Major Johnathan

The problem I had with the 9/11 commisions is one; Jamie Gorelick was a commision member, this is a fatal flaw as she was personally involved in the 'wall' erected between law enforcement and intelligence so that info sharing was practically forbidden between agencies. I'm not saying she's Satan or personally responsible for 9/11, but she was part of the problems that lead to 9/11. She should have been a witness. Second; numerous occaisions where the gallery was stacked with partisan 9/11 family members that had an interesting habit of jeering Bush officials and applauding Clinton officials. Third; Pres. Clinton's National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, was actually caught smuggling classified documents out of the National Archives in the midst of the hearings. The documents he smuggled were damaging to the Clinton administration. Incredibly he wasn't sentenced to Jail. If Condi Rice did that, she'd be crucified,burned at the stake,put on the rack and then beheaded. Fourth; Able Danger was seemingly ignored by the commision, again, the info is embarressing(or worse) to the Clinton Administration. I wonder if the partisan 9/11 families might have been interested in knowing U.S. intelligence was aware of Mohammed Atta and other hijackers BEFORE Bush ever took office. The members of Able Danger should have been star witness's. With that recent history, I'm just a bit cynical that a 'Katrina Commision' will be anything other than a grand political 'blame it on Bush', feces throwing disgrace that will be used by any number of 2008 campaign wannabes. I'll give the conclusions right now. 1. George Bush ignored Global Warming. Had he signed the Kyoto treaty in 2001, Katrina would never have materialized. 2. Bush cruelly refused to fund a levy building upgrade that would have saved everyone's lives. 3. Mayor Nagin was faultless, his leadership inspired. He heroically threw 4 letter tirades at Bush for his incompetence. 4. Bush will be proven to 'not care about black people'. 5. No Democrat, past or present bears any responsibility. 6. All Republicans, past, present and future bear full responsibility for everything. 7. That New Orleans was uniquely vulnerable to flooding was realized only after Bush took office., and he did nothing. 8. The New Orleans Young Republican club did in fact slash the tires of the 500+ municipal buses so Mayor Nagin couldn't evacuate the city. 9. The Iraq war angered Allah, so he sent Katrina to destroy NO. 10. VP Cheney really did use weather control technology to create Katrina, smashed it into NO just to get Anti-Iraq War activist Cindy Sheehan out of the headlines. He picked NO because it's mostly a black city. 11. The media, the people of the U.S., Louisiana and New Orleans bear absolutely no responsibility for not building adequate levy's. (for the past 100 years mind you.) 12. France, Canada and the UN warned Bush days if not weeks ahead of time that huge hurricane would strike NO, and Bush ignored their warnings. 13. Bush wanted Katrina to hit NO so it would knock out refineries and cause gas shortages and high gas prices. 14. VP Cheney laughed maniacally, then said "excellent". Phew! that wraps up the Katrina Commision.

I'm also really sick of the notion that beacuse some of the people were poor they just couldn't evacuate. I've been poor, it sucks but it's not an excuse for stupidity. Poor doesn't equal helpless. The only people who really were helpless were the sick and old, and according to the offical evacuation plan for the city of New Orleans, they were supposed to evacuate exactly those people with the over 500 city buses that they never used. How that is anyone's responsibilty besides Mayor Nagin, I don't know. The same goes for the evacuation of the Superdome and Convention center, it was the city's duty to bus them out. Yeah, we really need a commision to 'find the facts', those commisions always do a bang up job, never get political or partisan or turn into blame game show trials. I can't wait. The 9/11 commision was very enlightening and we're so much safer from terrorism nowadays. The number one reason so many died or suffered, they didn't take the many warnings seriously. Like many of us, they figured it was media hype. The media goes nuts every time a category one comes ashore, and how many Hurricanes have wound up weakening drastically just before landfall. The damage always seems less than the apocalyptic scenarios the media puts out before hand, and now finally, we got a real storm. Point being, the people are to blame, the media is to blame, every level of government is to blame (especially at the city level .), Pres. Bush is to blame, but so is every past President for more than a century. The people never want to spend money to prevent these things, they say they do, but try cutting pork or raising taxes, either way people whine and politicians cave. People choose to live in disater prone places and hope for the best. That's why people playing politics with this mess make me so angry, it was an act of nature and human nature, what the hell are people doing trying to pick out people to pin it on or cry racism? Yeah this topic makes me rant... sorry.

