Armchair Generalist

Caprica Cancelled

I suppose this isn't a surprise.

Sorry, fans of “Caprica”, but the SyFy Channel has officially canceled your show. Not only has the cable net made the cancellation official, but they are pulling the show off their schedule after the November 2nd, 2010 episode. That leaves five more unaired episodes, which the network plans to run in their entirety sometime in early 2011, though when exactly is unknown. After that, there will be no more “Caprica”.

There's a more thoughtful discussion here other than "this show sucked" that I think is worth reading. It's not that "Caprica" didn't have some interesting ideas - the conflict of monotheism and polytheism, the challenges of the military-industrial complex, the rise of true artificial intelligence, the injection of virtual reality into a mass market - it's that the producers never invested in the discussion of these ideas through their characters. Instead, they tried to run too many character plots that seemed to have their origin from the Lifetime channel. 

In the last episode, I got to watch Clarice's "family" host a natural birth in their home. Yech. That's when I pulled it off the "record" menu.

I blame the SyFy channel as a an equal partner to the death of good science fiction shows. You'd think by now that they'd have figured out that splitting seaons in half and separating the two halves by three-four months tends to lose one's audience as they forget the plot, lose the action, move on to other shows. A sci-fi fan might think that a cable channel that was more interested in hosting "WWF Smackdown" instead of fantasy and sci-fi movies didn't really have its heart - or business interest - in your kind of show. 

Now, SyFy can replace the five final (and unviewed) episodes of "Caprica" with their truly horrible original movies like "Sharktopus," "MonsterWolf," "Dinocroc vs Supergator," and "Ice Spiders." If you think I'm kidding, these are actual movie titles on SyFy's site. Goodbye, SyFy channel. I'm hoping a change of management might re-invigorate your business sense, but I'm not optimistic.

Casual Fridays

Wow, very interesting. Great acting, great potential future, but the first episode "A Study in Pink" plot device - iocaine powder? Really? "Sherlock" is on PBS on Sundays. Hat tip to Lance Mannion.

On the "Must See" List

Prez Talks to Lefty Bloggers

...but not about Afghanistan or Iraq. Ah, well. Not as if he had any new strategies to propose.

Cult of EMP Crazy Goes to Senate

The USA Today features a remarkably balanced discussion about the "EMP threat" to the United States (with the exception of its very sensationalistic title). Seems as if there's a bill going to the Senate, so we get to rehash the very familiar debate between the Cult of EMP Crazy and the rest of the scientific community.

Fear is evident. With the sun's 11-year solar cycle ramping up for its stormy maximum in 2012, and nuclear concerns swirling about Iran and North Korea, a drumbeat of reports and blue-ribbon panels center on electromagnetic pulse scenarios.

"We're taking this seriously," says Ed Legge of the Edison Electric Institute in Washington, which represents utilities. He points to a North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) report in June, conducted with the Energy Department, that found pulse threats to the grid "may be much greater than anticipated."

There are "some important reasons for concern," says physicist Yousaf Butt of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. "But there is also a lot of fluff."

What's missing, of course, is any resemblance to journalistic investigation as to which side is misleading the American public and what their true motives are. Here's a hint: solar storms actually exist in nature, while conservatives remain upset that there aren't missile defense sites in every state in the Union. And if power companies are concerned about EMP effects on the grid, maybe they ought to invest their own money into developing safeguards against the possibility of that occurring.

No, It's Not Really COIN

Paula Broadwell uses Tom Rick's "Best Defense" blog to note the enthusiasm of US Army units in Afghanistan as they continue combat operations against Taliban forces in and around Kandahar. Does this mean that the COINdanestas (those supporting the counterinsurgency operations strategy) are going to be proven right? No one really knows.

So what is true, and what exactly is going on in Kandahar, the "heart of darkness," as it's now been coined? What appears to be true is that our conventional forces can still conduct major combat operations, and they're making some progress. The 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), also known as STRIKE Brigade Combat Team (BCT) is certainly feeling momentum and confident about their advances in the area. "We've removed the Taliban's ability to limit our movement in the area," said 1st Lt. Reily McEvoy, a platoon leader in the brigade. "This is what we trained for… a classic dismounted fight."

