John Podhoretz says that the Revenge of the Sith, well, sux. But here’s a much different (and longer) opinion, with lots of spoilers, for those who care about such things.
I have trouble worrying about spoilers for a movie like this. I mean, even someone with the minimal mental acuity of Jar Jar Binks ought to be able to intelligently interpolate between movies 2 and 4, such that the major plot points are obvious. The only question is how well Lucas pulls them all off.
Has Drew Barrymore heard about this? It might diminish her enthusiasm.
Let the cracking of wise in the comments section commence.
Over at Winds of Change, Robin Burk and Marc “Armed Liberal” Danziger have an interesting discussion of the morality of our victory in Europe sixty years ago.
That’s the title of my piece over at TechCentralStation today on big changes at NASA per its new administrator.
GE started a big ecomagination advertising campaign. I think that proactively spending to be a net cleaner of the environment by buying up carbon emission permits (where they are for sale) would be more effective than their research spending at abating pollution. But of course, the image is more important to them than the results.
If GE wanted to reduce internal pollutants at lowest cost, it would have an internal tax on GE polluters and provide cash to corporate abaters. The pollution permit trading scheme would decentralize the decisions about what abatement projects to fund out to the individual profit and loss units. That is good public policy for the world if it decides to cut carbon emissions. It is also good public policy for countries, states or cities that want to cut the maximum emissions for the least social dislocation.
China and India have probably reached the tipping point in many of their cities where their inhabitants are rich enough to want a cleaner environment even if it has some associated increases in the cost of doing business. US reached that point in about the 1940s and has been getting cleaner ever since.
I think the campaign may be a flop. It sounds to me like Echo Machination and is a little too reminiscent of HP’s Invent! campaign. But they are the masters of their sound and image and they are probably right on the winning emotion if not on the details.
For two takes on “echo think” (fka group think), read this novel-length fictional account, Rigged by Ross Miller, my former boss and czar of risk management at GE R&D. There is another article in today’s FT (trial/subscription required after first two paragraphs).
If this story, and this one are accurate, it would seem to me that Iraq is in a state of war with Syria (and probably other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, as well). After all, they seem to be sending in people to murder Iraqis and attack its government. I’m not sure at this point exactly what they can do about it, but I would think that at the least it would be useful to state the reality, to call them on it. Perhaps in a year or two, after being given sufficient training, the Iraqis themselves will institute a regime change in Damascus. Which raises the interesting issue of whether or not Syria has any of Saddam’s WMD…
[Update at 5 PM EDT]
Along those lines, this looks like good news, if accurate:
American troops backed by helicopters and war planes launched a major offensive against followers of Iraq’s most wanted insurgent, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a desert area near the Syrian border, and as many as 100 militants were killed, U.S. officials said Monday.
If this story, and this one are accurate, it would seem to me that Iraq is in a state of war with Syria (and probably other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, as well). After all, they seem to be sending in people to murder Iraqis and attack its government. I’m not sure at this point exactly what they can do about it, but I would think that at the least it would be useful to state the reality, to call them on it. Perhaps in a year or two, after being given sufficient training, the Iraqis themselves will institute a regime change in Damascus. Which raises the interesting issue of whether or not Syria has any of Saddam’s WMD…
[Update at 5 PM EDT]
Along those lines, this looks like good news, if accurate:
American troops backed by helicopters and war planes launched a major offensive against followers of Iraq’s most wanted insurgent, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a desert area near the Syrian border, and as many as 100 militants were killed, U.S. officials said Monday.
If this story, and this one are accurate, it would seem to me that Iraq is in a state of war with Syria (and probably other nations, such as Saudi Arabia, as well). After all, they seem to be sending in people to murder Iraqis and attack its government. I’m not sure at this point exactly what they can do about it, but I would think that at the least it would be useful to state the reality, to call them on it. Perhaps in a year or two, after being given sufficient training, the Iraqis themselves will institute a regime change in Damascus. Which raises the interesting issue of whether or not Syria has any of Saddam’s WMD…
[Update at 5 PM EDT]
Along those lines, this looks like good news, if accurate:
American troops backed by helicopters and war planes launched a major offensive against followers of Iraq’s most wanted insurgent, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a desert area near the Syrian border, and as many as 100 militants were killed, U.S. officials said Monday.
Darth Groznii says that the Order of the Jedi deserved to be destroyed. It seems like a sound analysis to me.
Taylor Dinerman says that the administration has to start getting serious about space weapons. I agree.
[Update late afternoon]
There are several good critiques of the piece in comments, that I don’t necessarily disagree with. My only point was that I agree with his bottom line.