Comments Posted By wooga
Displaying 1 To 10 Of 12 Comments
WILL RUDY'S 9/11 PERFORMANCE HOLD UP TO SCRUTINY?
J.H., Romney is certainly very polished. But unfortunately, that sometimes gives the impression of being "a policitian" (fake) like John Edwards. Romney's a fine candidate, but he has to overcome the "politican" and "flip flopper" stigma.
Rudy's favorable traits are consistency and "balls." He'll take an unpopular position, and stick with it. He'll dress as a woman. He'll run around with a bald head. In short, he's an executive - which is why I don't care that "he never even served in the state legislature." There is a reason Senators don't win the presidency.
I abhor Rudy's social policies (I'm pro-life and a gun nut). All the pundits seem to think either that (1) when joe public learns about Rudy's social views, we won't vote for him, or (2) social conservatives are losing influence. The pundits are wrong, for three reasons. First, Rudy has embraced federalism. A federalist president understands social issues are for the states to regulate, so he won't impose his social views on America. Social conservatives are fine with that compromise. Second, Rudy pledged to appoint"strict constructionist" judges, which is beyond Scalia. Essentially, Rudy will appoint Thomas clones, which will kick abortion, gay rights, etc, to the states. Social conservatives are fine with that compromise too. Third, Rudy understands that if we don't win the war on terror, social issues won't matter.
9/11 only relates to Rudy's charisma - mistakes related to radios don't matter.
As far as I know, known of the other presidential candidates meet all three points (especially the first federalist one), except for Ron Paul (yes) and Newt Gingrich. Neither Ron nor Newt have the requisite charisma for the presidency. Of course, Fred Thompson will probably meet all three.
Comment Posted By wooga On 31.03.2007 @ 00:13
BRITS YAWN AS IRAN DECLARES WAR
I saw Madeline Albright on the Colbert Report the other night. When asked "who is at fault" for the current hostage standoff, she responded something along the lines of "the fault rests with the people who don't understand the Iranian position." Not, you know, the people who actually did the hostage taking.
There is just something deeply disturbing about people who are so willingly ignorant of proximate causes. Thinking that "if only we understood them and communicated our views better, everybody would get along" is, in addition to being blatantly a blame-America-first view, a prime example of the racist world view that plagues the modern left. Specifically, that "those brown people" (they like to lump persians, kurds, and arabs as an indistinguishable mass) are just too wild and stupid to obtain a democracy, and a million arab lives are not worth the life of one American soldier.
It's just amazing that 9/11 was able to cause such a complete reversal of the previous left-interventionist versus right-isolationist positions.
Comment Posted By wooga On 29.03.2007 @ 17:16
And when I say "Nadia is hot," I mean straight up physically hot, not "hot because her personality takes her pleasant appearance to the hot level." Imagine Nadia being a bitchy character - she'd still be hot. Characters like Michelle are hot in the "personality +" sense only, and Chloe is hot to some people (not me) because of her attitude and computer 'skillz'.
Comment Posted By wooga On 29.03.2007 @ 17:38
I also noticed the Johnson smirk. It was featured much in the same way that Graham's "shifty eyes" were always left in frame just a moment longer than expected.
The smirk had to been on purpose. As Johnson's obvious plot was foiled in every respect, he must have succeeded at some other plot. '24' has previously used the following plot device with the "evil fiance Reza in the car" scene (and indirectly with the "rednecks lynch the ambassador" scene):
1. make the audience think the middle-easterner is the bad guy,
2. then reveal he's not actually bad, stoking racial guilt feelings in the audience for jumping to conclusions about middle easterners,
3. thereby making the audience less willing to consciously suspect other middle-eastern characters.
4. That way, when you reveal a middle easterner to be evil down the road, the audience will not groan "that was so predictable."In this context, Nadia turns out to actually be evil. We find out that her clearance was initially limited not because of generic 'racial profiling,' but rather specific intelligence related to Nadia.
Why do I think this? Because Nadia is hot, and hot chicks are always hostages or villains.
Comment Posted By wooga On 29.03.2007 @ 17:34
ARE WE DAYS AWAY FROM WAR WITH IRAN?
Actually Ed, Clinton had the OKC Bombing, first WTC bombing, 1998 African embassy bombings. There may be others, I just haven't slept in 36 hours. But that's still 3 (if you combine the African ones together) terrorist attacks on US soil under Clinton. Versus 1 under Bush.
Comment Posted By wooga On 26.03.2007 @ 15:53
Maybe we find out next episode that "Milo" is short for "Milosovich" and he's been trying for years to exact his revenge on Jack (resurrecting the 'serbs hate jack' arc from past seasons). We'll probably get some lame explanation that Milo's four year long 'bathroom break' was spent on some radical commune, and he 'returned' to CTU just for this single mole purpose.
Seriously though, I can't imagine the writers are going to have yet another mole in CTU. A less ridiculous explanation would be that somebody was able to figure out Nadia's code/password/whatever. And that story line will probably involve some strung out relative showing up at CTU and confessing that he/she was tricked by his/her dealer into stealing Nadia's magic CTU card. Still a recycled plot line...
Comment Posted By wooga On 22.03.2007 @ 03:18
Yeah, I'd love to be able to buy Bill's home for a quarter mil, and sell it for half a mil...
The only way it's worth just a quarter mil is if they dug up an indian burial ground to put in the swimming pool...
Comment Posted By wooga On 19.04.2006 @ 13:02
"AS THE FATES RULE THE AFFAIRS OF MEN"
With my trusty tin foil hat on, I found a way for the writers to trot out the real "Kim is in danger" storyline. As Henderson kept making a point of telling Jack how he watched out for Kim, it makes sense that Kim's new boyfriend is actually working for Henderson. Keep in mind that Kim and Barry are catching a plane to attend a "conference."
Now, remember how Bierko said something like "we need to make them think this is our primary target"? Neither the mall, hospital, nor CTU are such giant targets that anybody would seriously think they were "primary," since Bierko still has over a dozen canisters left, and has yet to hit a stadium. What Bierko is doing is tricking everyone into thinking _LA_ is the primary target. While martial law locks down LA, Bierko will transport all of the canisters to another city.
And guess how Bierko will transport the canisters? On Kim's plane to the "conference." I don't know if Kim said where they were heading, but D.C. makes sense (since it will take long enough to run to the end of the season).
Admittedly, Kim's involvement is a stretch. But I'm convinced Bierko is leaving LA.
Comment Posted By wooga On 19.03.2006 @ 21:01
There has to be something else to Cummings' motivation, because the plot he outlined is astoundingly moronic. Why turn a dangerous weapon over to unpredictable terrorists when the same "smoking gun" goal could be acheived much more reliably and directly by some of Cummings' covert underlings?
For a moment I thought Cummings was going to kill President jellyfish, since Mystery Man is really the vice president. Make it look like a murder suicide by the crazy first lady. After a quick swearing in of Mystery Man as president, Jack's life becomes much more difficult.
But that's too crazy. Instead, we'll just get a predictable "Jack faces a no-win situation when Diane is kidnapped by the Mystery Man."
Comment Posted By wooga On 1.02.2006 @ 23:43
Another guarantee:
Comment Posted By wooga On 19.12.2005 @ 14:59
Named characters will appear in multiple episodes, establish emotional bonds with major characters, and then unceremoniously disappear from the show, never to be mentioned again. For example, CTU employee Milo (longest bathroom break ever) and the dimwitted Behrooz (riding around in a van).
