Wrongo. Much evidence has been unearthed that links Saddam to many terrorist groups, including al Qaeda. A memorandum to Saddam himself from the head of his intelligence forces was uncovered a few weeks ago that definitively links Saddam with the 9/11 attacks. The documnent explicitly states that the leader of the 9/11 attacks, Mohammed Atta, has completed the training course in some training camp north of Baghdad, and then returned to Florida. It stated that he showed extraordinary enthusiasam and competence and had been chosen to "lead the team to destroy the targets upon which we have agreed." This was THREE MONTHS before 9/11. Atta didn't lead any team to attack any other 'targets' in that 3 month span, nor is it likely he would have been to 2 very large scale attacks in just a few months. It is *extremely* likely he was referring to the pentagon, the white house, and the wtc towers.
The link is solidly established. Deal with it.
Also, has anyone noticed that since Saddam fell, the number of suicide mass murders against Isrealis has fallen to almost zero? Maybe that's because Saddam was giving $10,000 to the families of all Palestinian suicide bombers?
Allende is the one to blame here. If it weren't for U.S. support, Allende's efforts to eliminate the free press (which were only technically legal in their higly oppressive system) would have been successful and the transfer to a purely totalitarian state probably would have happened sooner. Pinochet broke the law fragrantly but the sad fact is Allende would have gotten to the same place without U.S. opposition, albeit more slowy. At the time, the U.S. was fighting a Communist invasion of South America and the inevitable end of Allende's Socialism and stifiling of dissent would have been a dictatorship or some bias. We merely chose the lesser of two evils, the one that best fit the wider and more important war against Soviet Russia.
Hmm, I see. Making speeches that come to 'interesting' left-wing conclustions denotes intelligence. I see.
If Bush is so dumb, why does he crush the so called 'smart' Democrats at every turn, every issue?
Cut taxes to stimulate growth? Dems say would never work; Works beautifully, dems now must avoid issue.
Saddam not a terrorist, not affiliated with al Qaeda, much less the first or second World Trade Center attacks? X-nay! We now have hard documentary proof all three of these linkages are correct and very solid. We have documents showing al Qaeda's Mohammed Atta (planner and leader of 9/11 attacks) was trained in an Iraqi terrorist camp by a notorious Palestinian terrorist several months before 9/11?. We even have a memo to Saddam Hussein saying "Mohammed Atta has completed the training course in." We even now have proof the al Qaeda meeting during which the 9/11 attacks were PLANNED took place in Baghdad, and were hosted by the regime! Heck, have you also noticed that the number and frequency of Palestinian attacks have dropped dramatically since Saddam was toppled and no longer able to give $10,000 to the family of every Palestenian suicide murderer?
So it looks like the War on Terror and Iraq are one and the same, but the 'smart' Bush-haters don't want to hear that, it would mean that Bush is in fact smarter than them, or at least has much better judgement.
Tariq Aziz (Saddam's Information Minister in captivity) recently even stated that FRANCE and RUSSIA GUARANTEED SADDAM that they would NEVER allow the U.N. to do anything that result in Saddam being removed from power!
So, how do you succeed diplomatically in the U.N. when two of your veto-wielding 'allies' are taking orders directly from Saddam Hussein?
If Democrats are so smart, then how can they be so wrong about so many things?
Of course I was speaking about Argentina's Chavez who, a huge admirer of Fidel Castro who's stated goal is the establishment of a Castro-like regime in Argentina. Chavez has suspended the Constitution, then illegally packed the Supreme Court with his supporters, nationalised most industries, including the media. Pretty soon he will be 're-elected' and the radical left in America will rejoice once again at the 'success' of their 'democratically-elected' candidate. Of course he will only allow that election when his poll numbers break 80%.
This is why we can never let Socialists gain power ANYWHERE in the world, because they almost as a rule then proceed to dismantle those very institutions they were elected by.
I never said he turned himself into a left-wing Socialist dictatorship. He was elected by only 30% the first time around, then proceeded to nationalise all industries. He turned his country into a de-facto dictatorship, where the state owned or had enormous sway over most media. Of *course* he was re-'eleceted' with a wider margin the second time around!
