kalvasflam

And we also learned that ZAFT commandos are still bloody idiots. There were five of them. They had the high ground, all they had to do was jump out and sweep the field with their machine guns. Instead they relied on one sniper in a horribly bad position. So, I see Fukuda isn't limiting idiocy to just EA, although they got the heaviest dose. Fukuda is indeed running the super robot show.

part of me... nay... all of me says I couldn't care less. Meer, Lacus, Athrun, Neo, Mwu, Kira, whatever.... By the way, is it me or is next week going to be another recap episode?

It's not so much about the insurance, it's simply about the basic nature of the society and the community as a whole. The looters are more than just that, there are all these stories about murders and rapes going on in the city. This shows how truly screwed up the community is, and how utterly powerless the authorities are. The police should not turn a blind eye to this. What kind of city would it be if you saved the infrastructure only to find out that because of the lawlessness, everyone has upped and left. The sad state of the NOPD and its situation and lack of overall response should point to failures at government. You can start with the mayor and the governor, but ultimately, the president is responsible if nothing else, he hasn't come up with more than a cheerleader saying that the government will do something. Doesn't mean much when you look at the TV.

Well... The big one is the economy of lawsuits. But they DO need water, and a way to shed waste heat. The traditional fission power plant uses two sets of heat exchanges. There's a closed loop that goes into the reactor and extracts heat from teh controlled chain reaction in the core. This one is tied to a SECOND loop through a heat exchanger, and that second loop is used to boil water. The steam generated there is used to spin a turbine. It's a lot how coal, oil, and gas plants work, just with a cleaner heat source. Speaking of which... coal power plants release more radioactive material into the atmosphere than nuclear ones. You know, about the water thing, I have two words for you: LAS VEGAS. If they can sustain a place like that (yeah I know about the Hoover dam and all), but still, if they can do that for a show piece, I'm positive that this can be done for something that has practical values. Hell, just put the place up in Area 51. Then make it restricted. As for the environmentalists, I think they have good points, but to me, most of them are just a bunch of extremists these days. Any industry need oversight, but not overkill. Lynx, actually, those human stories in NO are kind of bad, but unfortunately, they do represent a lot of the US. Especially the major cities. Consider for example, LA, or Oakland. In the former case, they had a trial on a bunch of cops that gave a bad verdict, in the latter case, the bastards rioted because the Raiders went to the Superbowl. I don't think you'd see those in a lot of the smaller towns where the community tend to be a bit more solid. But in my opinion, a lot of the big cities in the US are really dumps. It's sad, but it is a reality.

In last week's Business Week, they point out that sentiments on nuclear power is slowly shifting, from 45% in favor to 70% in favor over the last ten years. Of course, none of the utilities want to take the chance on building anything yet. Basically because of all the regulations they have to face, and the lingering bad rep they have to deal with from 3 mile island and Chernobyl. Earliest one probably won't go on line till nearing the end of the decade. Hopefully, the oil crisis will change their minds a little. I always wondered why they couldn't build two dozen nuclear power plants out in the desert somewhere, and have rotating staff to run the things. I'm sure there are good reasons, may be there are some electrical engineers here that can explain why it would be bad for power distribution.

Indeed. We need him to go away, and replace him with someone more militant. Do what we want, or be nuked. 325209[/snapback] Guys, no need to delve into politics here, whether you agree with Bush or not, he has had his share of successes, and failures. What you would constitute as success or failure vary depending on your view, but either way, it's not a great topic to bring up. The sad part is, politics is already interjecting itself into this disaster, even though the problem is still ongoing. It seems like they're slowly getting back in control of things in NO. I wonder if things are just as bad in the other two states, because you don't hear as much problems, may be that's just the amount of coverage, but may be they are not having as much problem, one can only hope. But they really need to make an example of some of these looters, and I mean on TV, but of course, that just means that the lawyers will be jumping on the bandwagon suing the government.

It would be kind of weird for the US govt to say no to foreign aid outright. What the likely answer might be we're evaulating what's going on, and then let you know what we think we need, and where we think you can best help. It's a pretty reasonable response, and about what's expected in situations like this. There are things that are needed, and there are stuff that's pointless, but you need some time to evaluate regardless. But putting that aside for a moment, how much could the French realistically do? I can see rescue teams as plausible, may be food/water. But the latter is a question of logistics. Probably a lot faster to ship stuff from within continental US than from Europe. The one thing that would be useful immediately is probably money, again, that's not a likely offer considering the economic situation in Europe right now, which is far worse than the US. Apologies, starting to get off topic here. Outside of this, the cop with the shot gun might have done the smart thing. As much as I'd love to see these looters shot, there was no way he could be sure that others with guns might not shot back, no way of knowing how much backup the cop had. It's just sad.

