Photo for the Weekend

In honor of those fallen on this Memorial Day weekend, I'm rerunning this photo from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. 

Blogging will be light this weekend. Enjoy the weather!

The Prosecution Rests

Syria tells the world that it will no longer be cooperating with the US on security matters, and incidentally refers people to news that 1,200 terrorists were caught at the border trying to cross into Iraq in recent weeks. What does that mean? Well, simply put, Syria has had the ability to stop terrorists from crossing in to Iraq but chose not to.

Well, if that doesn't beat all. As Tigerhawk states:

The Associated Press, it seems, has written this story upside down. If Syria has, in fact, been able to arrest more than a thousand insurgents in just the last few weeks, why hasn't it been doing that for the last two years? Syria, in its braggodocio, has implicitly confessed that it has been able to stop insurgents from crossing the border all along, and effectively admitted the charges against it.

I'd go one point further. It was not in their interest to stop those insurgents from crossing into Iraq because the instability in Iraq enhanced Syria's position vis-a-vis the US and even within Syria's own fractured government.

18 Things

This is a tranlation of 18 things written by Oriana Fallaci in her latest book that got Italian prosecutors on her case and are prosecuting her for libeling Muslims.

What about free speech? What about truth as a defense?

This is about the silencing of a debate on the merits of political Islam, not to mention those critics of Islam who consider extremists within that religion are endangering the rest of the world with their delusions of grandeur and search for power.

How To Spot A Gulag

Apparently Amnesty International needs remedial history lessons, not to mention a vocabulary lesson, to understand that what is happening at Guantanamo Bay is not a gulag.

It's not in the same league. It's not even the same sport. It's a completely different ball of wax. [ed: enough with the mixed metaphors already though I admire your use of Quentin Tarantino style reparte.]

I'll let John Podhoretz summarize the key differences.

Yes, it did. So let's do a few comparisons between Gitmo and the Gulag — the network of Soviet prison camps set up by Stalin in the 1920s.

Number of prisoners at Gitmo: approximately 600.

Number of prisoners in the Gulag: as many as 25 million, according to the peerless Gulag historian Anne Applebaum.

Number of camps at Gitmo: 1

Number of camps in the Gulag: At least 476, according to Applebaum.

Political purpose of Gulag: The suppression of internal dissent inside a totalitarian state.

Political purpose of Gitmo: The suppression of an international terrorist group that had attacked the United States, killing 3,000 people while attempting to decapitate the national government through the hijack of airplanes.

Financial purpose of Gulag: Providing totalitarian economy with millions of slave laborers.

Financial purpose of Gitmo: None.

Seizure of Gulag prisoners: From apartments, homes, street corners inside the Soviet Union.

Seizure of Gitmo prisoners: From battlefield sites in Afghanistan in the midst of war.

Interestingly enough, even the most damaging charge Amnesty International levels against the United States and its conduct at Gitmo — that our government has been guilty of "entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law" — bears no relation to the way things worked when it came to the Gulag. Soviet prisoners were charged, tried and convicted in courts of law according to the Soviet legal code.

There's also the fact that the US Supreme Court has ruled that certain aspects of the detentions are subject to court oversight. Seems to me that the Amnesty International is more concerned with obtaining donations than in getting the facts right.

The headlines may blare that the AI Report slams the US, but here's what most folks don't realize. This was a 308 report covering 148 countries. Sudan, Congo, Haiti,
Angola, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, and Syria were all in there. Yet, North Korea, which actually does have a gulag system set up in the old Soviet model, gets less space accorded to its human rights abuses than the US. The treatment of Iraq serves as yet another critique and criticism of the US War on Terror, instead of placing blame on deaths of civilians on terrorists who could care less about Laws of War or the Geneva Convention.

By the way, those countries don't have niceties like due process. They simply execute political prisoners. Or put known human rights abusers back into power. And could care less about religious freedom, tolerance of minorities, or criminal procedure.

The US treatment in the report is actually mild, despite the MSNBC headline - AI complains about US treatment of detainees, yet they have to note that these individuals even get legal rights as a result of a Supreme Court decision. I don't see Saudi Arabia giving Jews or Christians the right to practice their religion in Saudi Arabia (wait - there aren't any Jews there because they were kicked out years ago, and possessing Christian bibles is a crime, punishable by a jail sentence - so how's that for religious freedom).