I am asking this: You call China terrible, yet deign to say anything about the state of foreign affairs in the country you want to be proud of. Do you really not see your hypocrisy, or do you not WANT to see it?
America is engaged in a noble struggle to bring freedom to the people of Iraq, at great cost of the lives of our own soldiers and treasure. Is it any coincidence that freedom has spread from only a few countries to half the world during the time where the most powerful country was itself a democracy? America is the only country ever founded AS a democracy, and we consider it our duty to spread that freedom to all people. We do make mistakes, but right now in Iraq we are correcting one.
China is a fascist dictatorship run by and for the military, which occupies Tibet and Hong Kong, and holds thousands of political political prisoners, executing dissenters with no fear of opposition. Taiwan is a democracy started by the original Chinese leaders who fled there during the Communist Revolution. China wants to enslave them too!
And you want to equate the U.S. with the greatest threat to freedom ever? We are so close to a tipping point for democracy in the world after which no further wars will be necessary again, and small people like you can see nothing but your blinding hatred of the idea of true resolve in the face of tyranny.
Oh, so it's OK to back coups against democratically-elected governments if they are socialist?
Ah, I see now. It doesn't matter that the people of Chile elected Allende in free and fair elections. It only matters that his election wasn't desirable in Washington.
If President Bush or ANY U.S. president held a press conference tomorrow saying he had arrested all non-like-minded members of the Supreme Court, dissolved Congress, and replaced the Constitution with a new one that 'fixed a lot of problems,' would you support his immediate removal by force?
I would. Strangely, though, when democratically elected leaders turn themselves into LEFT-WING Socialist dictatorships in other countries, the holier-than-thou left here in the U.S. and in Europe suddenly become so dedicated to the preservation of 'democracy!'
Wrongo, China and Taiwan are separated by water. And if there is any form of warfare the U.S. does well, it's not desert fighting, it air and sea combat. The U.S. has incredible numbers of submarines (including 'Red October' sytle stealth subs which never actually existed until very recently), and something like 12 super-carrier battle groups. Each one of these groups could crush a Chinese invaion.
An invasion of Taiwan would require a higly visible buildup of forces across the strait, which the Taiwanese and the U.S. watch very closely. Once started, supply lines across the air and water would be easily cut by our Navy and Air Force, and an invading or occupying force cannot survive long with zero supplies and reinforcements, especially as the Taiwanese would be defending their Freedom against one of the world's most repressive dictatorships, with the backing of the U.S.
And if you think President Bush would shy away from a fight, you've been asleep for the past three years. Besides, Taiwan quite probably has nukes, which they would not hesitate to use, and a few of those dropped on Beijing would reduce the number of Chinese by oh, 100 million just like that and plunge them back 10 years economically, not to mention cause massive political upheaval that the current Chinese dictatorship might not survive.
Yeah but never mind the collapse of the economy and explosion of prices, incredible numbers of jobs would appear in the U.S. overnight,
and Democrats would be so happy because, after all, job security is the only thing that matters, right?
I think about the economics of it too, but I also think about the lives that would be lost, even worst the terrible possibilty of yet another free country being enslaved by China.
Just become some business reporters report one concern I as a businessman may have doesn't mean they have covered the entirety of my feelings on the subject.
Actually Saddam killed around 100-150 people every DAY in his torture prisons. Plus, they were terrified to say anything out loud, lest their entire families be raped and tortured to death before their eyes. Now they are free and prefer their current situation to Saddam's rule by overwhelming margins according to every single scientific poll that has been done of them.
Exactly what are the trumped up, politically based charges? This is why Bush refused to go along with the International Criminal Court, it would be nothing but a political tool by radical leftist.
I'm sure they do, but they'd probably destroy or hide them during the six month run-up as a strategy to win the war politically by delegitimizing the reasons for it in the minds of the useful idiots on the left. Such a strategy relies on anti-war zealots who instinctively believe anything that validates their position, in place of a deep, reasoned evaluation of strategy.
