I want to take a break from politics to discuss something much more important and substantial: A realization I had about lightsabers.

Having grown up with Star Wars, I always liked to imagine having a real lightsaber. Anytime I’d have a clicky pen in my hand, I’d imagine the button deploying a laser blade I could use to slice through anything. But actually thinking out having a real lightsaber, I ruined the movies for me because I came to the realization that if lightsabers and jedi were real, a battle between two people with lightsabers would never look anything like they do in the Star Wars movies.

Now, the lightsaber battles are the coolest part of Star Wars — they’re the only good part of the prequels (though the Anakin/Obi Wan battle did go on so long it eventually became a little tedious). But how do those fights work? The two combatants swing at each other with their laser swords, blocking and parrying until one finally strikes the other. In other words, they use their lightsabers like swords instead of like lightsabers. This is moronic.

What makes a lightsaber different than a sword? That is a blade made of light? That’s just superficial; you still have a handle and a blade just like a sword. The blade can cut from any angle, but that adds little to the strategy of using it. What distinguishes a lightsaber from a sword is that it can extend and retract the blade.

In the movies, when do the jedi use this feature? At the beginning and end of the fight. They extend their blade before the fight, and retract it after the fight. Using a lightsaber like that is like using a gun just for pistol-whipping. Why not extend and retract the blade constantly during battle? For instance, if the opponents had his lightsaber up to block, why not just retract the blade to get past the guard and then extend it again afterwards? Really, in all the time they’re stuck pressing their lightsaber blades against each other, no one has thought, “Well I can just retract the blade to get out of this.”? In fact, why would you even extend the blade until the instant you would strike? All that does is make your attack easier to read and blockable. When you think about it, if the ability to retract and extend the blade is used properly, a lightsaber is unblockable.

When you realize this fact, this changes how a lightsaber duel would work. It in fact would never last longer than a single strike. If two combatants are in range, at least one of them will hit the other, and the winner is just who is quick enough to hit first. Force push or force lightning or something similar can be used to help tip the scales, but the actual lightsaber portion of the fight will be a single strike by extending the lightsaber blade as soon as the handle is pointed at the opponent.

The only way to say this would not happen is if a lightsaber blade comes out slowly, but it’s well established from the movie they can extend nearly instantaneously (or a single frame of film when watching the first movie). The only time I recall a blade coming out slowly was for dramatic effect when Darth Maul revealed his second blade (and if he hadn’t revealed it and just had it pop out during a strike, wouldn’t he have won easily?). So, going by the Star Wars universe’s own rules, they’re doing lightsaber battles wrong.

I can’t be the only one who has realized this? Maybe this information is suppressed to keep interest in Star Wars. Perhaps now George Lucas with some thugs will appear at my door and say, “You’ve ruined the only part of Star Wars I couldn’t ruin. Now I’m going to make a special edition of YOUR FACE!” But the truth has to get out there. I hope you all take this to heart and never enjoy a traditional lightsaber battle again because they are so logically stupid.

So Obama has nine more months to turn the economy around or he won’t be reelected. That’s according to him. It’s good to know there’s a time limit, at least, where he has to claim ownership of the economy from Bush. Of course, you have Debbie Wasserman Schulz already claiming ownership of the economy for Obama and saying this is what a recovering economy looks like. That’s really about their only strategy into 2012, though.

“Yep, look at this recovering economy!”

“I thought a recovering economy wouldn’t suck so much.”

“You’re wrong. Stop talking and being so wrong and just enjoy this awesome economy. And be grateful you’ll have so much time to enjoy since you aren’t burdened with a job.”

And the thing is, maybe the economy is technically turned around and very slowly starting to go in the right direction, it’s just does Obama not expect us to not notice how far he went off course before finally getting things around? It’s like we’re driving from Newark to New York, and we’re constantly yelling at Obama, “Turn around! You’re going the wrong way!” And eventually we’re in Los Angeles, right at the shore where we can’t go any further off course, and Obama finally says, “I guess I better turn around.” And then he expects us to buy him lunch for making the smart move of turning things around. And we’re like, “Man, we were so much better off when we were back stuck in that ditch.”