AI responds that they cannot get access to places like North Korea to confirm reports. That pure bunk. They know what is going on in those places, yet they do not have the convictions to report the full gory details, because they would actually take up the bulk of reporting.

The list of atrocities in Sudan deserves far more treatment than a few pages in the summary. We're talking about the genocide of hundreds of thousands of people. Yet, AI can only muster a couple of paragraphs?

AI spent more time writing about the legalities of detainees at GitMo.

Does anyone else see a problem with AI's priorities?


Technorati: Human Rights

Fulton Transportation Terminal Behind Schedule

What a surprise. Given the lackidasical pace of reconstruction at the WTC, the news that the nearby Fulton Transit Hub is a year behind schedule and will be scaled back in scope is not surprising.

What is surprising is that no one appears willing to push these reconstruction and development projects through on time and on budget. Everyone seems accepting of delays and cost overruns, though to their credit, the MTA is scaling back the project to keep it on budget. However, the scaled back project will probably be outdated and incapable of meeting the needs of consumers and that's just as bad as that will require future expenditures, delays, consumer inconvenience due to detours and closures.

For an example of how a transportation project can become bloated and cost overruns can quadruple the price, just check out the white elephant that is Secaucus Junction. That project links up 10 of 11 NJ Transit lines, but it was only supposed to cost $100 million. Instead, the price soared to nearly $450 million, took longer to complete, and now saddles NJ Transit with long term debt that has to be financed with yet more debt.

I only hope that the Fulton St. project doesn't leave a similar mess for the MTA.

UPDATE 4:26PM EDT:
Fixed a factual error. NJ Transit links up 10 of 11 lines at Secaucus, not 11 of 12. Sorry for the mixup, but tried to write this off the top of my head without fact checking first.

Don't Mess With Junkyard Blog

He covers the Newsweek fiasco like white on rice.

Nonstory Leads To Nondeaths?

I'm almost thinking of pulling a null set out and leaving a blank posting here because it could spark nearly as much interest as a full fledged article. However, I have the need to write, so let's recap at the beginning.

Newsweek ran a story about how the big bad US military tried to flush a koran down a toilet in GitMo.

Newsweek retracted the story when it became apparent that the incident did not happen. There was no evidence it ever happened, nor could anyone corroborate that it happened.

However, the retraction came only after claims that 15-20 people were killed in Afghanistan rioting over the Newsweek story highlighting the koran desecration.

Now, we get word that those deaths may never have occurred and that those riots/demonstrations were planned months in advance.

So, what gives?

Well this part we know - Newsweek was wrong to run with stories that could not be corroborated by multiple sources, especially when the nature of the story had the chance to cause riots.

The possibility of rioting was a given considering that similar claims have led to riots in the past.

Problem is that there was insufficient evidence that the riots that occurred contemporaneously with the Newsweek story had the casualties claimed and that the riots were due to the Newsweek story.

Where was the media's sources on the story?

G2B has examined every English-language news story about these deaths through Lexis Nexis. G2B has scoured the Internet, including foreign and non-English-language news sources for any details of these deaths. And G2B has queried both U.S. and Afghan official sources for any details about these alleged deaths.

No U.S. officials contacted can provide any corroboration for any deaths. And Afghan officials uniformly clam up with apprehension at the mere asking of questions.

Once again, we're dealing with a paucity of sources for a major news story and a lack of investigative journalism to confirm events, which in this case would corroborate a rise in anti-Americanism and peg the US as anti-Islamic. Many writers, myself included, relied upon the news reports stating the casualties in those regions without hesitation.

Why would someone want to exaggerate riot claims? Perhaps to show the dangers posed by the Islamists. Or, to show that the terrorists will use everything imaginable to get out the rioters. Or, perhaps to exaggerate the anti-Americanism already present - to puff the Islamists.

Then again, why would I seek to write about the riots unquestioningly. Well, it does conform to what we know about the Islamists - they do seek to use every provocation, real or imagined, as evidence of the righteousness of their cause. Situations are exaggerated by Islamists to further their goals, claiming victory in places like Fallujah despite the fact that the terrorists were decimated.

So, what do we learn from this whole mess? Question the media's reporting on all sides of a story, even when it conforms to your point of view.

See also:
Flush, With Evidence
Quiet Marks Anti-Semitic Scrawls
Newsweek Fallout Continues
Newsweek Retracts, But Shifts Blame

Head Scratcher

Since when does cancelling a contract to demolish a building actually speed up rebuilding? That's what a New York Times story implies in John Cahill's first days on the job as the head of the LMDC.