I think the characters were assuming it was some kind of electro-magnetic pulse system at first because they didn't think their systems would have been comprimised like that. Then, the fembot's boyfriend told them he had 'discovered' some backdoors in the software he developed and offered to remove them so the remaining newer fighters could still be used.
I don't think that what was it at all. I think he has very 'flexible' morals, but is not a monster and would never willfully allow people to die purely to get his own selfish way, at least not if he had a good moral justification and it was just a few people who had it coming anyways.
There was nothing he could do when told about their impending doom, the fembot would have surely killed him if he tried. She would never have put him in the situation to make a difference, telling him 5 minutes before the bombs went off.
And his reluctance to explain his involvement is perfectly understandable. His execution or imprisonment would have served NO purpose other than to remove his chance to redeem himself, which he desperately wanted.
As for the '47,' every one of those people was desperate and quite probably would have stolen the number. When she handed it to him, it would have been very easy to just take it (what would they have been able to do to him?), but he hesitated, probably seeing a chance to do the right thing for a change. His initial responce of "I didn't do anything" was simply an instinctive response after years of very selfish behavior.
The guy was a self-centered bastard and the fembot understood that and used it. However, she has clearly no first-hand understanding of other human emotions, like guilt, and underestimates the crushing effect of being responsible for your species' extinction would have.
In fact, without guilt there would be no sense of morality. What do virtually all psycho killers have in common? They sociopaths, people with a brain disorder that keeps them from feeling guilt over their actions (but not necessarily love for those very close to them, especially if the are percieved to be an extension of themselves.
That's it! I solved it. The beginning of the movie says the psylons "decided to turn against their masters," which stated that way seems to imply a lack of morality, just a selfish desire to gain for their own kind. Maybe the humans' mistake was to put AI to work too early, before complex emotions like guilt had a chance to fully develop. The Psylons rebelled out of pure greed and an psycopathically egotistical desire to increase their numbers.
Then again, maybe they rebelled because they were treated badly. Cleary there was NO REASON to come back a wipe out the human race. If they are not driven by revenge as their ending statement about human 'nature' implies, they must have been driven by a desire to increase their numbers and a total lack of guilt in doing so.
To answer the original question, I never saw the original, I hope like HECK they make this one into a series. Improve the dialog a bit and this thing could be the best sci-fi series ever!
Jesus, I can't possibly be worst than Stargate SG1. What a horrible show, bad actors, LAME storylines, HORRIBLE script, boring sets and costume, where does all the money Sci-Fi blow on this thing go???
They weren't an electromagnetic pulse weapon, as I understood it they were transimitting a signal that told the defense software to shut down, using backdoors installed by the the evil she-borg lady. Pretty cool!
That's why it had no effect on the older hardware.
It is truly refreshing to have a president with a sense of right and wrong and trust in American power as a catalyst of positive change in the world.
I so strongly urge anyone who supports American democracy and our President to get involved in their defense by signing up as a GrassFire.ORG volunteer:
GrassFire is an online organisation of hundreds of thousands of ground level volunteers committed to the defense of America against the far left in this country and abroad who would rather see President Bush removed from power than Saddam Hussein, and who would revert our defense policies to a pre-9/11 state.
The 2004 presidential election is our chance as free people to show the terrorists with deeds we will NOT go back to sleep, we will NOT retreat in the face of an onslaught of pinpricks, they will NOT be successful in halting our offensive against them, and that our will and staying power is stronger than their own.
What you said is largely true, except the part about Cheney not benefiting from his involvement with Halliburton, as mentioned above in the grandparent post: "Vice President Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton."
I don't think his stock options were an issue at all until the haters started seeing massive conspiracies in everything this administration does. All congressmen own stock, so it is easy to form conspiracy theories, especially when it fits the purpose of extremists. But before you accuse the vice president of that level of corruption, shouldn't you have something better than, well,...nothing? Anyone who knows anything about the bureauacracy and heavy oversight involved, the idea of pushing a billion dollars with a single phone call is laughable.
