It's the end of June, and most of the baseball teams have completed about 81 games, exactly half of the regular season schedule. Yes, that's right, we're at that point where you can simply double a man's raw numbers and make really bad predictions about how his stats will look by season's end. And, of course, the All-Star rosters have just been announced.

But first... the Atlanta Braves have just completed probably their best month in decades. The Braves won 21 and lost 5, an .808 winning percentage, to end the month tied with the Seattle Mariners (my other favorite team) with the best record in Major League Baseball. The Braves have barely allowed three runs per game (2.96 earned run average) for the first half of the season. A team hasn't had an earned run average under 3.00 for a full season in many years, and especially not since the offensive explosion in 1994! What can be said? Several great hitters having off-years, but still consistent enough to get the job done with the help of some great pitching... Such is the legacy of the Atlanta Braves!

But the All-Stars... Still to be named are two players, one on each roster, who will each be voted in by the fans. It's really a great idea; the respective All-Star managers name twenty-nine men to their respective rosters and allow the fans to vote in the most deserving snub.

It's the first time in the history of the game that the fans have been allowed to vote for an All-Star non-starter, and hopefully it will bring about more fan involvement in All-Star selections in the future! For instance, I would love for the rosters to be expanded to make room for two to five more players. I would love it even more for at least one or two of the best bench players and setup pitchers to be named to the All-Star team some year; they're snubbed every year unless their own manager chooses them.

And one final idea to make the All-Star ballot ridiculously long: not only should fans vote by position to elect the starters, but fans should also vote by team to elect the one required representative from each team! This way, no matter how the chips fall at the end of June, the fans are responsible for choosing the starters and at least one representative from each team. The managers would only fill the remaining holes. (The only problem with that is working with pitchers, who have never been involved in the voting process.)

P.S.   Vote for Andruw Jones as the 30th man in the National League and Jim Thome in the American League. Jones's batting average is modest at .273, but he has 19 homers, and, let's face it, defense has to count for something. Thome has 24 home runs and has hit one in each of his last five games. Forget everything else: how can you ignore 24 home runs?!

See the currently named 58 All-Stars here.

I have never really liked the idea of the existence of a "world court". For several reasons, it could be a great idea. I definitely believe that the world could use a court system for the purposes for which this one has been established. However, given the current status of the many distinct cultures of the world    keyword being distinct    there is no way on earth that any "world court" can fairly represent any or all individual cultures, given that nearly every culture on the planet disagrees about nearly everything in some small way or another. Add up all the minor differences (sexual values, religious values, human rights, animal rights, environmentalism, etc.), and you've got a court that can't make a decision without worldly controversy.

Until the world is unified in thought, which will never happen, I don't think a court like this can get the job done in a way that will satisfy the masses. It's a bad idea to implement it now, when we are nothing close to agreeing on something as simple as abortion.

All the same, if one, then all! No one should be exempt from this court if the rest of us are under its jurisdiction. Anyone claiming to deserve exemption are arrogant elitists, and probably blatantly commit acts for which this court is established to handle.

I'm not educated to comment further. We'll see how things are set in motion from here...

Many people are singing the praises of merit-based scholarship programs like Georgia's HOPE, which mandate that any student maintaining a B average be allowed to attend a state university. However, some think that's racist! (Unfortunately, I'm not kidding.) "Critics of the program say that...fewer blacks are being accepted into the state's top universities compared to days when race, not grades played a dominant role in the decision process." In other words, because the color of your skin is no longer the reason for your free education, but the fact that you've earned it... that is racist.

Another opposing argument is that the merit-based program favors middle- and upper-class students most, and that those families are "generally...more likely to be white than black" anyway. Well, that's a brilliant deduction Sherlock, considering that blacks are outnumbered by several factors in every state in America. Of course fewer blacks are granted scholarship money; there are fewer to apply! That's not racist; that's fair!

The HOPE scholarship shouldn't be about money, race, or social status, and right now it isn't. It's supposed to be about academic achievement    about students earning their education! If there are fewer blacks and other minorities to begin with, and if fewer are working hard to earn scholarships, then I'm terribly sorry that the numbers aren't even. But... that's too damn bad.

It's June 28, and the Braves are tonight the best team in baseball. (In fact, for a short while, they were a half-game ahead of the Yankees. Unfortunately, the Yankees beat the Mets, so now the two teams are tied.) And to think, the Braves were in the bottom half of the thirty teams after the first six weeks!

(UPDATE: 6/29, 09:01) Excuse me. The Mariners are one game ahead of the Yankees and Braves. I thought I had checked them (since they are obviously in need of being checked when looking for the best record in baseball).

And another thing... Happy birthday Tina Rutley, wherever you are. I hope you're doing well...

And I mean that sarcastically. According to Daniel Henninger's unfortunately biased column, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declare "that God is dead". If that isn't a loaded choice of words, I don't know what is. Henninger continues to sarcastically suggest that "God in fact has proven to be a troublesome figure over the years for America's judges". I would like to point out that God has proven to be a troublesome figure for the entire planet, as well. More people have died "in the name of God" in the last two millenia than for any other unnatural cause    this is not to say that God is bad or wrong, because I don't think he is. God is infallable. It's us. Humans are the problem. We are the problem because we refuse to accept differences. We preach tolerance and are intolerant. We're hypocrites, we're ruthless, and we protect the tyranny of the majority. (But, then again, that's America for you... unfortunately. And we wonder why half the world doesn't like us.)

But wait, there's more! Republicans everywhere are rallying to flex their collective muscles to overturn this abomination in writing in San Francisco. Not only that, but every poll that I have found regarding this Pledge issue is horribly biased; none of them have even offered a favorable response, so Neal Boortz and I have no voice.