On May 13, the day after he was named to the post, Mr. Cahill canceled the contract with the company in charge of demolishing the Deutsche Bank building, hoping to speed up the construction of a new building on the site. The building was damaged beyond repair in the attacks of 2001, and its demolition has been repeatedly delayed by a series of environmental disputes.

Cahill thinks that the whole demolition contract should be put up for bid again because the company and the EPA haven't been able to agree on how to demolish the building without releasing contaminants into the air within acceptable limits.

But when the Environmental Protection Agency and other groups raised concerns that those plans did not adequately guard against the potential release of contaminants in the air, the project became more or less deadlocked, with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Gilbane wrestling with how to meet the new deconstruction demands. After federal officials decided that the project would be covered in scaffolding for decontamination, Mr. Cahill concluded the entire project needed to be put up for bidding again. Gilbane's original contract was for $45 million, but that figure is expected to increase vastly.

So, not only will this demolition be delayed as a new contract process has to be established, but it will be significantly more expensive than originally anticipated.

Then, there's the case of Goldman Sachs, which sought to build a $2 billion building on the northern edge of the WTC site, but instead cancelled the project when it appeared that West Street would be submerged in a tunnel whose entrance would be right outside the Sachs building site. Cahill has to get that project back on track - and that is just as pressing an issue as the Deutsche Bank demolition.

Here's a simple way to handle this - get it done. Whatever it takes. Expedite the demolitions in order for new buildings to replace the damaged ones - that includes Fiterman Hall too. Get Goldman Sachs to commit to the Lower Manhattan site, and give them guarantees on transportation access.

UPDATE 3:30PM EDT 5/25/2005:
Mayor Bloomberg announces $800 million towards downtown redevelopment. Great. It's two steps forward (this news), followed by one step backwards (the original post). However, it's arguable that this is merely another rehashing of an old story, and instead we're just seeing more of the same on downtown development, which is to say nothing.

Misery Loves Company

This is an interesting graph, showing the combined tax burden of nations. Take all the taxes imposed by a nation, and the resulting figure is portrayed as a misery index. Cute. And informative.

Nations with a high tax burden will generally have a lower rate of growth because the taxes cut off investment and the flow of capital. Taxes become an opportunity cost, which has to be factored into every business decision - including where to operate factories, businesses, and sales. People will naturally opt for more favorable tax situs, so those nations that improve their tax situation will get businesses to grow and/or relocate.

Note that the US average misery index puts it in the bottom third of all nations, which is a good thing. New York City, however, would have a far higher misery index than someone in Nevada, because of the additional taxes New York imposes - from state and local income taxes to all kinds of New York City taxes. That's not so good for businesses trying to make New York their home.

Getting New York taxes under control should be a major issue in the upcoming statewide elections, but will likely be overshadowed by other issues - like the rebuilding of the WTC, the West Side Stadium, and spiraling health care and education costs.

Duelfler: Saddam Cultivated Ambiguity on WMD

He told the council that there were intelligence failures on both sides. The United States couldn't discern Saddam's true motives, while he miscalculated just how much U.S. attitudes had changed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

"There really was this element of mutual misunderstanding," Duelfer said.

Saddam likely feared renewed conflict with Iran in the years after a brutal 1980-88 war between the two neighbors in which 1 million people died, Duelfer said. In the 1990s, intelligence reports from elsewhere had also begun to raise questions about whether Iran was developing weapons of its own.

"Saddam was certainly aware of the WMD assessments of Iran and he created a certain ambiguity about what his capabilities were," Duelfer said.

U.S. officials may have also underestimated how much it offended Saddam to have weapons inspectors "poking around their most secure areas."

Duelfer's comments were reminiscent of those made by former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix, who said in 2003 he believed Iraq had destroyed most of its weapons of mass destruction years before, but kept up the appearance that it had them to deter a military attack.

Duelfer speculated that under the U.N. oil-for-food program, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003, Saddam came to believe that he could divide the U.N. Security Council and possibly bring an end to sanctions imposed after his 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Note that Blix states that he believed Iraq had destroyed most of its WMD years before. Problem is that Iraq was not allowed to be in possession of any WMD. That means a single vial of anthrax or a canister of mustard gas was illegal. And there have been sporadic finds of such items since the US invaded Iraq.

