it's like the eye of a duck

In lieu of a lengthy write up of Philly and the symposium, I offer a quick review of Revenge of the Sith, which D. and I saw after I got home Sunday.

( spoilers abound )

In short, I enjoyed. It's not Citizen Kane but it's not supposed to be - good, fast, action-y fun!

Beautiful smackdown of an ignorant lout, sez I. What's with the obsession about virginity anyway?

Can't wait to see misia's book on the subject.

I know I haven't posted anything overtly politically contemplative lately, but this is because I've not been paying as close attention. I've not been watching the debates, mostly because with all the rules involved, I question just how spontaneous the "debating" really is. Also, I think it's highly unlikely at this point that I'm going to change my mind about who to vote for :P (Don't worry - I still plan to watch the Jon Stewart reviews of the debates!)

I talked to my Mom last night, and that the discussion moved to politics is almost a given. Both she and my grandmother are on fire against Bush & Co., and my grandmother even fumed about moving to Canada (she won't, of course, but the fact that an 80+ year old woman who has happily lived in the same ~10 square miles for the past 30 years says something!). Both agree that the upcoming election is the most crucial of their lives, and as both of them have seen far, far more presidential elections than I have, I'm inclined to take them seriously.

They aren't the only ones, I suspect - the sheer number of books out about Bush and his administration are more than I've ever seen about a sitting president, or even a former/historical one. People are interested, people are concerned.

So what I wonder from my isolated liberal vantage point is - who the blazes is going to vote for this yo-yo in November's election? I see the polls, I hear all the stories about people who want to vote for a president they can "have a beer with" (WTF? I want a president who is terrifyingly brilliant and soul-burningly boring, so s/he has nothing better to do than run the country obnoxiously well), but I don't actually know these people.

I do know a couple of very mercenary types who will vote for Dubya under some percieved notion that they'll benefit from his tax cuts, but that's about it. Still, the overwhelming impression I get is that the Kerry election is not a slam dunk. Can someone offer me some insight here?

I've found myself driving on the Beltway far more often than usual lately. The traffic still sucks, the a/c in my car still doesn't work, but at least the roadside signage is amusing. A small sampling of what I've seen lately:

Heightened Security: Report Suspicious Activity: seen on the digital displays over the freeway on July 4 weekend. We see these time to time, even when the official alert level hasn't changed. I still haven't sorted out what "suspicious activity" on the Beltway would be - apart from knowing I should probably speed up if I see an unattended backpack with wires hanging out of it, I'm not sure what I should be looking for. Can I just report idiot drivers?

Go Torps!: Spelled out by strategically sticking Dixie cups in the gaps of a chain link fence on an overpass. It's a sure thing that it refers to the Terps, the local university football team, but really - how big of a fan can you be if you can't even get the spelling right? (And what kind of mascot is a turtle, anyway? I've always found bulldogs to be far more appropriate, though I give less than a rat's ass about college sports ;) )

Speed Limit Enforced by Aircraft: I still haven't sorted out just how they plan to stop someone speeding from the air. Do they have those nifty new cameras that can read your licence tags from 100s of feet in the air, at the wrong angle? Do the authorities simply land a 747 on anyone going over 65 MPH? The latter is startling enough that I don't speed....

Old news, but, hey, I'm just catching up. I cannot believe that Ass-croft wants to pursue this insane agenda!

Read the whole article - according to Ashcroft, porn "invades our homes persistently though the mail, phone, VCR, cable TV and the Internet," and has "strewn its victims from coast to coast." Funny, whenever I see even a smidgen of porn on any of these media, it demands that I pay money to see the really interesting stuff. IMHO, if porn really is invading our homes it's because we're paying for it. And - just a wild guess here - I think that means that, as a nation, we like porn!

A proposal: the government should simply tax the bejeezus out of porn (rather the way it does our other national vices, alcohol and tobacco) and use the proceeds to fund the war on terror - I think most people are far more concerned about terrorism than titties, and frankly if they're spending millions to have a bunch of guys sitting in their cubes viewing porn all day (what a job! :P And if porn is so damaging, are these guys getting psychological counseling for the horrors they are doing to their psyche? What about overtime, huh, huh? </rant>), they'll have to do something to get the money to pay for both!

I might also say the same about the war on (some) drugs - legalize and tax. Somehow, I think I'm preaching to the choir here though...