Ummm, what about it? Like I say, no rational person has a problem with 'stealing,looting or finding' food or water. I haven't heard a single person say otherwise. I remember seeing footage of a bunch of people (nearly all black) 'finding' food in a Supermarket and they were cleaning out the shelves. That's understandable and excuseable. It's the people smashing through pane glass windows to get at Plasma TVs and other electronics, people carjacking or stealing parked brand new cars, or walikng off with 20 pairs of new Nikes. That's just plain looting, not excuseable, not justifiable. And once that starts, why not burn down the place when your done? And while your at the car dealers, why not smash up the nice brand new cars? Why not rape that woman who can't defend herself? It's not like she can call the police, they're busy looting too. Why not kill that jerk that never showed you proper respect? And now that you've done that, why not take shots at rescue choppers or ambulances, after all, your having too much fun to be rescued just yet. It's those looters that need to be shot, shot repeatedly and shot dead. I don't care what they're race is, but it so happens the vast, vast majority are black. I know that's not PC and all, but it's true. The looters not only killed directly, but indirectly many more suffered or died beacuse the rescuers had to worry about being shot. As far as the AP pictures go, it doesn't help that the kid is dragging a bag bigger than himslef and the white woman has one little plastic bag. Does the white guy even have anything? Besides, the AP isn't known for it's conservative bias, so I think it's amusing for them too fumble around with explanations.

Kanye West (spelling?) was hilarious. "I hate the way they portray us in the media"... that coming from a rap 'artist'... And that crack about how white looters are portrayed as just trying to survive while black looters are portrayed as lowly thugs. Well, I think I saw about 2 or 3 white looters and I heard no one excusing them, everyone has made the distinction between taking food and water to survive and looting cars, ATM's, sporting goods and electronics for greed. And once the climate of that kind of looting happens, rape and murder galore follows, but hey, it's no big deal. Poor Mike Myers... he looked so petrified. And Celine Dion.... Thank you so much Quebec...

Sorry I can't tell you anything about them. I noticed that one on the left on Yahoo Japan once, but it had no info I could make out from Babelfish. So both kits are the same model? I've been scratch building the Fuke, Blowperior and VR-052 bikes in 1/15, riders too, but it's one of those projects that I keep getting distracted from. (I thought 1/15 was the scale to go with since Imai makes all 4 in Ride Armor form.) I just know people will say, "but you should have done them in 1/12", since these days bigger is better.

Hmm, well I do occaisionally sprinkle a little Japanese in my blatherings, but it's not just anime, I'm a big time Imperial Japan history buff (WWII era), I don't see that as a sign of going overboard. (not that I'd use Japanese words around people who have no idea about any of it, that's just rude.) How often do we Americans sprinkle in some Spanish,Italian,Yiddish,ebonics,German or French words into our daily conversations? Why not a little Japanese? I really don't see a crisis of fat,white,smelly Otaku/Geeks, but I do live in a Rural area. Maybe it's really bad in L.A. for example... Frankly, I'm happy to run into a fellow anime or Sci-Fi fan, usually.

Well, now i really don't get this thread. You admit you like this anime or that anime, but you sure as hell don't like anime in general. Seems like a lot people here are really touchy about being thought of as 'fans' of anything, lest they be found out by the cool people. :"What!? You like a twenty+ year old cartoon? Oh, grow up and get a life! loser." Who cares? I fail to see the difference, for example, of someone who puts down Anime or Sci-Fi but is a dedicated sports fan or a motor head. Even the ladies out there, with closets full of designer clothes and shoes and cheesy-cute stuffed animals or porcelian statues or soap operas and chick flicks and 'heart throb' worshippers. It's all just hobbies and collecting. Everyone is a fan/otaku of something. Roy's been working out with Agent One too much.