While the brigade is focused and accomplished in full-spectrum operations, they are also proving that our conventional forces can still tackle difficult combat operations and integrate all enablers in very kinetic ops against a tough enemy. "This is a complex fight and requires detailed synchronization of lethal operations and a partnership with our partner Afghan forces," said one ISAF official. "But STRIKE is doing it all." The feared loss of "conventional war-fighting capacity" has been debated in the military with the arrival of the "COIN era," but the STRIKE BCT's successful operations should assuage at least some of that concern.
--------
STRIKE BCT is proving its mettle by successfully conducting combat operations in very kinetic operations against a tough enemy. Let's hope the other surge forces can do the same. And for the COIN skeptics out there, don't worry too much that our conventional forces can't fight and protect the population at the same time. STRIKE BCT has shown otherwise.

Wow. It's amazing how our forces get to re-learn the lesson every year. I have no doubt as to the awesome power of an Army brigade combat team and its ability to devastate the Taliban every time the Taliban actually pulls more than a dozen of its rag-tag militia together. Truly, the Army has a mighty operational force. In the comments section, COL Gian Gentile remarks about how often we've seen this story.

However, as long as 1) Karzai's government lacks any credibility or capability to work with the regional tribes; 2) the Afghani security forces remain unqualified and untrustworthy, and 3) the Taliban continue to use Pakistan to rest and retrain and keep coming back into Afghanistan, then you really haven't demonstrated the success of counterinsurgency operations. Far from it.

Air Force Nuke Missiles Still Operational

There's a bit of a tizzy going around as to a story that an Air Force squadron of ballistic nuclear-tipped missiles were "incommunicado" for a short period of time. Actually, it was less than an hour on the past Saturday when our national military command could not communicate with silos controlling 50 Minuteman III missiles. While this was discomforting to a few to say the least, this wasn't a "Minot moment" where nukes were out of the bunkers and clearly not accounted for. Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic has more:

According to the official, engineers believe that a launch control center computer (LCC), responsible for a package of at least five missiles, usually ten of them, began to "ping" out of sequence, resulting in a surge of "noise" through the system. The LCCs interrogate each missile in sequence, so if they begin to send signals out when they're not supposed to, receivers on the missiles themselves will notice this and send out error codes.

Since LCCs ping out of sequence on occasion, missileers tried quick fixes. But as more and more missiles began to display error settings, they decided to take off-line all five LCCs that the malfunctioning center was connected to. That left 50 missiles in the dark.  The missileers then restarted one of the LCCs, which began to normally interrogate the missile transceiver. Three other LCCs were successfully restarted. The suspect LCC remains off-line.
--------
An Air Force spokesperson, Christy Nolta, said the power failure lasted less than an hour. "There was a temporary interruption and the missiles themselves were always protected by multiple, redundant, safety, security and command and control features. At no time was there any danger to the public," she said.

So it's a little bit of excitement for the new Air Force Global Strike Command. Nothing to be worried about, all is well. Not like the Tea Partiers were trying to confiscate a few nukes to make Texas an independent nation. Let's not make mushroom clouds out of minor computer glitches. That's what redundant command and control features are all about.

WikiLeaks Commentaries

Ellen Knickmeyer suggests at Foreign Policy that the outrage should not focus on what's in the  WikiLeaks documents, but rather on the pattern of deception by SecDef Rumsfeld and the four-star generals who were his yes-men. It's an interesting thought, but this comment to the post really was spot-on.

Nice article, but I think you missed the most important part, which was why Rumsfeld and Casey were denying a sectarian war had started at that time. The reason is because all along Rumsfeld wanted to withdraw from Iraq as quickly as possible. Those plans kept on being pushed back because of the rising violence. In 2005 and 2006 there were drawdown plans. The Samarra bombing came right when they were planning for the second attempt. Hence, Rumsfeld and Casey wanted to play down the rising violence so that they could try to get out. Of course, that didn't happen. Rumsfeld got fired, Casey got moved up, and Petraeus replaced him and the Surge started the next year.