It's so sad to see this lawlessness running around when there are so many people that actually need help. Saw a sheriff that commented to Fox News that he wanted to shot some of the looters, and then just place a nice tag on them that said: "LOOTER" Hard to disagree with that kind of sentiment. Hopefully the national guard will be able to stabilize the situation today. And if they happen to shot some of these roving gangs, well, that's not a big deal. I'm surprised the governor didn't declare martial law yesterday, but that might be because they didn't have anything to enforce it with.

Don't get me wrong, I liked I, it's II that I looked at and went huh? Tarantino is very odd, but he has some decent movies, not to mention some real stinkers. Resivor Dogs being in the former category, and Jackie Brown in the latter. But Kill Bill to me was kind of mediocre. Granted, it has its funny moments, but it's not just a straight out entertainment centered movie. Transporter 2 on the other hand is straight forward, nothing to get.

Come on, Steven Segal was entertaining as a martial artist... Never mind, who am I kidding. The fat bastard couldn't jump if his life depended on it. But the movie is probably good enough to be entertaining for the hour and a half it sucks up. Better than Kill Bill I say.

If it helps, I use just plain old Windows Media player (whatever the latest version is), but what seems to be necessary is the right Codec. There are places where you can get Codecs from, from the sound of it, you might not have the right codec installed. BTW, if you're downloading the files onto your PC, your DVD drive is irrelevant as far as how well the file plays. This only matters if you put things on CD or DVD. Usually all you're doing is downloading an avi file.

There is nothing wrong with casting a soft core porn star in the primary female role. She was oh so cute with her lack of language skills in the first movie. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm guessing that this is not a type of movie that you'd go to for the scintillating dialouge. Think of it like episode III, except the action is different. It's not a movie you'd have to go see, but entertaining enough for the pointless violence. Kinda like Stealth, but without the planes. But if nothing else, it'll be better than that travesty Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

So much for my belief that Gilbert is the only smart person. Nothing like announcing that "dreams are pointless, here's your life mapped out for you" to kill your support. 324260[/snapback] All this because Talia stopped f*cking him... 324290[/snapback] women, if they don't drive you nuts by staying with you, they drive you mad by leaving you.

Nah, I expect Talia to end up like Natarle. As for the big fleet, Orb is probably getting what's left of EA, and the people from CF. (which might actually be a lot, since it's still not obvious how big CF is)

No more Orb would be good. But unfortunately, Seed without Orb would never work in Fukuda's world, after all, Orb represents Japan, have to be a Japanese centric show. Heh heh. As for Cagalli, well, crying is apparently all she is good for. Meh..... good riddance I say. Panon, he may have had informal ad hoc suggestions to the AA command crew, but that is a long way from true command capacities. AA seem to be run on a friends basis now that there is no formal command structure. For example, Neumann could jump ship tomorrow, and no one would go after him. Actually, that's not true any more since he is a part of Orb. But still, a good pilot doesn't make a good field general. And as a commander, Yamato would need to be buried up to his neck in paperwork. As far as Dullindal is concerned, the spoilers below seem to indicate that he is in fact a moron. Having consolidated power as he has done in ep 45. He is now moving too fast and making sure others turn on him. That would suddenly mean his opposition would have people rallying around them. The smarter move would've been to take down Orb first. If nothing else, Gilbert can point to a mass set of evidence that Orb and AA has sheltered Jibril and company, demand Orb disarm, and that they turn over Athrun Zala (a traitor) and Kira for their instrumental role in helping Jibril escape, and of course dismantle AA. The point is, gradually whittle down all military opposition before unveiling the ultimate plan.

Hey, don't you love nepotism. Orb in GSD shows why things are so damn wrong with these idiotic kingdoms and emirates. Cagalli promotes her brother who has no formal military practice... ha ha, so funny. I didn't even pay attention to that part of the show until today. Sad.....

Speaking of special editions, I think I'm going to wait for the GSD special editions, because that will be indication of what the follow on Seed series (assuming there is one) will be like. i.e. Athrun might heroically sacrifice himself, and then in the GSD special, they might edit out his helmet floating in space. Setting up for the return of amnesic Zala leading the evil Zala brigade. Ha ha. As for the AA argument, I don't recall if Ramius exactly told the other ships to run away too, I want to say that she did, and in fact those ships were sunk anyway. But her first duty was to her crew, and she got them out. Let's face it, AA had the ability to submerge and fly, if those other ships were a part of her group, they'd actually slow down the AA. Probably hampering its escape. So, she made the right call, it's kind of like a carrier battle group fighting its way out of the trap. Sure, you'd like to get the entire group out, but if the escorts has to be sacrificed to save the carrier, well, that's their job.