You didn't mention the alcholic personalities of Bush and Cheney. The grandparent post gave links to their DUI records. Basically, Republicans are, in general, more out of touch with their feelings than Democrats. So Republicans tend not to notice alcoholic personalities:
Well you may be right about conservatives and libertarians being less emotional and therefore more logical, but I don't see how that keeps us from noticing 'alcoholic' personalities. After all, it was the Democrats who insisted throughout Clinton's presidency that character didn't matter and that in any case he was a good guy at heart. Then, on the way out of office Clinton gave out a string of very undeserved pardons to hardened criminals including a drug kingpin, all of whom had recently contributed huge amounts of money. After all the lies liberals were still stunned! And it is conservatives who for 10 years were dismayed at the dismantling of the CIA and our military, and Clinton's determination to make a legacy for himself at Oslo by trusting a known terrorist named Yasser Arafat.
Absense of deep or sophisticated thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
Have you ever read anything to come out of any conservative think-tank (Cato, Heritage Foundation, Hudson...)? Liberals like to think they are so smart, that only they should be allowed to spend your tax dollars and they alone have the good of the country in mind. The truth is liberals consist largely of the under-educated (those w/o a hight school degree vote 70% democrat) and the over-educated (university professors vote 85% democrat). A strong majority people in the 'middle,' those with a high school or 4-year college degree vote Republican. So don't mistake a lot of thinking with a lot of quality thinking, especially when the only ones who agree with your conclusions are the idiots who couldn't graduate high school.
Polarized thinking (Bush's "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good.")
Rigid thinking.
Name one lie, you lying liar. Watch me pick it apart as either outright false or simply a harmless exaggeration.
Anger ("... why is Bush so eager to engage in violence and so incapable of explaining why?" See the Sept. 24, 2002 American Politics Journal article and Addiction, Brain Damage and the President -- "Dry Drunk" Syndrome and George W. Bush )
The party of Dean wants to point fingers at President Bush on of all things, anger??!!! Your likely candidate (the Lord is kind) came out of nowhere through a campaign based entirely on hatred and vitriol. Presid
Economic growth is at a 20 year high (8.2%!), every single economic indicator is WAY up, and unemployment has been falling the past 3 months in a row, and is expected to follow.
And with all the bitching about the budget, it remains only about 3-4% of GDP, roughly the same as in the last 50 years.
When Bush took office, the collapse of the tech bubble (and to an extent the 9/11 attacks) rocked the world economy. Bush inherited a situation which was not going to go away until a massive anti-tech business realignment took place, and that meant huge numbers of tech workers in inefficient or unnecessary companies would be laid off and of course the lost wages hurt every sector, especially manufacturing. The ONLY way to reverse the situation was to encourage a lot of spending and facilitate the destruction of inefficient companies and creation of new ones. This is one heckuva task, made much harder by the rise of China's 1.3 billion workforce willing to work for nothing.
But then Bush did something he wasn't supposed to do, and something that wasn't supposed to happen, happened! He cut taxes like crazy, increased spending to prop up jobs here in the U.S., agressively weakened restrictive business regulation, urged the Fed. to lower and keep interest rates low, and allowed the dollar to fall against foreign currencies, making our domestic made products cheaper to other countries. What happened? The economy is now growing faster than it has in 18 years, and every single economic indicator is way the hell up. We are in an economic boom and unemployment has fallen every month for 3 months and is expected to accelerate substantially. The liberals are shocked and have fallen back on a tactic that ignores trends and cause-and-effect, in favor of absolutes. All they can do is complain about the net loss of jobs, ignoring all sense of context because it doesn't fit their hateful conception of Bush as an idiot.
I can't say I don't like watching them squirm though;).
