ritain entertained quite a flap in legislative quarters last week, as Prime Minister Tony Blair met resistance in the passage of his Prevention of Terrorism Bill that would suspend the right to a fair trial. However, the law did successfully pass both Houses, effectively working against 800 years of British legal tradition established in the Magna Carta.

"Thank you," said the Prime Minster, rather politely tipping his hat to the legislative body. "You have aided the efforts against terrorism. The more people we have locked up, the fewer terrorists we will have on the street." Blair then ended the 30-hour legislative session by courteously shaking hands with everyone in the hall.

The legal match came as P.M. Blair sought approval of the new anti-terrorism bill to replace laws established after 11 September, 2001, hastily pushed through the legislative process in an effort to adapt to the new terror-mad world. Those laws would have expired soon, forcing the Prime Minister to pursue a new bill. Even Blair's own Labor party showed some resistance to details of the legislation, but through a series of concessions, Blair reached approval of the bill with the House of Commons, only to be surprised by the House of Lords, who customarily concede to the will of the Commons. Further debate over the bill continued for a record-matching 30-hour battle, until Blair made concessions to Conservative party leader Michael Howard and met a consensus.

Among the harshest responses to suspected criminals is the return of the medieval dungeon for long-term housing of those awaiting trial. The bill would call for £250 million in dungeon construction, surely good news for the freemasons. The P.M. admitted the incarceration of suspects in medieval-era dungeons would cost more, not less, but would "certainly put the fear of England into them."

The contests over England's tradition of due process to the accused mirrors the turmoil President Bush has surfed through in the United States as his own post-9/11 laws draw criticism from liberals, a dying breed in America. However, as P.M. Blair faces a greater opposition to the occupation of Iraq in his own country, Conservative leaders are seeking a weakness to exploit in this election year, and the law could come back to haunt the P.M. later. Some speculation exists Blair's motivation for following Bush's lead, even to his political doom, has been the president's overbearing personality is too strong for kind, mannered Blair to reject, with his cultured background. Members of the Labor party have even tried plying Blair with beer in hopes of him calling the U.S. president at 4 a.m. in Washington and telling him to go fuck himself… no luck as yet.

Ideally, according to proponents of the measure, suspected terrorists could be held for longer terms as the government built a case against them and exploited information gained from them to prevent potential terrorist attacks. The adapted law has been expanded to include Britons (the previous law applied only to foreign suspects); and of course, there's the dungeon, manacles and bread/water meals still being optional depending on local authorities.

Not everyone in the House of Lords opposed the new law, however, despite the upset caused by their attempt to block the bill's passage. In fact, the oldest of the legal bluebloods, Lord Philip Smudbury, applauded the bill's approval, in particular the return of the dungeon.

"Many of the younger legislators are not old enough to recall the firm discipline of the dungeon," said 97-year-old Smudbury, a member of the House of Lords since 1949. "In fact, I'm not old enough to remember it. But I had been locked up quite a bit in dungeon-like quarters by my emotionally-abusive parents. And I can say with conviction it did marvelous in shaping my respectability. You would do well to impose such an experience on many of your own on your side of the pond. That president of yours, for one. Such a rascal would certainly benefit from a ten- to fifteen-year stretch in the dungeon. No more of this mangling of the queen's English."

Lord Smudbury then graciously shared the afternoon with this Americanized reporter, a memorable period of time spent smoking home-grown pipeweed and poking the help.

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There's not a day you log onto a popular internet site like Teen Beat Gossip or Gent All-Amateurs where you don't hear some random loser belly-aching about the fact George Lucas has yet to release Star Wars, the original good one and its immediate sequels, on DVD. In the hopes of keeping the internet running at a much slower, manageable rate, I will now answer this question so you can take that 15% internet traffic and use it for other purposes, like who would win the much-anticipated Kirk-Picard sword battle.

Star Wars is no more. Or, as you über-nerds might need translated, Episode IV: A New Hope has been erased from all records.

The possibilities of this might confound you, as they easily confounded me, and occasionally still do when I approach the problem not expecting an ambush. I have a friend who is well-versed on time-travel and film history, and for the sake of this article let's call him Steven Hawking. Not the famous physicist in a wheelchair, though this informant is actually named Steven and has bad knees, but if it makes you feel more confident to confuse the two of them for the purpose of understanding this article, hey, I won't stop you.