You don't know how right you are... By the way, heres the picture of a couple of NO buses that could have saved lives if they were used for evacuation. ( but Bush sent minions to slash all their tires.) http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/0...flpc21109012015

Oh, I didn't address the "if only Bush approved the money" angle. Well let's see, there's Jazz/Blues songs going back to I think pre-WWII about Louisiana flooding, they've been playing them like crazy lately. Point being, Louisiana/NO are no stranger to floods or Hurricanes. The danger has existed for a good century. For as long as I can remember, there's been shows about Hurricanes and predictions how NO was hugely vulnerable. Well it finally happened, like someone who doesn't buy insurance and they're house burns down. The truth is NO was more worried about Mardi Gras and tourism than levys. Many states and cities are particularly vulnerable to catastrophic acts of nature. How about you folks in California? How many of you live on or near a fault line or in a wildfire zone? Now you folks COULD divert massive amounts of money to better quake-proof your homes and buildings. But guess what? People want their medicare, medicaid, prescription drug benefits, more or better highways and roads, fancier schools with broadband internet, money for a museum, you name it. So just try and cut an older person's benefits or a younger person's college aid, or a congressman's favorite pork project to build a big ugly levy that no one 'uses', it's just there. You want to blame Bush for the cuts, fine, but don't forget the fine Louisiana congressional delegation, mayor and Governor too, they had their priorities too. Then there's all those ex presidents who did the same damn thing, Clinton, Bush Sr., Reagan, Carter, Ford, Johnson, Ike, Trueman, Roosevelt... ALL passed the buck to the next guy to come along. All took the same gamble. So if 'the big one' finally hits L.A., which has been predicted for ages now, will that be Bush's fault too? Of course, in today's world. Let's not forget Yellowstone, there's predictions of a mega eruption that'll devastste the whole center of the country, that's his fault wether it happens tomorrow or in 10 years bescause he didn't do anything to prevent it now. But it doesn't matter because an asteroid will come along and wipe out Earth, and Bush will have failed to have spent the hundreds of billions to build an asteroid killing laser beam. That bastard has it in for us.

The above stories are misleading. There's 48 more states, many with little or no National Guard in Iraq. Do you think the Kansas or Illinois or whoever National Guard can't go into NO??? The U.S. Military if I remember right, is around 2 million strong, maybe a bit less. But the total U.S. presence in Iraq has been around 135,000 for a long time now. Iraq is taking up mostly combat units, Marine and Army infantry and Armor units. That leaves the vast bulk of the Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and tons of Army support units. There is EASILY PLENTY of military personnel and equipment at home to deal with the Hurricane. It's only a problem of logistics, you can't move that many people and they're equipment in 24 hours. It takes a few days, like I said the Feds/Military are right on schedule. Now the local authorities, they've been awful. And why oh why do all these critics keep throwing Iraq up again and again, no matter what the topic? Could we be playing politics with a Goddamn Hurricane? Do we hear people going 'tsk-tsk', if only we didn't have thousands of troops in Japan? If only we didn't have thousand of troops in Korea... If only we didn't have thousands in the Balkans... If only we didn't have thousands in Germany... If only we didn't have thousands in Afghanistan...Diego Suarez, West Africa, South America, Central America, Central Asia, Guam etc, etc. etc. There's no mention of troops ANYWHERE ELSE in the WORLD, and you'd think there's practically NONE left in America. It's all about Iraq, those precise troops in Iraq would've made the difference. No other troops from anywhere else mean a damn thing. Do you know the real truth man? Dick Cheney was in his secret Halliburton bunker 100 stories beneath the Grand Canyon useing a weather control joystick to steer that Hurrican right at NO because he hates black people and also Bush had Texas Air Guard bombers dropping aluminum powder into Katrina so she'd go to a category 5, meanwhile Rumsfeld and his Israeli masters long ago ordered Mississippi and Louisiana National Guard into Iraq so those states would be defenceless...man. And if you think those levy's just broke ,man, your wrong, Carl Rove was there with some C-4 to do it himself, 'cause he hates black people too.