Rob Farley suggests that the fallout from the WikiLeaks incident is going to show up more in future policy than on reflections on the past. It's all about controlling the information flow.

The logs further demonstrate the difficulty that states face in maintaining control over information. Despite its best efforts, the Pentagon has been unable to take full command over the dissemination of information about Iraq and Afghanistan. However, government and military policy on transparency is unlikely to undergo transformational change. By and large, governments do not react to the release of classified material by discriminating more carefully before classifying data, or by conducting business more openly. Rather, they tend to circle the wagons, improve methods of protecting data, and reduce the amount of it available.

And meanwhile, FDChief just sighs and says, "no shocking relevation here." Just food for thought. Go about your daily business.

Remoted CBRN Detection

Spencer Ackerman is taking in the sights at the annual AUSA symposium in DC, and he snapped a shot of an iRobot Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle dancing in the aisles. It reminded me of the DOD Chem-Bio Defense Program's effort to slap chemical and radiological detectors on the same frame and test it for operational effectiveness. They called it the CBRN UGV (pictured here in a 2008 training exercise).

It wasn't a huge leap in engineering. It features a Smiths Detection Lightweight Chemical Detector and a radiac (unknown model) strapped to the chassis. It was tested two years ago in Alaska, but to the best of my knowledge, was never transitioned to a formal program of record. The few that were used in an ACTD were turned over to the 71st and 95th Chemical Companies, I think. I'm not sure if it was a cost issue or whether the Army just didn't know what to do with the thing. Probably some of both. This was partly explained in the 2008 article.

"This robot is used specifically for point recon," Bercume explained. She said the platoon could do area recon with other vehicles. "We can cover a huge area, and then if we find contamination around a building or around a general area, we can send the robot in without sending personnel in. We're using it for a room, or in an urban area. It does an awesome job there.

"What we're deciding is exactly where to use it because our platoon has so many different (Mission Essential Task List) tasks," Bercume continued. "Point recon is one mission area, but we also have area and route reconnaissance. We can't use it on those missions, but we can use it when we find point contamination."

The thing is, given a military combat operation in the field against a traditional state adversary, a robot with a chem detector is pretty worthless because you expect large area coverage from an adversary's chemical weapons. Either you're in the slime and the detectors alarm, or you're not. You have to know that you're on the edge of a contaminated area for the recon robot to do any good. In the event of combat operations, a faster moving, more capable NBC recon vehicle is more valued than a remotely-controlled robot.

WALL-E's cousin here is only good if you have a small, limited, and contained hazard area - say, a suspected insurgent laboratory or production plant or an underground shelter - and you can take the time to set up outside of the building and send in the robot without worrying about being shot at or disturbed for a period of time. Which, if your focus is on just CBRN hazards, you could have easily done with a guy in a protective suit and a hand-held detector without the high cost.

I can understand why EOD units would want a robot. The hazard of an unexploded ordnance package requires a calm, patient, stand-off process, and certainly there are enough unexploded threats out there to justify the system. But there are not really a lot of calls for chemical detection in similar situations. If you can throw a chem and rad detector (the biodetectors are too big and heavy) on the robot without screwing up the EOD work, I guess the Army would like that. But it's an extra feature, not a standard. Oh, and don't even ask about the CBRN detectors for unmanned aerial systems, not even close to success there.

I'm writing this in part because I am not sure where chem-bio defense fits anymore in national security strategy. It seems as if neither states nor terrorist groups are really interested in chem-bio weapons - certainly there hasn't been a real threat weapons event in the last 20 years. As conventional weapons become more accurate, deadly, and available, there's really no need for the development of these old-tech "WMDs." Only North Korea hasn't figured that out. And as OSD keeps changing the basic definition of chem-bio defense, it's hard to figure out what our military forces need or should do differently.