It's times like these when my belief that political parties are bad really shines through. On one hand, Democrats group together to take the money from people who work for it and give it to those who don't. On the other, the Republicans take away freedom and replace it with security based on the majority's wishes. Who cares if it's tyranny, oppression, or anything similar? The majority said it's okay!

Even my city's newspaper, The Macon Telegraph, is protecting the Pledge at all costs without so much as mentioning an opposing argument, except when calling it ludicrous. Pictures of schoolchildren preaching the Pledge as "our oath and our duty...as Americans" fill the front cover of the newspaper. Now, I'm no expert, but I was in high school once, and I know that rebellious teens number in the hundreds in these parts. There is no shortage of opposing opinion around here, but no one is allowing the voice to be heard!

Call it what you want. Pledge your allegiance to a silly flag and to a nation tolerant of everything as long as its not something it doesn't agree with. Pledge to hypocrisy, and be a hypocrite! Americans unite in stupidity! Story still developing... more as I feel like sharing.

The news surrounding the Pledge case sprang a discussion to life at work yesterday. (I work at a library, so there aren't many coworkers, but they're all reasonably intelligent, or else they wouldn't be working in a library.) From them, I discovered the strongest argument against the Ninth Court's decision: political correctness run amuck. What do we do if the liberals (who are the majority of who would defend the decision) turn a 180 and decide to shout that this is an example of a the whole trying not to offend a tiny few? I mean, last I checked, it was they who are constantly using the PC argument to sling conservative ideas back into the Republicans' collective face (which is half the problem: an individualist body working as a collective can't be good).

I won't deny it. This is an example of "political correctness": for once, someone made the a politically correct decision. And now they're coming under fire for it. As well they should, in this day and age. Everyone has grown accustomed to doing it wrongly. For someone to do it correctly, well, that just pisses people off.

Not to mention the Christian elitists that make up about half of our country.

Well, he's right: this is nonsense. Republicans are gathering to fight a court decision that has declared a 1954 act of Congress, which inserted the words "under God" into the "Pledge of Allegiance", unconstitutional. I made a similar argument last September regarding the pledge: since this country's inception, it has stood for many things, most importantly perhaps are the libertarian ideals of unmetered freedom as long as it does not infringe upon the freedom of any other.

Another value which our Constitution serves to protect, even if only implied, is the separation of church and state. More broadly, the United States, as a melting pot of cultures from around the world, is a symbol of liberty and toleration among those cultures, preferring or rejecting none more or less than any other ... as long as their values and practices are reasonable and do not violate the laws of the United States. (For example, religions involving human sacrifice are not welcomed warmly in the United States.)

The 1954 act which inserted the words "under God" into the national pledge was a clear violation of that unwritten law that protected our nation from religious favoritism. It alienated most Americans not of the Christian faith, as it continues to do today.

Finally, someone has done something about it. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled the act unconstitutional, meaning that schools in the nine western states overseen by that court can no longer lead schoolchildren in the pledge unless the words "under God" are removed.

Good.

If children want to reference religion at school, let it be in academic discourse or in private. Religious practices do not belong in our public schools; they belong in church. No Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Christian, or anyone else should be discriminated for or against at any time. And all non-Christians in America should not have been subject to alienation by a 1954 act which forced them to pledge their allegiance "under God" when their religious values may not have permitted such. That is nonsense, and it is even worse that many Republicans want to fight for it.

And by the way, I believe in God. I just have no proof of his existence, and therefore think that it is ridiculous to try to force others to profess their belief for it. What was that about this being a nation of toleration...?

I'll leave you with this, the "Pledge of Allegiance" as I would have it written, if it were solely up to me, exactly as I wrote it last September. No longer are we pledging our allegiance to a symbollic piece of fabric which never offers us any direction, but we are pledging simply "to the nation for which it stands" and to its people    that is, we are pledging to America and all Americans, not a flag. And we are no longer referencing a religious figure which, according to 60% of the planet's population, doesn't exist. (Of course, it's entirely logical, so it will never be accepted by the masses.)

I pledge allegiance to the Republic of the United States of America and to the people for whom it stands    one nation indivisible    with liberty and justice for all.

Is that so bad? It still has the same ring to it, and it makes better sense! The only thing missing is "under God", and that is in the process of being removed anyway.

Well, almost. Nearly half of the season has passed, and it's been two months since I last dedicated any significant space to it. So how about now?

The Braves, after starting off the same way they usually do (horribly), have won 17 of 21 games in April to become the best team in the National League (for the moment), and tied for second with the Boston Red Sox just a half-game back of the Yankees (those damn Yankees!). The Dodgers are only a half-game back of the Braves, which is my biggest surprise so far this season, followed closely by the Diamondbacks.

Barry Bonds isn't on pace to hit 74 home runs, but he is on pace to walk 200 times. Deduction: if pitchers actually pitched to him (oh, but they can't), he would hit 70 home runs and walk less. Since pitchers are walking him, he can only hit about 50 home runs. He's batting close to .350 with an .800 slugging percentage. Bambino II, anyone?

And, of course, the All-Star game is two weeks away. (No matter who you are or how you think you know me, know this: it would not be a good idea to disturb me on Monday or Tuesday (July 8-9)    you can watch it with me, but I am not going to miss a moment of the All-Star Game's coverage due to interruptions. You will be ignored for two days.) Of course, last year there was the problem of our local Fox affiliate cutting off the game in the eight inning and not coming back until the very last pitch. (They did it again in the World Series!) So, warning to local Fox affiliate: do it again, and you will die.

