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| Tuesday, May 17, 2005 01:11 PM |
| Items of Import |
 by Fëanor |
- Wolcott had another pro-secularism sermon on Sunday, and I enjoyed this one, too. Anyone who claims that America and/or its laws and/or the Constitution is based on Christianity, or any other religion, should go and read. This used to be a country with a secular government, and I'd like to see it be that kind of country again.
- A couple of really interesting articles in Salon today, both originally from The Guardian. The former is about a Senate report which reveals that not only was the Bush administration aware of the fact that U.S. firms were giving illegal kickbacks on oil-for-food sales to Saddam Hussein, but that it deliberately sat back and did nothing about it. The latter is about a group of Mayors from across the United States, led by the Mayor of Seattle, who have pledged to follow the guidelines of the Kyoto Protocol, despite the fact that Bush declined to sign it (this means they plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions in their cities by 7 percent by 2010). Good for those Mayors! And bad for Bush. I like to think these two stories, if and when he heard about them, made him feel bitter and unloved. And that thought warms the cockles of my heart.
- I'm now almost completely prepared for Revenge of the Sith, having re-viewed The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and the first season of "The Clone Wars" cartoon on DVD. I already mentioned how little I enjoyed PM this time around, but I still find that at least half of AotC is quite excellent. This could be because I simply haven't seen it enough times yet to sour it for me, but I'm hoping it's because the film is actually pretty decent. The battle sequences (of which there are a good number) are undeniably exciting and well done, and even some of the dialogue sequences work, especially those between Anakin and Obi-wan. I even found the comic relief scenes with C-3PO amusing for some reason. But many of the scenes between Anakin and Padme are just curl-in-a-ball-and-cover-your-eyes-in-horror bad. It's like high school students reciting their own bad love poetry to each other. Yech.
- Luckily, there's the "Clone Wars" cartoon, which is absolutely excellent from beginning to end. Bloginator and I had worried that perhaps the DVD might include the opening and closing credits before and after each episode, which would have become tiresome and distracting, but instead the episodes flow smoothly one into the other, to the point where most of the time you can't tell when one has ended and the next one has begun. It makes for a good solid hour and ten minutes of fantastic action entertainment, and even includes some nice character development and dialogue scenes that rival anything George has filmed in the prequels. These animated shorts have, ironically, so much more life to them than the films. They are full of style, flair, and a great sense of humor, and the Jedi, when animated, can perform so many more incredible, breathtaking feats.
- But I'll stop gushing now. Anyway, my only remaining task is to watch season two of "Clone Wars" online again, and I will be ready.
- Btw, poppy's back from Seattle! I picked her up early this morning at the airport, and she is currently sleeping. And actually I should probably go wake her up soon or she'll never get herself re-acclimated to this time zone.
- Blog-wise, I'm really kind of raining huge posts down on you in quick succession, and I apologize for that. But it's probably only going to get worse, as I decided to take the day off today, and I have the day off on Thursday (for Star Wars, of course--it should be a national holiday in my opinion), and I already have my next post planned.
- As a final note, I love the new Google Toolbar and its spellcheck feature. I'll be using it on all my posts from now on.
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