Air Force Leaders Have the Blues

In this week's DefenseNews, reporter Michael Hoffman says that the Air Force leadership is being ignored by the Defense Department when it comes to picking four-star general/flag officers for the combatant commands. To make this case, he focuses on the CENTCOM commander position.

Not once in the past decade of fighting has a four-star Air Force general led U.S. Central Command or U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the jobs being open to any service. By comparison, the Army has had four generals in charge of Central Command since 2000, six generals at the helm in Iraq and another eight overseeing the war in Afghanistan. The Marine Corps has had three of its generals in the top spot at CENTCOM and one general leading the war in Afghanistan. The Navy comes in third, with one admiral commanding CENTCOM.

The Air Force is well aware of the Army’s prominence, which reflects both the size of the service and the leading role it played in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, even though most of its four-stars won’t concede them publicly, according to senior active-duty and retired officers.

Among themselves, however, the generals talk about how “frustrating” it is to be passed over for the joint jobs, said a retired officer turned Pentagon official, who asked not be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

One general who doesn’t shy away from talking about the lopsided numbers is one who can do something about them: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz. Also not silent is Schwartz’s civilian counterpart, Secretary Michael Donley.

Both Donley and Schwartz recognize the key to landing the theater command spots is training and more joint experience — before officers put a star on their shoulder.

“This issue starts not just with brigadier generals but with majors and lieutenant colonels as we develop career paths through Air Force assignments and into the joint world,” Donley said.

Schwartz is confident he can increase Air Force representation in the combatant commands right now by offering up the best of his colleagues. His challenge is how to keep the brain drain from adversely affecting the service.

“We have to pay attention to running the Air Force,” Schwartz told Air Force Times in an interview. “But if we are trying to decide where to strike the balance, I lean toward placing our best people [in] joint opportunities and doing our best to manage our Air Force, as well.”

Oh, go cry me a fucking river. This is beyond ridiculous. As I've noted frequently in this blog, the Air Force routinely gets three to four COCOM positions when DOD decides how to hand out the leadership roles. Yes, CENTCOM and PACOM have not gone to AF generals, because as a general rule, these have been seen as dominated by ground and naval forces. What a surprise, that the Air Force - as a supporting role to ground and naval operations - might not be the lead pick in those two theaters. But for the past ten years, the Air Force general officers have done very, very well when it came to COCOM selections. And let's not forget about Gen. Richard Myers and his role as Vice Chairman and Chairman of the JCS for a combined six years.

The Air Force has had more than its share of general officers in top defense positions, especially if you add the leaders of certain national intelligence agencies. If the AF leadership is so concerned about this trend, please, give up your lock on the TRANSCOM and STRATCOM commanders' positions. I am sure the Army wouldn't mind running those two important commands for a while, despite their heavy emphasis on strategic air operations. But I just don't see that as likely to happen, for some reason. Maybe it's time for Prof Rob Farley to weigh in on this Air Force issue.

Never Liked Juan Williams

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
NPR Staffing Decision 2010
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

Rocky Horror Picture Show Turns 35

I hadn't realized that the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" turned 35 years old this year (actually, last month). Where are the original cast members today? Some of them may be on the "Glee" episode tonight, but I predict that the show will fall far short of success, given the need to de-emphasize the sexual theme of the film (some spoilers in the link).

I remember a few years back when the film was broadcast on television - maybe it was the 25-year anniversary. Doesn't remotely compare with going to a movie theater, though. You're still a virgin if you have only watched the film on television.

UPDATE: Well, it could have been worse, but not by much. The singing was emotionless, too synthetic. Good acting by Kurt and Emma and the nasty Brittany/Santana team. Everything else, meh. Don't even think of downloading the Glee soundtrack. Strange, the original soundtrack isn't listed on iTunes. Get the CD, then. 

Neocon Dreams of the Future

Both Colin Clark at DoD Buzz and Paul McLeary at War, Security, COIN and Stuff have covered Eric Edelman's publication of a CSBA manuscript predicting the United States' continued domination of global affairs - as long as the right decisions are made. Amidst all the dire forecasts of the decline of American Empire, Edelman predicts a different future. Now, not all of you may know Mr. Edelman. He was the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for the Bush administration's second term, between 2005 and 2009. 

