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It’s toenail-trimming day for the cats, and Becky’s getting her Jack Bauer groove on:
“I don’t know where Gredenko is, I swear!”
“Okay, okay! He’s in the Shadow Valley, launching drones!”
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Categories: 24, Pets, Animals & Stuffies
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24 superman Jack Bauer is hunting down suitcase nukes in L.A., the heroes of Heroes are trying to stop a nuke from going off in New York, and the residents of a small town in Kansas are trying to figure out which cities got nuked, and who nuked ‘em, on CBS’s surprise hit Jericho (which resumes tomorrow with a one-hour recap at 8pm, then starts its second half-season in earnest next Wednesday). In sum, TV executives are discovering that nukes make for good TV.
Unfortunately, there’s news about nukes in the real world, too — some of it bad and some of it… well, you be the judge.
First, the unequivocally bad:
Iran will be able to develop enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb and there is little that can be done to prevent it, an internal European Union document has concluded.
In an admission of the international community’s failure to hold back Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the document – compiled by the staff of Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief – says the atomic programme has been delayed only by technical limitations rather than diplomatic pressure. “Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded,” it states.
Gee, ya think?
Speaking of negotiation and engagement, here’s the other news:
In a landmark international accord, North Korea promised Tuesday to close down and seal its main nuclear reactor within 60 days in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil as a first step in abandoning all nuclear weapons and research programs.
That sounds like good news. But can we trust it, or will it lull us into a false sense of security? Let’s not forget what happened the last time we made a deal with North Korea to shut down its nuclear program. They took the “incentives” with one hand and kept secretly building nukes with the other. Can we be sure they won’t do the same thing again? Does this “landmark international accord” provide for meaningful oversight and muscular enforcement if Kim Taepodong Il doesn’t keep his end of the bargain? As usual, the devil’s in the details. And some of those don’t sound terribly encouraging:
North Korea also expressed willingness to accept the return of nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor what is going on at the reactor and other nuclear installations. But it said their work would be subject to agreement between the North Korean government and the U.N. nuclear agency, suggesting North Korea could exercise a veto power over their activities.
Good news or bad news? Only time will tell, methinks.
WARNING: SPOILERS! for anyone who hasn’t seen the episodes of “24″ that have already aired this season.
As I anxiously look forward to tonight’s special two-hour episode of 24, I find myself bemusedly pondering the delightful implausibility of the show’s central conceit: that the events in question all take place in the course of a single day. I’m sure this sort of thought process is old hat to long-time fans, but remember, this is my first season watching 24. As such, I am extremely amused at the total absurdity inherent in accepting that Jack Bauer is still a functional human being when, in the course of seven hours, he has:
• Returned a traumatized mute from nearly two years of torture in China;
• Learned that his life is being traded away to terrorists for the “greater good”;
• Been sadistically tortured by said terrorists;
• Shot one of his closest friends dead to save the life of a terrorist;
• Watched a nuclear bomb go off in his home city;
• Narrowly escaped death (numerous times);
• Tortured his own brother (twice);
• Learned that member(s) of own family is/are responsible for the nuclear attack, as well as the assassination of a previous President of the United States and the deaths of two of his colleagues.
All of that, I say again, in the space of seven hours! (Bonus: the first five items, and several instances of the sixth item, all happened in the space of four hours!)
“Good lord, not a two-hour episode! That means several more unspeakably horrible things will inevitably happen to me!”
And we’re supposed to believe that he’s still out and about, perfectly able to do his job (on which tens of thousands of lives depend)? Rather than being cooped up in a mental hospital somewhere, muttering gibberish?
Heh.
24’s alternate title should be “Jack Bauer’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day — Part 6.” Or perhaps simply “Worst. Day. Ever.” (In place of the trademark “beep… beep… beep” ticking-clock sound, you’d have a narration of the title by the Comic Book Guy, of course).
Thank God for suspension of disbelief! :) I can’t wait for hours 8 and 9 tonight. Beep… beep… beep…
P.S. On my list of traumatizing events that have happened to Jack Bauer in the last seven hours, I forgot at least one fairly significant one:
• Barely prevented his own death, and countless others, by kicking a suicide bomber out the back door of a train a split-second before the bomber exploded.
A specific mention of “biting a guy’s jugular off” might also have been appropriate.
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Categories: 24
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