Let's check on my Opening Day predictions and see how well I'm doing. Teams in the correct place: Braves, Twins, and Mariners. The Yankees only took first from the Red Sox yesterday, but only a half of a game separates them, so I essentially have them correct too. Either way, they're both in the playoffs. The only division I have missed is the NL Central, but who could blame me? The Mets and Astros are both hitting poorly this year, which is quite unexpected given the firepower in their respective lineups. I expected the Cardinals and Reds to be right on their tales, but I didn't expect them to be one and two in the division.

And, of course, you don't care. I don't imagine that anyone reads my web site for my thoughts on baseball. And, as Tony puts it, my writing style is concise and to the point, and is therefore sometimes less than entertaining. Maybe I'll work on that. It isn't because I can't write creatively; it's because I would rather be concise and simple...

You don't have to support Israel, but for reasons such as this, I can't imagine how any American citizens can support the Palestinian cause. It's one thing to send suicide bomber after suicide bomber into Israel, targeting civilians. It is quite another to force children to bathe in the blood of the enemy's soldiers.

When Spider-Man came out, Claire brought up the idea of "Spider-Dog", and how the superhero could have been so much different if the patriotic spider (well, it's red and blue) bit a dog instead of Peter Parker. I argued that it couldn't have happened, that a dog lacks the mental and physical capabilities of a human and therefore could not have been transformed into anything like Spider-Man, but merely into some weirdly transformed dog-beast ... if the bite didn't kill the dog, as it probably almost killed Peter Parker.

Well, forget dogs. Now we're talking about goats. The media bias is all over this one (even Matt Drudge calls it a "Genetic Horror Show"), and for once, I can see nothing wrong with the genetically altered result of a scientific experiment gone right. The result? A goat whose milk can be treated to form a silk (dubbed "silkmilk") five times stronger than steel    a spider-goat, if you will.

The label "spider-goat" is a bit too much, however, as the goat is only about 1/70,000th spider:

The hybrid goats were created by the insertion of a single gene from an orb-weaving spider into a fertilised goat egg. The amazing genetically-engineered goats are outwardly normal, but carry the gene responsible for production of a spider silk protein.

The genetically modified "spider-goats" are believed to be the first commercially viable creatures made from the DNA of two creatures. (I would rather think that the creature wasn't "made", but simply altered using the DNA of another. We didn't "make" anything. It was already there, waiting to be tampered with.) One proposed use for this "silkmilk fibre" is "body armour which is far tougher than normal bullet-proof vests" that weighs "little more than a cotton shirt".

Controversial as cloning or genetic engineering may be, I can not find any hint of a problem on the surface of this one. It seems to me as though a creature has resulted that is not unlike others of its kind, but that can produce a material of amazing value. That is an example of the good of genetic engineering.

Someone needs to figure this out a little bit better. The line: "Because the (dot-com) crash was so dramatic, there's an accelerated fear for job security. There's a psychological fear that says, 'work harder, my boss needs to think I'm here more'."

Um, no, that's how capitalism is supposed to work! You're supposed to work hard at your job or risk losing it. You're supposed to put in honest, good work, or fear the "wrath" of the boss that might actually hold you accountable for work not done. Hell, I only work in a library making six dollars per hour to shelve books, but I make damn sure I do a good job! Why? First, there is no job that isn't worth the money if you sign the contract. Second, if you work hard at it, there are two clear benefits. The first is that you feel good about yourself, which is arguably more important, and the second is that your boss and coworkers feel good about you too.

It's amazing what being a good worker can do for someone in the workplace. That's supposed to be what it's all about. Not surprisingly, that's what the lazy, easily-offended persons of today want to change. They want to work less, work easier, and have every convenience made available and every potential offense removed, and then they want better rewards for it. And if we keep giving it to them, our great country is going to be the source of World War III (or World War IV, if World War III has already started).

I'm holding my ground. Several months ago, I made a half-hearted prediction that the United States had about 50 years left in its history before a major internal conflict either wiped the United States from the map, divided it into multiple nations, or changed it in such a way that, well, for example, the Constitution no longer applies. Fifty years. Maybe forty-nine, depending on when I made that prediction.

Before the numbers are made available, I'd like to make one final change to this weekend's predictions. (I know, as if you have any care in the world about what I think a few movies will make during the first weekend of the summer. Well, I do. I'm sorry.) Let's just say I had Minority Report and Lilo & Stitch backwards. I realized this when I realized that, well, Minority Report isn't rated R (as I initially thought it was), and Disney has been on a skid in recent years. That, and despite being in about 200 more theatres, I'm thinking that most theatres will put the Cruise/Spielberg film on more screens than any Disney flick.

So... the tinkering is done. I've merely switched the top two titles; the numbers haven't changed, but only because they still seem reasonable to me. (Of course, I have much reason to doubt that Juwanna Mann can actually make $12 million this weekend, but I'm going to stick with it... just because.)

Anti-patriotism?

Ann Coulter has a new web site. If you don't know of her, you should.

I bought Mallrats today. I would normally not buy a DVD that Claire owns, but this one was too good to pass up. It completes my Kevin Smith set (I have all the others; Claire only wanted Mallrats), and it was mistakenly priced at $6.99 instead of the standard $27.99. So I made off with a great movie at a $21 (plus tax!) discount, and the Best Buy manager could only grin. Oh, but he said a lot with that grin... "I wish I had been the one to find that..."

I also bought a Toy Story two-pack, Red Planet, and ... um ... another one. Damn, must not have been worth it if I can't remember what it is. Oh! Titan A.E.! I've been looking for the special edition off and on, and I finally found it today. If I recall my count correctly, then that brings me to 25 DVDs.