Accepting the new conventional wisdom of decline and an end of US primacy could well lead to an alteration of the strategic underpinnings of American global policy and could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

A rigorous assessment should consider the strengths and weaknesses of the United States’ putative competitors on the global scene as well as the enduring strengths and sources of resilience that have enabled America to extend its primacy and maintain a stabilizing, global hegemonic role against all expectations. There is a need for a framework to inform how US policymakers might think about the problem of developing strategies and policies to extend that role yet again, since it is at least an arguable proposition that rather than a multipolar world, the global system, after the current Great Recession passes, will continue to be unipolar but with some additional challenges for US leadership. 

While others will comment positively on Dr. Edelman's words of promise and look for the continued supremacy of Pax Americana, I'll offer a different interpretation. He's a neocon at heart. This is more of a standard philosophy of the neocon culture that wants to see American military might used unilaterally against a bad, scary, and uncertain world. It's an alternative reality that the neocons want to invent, rather than the multipolar world that currently exists and is forecasted to continue in the National Intelligence Council's 2025 report and the JFCOM Joint Operating Environment report. 

The truth is that the US government is sorely challenged by a global economic crisis, just like everyone else, and we're not going to emerge from it easily. Our military has been stressed to the breaking point, and the continued research, development, and acquisition of multi-billion dollar defense systems will ensure we don't have the force required for future combat operations. The only way our government can hope to function is to recognize the need to work with other countries, stop trying to change cultures through massive American interventions, and develop strategies that are bounded by resources. 

So I'm not going to give Edelman's report much time. He's busy creating a universe that doesn't exist, will never exist. How the CSBA let him in the door, I have no idea. It's not a good story.

WikiLeaks Iraq Edition and "WMDs"

I have not had the opportunity to really peruse the latest WikiLeaks dump on Iraqi combat reports. Over the weekend, I couldn't get onto their site, probably due to the number of interested parties going through the files. Noah Schachtman at the Danger Room did file this report on "WMD finds" by US troops (other than the Iraqi Survey Group's work between 2004-2005).

In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.

Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”

Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”

Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”

Noah's article doesn't talk about the chlorine IEDs that were used in 2005-2007 timeframe. I do know there are a number of "chlorine" and "IED" reports, but I haven't had the time to really look at them. I will take exception, however, at his calling these 1980s-era Iraqi chemical munitions as "lethal and exotic arms." Technically, mustard agent is a non-lethal chemical warfare agent - it burns and scars the flesh, but doesn't kill like nerve agents do. It is hardly "exotic" as it has been a standard US military agent since 1918. As far as the "neuroparalitic agent" that allegedly came from Iran, it seems pretty clear from the report that this was a case of fraud and not an actual chemical weapon exchange.

Noah's post caused an impressive amount of comments (more than 150 as of Monday noon), split between those who accused the Bush administration of using WMDs as a pretext for invasion and those who are stupid enough to still believe that Iraq had an active WMD program after 2002 (not that I have a strong opinion on one side or the other). But I will point out that Noah does fail, as many others in and out of government do, in his calling out the attempted use of small amounts of chemicals by insurgents as a "WMD capability." A few mustard rounds does not a WMD capability make, nor should chlorine IEDs be considered "exotic."

Words are important. We ought to be clear on what we're talking about, especially in an area as politically complex and emotionally sensitive as "WMDs."

British Stimulus

I've been meaning to note this odd story, where the British government has decided to build a carrier that it never intends to use because of the acquisition deal that was made to save jobs. From the British Forces News:

Taxpayers will have to pay £2.6 billion for a Royal Navy aircraft carrier that will never carry jets because the Labour government agreed an “unbreakable” contract designed to protect shipbuilding jobs in Scotland it was claimed today.

The Times newspaper is reporting that Gordon Brown made a 15 year agreement to guarantee work for BAE Systems at their shipyards on the River Clyde and in Portsmouth.

