Klingons in the Whitehouse
January 16, 2007 7:20 PM Subscribe
There are Klingons in the Whitehouse! Er, make that faux Klingons.
I gave him money to help him give that speech.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 7:32 PM on January 16, 2007
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 7:32 PM on January 16, 2007
I came up with another analogy today, but couldn't figure out whether to apply to Cheney or Rumsfeld:
Leeeeroy Jeeeeenkins!
posted by neuron at 7:39 PM on January 16, 2007 [1 favorite]
Leeeeroy Jeeeeenkins!
posted by neuron at 7:39 PM on January 16, 2007 [1 favorite]
bestoftheweb
Star Trek and Politics need to come together more often. Like Nancy Pelosi commanding "ENGAGE!"
posted by thebigdeadwaltz at 7:44 PM on January 16, 2007
Star Trek and Politics need to come together more often. Like Nancy Pelosi commanding "ENGAGE!"
posted by thebigdeadwaltz at 7:44 PM on January 16, 2007
That would be a huge change from the current "avoid!" and "obfuscate!" that echoes round washington daily.
posted by IronLizard at 7:47 PM on January 16, 2007
posted by IronLizard at 7:47 PM on January 16, 2007
That would make the Israelis... Romulans? And the British are obviously Sebaceans, and probably Peace Keepers (what with the accents and all). And based on current policy, I'm going to guess that Mexicans are actually Reavers. Right?
This is all starting to make a lot more sense.
posted by quin at 7:47 PM on January 16, 2007
This is all starting to make a lot more sense.
posted by quin at 7:47 PM on January 16, 2007
Metafilter: Don't let faux Klingons send real Americans to war.
posted by zardoz at 7:50 PM on January 16, 2007
posted by zardoz at 7:50 PM on January 16, 2007
How about Star Wars and Politics? Or Star Wars and Politics (take two)? [Both self-links]
posted by wendell at 7:53 PM on January 16, 2007
posted by wendell at 7:53 PM on January 16, 2007
jon stewart is interviewing George Takei and Leonard Nimoy about this as we speak.
posted by empath at 8:16 PM on January 16, 2007
posted by empath at 8:16 PM on January 16, 2007
Pleeeze, no spoilers until TDS airs here on the West Coast...
Anyway, here is where Star Trek and Politics come together.
But I can't take credit for the photoshopping in the second frame. It came from here.
posted by wendell at 8:45 PM on January 16, 2007
Anyway, here is where Star Trek and Politics come together.
But I can't take credit for the photoshopping in the second frame. It came from here.
posted by wendell at 8:45 PM on January 16, 2007
thank god someone said what i was thinking. wait. no, thats not what i was thinking.
posted by nola at 8:56 PM on January 16, 2007
posted by nola at 8:56 PM on January 16, 2007
I was going to post this last night when I found it somewhere else. I've actually gone to David Wu fundraisers and shaked the man's hand during his congressional election. I had no idea he was such a trekkie dork.
posted by mathowie at 9:05 PM on January 16, 2007
posted by mathowie at 9:05 PM on January 16, 2007
from a March, 2005 Baltimore Sun article (no longer available online), and covered on TrekWeb at the time:
Diana Schaub, a Loyola College professor and adviser to President Bush, is convinced that cloning and embryonic stem cell research are evil. She says this belief was formed, in part, by watching Star Trek.
The show has "left me receptive to the view that mortality is, if not precisely a good thing, then at least the necessary foundation of other very good things," she wrote in an article last year. "There is something misguided about the attempt to overcome mortality."
Her interest in mortality and Star Trek could be regarded as the quirks of an academic if not for her position on the President's Council on Bioethics, a 18-member panel that advises Bush on some of the most polarizing subjects in society.
[...]
She has likened embryonic research to slavery and has compared slacker students to lawless American soldiers in Iraq. Administration critics faulted her appointment to the council last year, saying she would push a conservative agenda.
But Schaub, a registered Republican who is chairwoman of Loyola's political science department, doesn't see her views as conservative or liberal. She says they are the logical result of studying Abraham Lincoln -- and yes, Captain Kirk.
"I find that there are good reasons to be opposed to embryonic stem cell research and human cloning," she said. "Both Lincoln and the Enterprise argue that there ought to be certain moral limits to the scientific project, and they help us articulate what those limits are."
posted by pruner at 9:12 PM on January 16, 2007
Diana Schaub, a Loyola College professor and adviser to President Bush, is convinced that cloning and embryonic stem cell research are evil. She says this belief was formed, in part, by watching Star Trek.
The show has "left me receptive to the view that mortality is, if not precisely a good thing, then at least the necessary foundation of other very good things," she wrote in an article last year. "There is something misguided about the attempt to overcome mortality."
Her interest in mortality and Star Trek could be regarded as the quirks of an academic if not for her position on the President's Council on Bioethics, a 18-member panel that advises Bush on some of the most polarizing subjects in society.
[...]
She has likened embryonic research to slavery and has compared slacker students to lawless American soldiers in Iraq. Administration critics faulted her appointment to the council last year, saying she would push a conservative agenda.
But Schaub, a registered Republican who is chairwoman of Loyola's political science department, doesn't see her views as conservative or liberal. She says they are the logical result of studying Abraham Lincoln -- and yes, Captain Kirk.
