Jeez, He Was Just Here A Minute Ago.

Conditions: Cool, Temperature-wise.


The Wages Of Inaction.

It's becoming more obvious that the U.S congress is not going to try and impeach President Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors. Now the question not only becomes: 'why the hell not?', but also 'so then what happens?'

One of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first acts upon taking the gavel was to rule impeachment off the table. She wanted Democrats to focus on challenging the president on the war and on kitchen table concerns - from energy to education to health care. With Democrats now enjoying an increasing margin in generic polls and looking towards gaining seats in both the House and the Senate, the strategy certainly hasn't hurt politically.

Oh. So she wanted the democrats to focus on challenging the president on the war in Iraq, and so took impeachment for the war in Iraq... off the table.

Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. And further more, there could be some drastic consequences of not trying to impeach President Bush. Not only concerning war, but also all the other moves he's made in the last 7 years.

We have witnessed a staggering abuse of power by President Bush. Even former Bush Justice Department officials now charge him with trampling the Constitution. Bush has claimed the prerogative to declare an endless war without congressional approval, to designate someone an enemy without cause, to proceed to wiretap them without warrant, arrest or kidnap them at will, jail them without a hearing, hold them indefinitely, interrogate them intensively (read torture), bring them to trial outside the U.S. court system. He claims that executive privilege exempts his aides - even the aides of his aides and his vice president's aides - from congressional investigation. He claims the right to amend or negate congressional laws with a statement upon signing them. And much more.

Even this Supreme Court, stacked with activist right-wing judges enamored of executive national security powers, has rebuked the president on some of these claims, particularly around the treatment of alleged enemy combatants. But many of Bush's claims will escape judicial determination.

And there is the rub. According to the leading case on presidential powers, if Bush's extreme assertions of power are not challenged by the Congress, they end up not simply creating new law, they could end up rewriting the Constitution itself. Inaction can alter the Constitutional division of powers by establishing the president's claims as authority that the Congress or the courts may not infringe.

- Truthout.org

"Justice must not only be done, but it should be seen to be done." I think that's on a statue somewhere.



Oil: Why Does It Cost More?

The price of oil has become indecently high. And what's worse, it keeps climbing. Now the time has come to do something about it: finding out exactly who is to blame. There's two sides to this debate, the energy providers, and the energy speculators. Surely they will point us in the right direction.


Energy Providers: It's the speculators!

As gas prices skyrocket, the question is now, “Why?” Fingers are pointing more away from the fundamentals of supply and demand and more towards the role of energy speculators and the lack of government oversight.

Today on Capitol Hill, key players in the energy field will be questioned by lawmakers in an effort to find the culprit to the fuel crisis. It’s all part of an increasing clamor in Congress to pin the blame for pain at the pump on someone, something or some institution.

New data released by the Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., of the House Energy and Commerce Committee details for the first time how speculators now dominate the energy futures market.

In 2000, the New York Mercantile Exchange was dominated by those who wanted to purchase oil for use in the future like airlines and trucking companies. These so called “physical hedgers” controlled 63 percent of the market. But by April, 2008 the trend completely reversed. “Physical hedgers” ran 29 percent of the oil futures on NYMEX and the rest - 71 percent - were in the hands of speculators.

Dingell likens the commodities markets to a “casino for unscrupulous speculators who profit at the expense of the American people.”

- cbsnews.com

Speculators: It's the Energy Providers!

One of the most dangerous places to be is between a politician and a TV camera. The orgy of self-importance going on in Washington over the role of "speculators" in the energy market has caused a dangerous stampede to get on the air with vehement, if inaccurate, denunciations of the evil folk who trade in the futures market.

At least today, Wednesday, we will see a grown-up take the stand.

Daniel Yergin of Cambridge Energy will appear. In 1991, Yergin wrote the best book I have ever read about the oil industry, called "The Prize."

The New York Times highlighted what will likely be his testimony today. Yergin will say that "the rise in oil prices can be explained by basis economic factors, such as limited growth in supplies in recent years, a weakening dollar, a global surge in energy demand and a string of production disruptions in countries like Nigeria."

Nigeria is "producing one million barrels a day less than its production capacity. ...production has stagnated in places like Russia and Venezuela and is even plunging in places like Mexico. All these factors have left the global oil industry with little capacity to boost supplies."

