My Top News

United States and Pakistan

This is not the first time I've talked about Pakistan, infact the country I've talked about the most here and for good reason. A bit more than 3 years ago I posted this - Pakistan is an ally?. Wow a whole lot sure has changed since then. Most significant is the historic raid that took down the most wanted man in the world of 10 years and set of a chain of events that followed with, well lets just say some tension between the US and Pakistan.

Whatever they say publicly, it seems quite apparent neither side will, under these conditions, be able to trust either that much again. Problem is status quo is also not acceptable to either. Pakistan kicked out CIA trainers and other measures, in response we cut aid. But the one that caught my eye is something we were nervous about after the raid, the "stealth helicopter".

Pakistan 'gave China access to bin Laden raid helicopter'

Not to say that it is very surprising, because it's not. But one would think this is quite significant, to threaten like Pakistan did before regarding this helicopter but they actually acted on it. This helicopter was not some brand new, unknown super duper secret helicopter. It was a modified Black Hawk with stealth material, but is just as significant. Especially since numerous articles online say that China actually got some of the stealth material - one of the things our military is head and shoulders above all others is our stealth technology and now our main foe (not enemy) has a sample.

The US-Pakistan relationship is a very frustrating and yet very fascinating subject for myself. Yes the United States needs the Pakistan, but in return we put up with them fighting the Taliban to a minimum and allowing safe harbor for people that are directly attacking and killing US soldiers in afghanistan, on more than one occasion had soldiers engage US forces, harbored Bin Laden, the list goes on.

But I always hear "well we need them though" and I agree, but at the same time is there no breaking point? Now China has a piece of our stealth technology and at the same time also shows Pakistan has quite clearly choosen there side. We wanted them on our side and basically give them billions to play ball, barely. Instead they do all those things to us and they still choose china or at the very least, decide to act like a spoiled child and go to China anytime we upset them. Problem is this time it's an act that I don't think any responsible person of government (I know) should allow to happen without action.

Cut the leash. Figure something out, anything else out to supply troops in afghanistan. Heck if it costs us a billion a year we still save a lot of money and a lot of trouble. We've cut some aid but we're reacting to large actions with slaps on the wrists and Pakistan will not learn that way.

Internet Piracy

The debate between those who pirate and those in the entertainment industry has been a heated one. The RIAA, movie and music industry have all tried for many years now to put to a stop or at least to take a blow against people downloading movies, music or even video games without hardly any real sustainable success. One of the few succesfull events was the shocking lawsuit against Jammie Thomas-Rasset of $1.5 million. The original decision was slapped down being a mastermind of a piracy organazation or what? Nope, she downloaded 24 songs on Kazaa.

The decision was appealed and fast forward to July and that 1.5 million was deemed "appalling" by a judge and reduced to $54,000, amounting to $2,250 per song. (each song normall costs around $.99) This wasn't the first re-trial, going up and down from 222k all the way up to a shocking 1.92 million but before this case was at 1.5 million. Many would say that $54k still seems like a high amount, a normal $.99 song becoming an over $2000 song and if you count for $23.76 for the real cost of those songs and even add in legal fees and such, it doesn't seem sensible for a person to be paying over fifty thousand dollars for such a small crime.

Another case recently was the Expandables movie having the biggest file-sharing lawsuit in history, a massive 23,322 users were sued being suspected of downloading/sharing through torrent. However it was deemed that only those "reasonably likely to be living in the District of Columbia" can be involved in the lawsuit, not even being able to subpoena other ISP's in other areas, Torrentfreak put the number at 84 out of those 23,322 that could only be sued.

It's not to say that the industry is totally failing, but for sometime now they've been in a bad spot and instead of acting rationally they act like they've been horribly wronged and have had the attack dogs out. The problem is those dogs are blind and while tough and bite some of there enemies, ultimately they're not going to win.

Continued...

Chuck Season 4 Episode 11 Review - Chuck vs. The Balcony

Chuck finally returned last night after a lengthy break to my surprise an episode about the proposal. (I don't read TV descriptions ahead of time) It starts with an attempted proposal by chuck to Sarah in a nice Italian restaurant that is aborted when Sarah reveals the disastrous proposal story from there parents taking place in a very similar place that they were in.

But with a super important nanochip being in a french winery, chuck's proposal becomes an apparent "sub-mission" with morgan in charge. Later on when Sarah catches wind, she becomes in charge and near the end of the episode Casey encountering the situation, takes charge unknown to chuck.

All the while a lester subplot where he apparently is a very traditional....canadian. (some called it a cult) An arranged marriage disaster becomes a big opportunity but it's Lester, so he messes it up once but in an understandable way. But then his real attempt begins with Jeffster, which results in the response "That was the most embarrassing 5 minutes of my life".

Overall a good Chuck episode, the Lester/Big Mike subplot was nice and Sarah/Chuck was great although a bit nerv-wracking at times, I kept expecting Volkhov to bust in halfway through but the surprise ending with Sarah being arrested and basically becoming a double agent to take out the organization and bring back Chuck's mom was a nice surprise that after some thought I really liked.

B+

TV Rewind - 24 Season 1

Another tv related segment (though will only be done occasionally), TV Rewind. Basically revisiting either an older show or older season of a show to see how it holds up or simply to watch great television. First up is the first season of 24.

Watching the season 9 years after it first premiered it's a little weird knowing what happens but at the same time I realized what used to be so great about 24 and why it really was such an awesome show. Things like the (at the time) split screen first seen on 24, now is nothing odd to see. Real-time (ish) episodes were also revolutionary, though still not used anymore.

But the quality of 24 is still there despite seeing season 1 at least once before. The characters, the storyline, the tension. 24's combination of tense moments and the music is still better than any show even nowadays. What's more, the first season of 24 introduced the shocking events, there were several big ones during the season but the one that shocked everyone not only was Nina turning out to be a mole (despite early on being labeled a mole and being proven innocent and helping Jack for numerous episodes), but the one that got everyone talking was a Major character being killed off - Jack's wife.

The best characters even early on are quite obviously Jack Bauer played by the awesome Kiefer Sutherland and Dennis Haysbert playing the presidential candidate Senator David Palmer. The rest are great too besides a whiny Kim Bauer and it takes a bit for Tony to become one of the great characters he ends up as.

It's not the best season of 24 but especially if you've watched the later seasons, the first four are must see's and after seeing it years later, Season 1 of 24 is a lot better than I remembered.

What to Watch: 01/10/11

Just one more week! New episodes of numerous shows aren't here yet but a few good repeats and some football event.

BCS National Championship

First up is the BCS National Championship with the pre-game starting at 8 PM. Oregon vs. Auburn, self-explanatory what the game is and if your a football fan you'll be watching it. But there are some other things on...

At 8 is the episode, "Chuck Versus Phase Three", the last one before next week's continuince of episodes. It's a great episodes despite seeing it twice. While Awesome and Ellie try to decipher a secret left behind by the Bartowski's father, the rest of the gang venture into the jungles of Southeast Asia to rescue Chuck from The Belgian.

8 PM EST on NBC.

At 9 PM is an encore of last night's series premiere of "The Cape". A review will be up shortly but it's at least worth a shot to watch if you arent interested in anything else on tonight.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia repeats are on Comedy Central from 9 PM-11PM.

Denis Leary is on The Daily Show, Adam Sandler and Donald Glover on Conan so all in all, plenty to watch tonight.