to White House Mouthpeice Scott McClellan about reported Koran desecration:

May 17, 2005

Mr. Scott McClellan
Press Secretary
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. McClellan:

I write to express my profound disappointment and outrage about comments you made about a matter involving Newsweek magazine, which smacks of political exploitation of the deaths of innocent and a shameless attempt to intimidate reporters from critically investigating your Administration's actions. Your comments are contradicted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and stand in stark contrast with your actions involving the "Downing Street Memo." I urge you and your counterpart at the Pentagon to immediately retract the comments made yesterday, and - at long last - provide a full accounting of the Administration's actions in the lead up to the Iraq war.

As you are aware, a May 9th Newsweek report indicated that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba flushed the Koran down a toilet as part of an interrogation. Newsweek has since retracted the story. However, as the magazine was reevaluating information received from its sources, it appears you opted to exploit the situation for partisan political gain by falsely laying blame on Newsweek for recent deaths in Afghanistan.

Specifically, at 11:23am yesterday, you declared in a public statement: "his report has had serious consequences. It has caused damage to the image of the United States abroad. It has -- people have lost their lives. It has certainly caused damage to the credibility of the media, as well, and Newsweek, itself." The Pentagon spokesman, Larry DiRita, made similar comments. Referring to Newsweek's source, he said "People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said." The clear implication of these statements is that the Newsweek report had caused a loss of life in Muslim nations, presumably referring to the recent riots in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

First, this attempt to tie riots to the Newsweek article stands in stark contrast to the assessment of your own senior military officials. On May 12th, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of Staff had reported on his consultations with the Senior Commander in Afghanistan about whether there was a causal relationship between the Newsweek story and the riots thusly: "[h]e thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine." The only conclusion that can be reasonably drawn is that, in contrast to career military officers, political operatives sought to score cheap political points by spreading falsehoods about Newsweek. The appropriate course of action is clear: you and Mr. DiRita should immediately retract your exploitative comments.

Second, there is - of course - a sad irony in this White House claiming that someone else's errors or misjudgments led to the loss of innocent lives. Over 1,600 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives in the Iraq war, a war which your Administration justified by falsely claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. To date, your Administration has consistently blocked Congressional inquiries into whether such claims were the result of intentional manipulation of intelligence or, as you assert, a mere "failure."

Moreover, your loquacious response to this matter stands in stark contrast to your response to a recently released classified memo comprising the minutes of a July 22 meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his cabinet which calls into question the credibility of assertions made by your Administration in its drive to war. Among other things the memo indicates that Administration officials were working to ensure that "the intelligence and facts were fixed around the policy," implying that intelligence was deliberately manipulated to prop up the case for war. The memo also indicates, contrary to contemporaneous statements to the American people and the Congress that the President had already "made up his mind to take military action." When asked about this memo, you claimed that you "don't know about the specific memo" - two and one half weeks after its release and ten days after receiving a letter detailing its contents from 89 Members of Congress (which has still not been answered).

Third, the public deserves to know what precisely the White House is asserting with respect to the mistreatment of the Koran by interrogators: are such reports categorically false or are they, in the words of one publication, "manifold?" For example, a May1st New York Times report indicated that a Koran was thrown into a pile and stepped on at the Guantanamo detention facility and "[a] former interrogator at Guantanamo, in an interview with the Times, confirmed the accounts of the hunger strikes, including the public expression of regret over the treatment of the Korans." The incident where a Koran was allegedly thrown in a toilet was also recounted by a former detainee in a March 26, 2003 article in the Washington Post, and corroborated by another detainee in a August 4, 2003 report by the Center for Constitutional Rights. The question is: are you categorically denying that the mistreatment of the Koran occurred, or are you simply denying the Newsweek report is accurate on hyper technical grounds?

Mr. McClellan, the American people have grown tired of the venomous partisanship and lack of candor on the part of this Administration. When taken to task for wrongdoing, a pattern has emerged of this Administration viciously attacking its accusers. The cornerstone of our democracy is an open and accountable government, and the American people deserve answers - not distractions -- today.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

As seen on The Stephanie Miller Show

Self-Replicating Robots Make First Appearance. I guess these guys aren't afraid of no stinkin' grey goo. After watching the video of these "molecubes" squirming their way to reproductive success, which probably qualifies as a new genre of robot porn, I feel like a dinosaur that's just noticed a bunch of furry little things running around in the underbrush.

I wonder what Neal "Mule-Shagger" Horsley thinks about the proposed Human Chimera Prohibition Act of 2005, which would ban, among other things, the creation of "a non-human egg that has been fertilized by a human sperm". See also The Laws of Man and Beast, which describes a rather more high-tech version of Horsley's, um, "experiments".

Don't call it "dumping sewage that has had no biological treatment to remove pathogens and pollutants into lakes and rivers" -- call it "sewage blending".

Active ingredient in marijuana slows atherosclerosis. Oh, wow... pass those brownies over to me...

Before I found out that the FCC is claiming that the rumor of the impending release of cell phone numbers to telemarketers is a hoax... at least for now..., I went running in a panic over to the National Do Not Call Registry and registered (with trembling fingers) my family's cell phones, adding to the flood of such requests. So now, in addition to the bitter shame of knowing that I've been used as a meme vector (*sob*), I've got this nagging suspicion that it's all part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to get everyone's phone numbers associated with their email address so that the Department of Homeland Security can keep better track of the citizenry using Starlight 3.0:

Anticipating terrorist activity requires continually decoding the meaning behind countless emails, Web pages, financial transactions, and other documents. [...] For tracking terrorist networks, you can simultaneously bring in telephone intercepts, financial transactions, and other documents ... all into one place, which wasn't possible before.

British Memo Indicates Bush Made Intelligence Fit Iraq Policy. What a shame this didn't come to light before the U.S. election.

Looking for a non-Starbucks coffee shop near you? Just pull up Delocator.net and enter a zip code. And if your favorite cafe isn't in their database, you can add it. As seen in the NY Times!

Don't call me "formerly employed" -- I'm a "precarity activist"!

NARAL Mass: Contact your MA State Senator about family planning before it's too late:

The Massachusetts Senate is still developing its budget recommendations and will finalize them in the coming week. Please contact your state senator and the chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, Sen. Therese Murray, today and ask them to increase the budget by $1.9 million to fund family planning services for low-income women in Massachusetts.