Not that this will be heard by those in the heat of the blame game, but it's nice to know it will be said.

- cnbc.com

Guys, guys, come on now. There's an easy way to settle this: It's all your faults! Yes, the energy providers could work to provide more margin to combat fluctuations in the market, and the market could be more open to the pressures normal people are under, and allow more government oversight. So you see, there's no need to argue. There's more than enough blame to go around.

More: Rising oil prices spark intense debate.




And Oil: What Is It?

With it almost all used up, the time naturally has come to wonder, just what exactly was oil? Surprisingly, the experts still do not know.

The conventional wisdom is that oil descends from algae from eons ago. Lots and lots of algae. Unimaginable mounds of dead algae in quantities no longer found on this planet, pressed, and cooked into hydrocarbon liquids. Thus: fossil fuel. Others, notably the Russians, have an alternative theory that oil comes from non-biological carbon compounds deep in this planet, like the methane oceans we find on other planets. In this scenario oil is a planetary phenomenon. Indeed this abiogenic oil could still be forming in the earth.
[...]

An emerging third theory is that bacteria living within rocks produce oil. In this theory there is a biological component (the bacteria) which constitute the oil-generating process, but the originating material in not degraded organic material, but rather geological carbon gases. The path is carbon gas --> bug --> oil. Craig Venter and others are exploring the idea of engineering bacteria to make oil from other carbon gases, like CO2.

- kk.org

See, if we can figure out just what the hell oil was, then we might be able to figure out how to create more of the stuff, and then all our problems will be solved!



Predict This.

Continuing the oil theme, Exxon made the news this week over a new development in their old case regarding their spilling of 11 million gallons of the stuff into Alaskan waters back in the 80's. At the time this was seen as something really bad, but now apparently we've been too harsh on the poor company.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday slashed the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million, a decision that could have broader implications for limiting how much courts can order businesses to pay.

The decision was hailed by the business community and decried by environmentalists and Alaskans.

The court ruled that the victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history may collect punitive damages from Exxon Mobil Corp. that amount to an average of $15,000 for each person who filed a claim against the energy company.

Justice David Souter wrote for the court that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses, $507.5 million, an amount equal to about four days worth of Exxon Mobil Corp.'s profits last quarter.

The Exxon Valdez case involves reckless action that was "profitless" for the company and that has already resulted in substantial recovery for substantial injury, Souter wrote. A penalty should be "reasonably predictable" in its severity, he added.

- Huffingtonpost.com

A reasonably predictable penalty? How about a reasonably predictable disaster to go with the reasonably predictable penalty? I mean, if we're being reasonable, then if one tanker captains mistake can cause entire fishing grounds and industries to be wiped out overnight, then why can't that same disaster cause the company to have to pay fair compensation to every person affected by that companies mistake? Is that not justice? Is that not reasonably predictable? You want to talk reasonable, from the article, the first-quarter profits at Exxon Mobil Corp. were $10.9 billion. The company's 2007 profit was $40.6 billion. That's nine zeros, son.




Intelligent Design.

I think the saying goes that if you build it, people will complain. True this week of Apples over-praised iPhone, where women and fat people are complaining loudly that they can't use the device. Fat people due to fat fingers being clumsy. And women?

Erica Watson-Currie of Newport Beach, Calif., a consultant and lecturer, is among the women up in arms that the iPhone won't respond to their long fingernails. She states, "Considering ergonomics and user studies indicating men and women use their fingers and nails differently, why does Apple persist in this misogyny?"

- dailytech.com

Misogyny? A 'hatred of women'? Because the device somehow doesn't allow you to press buttons on a flat surface while catering for long fingernails? That's misogyny? Don't be stupid. The device is what it is, an interactive flat screen. If you have a condition that prevents you from interfacing with a flat screen, then frankly it's your problem, not the screen's.




Study: Planet Will Probably Not Vanish.

As reported recently, a bunch of scientists in an underground bunker near Geneva have been building a massive supercollider in order to create black holes, such that they may study them. This has prompted some concern over the safety of all those on earth once black start being produced. So naturally a study was commissioned. The study is now in, and according to a bunch of experts, we'll be fine.

At the high energies and small scales probed by the LHC, gravity would become much stronger than it is in ordinary three-dimensional space. Gravity could then cram enough matter together to form microscopic black holes as often as once a second.