There also continues to be speculation that Iraq managed to transfer technologies or even weapons to the Syrians, hiding the weapons and technologies in the Bek'aa Valley, which doubles as a terrorists haven.

Also, it is interesting that Duelfer suggests that it was a fear of renewed conflict with Iran that fed his desire to keep up appearances. Currently, Iran is speeding along towards developing a nuclear weapon of its own, having obtained the technology and means to produce highly enriched uranium. The appearance of Iraqi WMD would be a cost effective means to balance power with Iran, though it would mean running afoul of the inspection regime. The Iraqi fostered-notion that it was in possession of WMD meant that the US and the rest of the world believed Iraq was in possession, setting off a chain of events.

Names

Nightline has an interesting way of honoring those killed in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq - they want to recite the names of the nearly 1,700 soldiers and Marines killed since 2001. Good for them.

Those soldiers should be honored for their supreme sacrifice.

Now, there are those who think that Nightline isn't exactly doing this for the most noble of purposes. They think that the recital of the names is yet another way to embarass the current Administration.

After all, Nightline did not recite the names of those US soldiers killed in Bosnia or Somolia.

But, since Nightline wants to dedicate an entire show to recitals of names, how about another episode dedicated to the recital of the names of all the Iraqis killed by Saddam Hussein. Actually, that would probably take the better part of the year since Saddam killed more than 300,000 during his rule - and that's not counting the million plus killed in wars started against Kuwait and Iran (all sides casualties inclusive).

Those people had no choice in the matter. Saddam used them for his own purposes; to secure his own future power, either by taking territory from neighbors or for eliminating opposition within Iraq. Their memories, and what prompted their death at the hands of a tyrant, despot, and homicidal dictator should not be forgotten either.

The Concise Lebanese Political Primer

This is an excellent fisking of a mainstream media report of the political situation in Lebanon. It gives you the reality of how Lebanon's political system is currently constituted and how the mainstream media gets it wrong yet again.

Star Wars Musings

Here's a Best of List, considering that folks like Best of Lists:

Best light saber duel. Obi Wan v. Darth in Episode 4 (ANH). Nothing quite beats the first time you see those sabres in action for the emotional aspect, not to mention seeing Obi Wan disappear and join the mystical Force.
Honorable mentions. Anikin v. Obi Wan in RoTS. The Yoda fight with Count Dooku (AoTC). The green guy fights well, he does.

Best space battle. Battle over Endor Moon - just enough action to keep you riveted, but not so much stuff going on that you can feel the seizures coming on as in Episode III.

Best character. Emperor/Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious. Destroy the Jedi, All of them. He actually took pride in killing the Jedi.

Best Jedi. Yoda. Green guy by a leap and a bound over Obi Wan, who somehow never thought that Anikin would turn. Mace Windu could have saved the galaxy had he been able to foresee Anikin chopping his hand off along with his light sabre, but that wouldn't have allowed the story to continue into the original storyline unless there was another to take the place of Darth Sidious.

Worst.character.ever. Jar Jar Binks. Not even close. Well, Ewoks were close, but their cute factor and resemblance to the Chewbacca gives them a pass.

Best battle scene. Anikin and Obi Wan over the lava pits. Amazing. You can feel the hatred seething and boiling through Ani. Perfect backdrop.
Honorable mentions. Hoth battle with speeders (ESB) and the massive Jedi battles on Geonosis (AoTC). The former for innovative stop motion and effects, and the latter for the incredible CGI imagery of huge armies battling, not to mention the light sabre fighting.

Reuters: Al Qaeda Reporting Zarqawi Injured

Al Qaeda's website is reporting that Zarqawi is injured and asks for prayers for his recovery. It's interesting that al Qaeda would report such an event, since it shows that things really aren't going well for their Iraqi operations leader, unless it is meant as a misdirection play.

I'm hoping that he is recovered by the US Military - preferably a Marine detachment or a bunch of Army grunts who will do unto him that which was done to Saddam Hussein- namely capture him and show him to be nothing but a thug and mass murderer.

[ed: Photos of Zarqawi in his undies are optional]

Of course, if Zarqawi doesn't want to go quietly, we can oblige him too.

Instapundit seems to think that praying for Zarqawi to have gas gangrene is acceptable. If the US catches him, it is unlikely that Zarqawi will suffer such effects unless his situation is far worse than the reports let on. The US will provide him with medical care, and will be treated for his injuries, which is more than can be said for the hundreds of Iraqis killed at Zarqawi's behest and who had no chance at survival of the numerous bombings, shootings, etc., that Zarqawi engineered.

