Category Archives: Pedantry

Never Forget

The Most Powerful Battle Station in the Galaxy

The Rebel alliance is made up of self-loathing Jedi who blame the Empire for every ill in the galaxy, and politicians suffering from power-envy, bitter that the galaxy’s only power can do what it likes without having to ask permission. The truth is that the Empire has behaved with enormous restraint since the Battle of Yavin. Remember.

Remember the gut-wrenching holos of weeping stormtroopers phoning their partners to say, “I love you,” before the station was destroyed. Remember those people leaping to their deaths from safety-pod hatches with no safety pods installed.

Remember the hundreds of droids buried alive.

Remember the smiling face of that beautiful girl who was in one of the detention cells.

Remember, and realize that the Empire has never retaliated for the destruction of the Death Star in anything like the way it could have.

So a few Rebels got locked without a trial in cell block 1138? Pass the Kleenex.

So some Gungan wedding receptions were shot up after they merrily fired their blasters in a sky full of Empirial shuttles? A shame, but maybe next time they should stick to confetti.

I love the Empire, yet the Empire is hated. The Empire is hated because it is what every galactic empire wants to be – rich, free, strong, open, optimistic.

Remember the Death Star. One of the greatest atrocities in human history was committed against the Empire. No, do more than remember. Never forget.

Told you so

Power hath its privileges

To everybody who told me that Irving Lewis “Scooter” Libby may actually have to sweat it out in a jail cell until getting a last-day pardon from George W. Bush: neener neener neener. How horribly naive. I humbly suggest that a constitutional amendment may be appropriate, removing the Article II Reprieves and Pardons power. When was the last time a president used this for anything other than rewarding cronies or to cover his own criminal behavior?


Scooter Skates
Full text of Bush statement
Bush Frees ‘Scooter’ Libby

*quick edit to replace scary Dick Cheney image.

Why I Like the Second Tier

It makes the world go ’round

Clinton, Edwards, Giuliani, McCain, Obama, Romney. These are the names we can reasonably expect to remain on the presidential ballot in November of 2008. This is what political pundits tell us on television, on the radio, in magazines and in newspapers. This is what we’re told with sixteen months left before we asked as citizens to select our next chief executive. Well, phooey. Personally I like the folks that seem doomed to be remembered as also-rans.
Continue reading →