Because I failed to include Juwanna Mann when I made my predictions earlier, I have snuck it into the list. I haven't changed any of the other values, but I did tally them up. The checkout rings up at $183 million for the top 11 alone; that's very high. If people don't go to the movies this weekend, I could very easily have over-estimated by a long shot. However, I'm feeling good about my predictions right now, so I'm sticking with them. Of course, my accuracy depends on people flocking to see Lilo & Stitch and Minority Report this weekend, while countless others catch Scooby Doo in its second weekend. (The 45% drop is almost unheard of for a movie's second weekend, but with two potentially huge films debuting this weekend, I'm confident that that's going to happen.)

And so I realize the true reason why so many movies better than Titanic have failed to come anywhere close to the $600 million box office gross: they are all released amid stiff competition; Titanic was virtually all alone for fifteen weeks. Its stiffest competition? Well, Tomorrow Never Dies was released alongside the mega-blockbuster, but James Bond traditionally grossed a modest amount, generally around $120 million    no contest. Sadly, no significant competition came along until the next Leo DiCaprio film, The Man in the Iron Mask, debuted in mid-March 1998, and it was only close for one weekend. Finally, a month later, Lost in Space and then the sequel to The Crow put down that stupid boat for good. The only other decent movie that snuck in there was As Good As It Gets, but it never seriously contended to make more money than Titanic even for a weekend. The boat had no competition.

This coming weekend's box office figures should be difficult to predict accurately. One one hand, you've got a Spielberg/Cruise film that looks absolutely amazing. On the other, you've got a well-hyped Disney film that's about forty minutes shorter. Logic would suggest that Lilo & Stitch should make several millions more than Minority Report simply because the Disney film is more of a family film, which means more ticket sales. But then I noticed, surprisingly, that Minority Report was rated PG-13 (I thought for sure that it would be rated R!). Add last weekend's successes, Scooby Doo and The Bourne Identity, and you've got movie theatres across America packed with movies worth seeing. One thing is for sure: people will be in the theatres this weekend!

But which movie will take the cheese? That's a much more difficult question to answer, but I'm going to stick with my gut and call it the way logic suggests:

As the weeks go on, I am getting better at making these predictions. Maybe I'll start making this a weekly thing, just to see how close I can be week after week! And, of course, if you disagree or think I am way off base about something, you should always feel free to say it to my face, or my inbox, whichever is more convenient.

It doesn't bother me so much that President Bush occasionally gives in to slightly more compromising, bi-partisan legislation. I think that's good for America. It pleases a greater percentage of the population, and therefore is usually the best decision for the moment. What disappoints me is that conservatives are missing the bigger picture. Conservatives are beginning to question George Bush, when they should really be cheering him on and supporting him with everything they've got! Sure, a couple of laws will get passed that will make them grumble in their private meetings, but keep the grumblings private! Don't you realize that, with a conservative in office who shows compassion for the great majority of the population, that that conservative or someone like him is more likely to be in the White House the next time around?

In short, the general population likes this Republican. There are still millions who don't like the Republican simply because he is a Republican, but there are millions of others who think he's a good or even great president, even despite that he is a Republican. That is one helluvan accomplishment, and if Republicans were smart, they would ride it back into the White House at least once more. But, as they've proven so much to us, they don't think of the future much, not like Bush does. They don't think about the eras when their kids or grandkids will be in control. They want everything perfect in the here and now for them. They're selfish.

That isn't bad thing, except that their preferred methods are too strong and too sudden for the population simply to grab hold of and accept them. People are obviously not ready to give up their government handouts in exchange for personal responsibility for their own lives. People no longer (do not yet?) realize the importance of being in control of their own lives as our British ancestors did about 230 years ago. But give a popular and powerful conservative like Bush a chance to set the agenda in motion, and that boosts our chances. Criticize him for a job well done, and you're selling yourselves: we may as well be living under a socialist regime already.

USA Today interviewed Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg. They almost talked about movies. They even mentioned Minority Report. Fun interview. Here are excerpts:

Hundreds of movie lovers and critics around the country are going to be using that or a similar line for the next few weeks, and I wouldn't if I didn't absolutely love the movie. First, it helps that Matt Damon is one of my favorite actors. (He's been somewhere near my top five since I first saw him in Dogma, and after that, I discovered that he's a much better actor than that movie allowed him to show.) He's easy to like in any role, and I haven't seen a movie yet that he's been in that I haven't liked. (That's about the same reason why I like Keanu Reeves, except that Reeves isn't as talented as Damon, by my standards.) Add to that some great performances by Chris Cooper and Julia Stiles (whose role was not nearly significant enough, but enough to lure me into the theatre), and I think I've found potentially my favorite realistic action movie of the year, assuming nothing better comes along.

But to the movie: The Bourne Identity. I had no idea that it existed until a couple of weeks ago, I had no idea that I would like it until a couple days ago, and I had no idea that I would see it today until a couple of hours ago. But I did, and I liked it, and now I'm almost disappointed that I have disliked shelving Robert Ludlum's books for the past few months. The Bourne Identity is a great story, one worth seeing several times over, and a great movie. Having said that, I may just have to read the book.

As you can see by my handy-dandy little chart to the right, I gave The Bourne Identity an A–, meaning that it's probably one of the best movies of the year, and is easily one of my favorites. An A– also means that the film in question has a particularly good chance of landing on my shelf when the DVD is released. In my opinion, it's a great movie    one of the best films of its genre that I've seen in quite a while.

(What is its genre? Well, every movie fits into several genres, and I grade movies by comparisons among movies that fall under the same combinations of genres. For example, I would label The Bourne Identity an action/spy/conspiracy movie, which falls under the same category as James Bond or Enemy of the State. How does it compare? Well, I'll know more about that after a little time passes. But the first impression is good!)

