David Adesnik now joins the chorus of those who are beginning to realize that the Galactic Empire may just be the force for good in Star Wars.

When I first wrote The Case for the Empire three years ago, even I never imagined that George Lucas would manage to turn popular opinion so thoroughly against his heroes. But as they say, he who lives by the Jar-Jar, dies by the Jar-Jar.

My prediction: By the time the HD DVD versions of the movies are released, championing the Empire will be a respected vein of thought.

Mark Steyn reviews the movie I missed while sick:

Let’s say you were setting out to make a parody of contemporary Hollywood’s inability to make a film on any historical subject except through the prism of its own droning self-congratulatory predictable pieties, and let’s say you’d picked as the topic for this parody the Crusades — you remember, long wars back in the day, Muslims vs Christians. What would this parody look like?

Well, for a start, this Crusade wouldn’t be between Muslims and Christians, it would be between the ‘fanatics on both sides’ and enlightened progressive types who just want to live together celebrating their multicultural diversity. When I say ‘fanatics on both sides’, whoa, don’t worry: showing the fanatics on the Muslim side might be injurious to one’s long-term health and there’s no Oscar for Best Fatwa. So in practice we’d focus on the fanatics on the Christian side — rich white racists, sort of like early Bush voters — and the hero opposing them would be a maverick Crusader, a brave secular progressive with the cojones to stand up to them.

Tucker Carlson has an entirely charming piece on Little St. Simons–complete with pictures of his kids, who are the most charming, adorable, and polite children you’ll ever meet:

I never feel bad about not catching fish, since catching them isn’t really the point. The point of fishing is anticipation, the thrill of what could happen. And since the fish you catch can never equal the fish you’re about to catch, striking out may even be preferable. In fishing, failure prevents you from being disappointed. That’s what I told my son, anyway. I’m not sure he cared.

There is no one in television–and few people in print–who write half so well.

The other big news at E3 was the debut of Civilization IV. This will certainly make Vic happy.

The Good News: Amazing graphics (go check out the screen shots) and a simplified interface that lets you do everything from the main map.

Also, from Firaxis;s Barry Caudill: “The first Civilization to discover a technology attached to the founding of a religion will establish a holy city for that religion and it will begin to spread, although slowly. To speed up the process, you can create missionaries and send them out to try to convert other cities.”

And instead of Great Leaders, there are Great Prophets, Artists, and Scientists.

The Bad News: No Armies! No set governments!

Poor Joschka Fischer. Ever since the German foreign minister regained his hefty weight–and then some–his rivals have not been able to resist cracking jokes on a par with “Reggie” from The Nutty Professor. For example, they say there’s a sequel to Fischer’s diet book, The Long Run Towards Myself. The new one is called The Long Run Towards Myself … and Back. Speaking to a member of the Bundestag this morning, I asked this person about Fischer and the problem of obesity. “He doesn’t have an obesity problem,” said the man. “He has a fatness problem.”

Not that it is all one-sided. Some critics of the CDU’s presumed nominee for chancellor, Angela Merkel, refer to her in the masculine, as in Der Merkel. Nice.

Richard Harrington pans the new Sinatra “pathography” in this week’s Washington Post Book World. Sinatra: The Life by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan served as fodder for a recent posting about the claim that the singer was once a mob courier. This latest book, according to Harrington, is “certainly thorough” and “a massive undertaking….” But it is also “unembarrassed about retelling scabrous stories, followed by such disclaimers as ‘while these stories are hearsay’ or ‘none of the rumors were supported by facts.'”

If you care, the PlayStation 3 is now official. There’s even an early look at the head-to-head matchup with Xbox 360.

Uncle Grambo delivers a link that really is piping hot: A Radar bitch-slap at Nick Denton and his wee assemblage.

If you care about this sort of thing, read immediately. Radar is going to make it socially acceptable for people other than Jack Shafer to say be mean to Denton properties.