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24 Day 8: 8pm – 9pm

Not much security related in this episode but still lots of ridiculousness and illogical situations.

The Russian mobster’s son is dying of radiation sickness but he refuses to allows his other son to take him to the doctor. Really not much a doctor could do anyway as there is no cure a doctor can only alleviate the symptoms with anaesthetics (to relieve the pain) and antibiotics (to prevent infections due to the compromised immune system). If he is dying why not put him out of his misery?

Of course number one son ignores his father’s sage advice and not only takes his brother to a doctor but then tells the doctor it’s due to weapons grade uranium. I could be wrong but I’m pretty sure that it is not medically relevant to know what isotope it was that caused the radiation sickness.

I love Jack’s hypocrisy, Renee is no more unstable and brutal than he’s ever been. Even her death wish is not that far removed from some of his behaviour in previous seasons.

The subplot regarding Dana’s mysterious past stands out so far as the most stupid element of this season so far. Would CTU agents be allowed unsecured cell phones at work? Apparently her past involves being an ex-con, as an accessory to murder! Then her ex-boyfriend seems to be succeeding in his plan to blackmail her into violating CTU security to give him classified documents that he can sell. I think that for any sane person that the risk of being caught and tried as a traitor would be a far worse scenario than merely losing one’s job.

How did the nuclear material get smuggled into the US and how do they propose to smuggle it out again? Since 9/11 there have been great strides in outfitting US and borders with radiation detection equipment and under the Container Security Initiative foreign ports that are shipping containers into the US, so this would appear to be a nigh on impossible proposition in the real world. Ironically the CSI according to Misha Glenny in his book McMafia has created a situation where it is now easier to smuggle goods into the US because foreign officials can be bribed to overlook what a container might have in it as long as it does not have nuclear material.

By Matt Wharton

Matt Wharton is a dad, vlogger and IT Infrastructure Consultant. He was also in a former life a cinema manager.

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