I don't want to review the movie in full and give anything away just yet, so I'll zip it here. If you go and see the movie, I hope you enjoy it.

To explain why six movies from 2001 are listed with my 2002 Movie Report, I should refer you to the Academy, where it is explained that the Academy Award nomination process takes place every November. I have not found any exact or official cutoff date, but I can only assume that no December movies are eligible. Hence, I include movies from December 2001. I have no idea how long I will allow the list to get. Time will tell that.

I should probably also explain why there are so many A's in the list when the average movie is a C- and the average movie-going experience is a B-. (Really.) You see, the average movie is borderline. It may as well be crap, because you won't particularly care to see it again. The average movie-going experience generally involves a decent movie. Nothing great, but it has its moments. (And because most of us can see a preview and know immediately which movies won't entertain us, we can, on a purely subjective basis, ignore most of the average-and-worse movies, hence why we typically see good movies. It makes sense to me; why would we pay to see something that isn't exactly all that great? My ratings simply represent that.

Also, the greatest movie of all time, in my opinion, is The Matrix. I do not expect that any movie aside from a sequel can ever take its place, but I have been wrong before. As for explaining what goes into rating each movie, well, I partially explained it above, but there is so much more than genre comparisons. I should say that the most important two factors when rating a film are its first impression and its lasting impression. That is, how did the movie affect me as I sat through it and immediately after, and how often will I crave it six months, a year, ten years down the road? The best movies are always innovative in some way, and are virtually timeless.

But why do you care why I like movies?

Really, it isn't. I keep telling myself that to appease myself, but it has occurred to me that, well, it's true. The problem is that the reality of the situation is worse. You see, for a conspiracy to exist, people have to work together for a common outcome; they must conspire. The way it works in reality is that people all want the same thing and go about it in different ways. Call it a closet conspiracy, shadow conspiracy, or even make up a new word to mean what I'm trying to say.

Still, there's a problem when major news outlets relate incidents all over the globe to point out the same few perceived problems without ever presenting the other side or even any justification (which, in a majority of the cases, is there if you look it up yourself). The bad thing? The media knows that enough people trust them that they can get away with it, and those that sniff up the truth are such a tiny minority that the truth can easily be fudged without immediate consequence.

And I call myself an optimist. Maybe if the news reported on too many people paying no taxes or too few people paying most of the taxes... But noooo. The media would never think of reporting that.

And when I call him a critic, I only mean that he criticizes the movie. He in no way resembles any sort of professional movie critic to whom I would pay any attention. His argument? That "the new Star Wars is so bad" because George Lucas "has lost touch with reality". Puh-lease.

Let's see how easy this is to dissect. First, I'll examine the problems as identified by the critic:

...the near-terminal torpor of the movie's young lovers, the zonked banality of its dialogue, the joylessness of its robot buddies, the fatuousness of its political debates, the incoherence of its plot, the eventual tedium of its vaunted special effects...

This is going to be too easy. Apparently this critic thinks that, by using strings of words that the average American wouldn't understand, he can persuade them to agree through verbal intimidation. Nice try, but those of us who can read what you're saying are laughing on the inside at your lame attempt to trash the most successful movie/entertainment franchise of all time (unless James Bond is still in the lead), and a movie about which you apparently know very little. (Well, it is clear that he knows very little about the role of Attack of the Clones in the trilogy.)

"...the near-terminal torpor of the movie's young lovers..."    Essentially, he means to say that the actors were emotionally flat and were not convincing lovers. Okay, so a few details of the love story were cut from the movie that may have helped him out a little, but I could read it perfectly well: they loved each other, and they acted as people who love each other would if they wanted to keep it to themselves. Some critics need to understand that a sci-fi/fantasy film that focuses on story first, sound and video effects second, and all else third is not going to compare to Gone With The Wind, so the contrasts should stop.

"...the zonked banality of its dialogue..."    He says the dialogue was dumbed down so much that it was like explaining the obvious (in much more elegant terms). I have two words for that: kid's movie. Say what you want! You may hate this trilogy because it isn't like you remember the original, but if you recall, you were about twenty-five years younger when you saw the original, and (believe it or not) the dialogue in those movies is rather zonked and banal too. The difference? Most fans of the classic Star Wars trilogy have grown up, but Lucas's focus remains the same: he wants to entertain everyone, but mostly the kids. So all of you forty-something critics need to stop acting like it's too immature for you    how immature!    and try to enjoy the movie. Take it as a gift, a trip back to youth...

"...joylessness of its robot buddies..."    What? R2-D2 was hysterical (in his own mechanical, beeping, weird sort of way). Okay, I'll grant to you that C-3PO can occasionally be annoying, and some of his punny quips can seem annoying or out of place, and his cowering is absolutely ridiculous... But there is also the fact that that is what makes his character C-3PO. If he wasn't like that, he wouldn't be C-3PO, and it wouldn't be Star Wars. Get over it.

"...the fatuousness of its political debates..."    Fatuous means 'unconsciously foolish'. This is obvious: every critic in the world with a hint of a political agenda is going to disagree with the politics of Star Wars. Why? Because they either think that it can't work in the real world or that it would take too much effort on their part to try. I have two words for Lucas's theories of intergalactic politics, though: science fiction! You would think that critics would understand that, as Lucas has also explained, the politics of the Star Wars universe must be handled in the way in which he has orchestrated it, or else the universe would make no sense! Another friendly note: political columnists rarely object to any aspect of the politics of the Star Wars universe. Either this means that they aren't paying attention to it (which is highly unlikely), or they don't see anything so significantly wrong that it doesn't make sense. Two points for Lucas.