The Prime Minister David Cameron revealed this week that it would cost more to cancel the second carrier than to build it because under the Labour deal, the ship workers would have to be paid, regardless of whether they built the carriers or not.

The total cost for both carriers will be £5.2 billion.

That's $8.25 billion in US dollars, $4 billion per ship (which, compared to a US carrier, is a real deal).  I forget where I saw it, but someone once noted (in discussing the "stimulus" of World War II in a post-Depression United States) that the US government could have built tanks and dumped them into the Atlantic and the economic benefit would have been the same. It's a shame, though, that governments are convinced to build huge weapon systems that will essentially act as museums, when the funds could go to the transportation infrastructure that's falling down around us. Ah well.

More Airpower, Sez Dunlap

SHORTER Charles Dunlap: "Counterinsurgency tactics don't work in Afghanistan. We really need to bomb the Taliban more heavily if we want to get the job done."

What a surprise. Recently retired AF JAG and two-star general Dunlap is still promoting his theory that the US government can bomb its way out of Afghanistan. Using airstrikes that kill a few civilians along with the insurgents can save more civilian lives than using ground troops and drones. Or something like that.

Chem Demil Update

Arkansas' Baxter Bulletin tells us that the Pine Bluff Chemical Activity is on its way to completing its chemical disposal efforts. The last shipment of mustard agent ton-containers was delivered to the facility, despite the best efforts of the Kentucky and Colorado environazis who are dead set against the successful use of chemical incineration technology. 

Officials on Thursday announced that the last of one-ton containers with mustard gas had been transported from storage at the arsenal to the disposal facility.

Lt. Col. Nathaniel Farmer, commander of the Pine Bluff Chemical Activity operation, said a total of 5,879 containers were used to deliver nerve and blister agents under strict safety and security procedures over a five-year period.

The chemical weapons stockpile has been stored at Pine Bluff Arsenal since the 1940's.The disposal of the ton containers at the PBCDF is the final campaign of the chemical weapons disposal mission.

I'm a little confused by the press release. The schedule for Pine Bluff Arsenal's end of operations was expected to be in 2012, not 2010, as the article states. I have suspicion that the 2010 date is when the final campaign will start, not end. 

UPDATE: A friend of the blog called in to say, yes, in fact the mustard ton containers will all be drained and the mustard agent incinerated by the end of the year. I guess I'm amazed because the program has only delayed efforts in the past and has never completed a disposal project ahead of time. It's a good news story, though.

Nuclear Mondays

Picture of the Israeli Dimona nuclear facility, running a military weapons program that officially doesn't exist, recently aired by an Israeli news service.

Maybe this is the first step of Israel deciding it is time to lose its "nuclear opacity."

Run Away, Run Away!

Arizona representative Raul Grijalva got a special letter in the mail - white powder in a swastika-covered envelope. How special!

A staff member called Tucson Police earlier Thursday after finding an envelope containing the suspicious white powder. The offices were locked down by Tucson Police, and the FBI arrived to assist in the investigation, KVOA said.

An envelope arrived with swastikas drawn on the outside and a white powdery substance on the inside, Adam Sarvana, Grijalva’s spokesman, told the Arizona Daily Star newspaper.

It’s not the first time his office has been the target of threats, the Daily Star said.

There seem to be conflicting reports as to whether the powder was toxic or not. The FBI says the powder is not toxic, but is not naming the substance, since it's an open criminal case. Hopefully no one was decontaminated in the process of this false alarm.

Compare and Contrast

I was just thinking. Looking at some of the new television shows that are out, I just have to say this. The crime drama "Terriers" with Donal Logue and Michael Raymond-James is just an outstanding show. Great writing, great acting, just good television. Much recommended. But then again, they cancelled "Life," another great crime drama on which Logue starred.

That's not the case with the SyFy show "Caprica." Uninspired writing, tepid acting, annoying characters. I'd love to have a good sci-fi television series to watch (is "Stargate: Universe" any good?) This week, we got to see four different unconnected plots moving in the same episode, with the action jumping from one plot to the next every thirty seconds. It was really annoying.