Previous Leon, C-SPAN:

[beamjockey]

Peculiar thing showed up on C-SPAN this weekend: cast and producers of the TV series 24 on stage at the Heritage Foundation. Three producer-writers, three actors, two tank-thinkers, moderated (I hope he won't be offended if I use that word) by Rush Limbaugh. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, gave an introductory talk and answered audience questions.

I gather that Virginia Lamp Thomas, a Heritage Foundation official, had a hand in lining up the event; her husband, Justice Clarence Thomas, was in the front row of the audience sitting next to her, and several quips were directed to him.

Everybody reveled in love for the action-packed, terrorist-bashing, America-loving, down-counting show.

I found the event a bit creepy. I am trying to decide whether I would find it equally creepy to see, say, the NASA Administrator on stage with the cast of Star Trek, or whether I am simply a hypocrite.

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I hate to say it (especially without seeing the C-SPAN show to which you refer), but I think you would find a NASA-Star Trek talk of a similar variety quite interesting. Think about how often we have scientists and sf authors/actors combined on SF Con panels.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

This point was indeed made, by the Token Non-Conservative Tank-Thinking Academic on the panel, um, let's see, David Heyman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

There's no evidence that it's a myth. It's a common theory (among most liberals I know) that torture doesn't work, but given its long history — and the comments of pratical practitioners of torture; e.g., a French Algerian War agent — I have to wonder if torture doesn't indeed work when applied judiciously.

This is not to say that (a) the US uses or approves of torture or (b) that torture is morally correct. I merely note that if disapproval is based on the it-does-not-work theory, then if I can prove it does work, where does the arguement go?

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

It all depends on what you mean by "work".

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

When I wrote this entry, I didn't yet know that in the days since the seminar Mr. Limbaugh has been detained by Customs over a bottle of pills.

[gypsy1969.livejournal.com]

Ironic that. Rush needing something to keep it up. I thought he could keep F-ing the American people all day long, but I guess he needs help for personal stuff.

I'd love a show with the Star Trek personel and NASA, but they have already sort of done this. Nicols appeared on a Nova and Nimoy has voiced over lots of things with NASA people. It's not the same, but I think you get the idea. The creepiness would be the terrorist-bashing, America loving fakes, because that kind of Americanism is the kind that matches Nazism rather than the Americanism/democracy of our forefathers.

[theengineer.livejournal.com]

The administration needs all those TV-types to make "make their own reality". Someone has to script it.

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

Nothing to say about the topic, but I am *so* going to steal "Previous Leon." :-)

He'll be a time traveler from the past, who can only move forward in time, and only at a rate of one second per second.

[beamjockey.livejournal.com]

For more on Previous Leon, see this Usenet posting from 2002.

Previous Leon, a actor, has an equally renowned brother who is a patent attorney.

Prior Art.

[merlinpole.livejournal.com]

[arrived via the link on Making Light...]

Euwww, someone married to Clarence Thomas, the spiritual twin of Limbaugh? Euwwww!