Tear down the wall (or build more of them)

Conditions: Overcast, rain, gloom. Basically, the worst parts of the bible.


Taking a play from the Israelis, the Americans recently decided to construct a wall around a neighborhood in Baghdad. Unsurprisingly, it didn't go down too well with the Iraqis, who actually don't want their country converted into a prison any more than they want it converted into a smoking hole in the desert.

“We denounce the building of the wall, which will increase the sectarian rift,” said Um Muhammad, a teacher in Adhamiya. “We demand that occupation forces should remove it, and not to build any similar wall in other areas.”

On Sunday, the spokesman for the American military in Iraq sought to allay criticism of the project and explain its intent by saying that it was meant to be only a temporary barrier to improve security.

The military does not have a new strategy of building walls or creating “gated communities,” the spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, said in a written statement. He described it as a tactic being used in only a handful of neighborhoods and not an effort to divide the city, much less the country.

However, American military officials said last week in a statement that the Adhamiya wall was “one of the centerpieces of a new strategy.” They also said that the wall was aimed at separating Sunni Arabs in Adhamiya from Shiites to the east.

Try again, America. Article here.



Anti-intellectualism entertainment

This may surprise you, but a lot of films recently have been, well, not of the too goodness, let's say. Film critics, real ones, are starting to rattle their cages. Jeremy Smith of Chud writes a pretty good overview here.

This is why real film critics, even the ones who haven't seen a Mrinel Sen movie, matter more than ever. In an age when it's in no one's interest to make quality motion pictures so long as the numbers check out prior to pre-production, somebody who still gives a shit about this medium has got to, er, stand athwart film history and yell "Stop!", because the progress currently driving the industry is lowering the mainstream's standards for entertainment to a depressing level.

Riffing on movies

Ever felt like watching a bad movie, but you couldn't be bothered to think up lame insults as you watched? Yeah me neither. But proving yet agian that there is not one itch someone on the internet can't scratch, a site exists that lets you download audio files that will insult away at your film, while it plays! Wow, truly we are as gods.

Rifftrax.com




Alien Planet! (!)

On Tuesday, a team of European astronomers announced that they had not only found a new planet circling a comparatively nearby star in the constellation Libra, but that that planet is unexpectedly Earth-like. Like Earth, it orbits a comfortable distance from its sun; like Earth, it maintains a surface temperature somewhere between 32 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Most importantly, like Earth, it could easily harbor surface water. In the biological arithmetic we know best, warmth and water often equal life.

(from Time.com)

Well isn't this exciting? Okay, not really. I think it's important to note that this planet (I shall call it "Bob") is 20 light years away. I.e: it might as well be fictional as far as we getting to it is concerned. Some are saying that because the star it orbits is older than our own, a civilisation on the planet may be more advanced that us. Surely we would have picked up their CNN by now if that were the case? I just don't want everyone getting their hopes up again, like with that whole 'Canals on mars' thing a while back. All it is is a rock in space so far, people. Let us not go building spaceships just yet.

Even if we could visit 581c, there would be reasons to wait a bit before we light the rockets. For one thing, just because the planet could have liquid water doesn't mean it does. The body was detected like all extrasolar planets initially are, not by direct observation, but by measuring the infinitesimal gravitational wobble it causes in its home star. We won't get a clearer sense of its makeup until its orbit carries it in front of the star and the brief interference in the wavelength and intensity of the incoming light allows us to make some inferences about its composition. This will also tell us if the planet has an atmosphere and if it is thin and wispy like Mars's or suffocatingly dense like Venus's — neither of which promises good things for the kind of life we're most familiar with.

Related: Bookies lower odds on ET.

utvlive.com

Bookies have slashed ET's odds after scientists announced the discovery of a new Earth-like planet that may harbour life.

William Hill said it had shortened the odds on proving the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence from 1,000/1 to 100/1.

Spokesman Graham Sharpe said: "We would face a possible eight figure payout if it were to be confirmed that intelligent life of extra-terrestrial origin currently exists.
[...]

Scientists at the SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Life) Institute in the US plan to listen for intelligent signals from the star system.
"The older the star is, maybe the greater the chance that it has produced something that`s clever," said SETI spokesman Dr Seth Shostak.

Holy crap! That means a $1 bet would bring in..... er..... 100 bucks! Time to empty out all the loose change in the car. Screw the stock market, This is how I'll make my fortune.




Relative

According to people in the know, the star Antares in the constellation Scorpius is roughly 3.8 astronomical units in size. But what does this really mean. Well the folks at rense.com have put together a few images to put it in perspective. Try not to go insane.

http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm





Vader balloon



There are no words.



Film Review: Flyboys

Welcome to the hoary old days of World War 1. We are in France, near the front lines with the first fighter pilots, so naturally we focus on a bunch of Americans who are Here To Save The Day.

This film irritated the piss out of me. Think of any possible cliche concerning young American fliers in WW1 and you've got this film. Nothing is left to chance, every possible bit of sentimentality is hammered home with the subtlety of a bus, crashing into another bus, then exploding. Twice. This was a great opportunity to tell a terrific story about what it was like in the skies of WW1, but it's wasted by a weak, cliched script, poor acting and stereotyped characters, including the Germans who are all identical unshaven teeth-gnashing bastards. It simply doesn't pay enough of a tribute to the skills these pilots developed, their bravery and their sacrifice. The only highlights are the C.G sequences featuring vintage machinery in action. One and a half crosses out of five.



Film Review: Sunshine

Here's something really different. The trailer looked good, and the film delivers. Danny Boyle has created a sci-fi space-travel movie that focuses on the humans, and uses the technology only as a background to the story. On paper, it doesn't look good: The sun is dying. and a team is put together to fly a 'stellar bomb' to the sun in the hopes of restarting it. Truckers in space, again, some more. But don't worry, it's actually a crackingly good story about a bunch of people stuck in a confined space with a mission to carry out. The sets are gritty, the characters are well-rounded, and the tension gets cranked up nicely. In the end, it's a satisfyingly emotional, and even spiritual film, that hits all the senses. Four stars out of five.




End transmission