"George Lucas has been famous for tampering with his Star Wars movies to keep them hip and popular for a younger generation, who is incapable of enjoying anything without computer-generated effects and poop jokes. Some examples are making the Death Star explosion in Episode IV even bigger, grander, with a big fat ring, and when Han Solo lands in the trash compactor and says, 'Christ, who dropped logs in here?' Fans of the original theatrical version have been tolerant, but generally unhappy with the changes. I agree even more so, because they have worked to undermine the fabric of the space-film continuum."

Continued Hawking, helping himself to beer from my fridge without asking, "When Lucas changes anything in Episode IV, it invariably effects all episodes following. Remember the scene of the Wampa sitting up in Empire Strikes Back, or the 30-minute extended dancing green squid girl scenes from Return of the Jedi? Some people mistakenly chalk it up to Lucas going in and fiddling with his iMac in those films as well, but the truth is he has no idea how those got in there. I can safely say, though, being well-read on time-traveling books in the Quantum Leap Find-Your-Fate series, that the seemingly-harmless effects of adding Jawa monsters and stuff to Episode IV has irrevocably damaged the two following films.

"Film, like time, has a tendency to mend itself. Though we may not see the apparent big deal in the changes in the computer-generated Episode IV, subtle motions were put in place that extended scenes and added footage to the other Star Wars films.

"The logical jump from there, of course, is to imagine how much damage Episode I, somewhat hastily written and assembled with sentimentality overruling true humanity, has done to the films following. Just for an example as to how bad its altered the space-film continuum, the two-headed podrace alien's inclusion in the film somehow managed to change the rifles in E.T. into walkie-talkies. Spielberg was pissed about it, you bet, but you don't want to argue with a man who can make a prequel to your life that ends up undoing your existence.

"In short, the Star Wars chain has been so badly broken in Episode I and Episode II the original films have 'fixed' themselves beyond recognition. Stormtroopers have been turned into Cylons, Wookiees evolved into Dan Haggertys, and Lando Calrissian has somehow been replaced with Eddie Griffin. To fix these films, if they can be fixed, will take until 2005 at the earliest, when Lucas has hinted he will re-release them at last. Until then, trust me—you don't want to watch a film where we watch Leonardo DiCaprio struggle to be a Jedi, only to find out Mike Tyson is his father."

Thoughtful words, Steven. Terrifying, thoughtful words. Now pony up for the beer.

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I guess I'm not top dog here at the commune anymore. They got a new dog. Which sucks for me 'cause those chicken livers were about the only source of protein I get in a week. Dry, chewy, but good.

That's sort of the explanation for why I haven't been writing as much lately as I used to. That and I got fired from my regular toilet brush job. That big gay Bagel Gay Bagel told everyone to cut some of the deadweight around here and everyone thought of me first. Which is nice in a way. But that way doesn't help me any, since I'm out of a job. It worked out nicely for them because Gay got a real plastic toilet brush as a gift for Christmas from people who didn't like him, so the office has one of their own. Two people doing the same job, one doesn't ask for any pay and doesn't short out the office electricity trying to build his own lightsaber, so you do the math on who gets fired. Me, I mean.

Not like it's the first job I've been fired from. That was helping my dad fix the car. I wasn't working for real pay there either, even though I tried to hold out for a hug or something, but you could never hardball dad. I would stand by him while he put the lugnuts in my hand, at least that's what he said they were. Then he heaped on more work, making me look for a 9/16th wrench out of the toolbox and then yelling at me when I told him he didn't own a toolbox. He said it was a trick question, just to see if I could think independently. And I could, and he didn't need that in his employees. Then he was attacked by a lemur and I never found out if he got that car fixed or not.

It doesn't bother me to get fired from a job if I screwed it up somehow. It doesn't even bother me to get fired from a job I was doing really good. I imagine—hard to prove that one, I guess. What really steams my beans is getting fired from a job I didn't even have. I slept in a McDonald's for three weeks one time and they finally found me when they cleaned out the grease trap, and I got yelled at real bad and they fired me and I didn't even work there. I would have told the guy so, but you know. The grease in my mouth and all.

But besides all of that, I suppose I'll still talk to you all once in a while. I got woke up one day by a call at the Long John Silver's grease trap and it was Red Bagel, asking me where my column was, it was a month overdue. I told him I didn't work for him anymore and he called me a slacker. If I knew what one was I would have argued with him, but he gets away with insulting people by thinking up big words for insults. So he said it was no excuse for not doing my column. Sampson L. Hartwig has to write one still and he's been dead for more than a year, is the story. Well, no one's going to compare me in a bad way with a dead person. So I'll get that column done and turned into Red Bagel, Mr. Smart Insult Ass, as soon as I can think of something to write. If you come up with anything, let me know here at the commune.

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