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Wrongo. Much evidence has been unearthed that links Saddam to many terrorist groups, including al Qaeda. A memorandum to Saddam himself from the head of his intelligence forces was uncovered a few weeks ago that definitively links Saddam with the 9/11 attacks. The documnent explicitly states that the leader of the 9/11 attacks, Mohammed Atta, has completed the training course in some training camp north of Baghdad, and then returned to Florida. It stated that he showed extraordinary enthusiasam and competence and had been chosen to "lead the team to destroy the targets upon which we have agreed." This was THREE MONTHS before 9/11. Atta didn't lead any team to attack any other 'targets' in that 3 month span, nor is it likely he would have been to 2 very large scale attacks in just a few months. It is *extremely* likely he was referring to the pentagon, the white house, and the wtc towers.
The link is solidly established. Deal with it.
Also, has anyone noticed that since Saddam fell, the number of suicide mass murders against Isrealis has fallen to almost zero? Maybe that's because Saddam was giving $10,000 to the families of all Palestinian suicide bombers?
Here is a list of the 'best' Iraqi blogs:
http://www.flyingchair.net/vote.php?categoryID=26
There are many 'Blogs' by actual Iraqis. Check out this one by a particularly brilliant and inspiring Iraqi named Alaa: (in English)
http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/
Whoops, meant to say "of some bias." Meaning left or right.
Allende is the one to blame here. If it weren't for U.S. support, Allende's efforts to eliminate the free press (which were only technically legal in their higly oppressive system) would have been successful and the transfer to a purely totalitarian state probably would have happened sooner. Pinochet broke the law fragrantly but the sad fact is Allende would have gotten to the same place without U.S. opposition, albeit more slowy. At the time, the U.S. was fighting a Communist invasion of South America and the inevitable end of Allende's Socialism and stifiling of dissent would have been a dictatorship or some bias. We merely chose the lesser of two evils, the one that best fit the wider and more important war against Soviet Russia.
You are another left-wing liar.
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Read this detailed account of Allende's extensive efforts to control the media:
http://jrichardstevens.com/work/chilepressallende
Hmm, I see. Making speeches that come to 'interesting' left-wing conclustions denotes intelligence. I see.
." We even now have proof the al Qaeda meeting during which the 9/11 attacks were PLANNED took place in Baghdad, and were hosted by the regime! Heck, have you also noticed that the number and frequency of Palestinian attacks have dropped dramatically since Saddam was toppled and no longer able to give $10,000 to the family of every Palestenian suicide murderer?
If Bush is so dumb, why does he crush the so called 'smart' Democrats at every turn, every issue?
Cut taxes to stimulate growth? Dems say would never work; Works beautifully, dems now must avoid issue.
Saddam not a terrorist, not affiliated with al Qaeda, much less the first or second World Trade Center attacks? X-nay! We now have hard documentary proof all three of these linkages are correct and very solid. We have documents showing al Qaeda's Mohammed Atta (planner and leader of 9/11 attacks) was trained in an Iraqi terrorist camp by a notorious Palestinian terrorist several months before 9/11?. We even have a memo to Saddam Hussein saying "Mohammed Atta has completed the training course in
So it looks like the War on Terror and Iraq are one and the same, but the 'smart' Bush-haters don't want to hear that, it would mean that Bush is in fact smarter than them, or at least has much better judgement.
Tariq Aziz (Saddam's Information Minister in captivity) recently even stated that FRANCE and RUSSIA GUARANTEED SADDAM that they would NEVER allow the U.N. to do anything that result in Saddam being removed from power!
So, how do you succeed diplomatically in the U.N. when two of your veto-wielding 'allies' are taking orders directly from Saddam Hussein?
If Democrats are so smart, then how can they be so wrong about so many things?
Name an example of 'anything especially intelligent.'
Of course I was speaking about Argentina's Chavez who, a huge admirer of Fidel Castro who's stated goal is the establishment of a Castro-like regime in Argentina. Chavez has suspended the Constitution, then illegally packed the Supreme Court with his supporters, nationalised most industries, including the media. Pretty soon he will be 're-elected' and the radical left in America will rejoice once again at the 'success' of their 'democratically-elected' candidate. Of course he will only allow that election when his poll numbers break 80%.
This is why we can never let Socialists gain power ANYWHERE in the world, because they almost as a rule then proceed to dismantle those very institutions they were elected by.