However, such black holes, according to research first reported by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s, ought to rapidly radiate away their energy and evaporate in an instant, before doing any harm. But even if Hawking is wrong, and tiny black holes linger, they still would not pose a danger, according to the new studies.

Study member John Ellis of CERN noted that the CERN safety report was independently reviewed by a group of 20 scientists outside CERN, including Nobel laureate Gerard ‘t Hooft, an expert on black hole theory.

The report also relies on a separate study, by Steve Giddings of the University of California, Santa Barbara and Michelangelo Mangano of CERN, set to appear in an upcoming Physical Review D.

Both studies reaffirm the findings of a 2003 CERN report that the high-energy collisions generated at the LHC would pose no danger to Earth.

- sciencenews.org

Well, that's a relief. They're scheduled to fire the thing up in September, and I know some people who have plans for December that do not involve being mashed into a string of atoms.



Mars: Not All That Alien, After All.


As we all know, the Phoenix Mars Lander has been sampling soil and generally hanging out on Mars. And the results of that soil it's been sampling are in. And the surprise is:

Scientists working on the Phoenix Mars Lander mission, which has already found ice on the planet, said preliminary analysis by the lander's instruments on a sample of soil scooped up by the spacecraft's robotic arm had shown it to be much more alkaline than expected.

"We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life whether past present or future," Sam Kounaves, the lead investigator for the wet chemistry laboratory on Phoenix, told journalists.

"It is the type of soil you would probably have in your back yard, you know, alkaline. You might be able to grow asparagus in it really well. ... It is very exciting for us."

The 1 cubic meter (35 cubic feet) of soil was taken from about 1 inch below the surface of Mars and had a pH, or alkaline, level of 8 or 9. "We were all flabbergasted at the data we got back," Kounaves said.

- reuters.com

Dude, is it too much to expect alien planets to be, I dunno, alien? So we have a planet that is similar in size and distance from the sun to ours, that appears to have had salt water on it at some point, and whose soil compounds are the same as ours. I don;t want to jump to any conclusions but it appears to me that at some point in the past there could well have been two life-sustaining planets in this solar system. And two is less of a fluke than one.



Carlin Has Gone.

The seven words you can't say on T.V.

George Carlin, a hero of free speech and a comedy legend, died this week of heart failure.

"The best afterlife for me would be to be able to sit comfortably and watch the world on a kind of heavenly CNN," he said. "To be able to have my remote and say, 'Okay, there's an uprising in Spain. Let's watch that. Or to watch China finally take over the fucking world. Because there's a billion of those motherfuckers and they're going to eat our lunch. I would love to get the thousand-year view on the decline of the European birthrate or the "Muslimization" of Europe that's talking place; the explosion of Latin American culture in the western part of the United States.' Just sit back and watch. India and Pakistan, both, have nuclear weapons and they fuckin' hate each other. I'm telling you, somebody is going to fuck somebody's sister and an atom bomb is going to fly. And I say fine. You know? I just like the show. This world is a big theater in the round, as far as I'm concerned, and I'd just love watching it spin itself into oblivion. Tune in and watch the human adventure. It's a cursed, doomed species but it's just interesting as hell. That's what I want heaven to be. And if it's not like that, then fuck it. I'll just kill myself."

Since we were on the subject, I thought I'd ask what he'd like his tombstone to say. Carlin didn't miss a beat.

"I'm thinking something along the lines of, "Jeez, he was just here a minute ago."

- huffingtonpost.com

Extra: George Carlin on finite resources


- Peace out.

Stan The Man.

Conditions: Cold, sad.


This Week In Imperialism.

Oddly enough, the American Empire is currently in negotiations with the Iraqi government over how the 'Strategic friendship' between the two countries will actually work. The agreement, called a Sofa, covers all aspects of that relationship, and is totally top secret. Iraq wants the Sofa to be short term, a couple of years, in order to put a time limit on the U.S presence.

The Sofa has aroused fierce controversy in Iraq. No drafts have been published and only a handful of MPs have seen it. The Iraqi government has been forced to give parliament a vote on the final text, although Washington says it need not go to the US Senate as it is not a treaty. A letter denouncing various leaked provisions, signed by more than 100 of the 275 Iraqi MPs was handed to US senators recently.

