Category: In the News

Star Trek may have led to the term “red shirts”, but the expendable characters in Star Wars were more memorable. Most memorable of them all was Porkins (a.k.a. “Red Six”), played by William Hootkins, who passed away last weekend. Hootkins also played the crooked police lieutentant Echkardt in Tim Burton’s Batman and Frobisher in the Blackadder II episode “Beer”.

Rosa Parks get processed after breaking the law by

full size.

Rosa Parks passed away yesterday at the age of ninety-two.

Thanks, Ms. Parks — because you refused to give up your seat for the wrong reason, I don’t have to, either.

(Mind you, I’m an able-bodied relatively young man, and I still give up

my seat for ladies, older folks and really-tired looking parents with

young children.)

Sometimes when things come down hard on you — like being razzed by

your own supporters for your choice of Supreme Court Nominee and

members of your posse getting indicted — you have to go for whatever

little victories you can get. In this case, the victory in question is

putting the smackdown on The Onion. The New York Times reports:

“It has come to my attention that The Onion is using the

presidential seal on its Web site,” Grant M. Dixton, associate counsel

to the president, wrote to The Onion on Sept. 28. (At the time, Mr.

Dixton’s office was also helping Mr. Bush find a Supreme Court nominee;

days later his boss, Harriet E. Miers, was nominated.)

Citing

the United States Code, Mr. Dixton wrote that the seal “is not to be

used in connection with commercial ventures or products in any way that

suggests presidential support or endorsement.” Exceptions may be made,

he noted, but The Onion had never applied for such an exception.

Here’s a doco that’ll probably get a fair bit of discussion in the blogosphere this week: The Torture Question, which airs on PBS’ Frontline tonight at 9pm eastern.

The 90-minute documentary reveals how and why

decisions made in Washington, D.C., in the immediate aftermath of Sept.

11 led to the controversial interrogation policy that laid the

groundwork for prisoner abuse in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and Abu

Ghraib.

“We knew The Torture Question would be a timely subject,” said producer Michael Kirk, a Denver native who’s been with Frontline since its inception.

Kirk, who produced, directed and wrote The Torture Question,

said he could sense the building of nonpartisan Congressional interest

in how the U.S. was handling the prisoner-interrogation issue.

Then last week the Senate, in a 90-9 (see my buddy George’s blog entry to see who the nine were) vote, approved an Iraq

military funding bill, with an attached provision introduced by Sen.

John McCain, R-Ariz., that prohibits “cruel, inhuman or degrading

treatment” of prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military.

The last segment of The Torture Question includes comments by McCain and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on the importance of the Senate vote.

The House has yet to deal with the issue. President Bush has said he would veto any bill that contains anti-torture provisions.

While many conservatives view Frontline as a liberal mouthpiece, Kirk believes the Senate vote takes The Torture Question out of the political arena.

(Sometimes only a Darth Vader quote will do for an entry title.)

Click the image to see the comic on its own page.