I never said he turned himself into a left-wing Socialist dictatorship. He was elected by only 30% the first time around, then proceeded to nationalise all industries. He turned his country into a de-facto dictatorship, where the state owned or had enormous sway over most media. Of *course* he was re-'eleceted' with a wider margin the second time around!
I am asking this: You call China terrible, yet deign to say anything about the state of foreign affairs in the country you want to be proud of. Do you really not see your hypocrisy, or do you not WANT to see it?
America is engaged in a noble struggle to bring freedom to the people of Iraq, at
great cost of the lives of our own soldiers and treasure. Is it any coincidence that freedom has spread from only a few countries to half the world during the time where the most powerful country was itself a democracy? America is the only country ever founded AS a democracy, and we consider it our duty to spread that freedom to all people. We do make mistakes, but right now in Iraq we are correcting one.
China is a fascist dictatorship run by and for the military, which occupies Tibet and Hong Kong, and holds thousands of political political prisoners, executing dissenters with no fear of opposition. Taiwan is a democracy started by the original Chinese leaders who fled there during the Communist Revolution. China wants to enslave them too!
And you want to equate the U.S. with the greatest threat to freedom ever? We are so close to a tipping point for democracy in the world after which no further wars will be necessary again, and small people like you can see nothing but your blinding hatred of the idea of true resolve in the face of tyranny.
Oh, so it's OK to back coups against democratically-elected governments if they are socialist?
Ah, I see now. It doesn't matter that the people of Chile elected Allende in free and fair elections. It only matters that his election wasn't desirable in Washington.
If President Bush or ANY U.S. president held a press conference tomorrow saying he had arrested all non-like-minded members of the Supreme Court, dissolved Congress, and replaced the Constitution with a new one that 'fixed a lot of problems,' would you support his immediate removal by force?
I would. Strangely, though, when democratically elected leaders turn themselves into LEFT-WING Socialist dictatorships in other countries, the holier-than-thou left here in the U.S. and in Europe suddenly become so dedicated to the preservation of 'democracy!'
Wrongo, China and Taiwan are separated by water. And if there is any form of warfare the U.S. does well, it's not desert fighting, it air and sea combat. The U.S. has incredible numbers of submarines (including 'Red October' sytle stealth subs which never actually existed until very recently), and something like 12 super-carrier battle groups. Each one of these groups could crush a Chinese invaion.
An invasion of Taiwan would require a higly visible buildup of forces across the strait, which the Taiwanese and the U.S. watch very closely. Once started, supply lines across the air and water would be easily cut by our Navy and Air Force, and an invading or occupying force cannot survive long with zero supplies and reinforcements, especially as the Taiwanese would be defending their Freedom against one of the world's most repressive dictatorships, with the backing of the U.S.
And if you think President Bush would shy away from a fight, you've been asleep for the past three years. Besides, Taiwan quite probably has nukes, which they would not hesitate to use, and a few of those dropped on Beijing would reduce the number of Chinese by oh, 100 million just like that and plunge them back 10 years economically, not to mention cause massive political upheaval that the current Chinese dictatorship might not survive.
Yeah but never mind the collapse of the economy and explosion of prices, incredible numbers of jobs would appear in the U.S. overnight,
and Democrats would be so happy because, after all, job security is the only thing that matters, right?
I think about the economics of it too, but I also think about the lives that would be lost, even worst the terrible possibilty of yet another free country being enslaved by China.
Just become some business reporters report one concern I as a businessman may have doesn't mean they have covered the entirety of my feelings on the subject.
Actually Saddam killed around 100-150 people every DAY in his torture prisons. Plus, they were terrified to say anything out loud, lest their entire families be raped and tortured to death before their eyes. Now they are free and prefer their current situation to Saddam's rule by overwhelming margins according to every single scientific poll that has been done of them.
Exactly what are the trumped up, politically based charges? This is why Bush refused to go along with the International Criminal Court, it would be nothing but a political tool by radical leftist.
