Anniversary, baby.

Conditions: Sunny!


ANNIVERSARY!!

Twelve long months ago the MusingJones site was created. A dream of contemplation begun amongst the electronic ocean of the net. Or just a place to make with the chit chat. And what were those first few posts? Stuff about Mars, Iraq and my car. So we've stuck loyally to our credo in the intervening year. I'd like to thank the fine people/bots at blogspot.com for making all this possible. And those crazy cats out in the big wide world, without whom I'd have not much to think over. And of course you, the reader, for all that ...reading. Keep on being wonderful!



Fishing In Iraq.

When you think of soldiers operating in Iraq you think of them driving around in trucks, dodging I.E.Ds, and kicking in doors of suspected insurgent hideouts. But it might surprise you to now that they also fish. Not in rivers though, don't be ridiculous. They fish in the streets.

WASHINGTON - Army snipers hunting insurgents in Iraq were under orders to "bait" their targets with suspicious materials, such as detonation cords, and then kill whoever picked up the items, according to the defense attorney for a soldier accused of planting evidence on an Iraqi he killed. Gary Myers, an attorney for Sgt. Evan Vela, said his client had acted "pursuant to orders."
[...]

sworn statements and testimony in the cases of two other accused Ranger snipers indicate that the Army has a classified program that encourages snipers to "bait" potential targets and then kill whoever takes the bait.

The Army on Monday declined to confirm such a program exists.
[...]

"Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy," Didier said in the statement. "Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. forces."

- Yahoo.com

So for five points, can you guess why this is pretty awful? That's right, if you're trying to live in an occupied country, with people shooting at each other all day long, and you happen to see a weapon of some kind lying on the pavement, you might pick it up in order to get rid of it, or keep it for your own protection, only to get shot by a sniper who set it there as bait. This is what war really is, people. A breakdown of fundamental human decency, and a sustained miscommunication between different people.


Not Fitting In.




The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has just about now wrapped up his week long visit to New York for a United Nations general assembly meeting. And while in the country, he has been universally attacked and ridiculed by everyone, including the president of the Columbian University, who invited him to speak to students, and then introduced him on stage with a flurry of petty insults. He was also prevented from laying a wreath at the W.T.C site, ostensibly for security concerns, but several politicians said he would have been "violating sacred ground." What does that even mean? Do these people even know that Iran held mass candle-light vigils for America directly after the 9/11 attacks? Would they even care if they did?


I find this greatly amusing. While Ahmadinejad has said publicly many things many don't agree with (and a lot of it could be termed as playing to the crowd, like Bush at a Republican fund raiser), he's still the president of his country, and the host nation should at least act with some tact. By constantly harassing him and demonising him, the media is effectively, and once again, doing the Bush administration's job for them, pumping up an Arab leader into an inflated cartoonish threat to national security. Making it easier to justify taking a hard line in order to force a military strike the neocon hawks want in their quest for victory in the Middle East, but which in fact could almost lead anywhere.

'Outrage' at Debka.com.



Paradigm Shifting.

It's not often you get to witness society change, but this week I think marks just such a point. HALO 3 has opened in America, generating 170 million damn dollars, way out performing SpiderMan 3, but the catch is HALO 3 is a video game. The video industry is winning the war. The times, they are a changin'.

With more than $170-million (U.S.) in sales in its first day in U.S. stores, Microsoft Corp.'s Halo 3 video game for the Xbox 360 became the biggest entertainment release in history, eclipsing the $151-million debut of Spider-Man 3 for top spot on the list, the company said in an e-mailed statement.

The most anticipated video-game release of the year, Microsoft received more than 1.7 million advance orders for Halo 3. Gamers across North America lined up at midnight on Monday to be among the first to score a copy of the game. Halo 3 has already attracted 1.39 million online players in the past 24 hours, according to the website of Microsoft's Bungie Studios, the game's creator.

- The Globe and Mail.com

So, this marks the beginning of the end of traditional passive movie-based entertainments, and the start of a much more active and inter-active way of spending our down time. One wonders whether contemplation of plot and ideas characterized by watching a film is better for the mind that merely reacting to stimuli that game play so usually is comprised of. But the world, she is a liquid thing. Always running through ones fingers. Like blood. Or something less icky.



Mass Hysteria ...From Above.

Remember that story about a meteor causing people to get sick in Peru? Well it turns out it may have just been hysteria. From Space. Space Hysteria.

Media reports of the number of locals afflicted by a "mysterious disease"--with symptoms such as nausea, headaches and sore throats--after visiting the crater figured in every news article about the Aug. 15 event, with some reporting that as many as 600 people had fallen ill.

But doctors who visited the site told the Associated Press they found no evidence that the crater had actually sickened such a large number of people.

If noxious fumes did emanate from the crater, they were most likely the result of a hydrothermal explosion that could have actually formed the crater, or were released from the ground when the meteorite struck, if in fact one did, according to many geologists.

Arsenic is found in the subsoil in that area of Peru and often contaminates the drinking water there, according to Peruvian geologists quoted on Sept. 21 by National Geographic News. Arsenic fumes released from the crater could have sickened locals who went to look, said one geologist who examined the site.

- Yahoo.com

Okay. So maybe there was a rational explanation after.... wait a minute! I've seen an episode or two of the X Files. I remember how this goes. First there's the 'meteor' impact. Then the weird sickness affecting the locals. Then the official cover story. And everything goes back to normal... And that's when they strike! It's happening all over again! Start stockpiling beef jerky and shotgun shells, people, the end times have come!



Image O' The Week.

The moon is full, and I am nutty.






Peace out, bitches!