LadyCrimson

I don't remember the voice acting being bad. It was having to stare at those funky, goofy faces so often while the voices spoke, that I found irritating. Since I never finished the game (something that happens to me ever more increasingly w/games as years go by...) I doubt I'll buy this. Oblivion was a fairly good game; more involving than Morrowind and certainly beautiful - but like Cant, I never bought the expansions to Morrowind either...I think I've given them all the money I care to give for now.

Media-image wise, the original Octavian as he was looked too childishly innocent for that, I agree. Tho mostly I think it's because of his long curly hair. I wasn't sure if they were going to cut his hair and use a little more makeup and such to give him a more mature mein or a use a new studly actor. When he disappeared from screen for a bit, I knew it would be a new actor. With the guy they picked - who doesn't look so much more "mature", really - I think they would have been just as well off giving the original actor a haircut etc.

I agree about Wayne Palmer. I suppose they may have wanted to show a President that wasn't a towering inferno of stoic righteousness and strength (or "evil"), but as before...just not very compelling. The difference between the 1st and 2nd seasons and the ones after are quite stark, imo. Not to mention...just how many 'worst days of his life' can Jack have? I keep thinking they'll eventually try to groom a new agent to take his place - I remember thinking that's what they originally intended w/Kim's CTU boyfriend that one season but got rid of him when people didn't like him...and of course, I wonder if the series would survive w/out Jack as the main man. Probably not....

On that issue - do the low-cost/planned parenthood type places offer these vaccines to people at a very low cost/free? If they do, that helps soothe my personal morality feeling a bit, as my worry is that there are still plenty of people in the United States who do not have the income or the job to aquire/maintain even basic health benefits. Those are the ones who likely couldn't afford or would be unwilling to pay for the cost of the vaccine w/out help and thus wouldn't get it because they're more worried about other costs. They may not be bad parents persay - it may simply be a matter of money. It's easy to say from above "well it's health, health comes before everything" but when you're in a situation where it's schoolbooks or clothes or rent or the fare to get to your crummy job vs. a 3-visit vaccine, it's not so easy or so obvious to them.

My reference to polio was mostly an effort to remark that a stance of absolute non-government involvement except when "too many" people might die, feels inconsistent to me - what I would call ethical convienence. Doesn't sit well with me personally, that's all - not only for healthcare, but for other issues as well. I know that's a subjective belief system issue - which while possibly interesting and oft debated, imo isn't very helpful for analytical evaluation of logistical benefits vs. costs of topics like these - someone I know took me to friendly task for that recently - so sorry if I took things a bit off track.

The problem as I see it is they've turned 24 into an 'action' series rather than a 'character+action' series. It's still entertaining - just not as compelling.

I fully agree that funding for medical research is woefully lacking. Not to mention, if health care/drugs wasn't becoming so outrageously expensive for the average soul to get/aquire, perhaps more parents would voluntarily go get vaccines in the first place. The general problem for all these things, imo, is human nature - people in general don't like to give money to things that do not appear to have immediate visible and/or guarenteed results (or harm) to them personally. If there was a voting option that said "the government will fund either of these projects, please choose one" - I'd pick the research over the cervical cancer mandate. If I look at the vaccine mandate by itself, I'm still for it. For one thing, if carried out, in 50-80 years we'll have new data - vs only emotional speculation - regarding this type of cancer, the vaccine, and eventual costs.

While I can understand the point of view, I also think some people are too touchy and have no sense of humor. I think it's more likely tho that they just saw it as an oppurtunity to get some media spotlight attention for their issue. The commerical isn't very funny regardless...it's like a bad Sat. Night Live skit.

(Young) children typically don't have the capability to understand the long-term ramications of certain decisions, imo, no. And parents are sometimes not objective enough, also imo. That's just human nature. Of course the government isn't always great at deciding things either - as I already stated earlier, there are cases where a vaccine may not be proven effective or safe enough for me to think it's worthwhile...yet. There is also always the consideration of whether too many vaccines may eventually backfire via stronger worse mutations. And like many, I often object to too much government meddling in what I can or cannot "do" - while also fully aware that sometimes that's more a psychological reaction rather than a rational reaction...heh. There's a lot of things in play, a lot of things to consider. My objection here, I suppose, stems mostly from the seeming objection about the cost of such mandates. To me, saving potential lives shouldn't have a dollar value assigned to it - $100 is ok, $300 is not - or at least, that shouldn't be the primary objection.

That wasn't too bad - but it wasn't really good either. World Trade Center was better than United93, as far as those types of movies go. Less sensationalist perhaps. Not that I loved that one either. I still can't believe how many reviewers gave it 5 stars and such. :dry: Maybe 3.

The hair thing did make me laugh. Not only is it suddenly straight - which might be ok, some people w/curly hair cut very short get that way - it's now brown instead of blond.