I just looked at that photo of the buses in NO, it's on Drudge. There's literally hundreds of buses, as far as the eye can see. And the Mayor, Nagin I think his name is, gave a radio tirade how everyone else is letting NO down. Those buses were absolutely his responsibility and he had the gall to ask where's the fleet of buses from the outside? He froze and all their buses were ruined. That is a big reason why all those people have been stuck in NO for so long. He also refered to the looters as 'knuckle heads', man that's strong language.

Man, from a mod that's uncool. Cosplay in general is silly, but saying caucasians can't pull it off and Asians can? Have you seen the cast of Macross lately? Not even Hikaru Ichijo or Misa Hayase look Japanese, I've yet to see an Asian pull off a good Roy Focker. Not many blond haired,blue eyed, 7' giants in the Asian world. I think Japan pulls off higher quality cosplayers simply because they take it more seriously. And I single out Japan. I can't say I've noticed Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indonesian etc. as showing some noticeably better cosplay than anything else outside of Japan. Cosplay is cheesy the world over, but I don't care if people want to have fun and embaress themselves a bit. Yep, whatever happened to the old MW slogan, "We've learned to embrace our geekiness, have you?" Are we the land of the beautiful people now? This is all Agent One's fault...

Sorry, but there's massive amounts of military equipment here in the States. It's a bit silly saying it's all in Iraq, seems like a political throw away line to me. The kind of equipment,supplies and personnel needed are plentiful, you can only get so much stuff somewhere so fast. I'm impressed at how many choppers of all sorts have been there since day one, Coast Guard, Army, Navy and Marines. The most critical thing is good old civilian buses, get as many people out as fast as possible. Very strangely, there's pics of the scores, maybe hundreds of school and city buses in NO that are completely flooded. They ordered an evacuation (before the hurricane, let alone flood) and had all the transportation they needed, they just didn't do it. That's inexplicable and it falls on the Mayor's and Governor's doorstep. That and the total failure to manage the Superdome as a pre-arranged shelter. The Feds/military are frankly there as fast as you can expect, the lesson here is depend on yourself for at least 5 days without outside help in a crisis. You can fairly argue there aren't enough troops in Iraq, or that they should be out altogether, but Iraq is irrelevent to a domestic natural disaster. The bulk of the military is always at home. (training, re-equipping and resting.)

It's like this, the looters stayed in spite of all the warnings literally hoping for this chance, hoping to take advantage of a power vaccume. They've been looting car dealers, electronics stores, jewelery stores, sporting goods (makes good gang-wear) and guns, not just water and food. And they're not stupid, they looted stores that weren't flooded, merchandise that wasn't damaged. Now they've been raping at will, settling idiotic gang scores, killing robbery victims, burning down buildings after they stole what they wanted, shooting randomly at crowds of people, try to raid hospitals for the drugs, and they've even taken a few pot shots at rescue boats and helicopters. Pretty much a National disgrace. How'd you like being a woman, child or elderly person with these roving thugs on the loose? It's bad enough they're looting etc. but that Law Enforcement virtually abandoned the people to their fate is really unforgiveable. Oh, and I'll bet most home owners don't have much if any insurance, it's a poor city. Besides, would you like complete strangers smashing their way in to your house and stealing anything you couldn't take with you? And like I say, they're starting to burn the houses and business's they've looted to cover their tracks. It's like saying if your car were dented up some, a complete stranger had the right to walk up and steal your car or set it on fire since your car was already damaged. And you clearly haven't dealt with insurance companies before, they don't exactly jump at the chance to pay for your loss's, often you have to actually hire a lawyer to go after the Insurance company, and even then, they will fight every penny. Do you have receipts for every single item you have? If not they'll say it's your problem.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say New Orleans has a long, long reputation as being one of the most corrupt cities in America, certainly in the South. The Police there are fairly notorious for corruption and the State prison system is regarded as one of the most brutal in America. I agree about Giulliani, he was the perfect example of a great Mayor in a crisis. He was walking the streets while the towers were still burning, he had the common sense to tell the people around him to cover their mouths to avoid breathing any toxic fumes, ordered police here and there and they went. All in all, he was honest and straight forward with a very shell shocked population. New Orleans Mayor really does seem like he's in hiding(literally, haven't seen him on the news for days), his police are baffled at how to proceed, in a few cases the police JOINED the looters. Law enforcement practically abandoned the city. It's not inspiring, but I do expect the people to get help now, the Feds/Military are taking over. Considering a category 5 was headed straight for NO for at least a couple days before landfall, they're lack of readiness at the city and state level is stunning. Also, I heard the state Attorney General literally excusing the looters, dismissing it as just people getting food and water, in spite of tons of pictures showing looters taking a whole lot more than food and water. Can you imagine how many people may have been murdered in cold blood, and they'll just be listed as 'flood victims'. What a terrible excuse for the State's highest ranking Law 'Enforcement' officer.

