Funk Babblings

In the first episode of this season, Alias was apparently trying to reinvent itself by poorly imitating the first season.
Tonight Alias decided to try reinventing itself by taking a plot device from Kurt Vonnegut and weakening it so that it's not quite so potent, literally or literarily.

In this episode of Alias, we had bad guys developing and testing a substance called Ice-5 to use as a weapon. Oddly enough, we see Ice-5 only as a liquid. This substance "freeze-dries" a person it comes into contact with, so that the person can shatter. Apparently it takes direct contact with Ice-5 to be affected. Of course Sydney saves the day and gets the Ice-5 away from the bad guys. (But what happens to it now?)

In Kurt Vonnegut's 1963 novel Cat's Cradle, a scientist (who also worked on the atomic bomb) develops a substance called Ice-9, with no intent but the pursuit of science. Ice-9 is a form of water that (a) is solid at room temperature, and (b) instantly turns solid any water it comes into contact with. Let's just say irrevocable disaster results, the atomic-age point being that the world cannot afford for the scientific community to ignore the potential negative consequences of what it does.

Vonnegut's point was, of course, completely lost in Alias.

I suppose we can assume that Ice-5 is five ninths as potent as Ice-9, but the story of Ice-5 is far less potent than the story of Ice-9.

Last night I watched parts of the Condoleezza Rice confirmation hearings on C-SPAN. The talk about Iraq got all the press, and there was a great exchange with Kerry about Iran, but what really struck me (other than that Rice apparently doesn't read any more than her boss does) was what she said -- and didn't say -- about torture.

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Oh yeah, read more about Rice and torture in this Daily Kos diary.