Is it just my imagination, or do people always say DCU, but never Marvel U?

I will add, however, that a university called Marvel U would be pretty awesome.

According to this ITALICS: review>essay, E.E. Smith, author of the Lensmen series (Book 2 review coming in a couple of weeks) invented the terms "hyperspace," "forcefield," "tractor beam," and "mothership." The more I learn about this guy the more intrigued I am. That's one hell of a track record for inventing technobabble, although I must say that having read Triplanetary I'm quite glad that Smith's habit of describing space battles mainly in terms of a variety of different colored rays hasn't stuck around.

White, conservative, and suddenly, The Most Popular Man in America.

Look, at the end of the day, I think JR's a good appointment to SCOTUS. But I'm going to jump out a window if I read another glowing review about his brilliance, his sense of humor, his decency, his ability to throw a football four city blocks, etc..

Really, kudos to Bush on this pick. I haven't given Bush outright kudos in what seems like ages, but he somehow managed to nominate a conservative that Dick Durbin is giving gifts to, that Hillary Clinton is going to vote for, and that the NYT (yes, the NYT) seems to think is the shizznit.

DarkHorizons gives a nice little report on all the movie panels I skipped, including "Superman Returns": "A film like 'Batman Begins' took great pains to put its hero in a dark, realistic and modern day setting. This 'Superman' is the complete opposite - a total fantasy film in practically every way."

Color me totally excited for that. The more I think about it the more it was the "realistic" setting/origin that turned me off to Begins. I like my myths mythic, thank you, and every incarnation of Batman I've really loved - the Burton movies, TAS, Dark Knight Returns - has taken place in something of a fantasy world.

That same article also confirms that they'll be doing exactly what I think they should, and having Ottman create new music but retaining the John Williams theme. Thank goodness.

Well, there's actually several minor elections happening this year. NJ Governor, VA Governor, NYC Mayor, and the CA Special Election. There's also an August election for an Ohio U.S. Rep. seat.

I'm predicting that NJ Governor will stay Dem.

VA will go GOP.

NYC will stay GOP.

The Ohio seat will go Dem, what with absolute power corrupting the GOP absolutely in that state.

And as for CA...eh, I don't know. I'll let you know in September what my gut's telling me.

John Roberts will likely be the next member of the SCOTUS. Until earlier today, I don't think I'd ever heard of him. From what I read, he's more Rehnquist than Scalia. Take that as you will.

My favorite take on this whole SCOTUS War comes from Mickey Kaus.

If the alternative to a divisive Supreme Court fight is returning the public's attention to a) the ongoing casualties in Iraq; b) a scandal involving the president's top aide and c) a highly unpopular Social Security plan, I'd say Bush's biggest fear is that Roberts isn't controversial or divisive enough. He might just sail through!

Funny guy, that Kaus.

While France's arch-nationalism often seems as if it exists only to pester the U.S., there's a flip side.

France's love of all things France has made it a much better partner against terrorism than multiculti Britain. Here's the article.

It's getting closer. (Then again, I'm sorta of the belief it's been an unofficial civil war for sometime.)

But here's a contrarian idea...

Is a civil war all that bad? Yes, it's ridiuclous and shameful that it ever came to this, but perhaps a civil war would be the equivalent of "pulling off the band-aid quickly", unlike the current course, which seems to result in nothing but slow murder and madness.

Now, I don't know much more about the situation other than what I read in the papers, but I believe the Shiites would essentially mop the floor with the Sunnis in the event of open fighting. There are 3.5 Shiites for every 1 Sunni, and the Shiites have U.S. equipment, (some) U.S. training, and (possibly) the Kurds on their side. They also don't have to worry about foreign terrorists stabbing them in the back because they're not killing enough "infidels" for Allah and all that holy war garbage.

The U.S. could go to the borders, seal them off, and let everyone else fight it out. Then we pick up the pieces and start over. Like I said, this never should have come to pass had the initial post-war been handled in any sort of competent manner, but still, it's worth examining whether Civil War=apocalypse.

Hawk Hillary and other Dems want to raise the size of the army. Good for her/them. It corrects some of the gutting Clinton the First did to the Army during the '90s.

But still...how exactly are we going to expand an all-volunteer army by four whole divisions when we can barely recruit enough guys to fill out the existing, stripped-down, stretched-out Rumsfeldian Creation? This strikes me as such senatorial hot air. Yeah, I actually think they mean it, but I doubt they have the imagination and bureaucratic know-how to actually drum up so many more recruits. It's going to get passed and then what... I'd love to actually read the nuts-and-bolts plan behind this.

Why is there a debate over women bishops in the Anglican Church when the head of the Anglican Church is Queen Elizabeth? What a crock.

Sorry I've been absentee lately, and will be for a while. Was backpacking for fourth of July (consider King's Canyon very highly recommended, even for the casual visiter), am going home for my Grammy's funeral tomorrow, and then next week is comic con. So for this 2 weeks I'm never spending more than 2 days at a stretch in Los Angeles.

When it rains, huh?

For two 20something guys, Asa and I have a strange amount of knowledge pertaining to vulvular massage and hysterical paroxysms. Here's Slate's rundown/lowdown on the strange pseudo science that helped make Junk Science possible (and gives me endless laughs).

Can't we improve on chemo? I mean, is that really the best? Anyway, the 70-something Senator Arlen Specter went from a near-full head of red hair to this in just a few months. Sad.

Behold! (Number 5's the best.)

Tech Central Station has a very original article up about Batman and that pesky moral code of his.

All things super must act outside - but not necessarily against - the law. Batman will spill not one drop of blood of a man who breaks laws, but he will rain hot CGI-generated death upon those who would break law itself. The distinction between heroism and terrorism rests on that difference.

Just as rogue ninja cults make local justice impossible, so, too, do rogue nations make moral communities impossible. Totalitarian dictatorships are famous for offering "citizens" the choice between a moral death and a compromised life lived in the thrall of evil men and evil deeds. Every government will act wrongly at some point, but a rogue nation exterminates those forces that halt and correct the ordinary evils of the world. Such evil is not amenable to the ordinary exercises of influence. To a nation that exterminates its own people, words like "sovereignty" and "rule of law" are punch lines, not deterrents. Expecting the United Nations or the Popular Opinion of Rich Western Countries to stop rogue nations is like expecting the Gotham City Police to catch the Joker: it won't happen, but we'll get lots of dead bodies and grisly laughs along the way.