Since the talks began in March, Washington has reduced its demands. "The first US draft wasn't even remotely acceptable," said Shahristani, who is a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia movement that is the largest bloc in parliament.

So what's on the table?

- Custody of 21,000 detainees currently being held in American jails
- Whether Iraqi courts have jurisdiction over the private contractors in Iraq (who are currently immune from any prosecution.)
- Whether or not U.S troops are chargeable in Iraqi courts.

Apparently while the U.S are cool on the first two, the last is totally not going to happen. I mean, can you imagine the audacity of foreign troops invading a country in order to set up law and order, and then those troops actually being subject to that law and order they set up? Ludicrous!


And as a capper, because I know we're all curious about the fate of all that oil Iraq sits atop:

The oil minister also disclosed that the Iraqi government expects to sign its first contracts with western oil companies within the next two weeks. These will be for technical support and repair.

Bidding for developing new fields is under way but "it will be open to competitive tendering". Shahristani denied this was backdoor privatisation, since the Iraqi National Oil Corporation would retain control of 80% of Iraq's discovered reserves.

- Guardian.co.uk

With petrol prices spiraling ever higher, I can't help but take that as good news.



Finding Out The Obvious.

With the existence of torture in Guantanamo having become a mainstream accepted fact, the U.S senate has lurched into gear and seem to be investigating whether or not it exists. Well, we can't all be the early bird, I suppose.

A Senate investigation has concluded that top Pentagon officials began assembling lists of harsh interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002 for use on detainees at Guantanamo Bay and that those officials later cited memos from field commanders to suggest that the proposals originated far down the chain of command, according to congressional sources briefed on the findings.

The sources said that memos and other evidence obtained during the inquiry show that officials in the office of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld started to research the use of waterboarding, stress positions, sensory deprivation and other practices in July 2002, months before memos from commanders at the detention facility in Cuba requested permission to use those measures on suspected terrorists.

The reported evidence - some of which is expected to be made public at a Senate hearing today - also shows that military lawyers raised strong concerns about the legality of the practices as early as November 2002, a month before Rumsfeld approved them. The findings contradict previous accounts by top Bush administration appointees, setting the stage for new clashes between the White House and Congress over the origins of interrogation methods that many lawmakers regard as torture and possibly illegal.

- Truthout.org

My, but the wheels of justice turn slowly, don't they? No wonder most people think they don't turn at all.



Wrong Men.

Running a prison is essentially about control. Control the environment in order to control the prisoners. But, not only is that control there to protect us civilians, it is also there to protect the prisoners as well, possibly an idea that simply doesn't occur to American prison officials in Afghanistan, who pretty much seem to let the prisoners do what they want. And so...

Gardez, Afghanistan - The militants crept up behind Mohammed Akhtiar as he squatted at the spigot to wash his hands before evening prayers at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

They shouted "Allahu Akbar" - God is great - as one of them hefted a metal mop squeezer into the air, slammed it into Akhtiar's head and sent thick streams of blood running down his face.

I dunno, perhaps the officials figured it was some form of justice, but here's the catch:

Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo's Camp Four who hissed "infidel" and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn't: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.

"He was not an enemy of the government, he was a friend of the government," a senior Afghan intelligence officer told McClatchy. Akhtiar was imprisoned at Guantanamo on the basis of false information that local anti-government insurgents fed to U.S. troops, he said.

So, just another rare case of bad decision making, perhaps? Well, no.

An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men - and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds - whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.

McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials - primarily in Afghanistan - and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.

This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.

The investigation also found that despite the uncertainty about whom they were holding, U.S. soldiers beat and abused many prisoners.

Prisoner mistreatment became a regular feature in cellblocks and interrogation rooms at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, the two main way stations in Afghanistan en route to Guantanamo.

While he was held at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base, Akhtiar said, "When I had a dispute with the interrogator, when I asked, 'What is my crime?' the soldiers who took me back to my cell would throw me down the stairs."

- Truthout.org

Is it possible that the likes of Guantanamo are kept stuffed full of people is because it's one of the few actual things American politicians can point to in terms of what they've actually accomplished in the war on terror? And so regardless of the actual quality of the prisoners, the image of Guantanamo must remain consistent, because there's little else to justify the enormous military costs of the last seven years? Is that it?