I also have to say, I can't stand these stories how families and kids are being told to abandon their pets. An old man was stuck on his roof with his dog, a helicopter comes along and refuses to let the dog come along, so the poor guy abandons his dog. Man I'd flip the finger to the chopper and wave bye bye. They're also telling kids they can't take their pets as they board buses, as if life isn't miserable enough. I understand why some people go along with it, but there's just no way I could. Just think, those looters and killers will eventually be rescued like everyone else and given all manner of financial aid. I have far more concern for the abandoned dogs and cats than I ever would for them.

I'm all for building lots more refineries. You know the 'not in my backyard' excuse, by all means put it in my backyard. I don't think I'd care for a Nuclear plant, radiation still spooks me in spite of all the safety precautions etc. If you live close to a refinery, shouldn't gas be cheaper? Sounds good to me, we could use some business around here anyway. That said, lets get moving on ethanol and or Hydrogen. I'm not dumping it in Pres. Bush's lap by the way. We've been lagging behind energy invention for decades. It kind of reminds me of Space exploration, we just kind of stopped trying since the 1970's. It's like we've been coasting along and hoping for the best and now it's all biting us in the arse. Just read a Kuwaiti official's kind words about how Katrina is Allah's judgment, such gratitude. Maybe the U.S. should release Saddam and let him run Kuwait like he wanted to in the first place.

No, there was no refusal of aid. It's just a hell of a lot quicker getting supplies into the affected areas with home grown help. Now if France and other nations want to come up with creative ideas to get more gasoline and aviation fuel at any kind of reasonable prices, that would truely be helpful, no kidding. Fuel shortages are happening all over the region, even flights out of major airports are running out of aviation fuel. I remember way back when(a week ago) that the possiblity of $3 gas seemed bad. It's that much here in the Norht East, far from the Gulf Coast. It's $5~6 in some areas close to Hurricane zone, if you can find any. (I know you Europeans pay a bunch for gas, but European nations and the U.S. economies are very different, reasonablly cheap gas is a huge factor in the U.S. economy.) I'm all for ethanol, Hydrogen fuel cells and anything else. I'm getting really sick of gasoline hanging over our heads like a guillotine. If they can formulate ethanol for diesel engines, why not gas engines? What more do we need to say it's time for some major, MAJOR changes in our energy/fuel uses. I understand the Hydrogen fuel is about a decade away from becoming common place energy, can't we speed that up a bit? I wish ethanol would work out, I'd much rather be dependent on the Midwest than places like the Mideast. Oh well, we're all doomed anyway I guess. The Road Warrior scenario is coming true.

How can this show have money troubles? Normally, when a show gets such great reviews and hype, the studios open up their wallets a bit more. No offense to the actors, but none of them are thought of as 'A-List', so I don't think they're sucking up the budget.(I consider that a good thing by the way) The Mini series really impressed me, I guess I'm a little dissapointed they haven't maintained the kind of special effects for the regular seasons, but season 2 seems measureably worse than season one...meaning just plain less effects than season one. You'd expect the exact opposite with the show's success. They probably should do fewer episodes, unless the tight wads with the money start boosting the budget.

