Now that the baseball season is over, it's time for a few thoughts on some non-baseball related topics.

Catching up on some TV

I have been catching up on some of the stuff I recorded while baseball was on. I don't watch a whole lot of regular TV series. I watched the last few episodes of Boston Legal. The show itself is fine, but I really watch it for the chemistry between James Spader and William Shatner. Shatner is really funny, at his scenery chewing best in this show. He's almost good enough in Boston Legal to make you forget he was Captain Kirk.

I also watched the Smallville episode that featured a character called Arthur Curry (better known in the comic book world as Aquaman.) There were lots of little inside jokes that an old comics fan like me loved. They dressed the Arthur (or A.C. as he liked to be called) character in orange tops and green shorts alot, drawing directly from the colors in Aquaman's costume. There was also a line at the end where Arthur suggested to Clark Kent that they should start the Junior Lifeguard Association. JLA. Get it?

Also, Erica Durance, who plays Lois Lane, spent a lot of time in this episode in a bikini. And that's never a bad thing.

Sulu comes out of the closet

George Takei's announcement that he is gay was carried pretty widely on the 'Net, showing up on the front pages of Yahoo, CNN and other news sites. George's homosexuality was characterized by my friend The Little Guy as "the worst kept secret in fandom." Pretty much everyone who has been active in Star Trek fandom knew that George was gay. I'd guess that I knew for at least 15 years.

And you know what? It really doesn't matter to me. George is a great guy, and it was a thrill to get to know him a little bit during the years I was actively attending science fiction conventions. I'm glad he feels secure enough about himself to come out publicly, but it's kind of a non-story as far as I'm concerned.

A rough week for President Bush

Yes, it's been a tough time for W. over the past week. We had the 2,000th U.S. soldier killed in Iraq, an ill conceived war that we were led into fighting under false pretenses. Then he is forced to withdraw his Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, under pressure from conservative factions. Finally, Vice-President Cheney's Chief of Staff, Lewis Libby, was indicted yesterday on charges of purgery, making false statements and obstruction of justice in the investigation of a leaked name of a CIA operative.

Bush may be the worst president this country has seen in a long time. He has managed to alienate our allies around the world with his "might makes right" style of diplomacy. He led us to believe that Iraq was an immediate threat to the security of the U.S. and our allies because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. There were none. He has turned budget surpluses into gigantic deficits. Is there anything else he can possibly do wrong? Let's hope we don't find out.