So in lue of even the most basic parenting skills you advocate the government "taking charge" of those pesky decisions and deciding for you? Well, youve got me there, I have no adequate response for that. So if the most 'basic parenting skills' means they're going to trot their kids down anyway, what's they objection to a mandate to cover those that aren't? People can be very "good parents" overall and still be in complete denial about playing the odds with their children's future health. What I advocate is not allowing children, who can't make such arguments/decisions on their own, to be deprived of an option that may (or may not - nothing's ever certain) save their life in the future.

Precisely.

Children can't protect themselves and not all parents have the education/awareness or the mental...uh...acumen to "trot their children down" to do it for them.

So only certain people are worth the cost of protecting against death by disease?

I'ts my understanding that it'll only work in someone if they have not yet been infected with the virus - since it's easy to get HPV and it often has no symptoms to let a person know they've contracted it, the obvious "target" of vaccines are young children before they've ever had any sex. Regardless of how one may morally feel about it, in this day and age, and in some cultures, that typically means the very young.

Areas in California are also beginning to discuss or pass ordinaces/laws/whatever about not allowing many "bad" foods to be sold in schools, as well, particularly vending machines.

That surprised me not at all. I had a hunch they were going to change actors as soon as Octavian became "grown up" or a battle-leader or what have you. They didn't do too bad a job picking the new actor physically, and his voice seems pretty similar, but the original guy had a better screen presence. We'll see. I think they should just kill off those two bitter and arrogant rich-women characters and have done with it. I miss Niobe. I'm still lovin' the show, tho - especially some of the more minor characters with a few great lines now and then, like a couple of the Senators. Roman soap opera was never so entertaining.

I have the feeling my warped sense of humor caused me to read this really wrong, but it sure made me LOL. I love pets but if I had kids I probably wouldn't let them have one until they were fairly old. Well, maybe a hamster...

I still disagree with this, a lot. Sure cat litter smells, because it's, y'know, crap and urine and all that - but to my nose, cat fur itself doesn't stink. I can't stand the musk-oil dog smell that's dog fur, and can smell it on people's clothing from 6-10 feet away. If you bathe your dog every day, sometimes that helps minimize it to where it doesn't bother me, but beyond that...*holds nose* Rewards of a pet are in the eye of the beholder. With indoor-only cats, you notice a lot more of a cats personality/devotion, I think. At least I have. Dogs are definitely more/easily trainable tho. "get off the couch, cat!" "Stop that!" "Where's the waterpistol?" "Get off my sweater!" "Argh!!!"

Bold emphasis mine. I don't know about zero effect, but I agree with mkreku's point. The USA has so many guns (and weapons in general) floating around already - unless people voluntarily give the vast majority of them up, it's pretty hard to control who has them, where they are, etc, no matter what laws you pass. There are occasionally towns that give up their guns like that, but it's not common. Is the USA "really that bad?" Since I've never lived anywhere else, I couldn't say. I don't think it's anywhere near as bad as some think it is or try to paint it out to be, certainly. Stats can never tell you what it's like to actually live in a specific place. But fear has become a saleable product in the US. The odds of the average US citizen encountering a really "deadly" situation or a gun in their face is still fairly damn low overall I think, but it depends a lot on where you live...the coastal or other large city areas are very different than the more rural or mid-West areas - a rich suburb on one side of the freeway much different than the lower-middle class on the other side of the same freeway - micro-city environments within the main city and all that. But of course the news media pumps up every violent crime to the point where citizens live in fear of being the victim.

Weapons themselves have never given me a buzz. I do, however, find it fascinating how much energy and...um...intelligent thought goes into the creation and escalation of weapons in order to maintain balances of "power" or defend populations, as well as the tactics of how to defend/attack against such flucuations as they occur. That leads to admiration of the technical building of the machines of war, so to speak. Perhaps in an ideal world I'd rather such energy was turned to other things instead, but...humans are interesting creatures and I think study of all it's aspects, behaviour patterns & inventions equally revealing/interesting, whether they're "good" or "bad".

Being into warfare strategies/tactics/history of development of all major periods, weapons have always fascinated me on an intellectual level. Occasionally I've even thought of buying some, from historical sword models to bows to handguns. But I'm too lazy to be skilled w/a bow, say, and have no use for weapons beyond mounting them on my wall, thus my interest remains intellectual. Machine wise, it's a nice piece of hardware, certainly. Ethics - eh...If there were no guns, there'd be no gun-related crimes/accidents and less actual fatal situations/accidents, sure, but it's not the guns...it's weapons in general, including sticks and rocks, combined with humans violent tendencies. ie, it all depends on the individuals. Unfortunately it's hard to regulate and control via individuals, thus we have laws. which in the US is admittedly rather lacking compared to some other areas. I have no problem with people wanting to own/target practice a handgun or a big nasty bow. People who have basements full of weaponry or want to possess aresenals of automatic weapons in the name of "home safety" could probably use a little...uh...help, imo.

It's a battlecry - it doesn't have to "fit." I'd use it to replace "charrrrrge." :D Make it so sounds too....polite.

I'm still partial to "Khaaaan" as a battlecry.