I don't mind if Caprica Boomer is a little 'off', she might really feel that the Galactica Boomer was a whole other person, there's room for her to be a bit irrational considering her unique situaution. It's the Galactica crew that has no room for for being forgiving or trusting at all towards Boomer. (or each other! But that's a whole other thing ) The Galactica Boomer could not have been more trustworthy. I still can't figure what trade off the Cylons wanted, the destruction of a whole Basestar just so Boomer could pop Adama a couple times? And she fails to kill him to boot..., you'd think she'd have emptied the clip into him or taken a head shot is she were REALLY serious. If anything, Boomer should be on a prison ship apart from Galactica, they couldn't really know if she can transmit their position or is capable of some super human behavior, she's such a threat, It's hard to imagine her being allowed on Galactica or even in the fleet at all. I'd have left her and Helo on Kobol.

Well again, for all my gripes, I think BSG is easily the best thing going. I won't recycle my complaints, I just repeat that the mini series and most of season one were excellent, but the plot twists and character development for season 2 has left me dissapointed. Too much betrayal and too little consequence. BUT, that damn arrow thing is over, Roslin's so unpopular that Adama practically threatened everyone to applaud her( ), and they're bound to put Apollo and Starbuck back in their Vipers where they belong. I plead guilty to wanting action/space battles, there's a balance between soap opera and action in good sci-fi, and almost all of season 2 has been soap opera so far. (even the Cylon boarding party episode was woefully lacking Cylons...) I very much look forward to the Pegasus story, I'm hoping for at least a few battle hardened aces, a Roy Focker type would be nice. Anyone to take a little spotlight from Apollo and Starbuck. Also, I prefer Gabriella to Xena.

They couldn't possibly make Billy the President, he's like 12 years old. I would rather see Zaruck or Baltar as President at this point. Roslin is a space case. I hope they'll let the Pegasus live a while, or better yet, blow up the Galactica and change the name of the show. Seriously though, I hope they introduce some likeable characters from the Pegasus. Apollo and Starbuck need a break.(especially if they're no where near a Viper!) The Doctor as a Cylon? Don't know, but I agree Adama's chest pains are made to look suspicious. By the way, shouldn't Starbuck think of getting a check up to see what the Cylon Doctor did to her? Even Baltar was sane enough to to that.

I agree with your post Axelay. Baltar is becoming the most reliable character, at least you can know not to trust him, just enjoy his stangeness. "And I sorely miss seeing space combat." Here-Here! I mean, it's kinda the meat and potatos of the show, or should be. The only few Cylons, in what seems an eternity, have been the 'toasters', who went from damn near indestructible, to cannon fodder for Apollo and Stabuck's pop guns. No way around it, Adama panzied out. Everyone betray's him, he gets angry, then forgives everyone(even though they ain't sorry) and hugs them. Where was Boomer's hug? Adama's real first name: Oprah. As for Boomer; they can NEVER make her a trustworthy character. Galactica Boomer blew up a whole Basestar, how much more trust can you have and still betray? So her not shooting Adama proved nothing. I really hope they've been saving up on special effects for Pegasus, blond Xena isn't going to float my boat, and that's two weeks away... reporters suck in real life AND make believe, remember Macross II?

It's an interesting design, looks destined for the Brits. As for America, I've totally given up trying to follow what the hell we're making,developing,cancelling etc. Navy and Marines get a lifetime supply of F-18 designs, however outdated or underwhelming or expensive they may be. The vaunted Osprey, which I do like, is a design that dates back before most MW members were born. And it is perpetually "just about" to enter service, any year now, we'll see fleets of Osprey, yep, any year now, just you wait! (Meanwhile, Dinosaur helicopters fill the Army and especially Marine ranks, circa Vietnam vintage.) Strangely, as demands on the U.S. military skyrocket, we're closing bases like crazy, cancelling weapons systems and shrinking orders for the few new items that actually made it past the political/bureaucratic gauntlet. And apparently, the budget's been growing? I wonder what the hell they're buying anyway? You'd think armor resistant to RPG's and mines would be a priority, I'm sure we'll have it in service inside 50 or 60 years tops. (and the RPG dates back to the Panzerfaust from WWII, and STILL no defense against them.)

Indeed, I'd like a Python too. Gomioka is a cool background pilot.