"...the incoherence of its plot..."    This one is too easy. Anyone that argues that the plot of a Star Wars movie is incoherent needs to crawl into a cardboard box and sit there until the next Renaissance, because he won't be enlightened at least until then. (The critic also contradicts his previous notion of "the zonked banality of the dialogue".) Hint: you have to watch the other movies first.

"...the eventual tedium of its vaunted special effects..."    This guy is either really old or really weird (or perhaps both) and prefers the classic films that focused on good times and unrealistic happy endings with little more than a few cameras on location with a few people. He doesn't want anything imaginative; he wants everything to be exactly as people expect life to be on earth, so naturally, Star Wars must be a bad movie. This critic wants to see people, cars, and other such entities that can be found on Earth. His imagination is about the size of a lima bean, so he has little tolerance for the imaginative wonders of Star Wars.

I've figured him out. George Lucas "has lost touch with reality", and his big-screen trips throughout the universe are a sure sign of that. I have to admit that, in this sense, the critic is right. There is no sign of Earth in the Star Wars universe, so how could it be based on reality. Oh, wait: FICTION. Right. I guess the critic forgot about that.

Restricting yourself to the accepted claims of reality, or (even worse) criticizing others for daring not to, is far more dangerous than simply accepting fiction and the unknown as hypothetical... In this case, I would rather suggest that this critic has lost touch with reality, failing to view George Lucas's masterpiece as what it is, simply a product of a man's imagination.

I was a bit distracted toward the end, if you couldn't tell. I'd love to read your counter-arguments so that I may attempt to re-assert my claims. You know how to reach me...

First, I'm really excited to know that President Bush has the balls to represent his people and go after Saddam Hussein. Second, I'm really disappointed that time and time again the media undermine the military and intelligence. I'm still questioning their motivation.

Surely, the biased journalists across America realize that, no matter how bad they can make things look for Bush or anyone else if they try, eventually it's got to catch up to them. They're constant meddling in affairs that should not (yet) be public information may actually lead to government-programmed news; I'm sure we're already on a path in that general direction. It's up to us and them to veer off to one side or the other, preferably on the freer side of things.

On an unrelated note, this Fox News article hits close to what I hope to be working with in the next decade or more after I graduate from college: cyberlaw. I am hoping to enroll at UGA and either get a quick bachelor's degree in political science or jump straight into the masters program. Either way, a couple of degrees in computer and political sciences ought to have me better prepared than most to jump into what I think I will be one of the hottest career fields in the next half-century.

And in funny news today, a "political leak of that other kind"    there is only one other kind, isn't there?

I have increased my hard drive capacity by 150%; 100 megabytes is so much nicer than 40. (Well, 95.1 is so much nicer than 37.2, if you divide by 1024 instead of 1000, like you're supposed to.) It took me about thirty minutes just to figure out how to cram the second hard drive in there. It's not that there isn't plenty of room; it's just that there wasn't enough room for the IDE cable to reach both hard drives and the motherboard. I almost pulled my hair out until I realized that there were two more IDE slots on the motherboard further up, so I just had to secure the hard drive into a rather strange place below my CDRW drive. Unfortunately, this means that installing that DVD drive I've been wanting is going to be something between a pain in the ass and impossible.

I also picked up a new PlayStation 2 game today: All Star Baseball 2003. It's only the third PS2 game in my collection, and it was entirely necessary. I have always loved baseball video games, and I have to have one every year! The fact that I have essentially lived on All-Star Baseball 2001 for over two years is ridiculous, especially considering that I can barely stand to turn on the Nintendo 64 anymore unless I'm playing Perfect Dark or Mario Tennis.

Well, that's pretty much the highlight of my day. It's been an interesting day off. First, I wake up earlier than I have in over two years ... on my day off ... and then I go out and do productive things. I even got a haircut! (Shhh! Don't tell.) Tomorrow is car day... and Flag Day, which also happens to be my dad's birthday. I think he wants a DVD player...

Today is a good day to buy and install a new hard drive. I have been needing one for months, but I have been too lazy and poor to get off my butt and spend $100 on a new hard drive. And I'm too skeptical of Internet transactions that require credit cards to take that route (it doesn't help that I don't have a credit card). So, whatever. I'll pay the extra few bucks for the one sitting on the shelf at Best Buy.

Amazing. It's my day off, and I got up earlier today than I have since my senior year in high school. (This is the first time in over two years that I have actually gotten out of bed and stayed out for a significant portion of the day at 5:50am. Hmm.) And I'm not even supposed to be here today.

I know I make an effort to let you know when I disagree with Rush Limbaugh, but don't let that disturb the fact that I agree with him in most cases. I don't like listening to him because he is arrogant, but I never said he was wrong. (Arrogance can be warranted, but never justified, in my opinion.)

Similarly, I find that, for the most part, I agree with this article written for the Washington Times by Balint Vazsonyi, in which he writes, "In many ways, to understand Rush is to understand America". Certainly, the left wing can attempt to tear apart the reasoning behind some of Vazsonyi's conclusions, but they can not disprove what the article says, and trying to will only prove Vazsonyi right, for those that agree with him (and prove him wrong, for those who disagree).

So, aside from giving Limbaugh fans and closet-fans another good reason to pay attention to him, Vazsonyi's article will probably accomplish little. Most leftists will probably ignore it and hope it disappears, and since they control the news media, it probably will.

But I saw it. And I read it. And, despite that there are holes between his reasons and his conclusions, I can visualize the missing links, and I agree with every word. This is not to say that Rush is always right, because I certainly don't always agree with him (although it is incredibly difficult to prove him factually wrong), but this article brilliantly lays out exactly what Americans think of him and why, fans and enemies alike.