Duke, there is nothing wrong with Six, certainly nothing wrong with her ass. And in terms of Baltar, he is a developing character I'd think that will get more interesting with time. He started out as a self-serving self centered bastard, he is still that, but gradually Six is changing him. In little ways at first, but starting to accelerate the changes now. Nice management techniques she has. The cyclons here are certainly far more interesting here than old BSG. I am looking forward to their plans. To be honest, I was originally annoyed with all the religious stuff on BSG. But they developed it into a fairly nice story. They are no longer meandering around like they did in season one. Now, that was a good show of survival, but eventually survivial itself is not enough, and Roslin has managed to give them a purpose in a roundabout way. She is still a politician, but hey, that works too. One of the better scifi shows around. Not quite like B5, which is still my all time favorite, but far more dramatic than B5.

Yeah, I'm really slow that way. Hope and last refuge of the damned and all that....

Going to the battle. Hmmm, I guess we'll never know exactly how many MS Minerva can carry. Gawd, this is crazy. either Requime has the slowest recharge time in history, not likely given what we see on TV. Or Minerva is ultra fast. I mean they hit the moon before a second shot. Which seem to imply that EA is just a bunch of incompetent morons. They should've kept firing. But no... can't do that, one time shock value is enough. Duh. And what the hell, Minerva was in such a rush it couldn't pick up a few more MS and some back up support along the way? They were going against the main core of the EA attack, and for this they used a palty Three MS and a single battleship. Of course, that group wiped out the EA moon base. EA incompetence is just so overwhelming, it's so sad. Destroys were good for exactly one thing, getting destroyed. This episode is the epitome of bad story telling and super robot show. So, instead of having a grand tale of war, where individuals make their own important but minor contributions, GSD has been a story about individuals superman.

I agree, and Orb should be in the bottom of the ocean.

New episode can be sumed up in one word: RUSHED. The EA battle takes practically no time at all, it's like a little quickie to get a move onto the Dullindal story line. The focus is again on the old crew. At this point, I wouldn't mind a nuke on the old crew, and all of them dying. Because let's face it, they are just sucking up valuable air time. Worst of all is... yep, you guessed it, Cagalli. Cagalli: To Neo/Mwu, I give ye Bling. Well, need I say it, Cagalli a farting moron, this is the same person who ran the Orb forces into the bottom of the ocean. Talk about short memory. It should've been: Hey Mwu, stay in the damned skygrasper. Well, they haven't named the final ep yet, hopefully it'll be called Cagalli.

Man, more named episodes, in GSD, name episodes indicates a character will face imminent death. How I wish for an episode named Cagalli. Ok, for the record, before anyone say anything, I like Cagalli, I really do. I just like Cagalli DEAD. In a roundabout way, Orb is still a part of EA. So, things haven't changed all that much really. As for Heine, yeah, he could've been an interesting character, just like Rey, or Shinn, or Luna, or Sting, or Auel, or Stella, but thanks to the writing team, we essentially have Seed Redux. And as for the Gouf... well, if you keep watching GSD, you know what happens to the Gouf series MS.

I wonder at this point what would need to go right on the storyline to salvage GSD. There is one or two plausible scenarios. The most plausible would be to end GSD on a cliffhanger. Although it's not likely, imagine if GSD ended with Gilbert firmly in control and EA completely decimated. i.e. it takes the next six episodes to finish off EA. It would set up a great jump off point for a sequel, which would hopefully have a well thought out story that matches up to the mish mash of crap that we've been served so far. It would also not be without precedent to have the bad guys win, think 0083, essentially the Feddies won, and as a result, the Titans came about. The other scenario is may be turn the last six episodes into a massive slugfest where just about everyone dies. Starting with the horrible sword slice that kills off Mwu for good. And the only survivor in the end I think ought to be Lacus just to show that she is in fact the most dangerous of the entire bunch. And of course, poor Girty Lue will end up just like the Destroys, it'll show up for a 30 second cameo, long enough to be blasted to bits.

you're right, it did say free city. my misread there. You're too generous, the entire cast are full of morons courtesy of bad writing. Gilbert and Rey aren't exceptions, it's just that Cagalli stands out like a sore thumb, and easy to pick on. heh heh.