Outside of terrorism and foreign affairs, the most pressing pieces in Congress under full Republican control is the pending Medicare and Energy Bills. Both are flawed, rushed, and seen as fundamentally necessary for the political future of the President. This results in a general mess that I rail about here. Seriously, the substantive problems with the legislation aside (too much in this mega-legislation even for me to handle, really), the process and political motivations involved are what really trouble me. Similar things can be said about the whole judicial appointment mess.

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David Brooks manages to sound crass even when he is basically on the right side. His latest column puts forth the conservative (yes, he puts himself in that camp) case for same sex marriage, which also is contemplated via a somewhat different perspective here.

You get a feeling this column might be a bit off early on: "Anybody who has several sexual partners in a year is committing spiritual suicide. He or she is ripping the veil from all that is private and delicate in oneself, and pulverizing it in an assembly line of selfish sensations." Okay, David, do you have exact numbers here? How about if you have two partners? Will three lead you down to the road to perdition? Now, spiritual suicide might be deemed worth it and all, but just curious.

He also gets a dig at liberals, who apparently see the issue as one of economic benefits or just another civil right entitlement program. Brooks, however, takes a somewhat strong view: "We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity." At some point, this all becomes not just unsavory, but just plain dangerous. It is quite nice that Brooks sees that quite a few things threaten marriage today, same sex unions is at best at the bottom of the pile, and marriage is a quite beneficial (better yet fundamental) institution. All the same, this mandatory marriage sentiment is just too much. Marriage is not always great Brooks, and you and your conservative pals do not have the right to insist on how people live their lives.

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Blue Gate Crossing, a teen drama from Taiwan has a timely subplot. The film concerns a triangle formed by two best friends, one of whom likes a boy on the swim team, but is too shy to tell him. This leads to complications when the boy thinks the other one likes him, which is fine with him, since he likes her. Unfortunately, not only doesn't she (at least romantically), but she secretly likes her friend. A basic little story told in a gentle and thoughtful way with very good performances by all the leads. It is unfortunate that more teens are not liable to go to a film (if they could find it) with subtitles, since there are not enough films of this sort for teenagers. Oh, we do have the WB, but this film actually has a real life feel to it.

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The FBI is worried about anti-war protesters. I'm worried about the First Amendment.