I'm not telling you to go read it. I'm not even asking you to. To believe that you would is ridiculous, and to hope that you would is a bit too idealistic even for me. But to imagine that you read it and had no good reason to disagree with what the columnist wrote, well, that's all Vazsonyi could really hope for.

And it doesn't stop there. Vazsonyi also discusses why Europe seems to dislike American for all the wrong reasons. I'll give you a hint: it has a little bit to do with control.

You can also read Rush's response to this article.

Okay. I know that my web presence has been sporadic of late, and I do apologize. I understand that it can be difficult to keep a devoted eye on this web site if that eye realizes that it doesn't change very often. But, you see, my last few weeks have been hectic, even in the absence of school, to the point that even my moments alone are not all spent doing what I would necessarily choose for leisure.

For starters, I helped Claire move into her house in Athens for her two-year stint at the University of Georgia. Okay, so the first seven months of our relationship were spent with a forty-minute gap between us, and look at us now... but two hours? We are no longer attending the same school, and we aren't even in neighboring cities anymore; we're two hours apart! Yes, my friends, life is stressful. But as I keep telling her (and myself), two years is a relatively small amount of time if we only keep focused on that on which we should be focused    school, in this instance. If all goes well, we should emerge from our respective universities in two years and be together full-time again. I have no reason to expect anything otherwise, so I'll leave that at that.

And then there's work. And then there's my car. And then there's little things around the house. And then there's other little responsibilities that accumulate into one massive ball of responsibility. I'm telling you, adult life looks like it sucks. I want to be a kid again, where mom and dad do everything and I just eat dinner and watch television. I don't mind school if I can just avoid the pointless work! But then again, it's hard to justify some work as pointless and some as necessary. I suppose it depends on the moment, and the fact that I am mostly a lazy bum.

As if my life weren't hectic enough, there are others who aim to make it worse by violent means. All the same, this terrorism crap has grown boring. (It must be a sad day for terrorists when their violent methods have become boring.) I read one headline after another about potential threats, thwarted attacks, and so on every other day, and it's just tiring me out. There is nothing really there to report, so I feel like I'm wasting my time reading about it. Can I at least get something substantive? I hate feeling like I'm wasting my time.

I mean, there is an important election coming up in less than five months. Let's start discussing the difference between conservatism and progressivism once again and start debating why we should all vote independently and on a case-by-case basis (as opposed to simply voting the party line). In my case, it's simple. The Republicans aren't right. The Democrats aren't right. And certainly none of the third parties are right. However, each are partially right, and it's a matter of sniffing out the politicians who seem to be the ones most likely to fight for legislation and changes that I would support. Once in a while, a Democrat that I like comes along. Most of the time I prefer Republicans. Still, if Libertarians would lose some of their more radical stances on simple issues (maybe I'll discuss them later), I would probably vote mostly libertarian.

Still, the fact remains that no one is entirely Republican or entirely Democrat; everyone has a compromise or a difference somewhere. So why not let the vote reflect that?

Apparently two May movie blockbusters is too much to take; Spiderman is well on its way to a final box office gross a little over $400 million, while Attack of the Clones won't even break $340 million at this rate. I had initially predicted over $350 million for Spiderman with a strong potential for reaching $400 million, but I had no idea that it would subvert a Star Wars flick. Still, there is not much room for complaint, as anything over $300 million will be in the top thirteen or better, but Spiderman is toying with the idea of catching the last Star Wars film, The Phantom Menace.

If logic were to prevail, one would expect Attack of the Clones to out-gross The Phantom Menace by at least a few million. Episode II is better than Episode I, and ticket prices have gone up slightly. Can we blame the lack of a serious advertising campaign? (Okay, a $25 million marketing campaign is pretty serious, but it isn't even half of what Spiderman was put through.) Are people just tired of Star Wars? Or is the second trilogy not as interesting because most of it is available on the web ahead of time? Or, even better, was Episode I just a fluke?

Tony has told me plenty of times that logic doesn't work in the real world, and a lot of time it's true. Democrats do what they can to destroy perfectly good legislation just because they don't want Republicans getting credit, and Republicans do the same to Democrats. There's no logic in it; each party would rather look better than the other than serve better than the other. How lame. Er... But I would rather think that maybe the massive appeal of Spiderman along side Attack of the Clones didn't allow all of the ticket sales to go to Episode II. If Spiderman could have been released a month earlier, perhaps Star Wars would have grossed $400 million as well (and perhaps Spiderman would be on a slightly slower or faster pace). As things are, Spiderman is still ahead of Titanic's pace, and Attack of the Clones is ahead of the Fellowship of the Ring. So we'll see what happens.

And man, we were way off!

Excluding expansion, contraction, and similar circumstances, there have only been four significant changes made to Major League Baseball since its mainstream inception sometime in the twentieth century (you can decide when it became mainstream). You can say what you want about those changes, but ultimately they have done good things for the game of baseball. However, there were arguments at their implementation and arguments now about just how good they were and whether or not they should go. Here's my opinion.

In 1969, a necessary step was taken to make room for the demand of more teams in Major League Baseball: the leagues were split into two divisions each, the East and West. At the time, there was a great fuss about changing the way the game was played. The core of the argument against was that divisional play could allow a second-, third-, or even fourth-best team in a weak division to make it to the World Series by defeating the best team in the best-of-seven League Championship Series. For roughly seven decades, the World Series was simply a matchup of the best two teams, one from each league, but divisional alignment changed that. Divisional alignment added a new excitement to the game for some teams and made up for some dynasties' endless consistency. The New York Yankees could no longer simply win more games year after year, but they also had to beat the other division's champion to be eligible to play in the World Series. This added a new level of excitement as every other team in the league had a slightly easier target for which to aim. Instead of best overall, they could simply be the best of their group.