Putting On A Show.

Two former Bear Sterns investment managers were arrested this week in the criminal investigation of the financial collapse, the collapse that has sent then entire world into a mortgage sub prime tailspin. This is a pretty big deal, but a paragraph of the story reported in the guardian struck me as, well, odd.

The FBI said Cioffi, 52, was taken into custody at his home in the New Jersey town of Tenafly while Tannin, 46, was arrested at his Manhattan apartment.

The pair were taken to the FBI's headquarters in New York for processing. Camera crews captured plain-clothes officers escorting the pair out of the building. Cioffi, tieless in a white shirt and Tannin, wearing a blue shirt and a blue tie, both looked glum.

- Guardian.co.uk

Huh. When was the last time you read about a couple of drug dealers getting arrested that included things like "Johnson and Domingez were taken to Police Plaza for processing. Johnson was wearing ripped jeans and a hoodie, while Domingez was wearing track pants and a plaid shirt. Both seemed unhappy." Like, what the hell is this? Is the E! channel covering the police beat now? Seems like a Freudian slip to me. This isn't about justice, this is about powerful people pretending that they're just like normal people, and that the law applies just as much to them as it does to the likes of Johnson and Domingez. Yeah, right.



Cell Phone Humor, Represent!

Typical Reaction to the Revelation That I Do Not Own a Cell Phone, By Year

1998: Solidarity ("Yeah, me neither--I hate those things!")

1999: Envy ("Lucky you; I had to get one for work.")

2000: Indifference ("Okay, what's your home phone number then?")

2001: Encouragement ("You should get one--you can play Tetris on them now!")

2002: Confusion ("I thought you were, like, a tech guy.")

2003: Sympathy ("They're getting pretty cheap. You'll be able to afford one soon.")

2004: Irritation ("So how am I supposed to get a hold of you?")

2005: Derision ("If we go out tonight I'll send you a fax.")

2006: Skepticism ("Are you serious?")

2007: Awe ("Wow, you're like the last one.")

2008: Incomprehension ("You don't ... how ...?")

- Defectiveyeti.com




...And They Have A Plan.

A wise man once wrote: "The Matrix is everywhere. Even here in this room. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes, to blind you from the truth." I embrace this message, and this week the message applies to kids toys. Do you remember your toys from when you were a kid? I do. There were cars and trucks and action figures, but in order for them to work I had to use my 'im-ag-in-ation'. Brilliant stuff, that. Today's kids however have no need of the imagination gland, because their toys are computers - usually games consoles that allow them to do things we could only dream of when we were young. But there is another type of commonplace toy kids have today, a type of toy that, much like a terminator, infiltrates the lives of the humans without anyone understanding what it really is. And so it is able to live, undetected, in plain sight alongside our most precious resource, other than the T.V. Make no mistake, these toys are planning something. They are organised, networked, and are learning. What is vital now, more than ever, is to reveal these machines for what they are, removing the colourful and innocent-looking coverings. Matt Kirkland understands this danger, and has dedicated some of his life to finding these threats and revealing the truth. Know your enemy, visit his site and see for yourself.

In Vestimentis Ursum

T-Shirt 'O The Week.

Because the truth is only out there if you keep it out there.

http://controversy.wearscience.com/design/ufo/

City Of Shadows.



Long-exposure shots by a guy named Titarenko of street scenes in Russia produce haunting images of ghostly-figures on the march.

- alexeytitarenko.com




"I don't do special effects. I do characters. I do creatures."




Sad news. Creature guru Stan Winston passed away this week from cancer at the far-too-young age of 62. Simply put, Stan Winston was a genius, and responsible for pretty much all of the great monsters from the great movies. Including the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park, the extraterrestrial hunter from Predator, the Alien Queen from Aliens, and of course the endoskeletoned Terminators. These were not just cool suits or puppets, Stan made them into real entities, things that could actually exist, in a feared future or alternate reality. They stimulated our imaginations and haunted our nightmares, and our lives have been enriched thanks to this man and his skills and imagination. The NYTimes has a run down of the various awards he won here. And Chud have a nice tribute here.