UPDATE 2:25PM EDT 5/24/2005:
Athena has more at Terrorism Unveiled. She seems to think the story has legs, but wonders whether this is part of a misinformation campaign.

Flame On!

I'm not referring to the Human Torch in the upcoming Fantastic Four, but rather Michelle Malkin's report that Senator John F. Kerry (and former Presidential candidate) apparently signed SF-180, which would authorize the DoD to release his military records.

Kerry signed the form a few days ago, and the records may be made public within a few weeks. The question now before us is the following:

If the records do not show anything unusual or damaging, why did Kerry wait until now to sign and release the form?*

If the records do show unusual or damaging entries, just how damaging are they and what does that say about Kerry's character and fitness, not only for his current position, but for his prior and future Presidential aspirations?

* There is some disagreement over whether Kerry will be the one who gets the information from the 180 release and that he can then edit out the damaging portions or that the 180 release provides all the information to any interested party. Someone with more knowledge of this information request will have to address this issue.

Wish I Wrote That!

In a defense of Newsweek just out in The New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg concludes by warning of the danger that "we'll lose sight of what we're fighting for, and, little by little, become the mirror of what we're fighting against." Isn't that precisely what's happened to the press, as it has lost sight of accuracy in the pursuit of a political agenda?

From Best of the Web, James Taranto 5/23/2005

Some Things Don't Change, But Should

The following is being reprinted in full from an article I wrote at Suite101.com. Why is it so important? Well, the NY Times is getting behind a rougher and tougher peacekeeping operation in Congo. It's nice to know that the Times is ahead of the curve on this issue.

Problem is that peacekeeping is always going to be insufficient to deal with warring factions. Peacemaking is the only way, even if it means taking sides in a conflict. And the side on which the peacemakers should take are the civilians caught in the middle. If it means opening fire on government forces or militias who are causing those civilians harm, the peacemakers must make the defense of civilian populations their prime mission.

And this is where the UN has failed repeatedly over the past decade (indeed, failed for much of its history - choosing to appear neutral, all while civilians are put in harms way or killed because of the UN's need to appear neutral).

Genocide has been repeated throughout history, but it was only in the 20th Century that people became horrified at the results - particularly because of the mechanism by which an entire people could be eliminated from the planet with cold efficiency. Sadly, few want to take the steps to prevent genocide even as it occurs around the world today.

With that in mind, starting with last night's episode and continuing for the next two weeks, PBS is running a series on Auschwitz, which was the most well known of the Nazi death camps. Such horrors were perpetrated there on such a massive scale that it boggles the mind, even to this day.

Among those who participated in the project was Genocide scholar and Africana studies professor Edward Kissi of the University of South Florida. The six-hour PBS/BBC presentation of Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State [also available on DVD), is scheduled to air in the US and Europe beginning Jan. 19, 2005.

I found the first installment of this program intriguing because it approaches the subject from an interesting direction; namely that the problem of genocide isn't confined to the Holocaust or that genocide is a recent phenomenon. The recent phenomenon is that people are horrified by genocide, which can now kill more people more efficiently than ever before.

Auschwitz was only a symbol of the desire to make genocide more efficient and deadly - to kill millions where earlier efforts were considered crude and inefficient by the Nazis (who had tried using mobile trucks to gas victims, special SS units who terrorized areas by shooting victims, and deporting victims into ghettos where they would starve and be worked to death).

Professor Kissi's position in the discussion was to expand on this angle, which is namely that the Holocaust was not a unique situation and it keeps happening as the world looks the other way.

Cambodia. North Korea. Vietnam. Iraq. Rwanda. Congo. Sudan.

All those nations witnessed genocide on a wide scale. Governments sought to eliminate political, social, and economic opponents systematically. In Cambodia, it was the killing fields where more than 2 million died. In North Korea, it is the starvation and imprisonment of political opponents and their families much like the Soviet gulags of the Stalin period. Hundreds of thousands have died in North Korea, all while it seeks nuclear weapons at tremendous cost. Vietnam saw the Communist North wipe out opponents to the Communist takeover, which led to the Vietnamese boatlift. Tens of thousands perished. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein sought to wipe out the Kurds in Northern Iraq and the Shi'ites in Southern Iraq for standing the way of his power and control. At least 300,000 perished in his military campaigns, complete with the use of chemical weapons. Rwanda saw ethnic fighting between rival Hutus and Tutsis lead to the slaughter of at least 800,000 people in 90 days as the world and UN looked on.