I'm sure they do, but they'd probably destroy or hide them during the six month run-up as a strategy to win the war politically by delegitimizing the reasons for it in the minds of the useful idiots on the left. Such a strategy relies on anti-war zealots who instinctively believe anything that validates their position, in place of a deep, reasoned evaluation of strategy.
I think the characters were assuming it was some kind of electro-magnetic pulse system at first because they didn't think their systems would have been comprimised like that. Then, the fembot's boyfriend told them he had 'discovered' some backdoors in the software he developed and offered to remove them so the remaining newer fighters could still be used.
I don't think that what was it at all. I think he has very 'flexible' morals, but is not a monster and would never willfully allow people to die purely to get his own selfish way, at least not if he had a good moral justification and it was just a few people who had it coming anyways.
There was nothing he could do when told about their impending doom, the fembot would have surely killed him if he tried. She would never have put him in the situation to make a difference, telling him 5 minutes before the bombs went off.
And his reluctance to explain his involvement is perfectly understandable. His execution or imprisonment would have served NO purpose other than to remove his chance to redeem himself, which he desperately wanted.
As for the '47,' every one of those people was desperate and quite probably would have stolen the number. When she handed it to him, it would have been very easy to just take it (what would they have been able to do to him?), but he hesitated, probably seeing a chance to do the right thing for a change. His initial responce of "I didn't do anything" was simply an instinctive response after years of very selfish behavior.
The guy was a self-centered bastard and the fembot understood that and used it. However, she has clearly no first-hand understanding of other human emotions, like guilt, and underestimates the crushing effect of being responsible for your species' extinction would have.
In fact, without guilt there would be no sense of morality. What do virtually all psycho killers have in common? They sociopaths, people with a brain disorder that keeps them from feeling guilt over their actions (but not necessarily love for those very close to them, especially if the are percieved to be an extension of themselves.
That's it! I solved it. The beginning of the movie says the psylons "decided to turn against their masters," which stated that way seems to imply a lack of morality, just a selfish desire to gain for their own kind. Maybe the humans' mistake was to put AI to work too early, before complex emotions like guilt had a chance to fully develop. The Psylons rebelled out of pure greed and an psycopathically egotistical desire to increase their numbers.
Then again, maybe they rebelled because they were treated badly. Cleary there was NO REASON to come back a wipe out the human race. If they are not driven by revenge as their ending statement about human 'nature' implies, they must have been driven by a desire to increase their numbers and a total lack of guilt in doing so.
To answer the original question, I never saw the original, I hope like HECK they make this one into a series. Improve the dialog a bit and this thing could be the best sci-fi series ever!
Jesus, I can't possibly be worst than Stargate SG1. What a horrible show, bad actors, LAME storylines, HORRIBLE script, boring sets and costume, where does all the money Sci-Fi blow on this thing go???
They weren't an electromagnetic pulse weapon, as I understood it they were transimitting a signal that told the defense software to shut down, using backdoors installed by the the evil she-borg lady. Pretty cool!
That's why it had no effect on the older hardware.
It is truly refreshing to have a president with a sense of right and wrong and trust in American power as a catalyst of positive change in the world.
I so strongly urge anyone who supports American democracy and our President to get involved in their defense by signing up as a GrassFire.ORG volunteer:
http://www.GrassFire.ORG
GrassFire is an online organisation of hundreds of thousands of ground level volunteers committed to the defense of America against the far left in this country and abroad who would rather see President Bush removed from power than Saddam Hussein, and who would revert our defense policies to a pre-9/11 state.
The 2004 presidential election is our chance as free people to show the terrorists with deeds we will NOT go back to sleep, we will NOT retreat in the face of an onslaught of pinpricks, they will NOT be successful in halting our offensive against them, and that our will and staying power is stronger than their own.
What you said is largely true, except the part about Cheney not benefiting from his involvement with Halliburton, as mentioned above in the grandparent post: "Vice President Cheney has a financial interest in Halliburton."
...nothing? Anyone who knows anything about the bureauacracy and heavy oversight involved, the idea of pushing a billion dollars with a single phone call is laughable.
