And the British judge gives that a...

You say that the threats going forward don’t need a large standing force – this was exactly what was said after the wall came down and the Soviet empire fell apart in the early 90’s. And yet the US still ended up invading Iraq and Afghanistan.

My view is the opposite. The rest of the world is very much aware of US military supremacy which is why countries like China, India and even Russia are building up their military capabilities. There have been two major wars in the last decade or so and both were against sovereign nations - Iraq and Afganistan,…

Domestically yes, but overseas perception is a different thing.

Oh you make perfect sense. If the US were to increase their economic strength then you wouldn’t need quite so much military strength – spheres of influence, etc. Maybe there will be a ‘rebalancing’ of budgets once the US withdraws from Afghanistan.

The cold hard math I see is that while the dollar is the global currency and the balance of trade deficits sit with countries who have a competing ideology and a growing economic superiority in terms of manufacturing and real resources, the US will have to have a far more dominant military than any other country in…

This looks awesome. I'd love for there to be an international series - Mikhail Gorbachev Slayer of Zombies or Winston Churchill Where the Werewolves At?

Just put the thrusters in reverse and the Klingon will fly by.

Bumblebee from Transformers

So if you had upper limbs and were female you were in trouble. Got it.

These are un-approved commenters. i.e they haven't gone through the 'auditioning process' and approved to freely comment on the Gawker network. We as starred commenters can see the pink comments and approve the comment but we can't approve the commenters as this done by Gawker personnel. Unstarred commenters cannot…

Exactly. Wasn't this the whole point of joining Star Fleet?

This reminds me of the very first lab in my Chem. degree. We had to make something similar to the bouncy ball substance, bounce it and work out it’s coefficient of restitution to see how pure the substance was. The only problem was that it took bl**dy hours to make, along with constant hand stirring in a fume…

4 courses in 4 minutes?!

Ah you see, that's were you're going wrong. A Mysterious Unknown Force is a horrible thing in a sci-fi show for the reasons you've given, but an Unknown Mysterious Force is a wonderful addition, adding complexity, depth and nuance!

But this ignores the ‘Unknown Mysterious Force’ of season 1 (as does Asimov). The UMF brought a sense of wonder and thoughtfulness to the series that I’ve not seen in any other TV show (far more than even Star Trek TOS). One of the main points of Space 1999 was that things are inexplicable – they cannot be explained…

Thanks for the link. I also hope they keep the UMF, but really hope they don't go down the Battlestar route and make it religious.

Thanks for the post Tim. I hope you are enjoying the sweet, sweet irony of the two pink posts below as much I am. vv

I don’t know how to feel about this. I watched Space 1999 when I was six and it is the main reason why I’ve loved the sci-fi genre all my life. It was so fundamental to my childhood - Helena Russell was my first crush and I wanted to be Alan Carter. I recently started a re-watch of the series after 35 years and it was…