Perhaps the most controversial change to the game came in 1973 when, in the American League, the designated hitter made its debut. The rule is simple: the designated hitter (DH) bats in place of the pitcher. If the DH is replaced for any reason other than injury, then the DH is lost for that game and a pitcher or pinch hitter must bat in the DH's spot until the game is over. I can not remember the arguments against the DH rule, but I have concluded that the rule, despite is controversy, has ultimately been a wonderful idea for the game. Pitchers in the American League no longer bat, while pitchers in the National League do. This made for intriguing World Series matchups, where National League teams had to choose a DH from the bench, while American League teams had to allow pitchers to hit. It also affected the way the second-most exciting game of the year, the All-Star Game, was played. Despite opposition, I believe that the DH helps to set apart the two leagues and make for very interesting matchups in the summer and fall classics.

Another large shakeup had become necessary by 1994, with the number of teams having reached 28 with plans for two more in the next few years. The divisions were divided once more and realigned into three in each league, the East, Central, and West. The three-division alignment opened a new round in the playoffs and a fourth playoff spot for the best team in each league that did not win its division: the Wildcard. Although it wasn't accepted overwhelmingly, partly because once again it made it more difficult for the consistently good teams to make it to the World Series or even to the League Championship Series, I believe it has added to the game in much the same way as the establishment of divisions did in 1969. In an ever-expanding league, more teams are allowed the chance to win the World Series in a three-round tournament. Once again, redividing the league has added a new level of excitement to the game.

The only change that might be more controversial than the designated hitter rule would be the introduction of interleague play in 1997. While one must admit that interleague play offers an incredible amount of excitement and certainly sells tickets, because every team gets the chance to play other teams against whom they have never played before, one must also consider the price at which this comes:

Enough criticism    here is my proposed solution. Interleague play can remain, but not in the regular season. Instead, allow interleague play for most of the second half of the spring training schedule, when the rosters have become mostly stable and the players have reached near-readiness for the season. Okay, so that's only about a dozen games, but that allows matchups against up to a dozen teams from the other league, and it also allows a six-and-a-half month gap between the end of spring and the beginning of the World Series    plenty of time for the familiarity of any matchups to wear off and plenty of time for roster shakeups to change everything. The Mets, Dodgers, and Giants can still play in Yankee Stadium; the Cubs and White Sox can still face off; but the mystique of the postseason can still be preserved. Just add a little publicity to spring training...

If you still believe that humans are mostly to blame for global warming, read this. I will not allow any arguments asserting that humans are to blame any consideration without first hearing an opinion about what Mr. Sowell has to say.

If you, like me, believe that there are innumerable factors involved in the changing climate of the earth (such as the amount of heat from the sun that reaches the earth over given amounts of time    and remember, a few years to us is like a few microseconds to the sun) and that it is impossible for humans to be the single largest contributor to the "problem" that is global warming, then you should also read this, if for no better reason than to add ammunition to your argument.

That was a clever line, D. :-)

Another thoughtful email from the same source this afternoon, this time focusing mostly on global warming. First, I think it's important to note that George Bush has since dismissed the EPA report "put out by the bureaucracy", suggesting that it does not represent his ideas on the primary cause of global warming. Today, Ari Fleischer came back and reversed it again, claiming that George Bush believes that humans are the greatest cause of global warming, putting the President back in line with the EPA report. What's going on?

The global warming issue has always bothered me for a very simple reason: no one can prove anything they say about it! My problem with global warming is not about the facts... That we did or did not cause the majority of the global warming effect doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that these so-called scientists and environmentalists are telling us that we did it when they have no way to prove it. Just as bad, there are people like Rush Limbaugh saying that there is no way we could have done it, yet he has no way to prove that.

Excuse me, but since when did we have an isolated, controlled planet on which to experiment repeatedly in order to find the true cause(s) of global warming? How can any "scientific" assertions regarding global warming be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt? It's all theory, and theories are notoriously easy to disprove.

But nevermind that... The point is that there is no way to prove that humans are or are not the primary cause of global warming. Even better, I still can't figure out why that's even relevant. A better idea would be to discover all of the other causes of which we may not currently have control. We can't do anything about what humans have already done in the past, but we can do something about natural tendencies if we find out about them and focus our attention on them.

Environmentalism isn't scientific and it shouldn't be political; it's idealistic and should be largely ignored. Most environmental talking points include broad generalizations that can not currently be proven, which leaves us to climb up a slippery-slope: if it is true and we do nothing, will we be guilty?; or if it isn't true and we waste valuable resources, will we be guilty?; or if it is true and we do what we can and it isn't enough, was it worth the effort?

Of course, there is still the slim possibility that global warming can be confronted and defeated, but then what? What if we overdo it? What if it creates problems unforeseen and significantly worse?

And tell me, if the globe is truly warming and it is truly the problem that environmentalists make it out to be, then why was 2000 the fourteenth warmest year since 1979? I mean, if the planet is truly getting hotter, then wouldn't it make sense for 2000 not to be among the coldest in the last quarter century? And 2001, despite its warmth when compared to cool 2000, was only slightly above the "average", not anywhere near the hottest year on record.

Final thought: If it means that I can guarantee that potentially futile efforts won't potentially endanger the population of this planet in ways I can not imagine, I can live with a little extra heat. And for humanity's sake, share the details of the benefits of global warming, too! I'm tired of the onesidedness!