Unfortunately, we have not moved on from simply being aghast at the stories after the fact. Nations that have the capability to step in and stop acts of genocide from turning into a killing field are unwilling or unable to do so. International organziations that were established in order to prevent such atrocities from happening again look on in indifference or even silent approval.

What, then, to make of the mess in places like Sudan, Congo, North Korea, or places where genocide may yet visit.

Speeches by important national and worldwide figures isn't enough. President Bush stating that he vows to end tyranny in the world is not enough. It isn't enough because there is tyranny that could be ended with the dispatch of peacemakers to Dafur to stop the genocide there. Note, I say peacemakers, not peacekeepers.

Peacekeeping suggests that there is a will between warring factions to set aside their arms and allow an outside force to patrol and observe that both sides are abiding by the decision to put down their arms. Peacemaking suggests that you have an international (or unilateral) force that is capable of imposing a peaceful resolution to the violence that is ongoing.

In Rwanda of 1994, UN peacekeepers were present and watched the slaughter up close and personally, yet they did not do a damn thing to step in. The soldier in charge of the peacekeepers implored his superiors to do something, but was rebuked. His orders did not allow him to intervene, and in the process hundreds of thousands died.

Indeed, the UN faults itself for not stopping the genocide.

"There was a serious gap between the mandate and the political realities in Rwanda and between the mandate and the resources dedicated to it," Mr.Carlsson told a news conference at UN headquarters in December, referring to the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR). The inquiry concluded that the UN mission had not been planned, deployed or instructed in a way that would have enabled it to stop the genocide. UNAMIR, it said, was also the victim of a lack of political will in the Security Council and by other member states.

"This international responsibility is one which warrants a clear apology by the Organization and by the members states concerned to the Rwandese people," the report says.

The inquiry noted that a number of steps have been taken over the past few years to improve the UN's capacity to respond to conflicts, and specifically to respond to some of the mistakes made in Rwanda.

Sorry to say, but the mistakes made in Rwanda are being repeated in Sudan, as the genocide continues and everyone at the UN walks on eggshells when describing the conditions in Dafur.

They say that atrocities have been committed.
They say that 'acts' of genocide have been committed.

They do not say that genocide is ongoing.

Doing so would invoke and require UN and worldwide action against a member state, and few nations are willing to do that. The US has said that genocide is ongoing, and is assisting an African Union effort to stop the violence, but not much else is being done.

Meanwhile the killing continues.

Technorati: Human Rights, Genocide

Flush, With Evidence

The completely overblown story about US soldiers flushing copies of the Koran down the toilet at GitMo has taken on some odd turns. As I had previously noted, there were allegations that it was the detainees themselves who desecrated Korans provided to them by the US military.

Some apparently sought to agitate others into a frenzy, claiming that it was the US who desecrated the korans. Now, the US hasn't provided the logs for the time periods involved, but the details emerging suggests that the detainees - terrorists captured in Iraq and Afghanistan purposefully sought to destroy Korans and make it look like the US was at fault.

I once again ask whether a Muslim who desecrates the Koran is subject to execution for defiling the Koran.

Richard Meier designed buildings on the West Side Highway 

Revenge of the Auteur Theory

I saw Revenge of the Sith on Friday night and it was an amazing ride. The visuals were amazing, although the space battles were still too computerized for my liking. There is something weighty to using models that is lost on translation with CGI. However, the battles involving General Grievous and Obi Wan was extraordinary in the way the surroundings were rendered. The characters had a weight.

To get back to my point from the other day; would a different director have done a better job with the material?

I'm not sure.

Each would have put their own touch on it, but unless major changes were made to the script, all would have suffered from dialogue issues. I wonder just how much Tom Stoppard was able to do with the script considering that the dialogue between Ani and Padme were still stilted. If this is the best he could do with the script, I wonder what the original looked like.

Quentin would definitely added a few light touches to the fight between Mace Windu and Palpatine. Or thrown a bone to Ani when fighting Obi Wan.

The others would have done a competent job, but I think the script dialogue was just mediocre.

Of course, the original series was not exactly high lit either. But, there were certain lines - certain moments that made those movies what they were.

And one final thought. George Lucas is to CGI as a crack addict is to crack.

The more Lucas can find CGI stuff to do, the more he needs to add. There are times when less is more.