Re: <nettime> Threat Matrix: Early Snapshot of the Propaganda War

[Carl Guderian <carlg@vermilion-sands.com>]

Cutting edge chutzpah! This one jumped the shark while coming out of the
starting gate. It's even been vaccinated against accusations of racism, by
having a couple of Arab-Americans on the good guys's side.

I'm waiting for the secret plot by Old Europeans, assisted by our old
friends the Bilderbergers and the Gnomes of Zurich, to drive down the
dollar in favor of the Euro. "Soon America will fall into our hands like
an overripe fruit! Everybody will be forced to drive little girly cars and
pay $0.50 to use public bathroom. Muhuhahaha! On the other hand, you
Americans can smoke again!"

Early returns show they managed to make nuclear terror and freelance
biowarfare boring. HSA agents teleporting around the globe like Sydney
Bristow in "Alias" is the least of its improbabilities. Like "Cain's
Hundred," it'll be lucky to bag a dozen baddies before the axe falls. Too
boring even to download for a cheap laugh.

Threat Matrix defeats Ebola but succumbs to "Friends" and "Survivor":
http://www.suntimes.com/output/rosenthal/cst-ftr-phil18.html

Most newspapers say it's crap. As does disinformation:

http://www.disinfo.com/site/displayarticle602.html



Here's a funny review I lifted from http://www.numskullery.com/:


THREAT MATRIX: RELOADED

Well, I tried to watch Threat Matrix, but sadly I didn't make it through
30 minutes of the thing. It's just lame. For a bunch of "national security
experts" they sure do spend a lot of time explaining all the gear and
procedures to each other. People, people, they are better ways to explain
stuff to the audience.

This show could really take some pointers from Alias, CSI, Law & Order,
and 24. Threat Matrix handles threats to national security with all the
urgency of swinging in a hammock while drinking a beer. These guys looked
downright bored sometimes. Ugh.

After watching just 30 minutes of this lame-ass yawnfest, I have to
consider the TV Guide my own personal Threat Matrix brief.

But here's something I bet you didn't know:

The terror alert advisory is actually based on the General Mill's cereal
Trix. Whichever piece is left in the President's cereal bowl after
breakfast is what color the threat advisory is for the day.

Posted by chris at 09:50 PM | Comments (4) 
ments (4) 

For a non-PC equivalent, rent "Wanted: Dead Or Alive," the mid-80s movie
with Rutgar Hauer as bounty hunter Josh Randall III. The Arab villain
Malik Shah is played by the non-Arab Gene Simmons, former lead singer of
'70s mega-rock group KISS, and he plans to gas Los Angeles, Bhopal-style,
infiltrating the chemical plant like Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The
plan is foiled, pretty much like it was for the Forty Thieves.


Carl
I spell *my* name DANGER



-- 
Games are very educational. Scrabble teaches us vocabulary, Monopoly 
teaches us cash-flow management, and D&D teaches us to loot the bodies. 
-- Steve Jackson



#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net