Tuesday, October 31, 2006

The REAL hero of the Battle of the Death Star


Who destroyed the Death Star? Luke Skywalker? "Just like Beggar's Canyon, back home." NAH! (By the way, "Bullseying Wamp-Rats" sounds spectacularly cruel. Nice hero.)

Maybe it was the other guy, whose name I can't remember, who took the first shot at the "Thermal Exhaust Port", whose shot "Just impacted on the surface." Nope, not him, either.

No, the true hero of the Battle of the Death Star, the real presence that Darth Vader detected, was his actual first "Son", Threepio.

Threepio, you say? Yep, Threepio. The golden colored, mysteriously British droid, the one that Darling Little Anikin Skywalker created from stolen parts back in his days as a slave. Technically, Ani was Threepio's creator, and therefore his father, which also technically makes both Luke and Leia Threepio's half sibling, by my way of thinking. (They both treated him pretty shabbily, too, which points to his being their sibling, except that he is actuallly their OLDER brother, and he should have been doing the picking on.)

So how did the fay droid accomplish such a heroic act? Quite by accident, sorry to say. He never even realized he did it. When Luke, Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca are trapped in the garbage masher (3263827!), and they are being squished by the moving walls, Luke yells for him to shut down all the garbage mashers on the detention level. Threepio then tells Artoo "NO! Shut them ALL down!" So what happened next? Once the others escape the garbage masher, he forgot to start ALL the garbage mashers up again. This caused a dangerous build up of methane gas. I think the reason for the garbage to be mashed in the first place was to squash it down to slow the production of methane. Once he shut them all down, the methane kept building up and building up, only waiting for the perfect spark to ignite it all. The crew, contractors and staff of the Death Star were so busy getting ready for the battle, nobody noticed that the mashers were disabled. Nobody thought that some random droid, let alone one hand built by Lord Vader, way back when he was just an annoying kid, would have shut down the garbage mashers, and forgotten to turn them back on. Then, in the middle of the great battle, the planet destroying beam is set to go, and it provided the spark neeeded to set off all that methane, thereby destroying the Death Star, and killing all those Imperials. Thanks a lot, Threepio. So if Anikin had not built Threepio in the first place, the Empire would have WON. Nice job, Ani.

P.S. When Luke wanted to be a Jedi, Yoda said he was too old to begin the training. When Liam Neeson wanted to make Ani a Jedi, the council said he was too old. Then when we meet the "younglings" who Anikin would later slaughter, they are tiny little kids, and this is probably the advanced class. So the Jedi, the "good guys" basically swoop in to birthing rooms, measure the newborns for the terribly named "midichlorians", and if they score high enough, say "Sorry, lady, I'm taking your baby, but don't worry, he'll be a JEDI!" My biggest problem with the saga is that no matter how bad you are, if you reform at the last possible minute, you are redeemed. Anikin slaughtered children, destroyed whole planets, basically became the poster child for genocide, but at the last minute he kills the emperor, and because of this he gets promoted to "glowing Jedi ghost". All is forgiven. If Goebels had assasinated Hitler, would this have made him a good guy? NO. Yes, yes, I take this all too seriously.
That is all.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Revelation - The word OUR is not the word THE.

I listen to a lot of National Public Radio. This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me or reads this blog. I'm a card carrying, unapologetic liberal. Those who decry NPR have usually not listened to it, and assume that only left wing views are represented there. Au Contraire! Listen even to a short while to any call in show, and you will see that all viewpoints are allowed, and encouraged. I, myself have braved listening to right wing radio, even (shudder) Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy. No lefties need apply, or try to call in. Ever. Ever. One of the conservative callers to a show on NPR was defending the President with the rote repeating of the line "We have to support our President, he's OUR (emphasis mine) Commander in Chief." To some this may be a nitpicking, semantic argument, but he is not OUR Commander in Chief, he is THE Commander in Chief of OUR armed forces. Saying he is OUR Commander in Chief sounds a lot like what we would have to say if we were living in a military dictatorship, all of us transcripted into the great national army. I'm sure that this subtle distinction is not one that the right wing extremists would mind people not being able to make. As W once said "I don't have a problem with Dictatorships, as long as I'm the Dictator." Or something like that.

This picture is of St. Michael the Archangel, who is the patron saint of Radiologists. I just like it.

Friday, October 06, 2006

Milestone or Millstone?

Something has happened that has never happened before. The 400 richest Americans, according to Forbes Magazine, are each worth at least one Billion dollars.

$1,000,000,000 and up.

Ordinary multi-millionaires need not apply.


That's at least ONE BILLION Dollars, each, up the line to Bill Gates, worth 56 Billion Dollars. At least he is putting his wealth to good use.

Now I know that I berate the rich regularly, and yes, I realize that a lot of what I feel is jealousy, but I also know that a lot of people at the top, even ordinary multi-millionaires poor mouth their employees when it comes time for raises or even paying a decent minimum wage. I'm sure that the top executives at most major companies are not losing their pensions or taking drastic wage cuts, they are just passing those down to the "little people". I think they should remember something I once heard: "If you don't feed the animals at the Zoo, eventually they will break out of their cages and eat the keepers.". I'm just saying.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Been away, now I'm back.

I just made the graphic to the left.

I can't believe that I never thought of this before. It's so obvious, now that I look at it.

It's especially appropriate, considering that whatever scandal happens to the Republicans these days, they claim it is all the Democrats fault. (You know the scandal I'm talking about. I know you do.)