"I find that there are good reasons to be opposed to embryonic stem cell research and human cloning," she said. "Both Lincoln and the Enterprise argue that there ought to be certain moral limits to the scientific project, and they help us articulate what those limits are."
posted by pruner at 9:12 PM on January 16, 2007
I am happy to claim David Wu as my congressman. The article in the Oregonian (yes, that's our newspaper) a few days ago was great. I almost lost it when they started talking about Cardassians.
posted by saladpants at 9:12 PM on January 16, 2007
posted by saladpants at 9:12 PM on January 16, 2007
So are these Klingons the TOS Klingons with the weird eyebrows or the TNG "HOLY CRAP LOOK AT WORF'S FACE!" Klingons?
posted by Cyclopsis Raptor at 1:35 AM on January 17, 2007
posted by Cyclopsis Raptor at 1:35 AM on January 17, 2007
His critics are coming off as both humourless and ignorant of the concept of a "metaphor".
I understood his reference to neocons as Vulcans, though I hadn't heard of the books which describes them as such. And I like how he corrected himself - they are faux Klingons.
But at the same time, my husband (who studies military strategy, and whose authority I rely on in these matters, since I am ignorant) says that the current strategy is actually turning around what they had been doing. The new commander had studied counter-insurgency techniques, like how the British reacted to crises in Malaya. (And hopefully also how not to do what the British did in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion). The Americans refusal to move from active combat to stabilisation right after they had conquered is what fed this quagmire to begin with; now they are going to (hopefully) focus on stabilisation.
The problem is that now they have, rightfully, lost all of their credibility, and the critics of the war (who usually don't know anything about military strategy themselves) have decided there is no way to better the situation but to get out, and are functioning just as much on uninformed ideology as the pro-war people had been.
And no one is talking to the actual people who study military strategy -- most "military" historians in the US are historians of politics and personality, not strategy and systems. In the military, they study strategy, but they aren't allowed to make public statements.
So, to tie this back in: the faux Klingons in the White House have turned over strategy to the real Klingons in the military, who are trying to change the approach to something which could stabilise Iraq. But the Federation has already decided that Klingons are just bloodthirsty and corrupt.
Actually, it's kind of like when there was that coup in the Klingon Empire, only there has been a bit of a counter-coup.
posted by jb at 3:37 AM on January 17, 2007
I understood his reference to neocons as Vulcans, though I hadn't heard of the books which describes them as such. And I like how he corrected himself - they are faux Klingons.
But at the same time, my husband (who studies military strategy, and whose authority I rely on in these matters, since I am ignorant) says that the current strategy is actually turning around what they had been doing. The new commander had studied counter-insurgency techniques, like how the British reacted to crises in Malaya. (And hopefully also how not to do what the British did in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion). The Americans refusal to move from active combat to stabilisation right after they had conquered is what fed this quagmire to begin with; now they are going to (hopefully) focus on stabilisation.
The problem is that now they have, rightfully, lost all of their credibility, and the critics of the war (who usually don't know anything about military strategy themselves) have decided there is no way to better the situation but to get out, and are functioning just as much on uninformed ideology as the pro-war people had been.
And no one is talking to the actual people who study military strategy -- most "military" historians in the US are historians of politics and personality, not strategy and systems. In the military, they study strategy, but they aren't allowed to make public statements.
So, to tie this back in: the faux Klingons in the White House have turned over strategy to the real Klingons in the military, who are trying to change the approach to something which could stabilise Iraq. But the Federation has already decided that Klingons are just bloodthirsty and corrupt.
Actually, it's kind of like when there was that coup in the Klingon Empire, only there has been a bit of a counter-coup.
posted by jb at 3:37 AM on January 17, 2007
I'm worried that the faux Klingons will climb into Senator Stevens series of tubes and be transported all over the internets.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:18 AM on January 17, 2007
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:18 AM on January 17, 2007
The speech as printed in the Congressional Record has a slight typo.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:04 AM on January 17, 2007
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:04 AM on January 17, 2007
This guy fails at Star Trek lore.
Clearly the country is being run by Ferengi, not Klingons, faux or not.
posted by sparkletone at 10:15 AM on January 17, 2007
Clearly the country is being run by Ferengi, not Klingons, faux or not.
posted by sparkletone at 10:15 AM on January 17, 2007
Wu mentions in the Oregonian article (the one saladpants linked to) that Cardassians are a better analogy. My friend who I forwarded this to thinks Ferengi, though.
posted by hattifattener at 7:33 PM on January 17, 2007
posted by hattifattener at 7:33 PM on January 17, 2007
Can Cardassians and Ferengi breed?
posted by homunculus at 7:53 PM on January 17, 2007
posted by homunculus at 7:53 PM on January 17, 2007
As Professor Judith Barad suggests, they really do seem more like Cardassians... a little TOO much like Cardassians...
posted by gaiamark at 8:15 AM on January 18, 2007
posted by gaiamark at 8:15 AM on January 18, 2007
Rhetoric's obituary is gonna rock.
posted by poweredbybeard at 4:18 PM on January 18, 2007
posted by poweredbybeard at 4:18 PM on January 18, 2007
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