I don't think his stock options were an issue at all until the haters started seeing massive conspiracies in everything this administration does. All congressmen own stock, so it is easy to form conspiracy theories, especially when it fits the purpose of extremists. But before you accuse the vice president of that level of corruption, shouldn't you have something better than, well,
You didn't mention the alcholic personalities of Bush and Cheney. The grandparent post gave links to their DUI records. Basically, Republicans are, in general, more out of touch with their feelings than Democrats. So Republicans tend not to notice alcoholic personalities:
Well you may be right about conservatives and libertarians being less emotional and therefore more logical, but I don't see how that keeps us from noticing 'alcoholic' personalities. After all, it was the Democrats who insisted throughout Clinton's presidency that character didn't matter and that in any case he was a good guy at heart. Then, on the way out of office Clinton gave out a string of very undeserved pardons to hardened criminals including a drug kingpin, all of whom had recently contributed huge amounts of money. After all the lies liberals were still stunned! And it is conservatives who for 10 years were dismayed at the dismantling of the CIA and our military, and Clinton's determination to make a legacy for himself at Oslo by trusting a known terrorist named Yasser Arafat.
Absense of deep or sophisticated thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
Have you ever read anything to come out of any conservative think-tank (Cato, Heritage Foundation, Hudson...)? Liberals like to think they are so smart, that only they should be allowed to spend your tax dollars and they alone have the good of the country in mind. The truth is liberals consist largely of the under-educated (those w/o a hight school degree vote 70% democrat) and the over-educated (university professors vote 85% democrat). A strong majority people in the 'middle,' those with a high school or 4-year college degree vote Republican. So don't mistake a lot of thinking with a lot of quality thinking, especially when the only ones who agree with your conclusions are the idiots who couldn't graduate high school.
Polarized thinking (Bush's "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good.")
Rigid thinking.
Here are two interesting articles:
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20031025-11101 1-1361r.htm
and http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/dhenninge r/?id=110004388
Lying
Name one lie, you lying liar. Watch me pick it apart as either outright false or simply a harmless exaggeration.
Anger ("... why is Bush so eager to engage in violence and so incapable of explaining why?" See the Sept. 24, 2002 American Politics Journal article and Addiction, Brain Damage and the President -- "Dry Drunk" Syndrome and George W. Bush )
The party of Dean wants to point fingers at President Bush on of all things, anger??!!! Your likely candidate (the Lord is kind) came out of nowhere through a campaign based entirely on hatred and vitriol. Presid
Economic growth is at a 20 year high (8.2%!), every single economic indicator is WAY up, and unemployment has been falling the past 3 months in a row, and is expected to follow.
;).
And with all the bitching about the budget, it remains only about 3-4% of GDP, roughly the same as in the last 50 years.
When Bush took office, the collapse of the tech bubble (and to an extent the 9/11 attacks) rocked the world economy. Bush inherited a situation which was not going to go away until a massive anti-tech business realignment took place, and that meant huge numbers of tech workers in inefficient or unnecessary companies would be laid off and of course the lost wages hurt every sector, especially manufacturing. The ONLY way to reverse the situation was to encourage a lot of spending and facilitate the destruction of inefficient companies and creation of new ones. This is one heckuva task, made much harder by the rise of China's 1.3 billion workforce willing to work for nothing.
But then Bush did something he wasn't supposed to do, and something that wasn't supposed to happen, happened! He cut taxes like crazy, increased spending to prop up jobs here in the U.S., agressively weakened restrictive business regulation, urged the Fed. to lower and keep interest rates low, and allowed the dollar to fall against foreign currencies, making our domestic made products cheaper to other countries. What happened? The economy is now growing faster than it has in 18 years, and every single economic indicator is way the hell up. We are in an economic boom and unemployment has fallen every month for 3 months and is expected to accelerate substantially. The liberals are shocked and have fallen back on a tactic that ignores trends and cause-and-effect, in favor of absolutes. All they can do is complain about the net loss of jobs, ignoring all sense of context because it doesn't fit their hateful conception of Bush as an idiot.
I can't say I don't like watching them squirm though