He worked with a lot of directors, but I always think of him in collaboration with James Cameron, and James has written a moving tribute at AintItCool.com

Stan was a great man. I'm proud to have been his friend, and his collaborator on what for both of us, was some of our best work. We met in pre-production on Terminator in 1983, and quickly sized each other up as the kind of crazy son of a bitch that you wanted for a friend. We've stayed friends for over a quarter of a century, and would have been for much longer if he had not been cut down.

We've lost a great artist, a man who made a contribution to the cinema of the fantastic that will resound for a long long time. I don't need to list the indelible characters he and his team of artists brought to the screen. Readers of your site know them.

We all know Stan's work, the genius of his designs. But not even the fans necessarily know how great he was as a man. I mean a real man --- a man who knows that even though your artistic passion can rule your life, you still make time for your family and your friends. He was a good father, and he raised two great kids. His wife of 37 years, Karen, was with him in the beginning, helping him make plaster molds in their garage for low budget gigs on TV movies, and she was with him at the end.

He was a man of incredible humor. When I think of him I see him smiling, usually a goofy grin as he twists his glasses askew on his nose doing a Jerry Lewis impression. Never afraid to play the clown, because he knew his colleagues respected him. He lived life full throttle, in work and play. Like me he loved fast cars, and whenever one of us would get a new toy, the other had to drive it (a practice which was strained for few years after I skidded his brand new Porsche turbo, just off the boat from Stuttgart, into his garage and stopped a half inch from the back wall). We even went to formula racing school together. For the last ten years or so we rode motorcycles on Sundays with Arnold Schwarzenegger and some other friends, not every week but as many Sundays as we could. There was a comradeship that comes from starting out together, and never betraying the respect and trust of that friendship over the years, but always being there for each other, that the three of us have shared.

Stan and I founded Digital Domain together, and our friendship was never strained by being business partners. He always demonstrated incredible wisdom in business, because he knew people, and especially creative people. He inspired artists to pull together and work as a team, which is like herding cats, but it was perhaps his greatest talent. To lead by inspiration. His own team at Stan Winston Studios is the most stable in the business. His core guys have been with him literally since Terminator, 25 years. That's because they respected him so much, and because he made the work fun, even though it was hard. They would stay up all night busting their ass for him. They knew they would always be doing something cutting edge and challenging, and that he respected them enough to let them run with it. Though he could draw and sculpt as well as any of them, he never let his own talent eclipse theirs, because he knew that team building was the most important aspect of leadership. And that's what allowed them to create success after success for over two decades, and win 4 Oscars, among over 30 awards. A walk through Stan's studio gallery is a trip through the last two decades of fantasy cinema. Predators, Terminators, raptors, T-rexes, Edward Scissorhands himself and a hundred more. It hits you how great an impact he's had.

I spoke with Stan by phone Saturday morning, and apparently it was one of the last conversations he had. Incredibly, in retrospect, he was full of life, you'd never have known he was at death's door. We talked for a long time about all the fun times, and all the dragons we'd slain together. He said that once you've shown something is possible, everybody can do it. What was important was being first. Breaking new ground.

Well that's just what he did his whole career, and today's creature and character effects business uses the techniques he developed every single day. He inspired a generation of fantasy effects geeks, and his legacy will be found in their dreams up on the screens of the future, not just in the films he worked on directly.

I'm going to miss him, like I'd miss a brother. It's hard, almost unfathomable, to talk about him in the past tense. He was just one of those larger than life people that was so alive that you can't imagine them gone. But he is gone. I ask the fans to remember not just the work but the man.

- Peace out.

Too Scared To Use A Coaster

Conditions: Suspiciously Warm.


Making Things Worse.

In war, there are a few fundamental rules. Not about human rights or any of that claptrap, nobody in power gives a damn about the rights of anyone but themselves. But one of the actual fundamental rules of war is that you should never kill allies, especially when those allies are only-just allies. Because the more you (accidentally) kill allies while your trying to kill the enemy, the more your allies start to see you as part of the problem, and the more they start to empathize with the supposed enemy. That's bad.

WASHINGTON — U.S. airstrikes into Pakistan that may have accidentally killed allied fighters have upset the already fragile relations between Washington and Islamabad over how to stem violence in the lawless border region.

Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell defended the bombing Wednesday and said it was too early to know whether the strike killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary forces, as alleged by the angry Pakistani Army.

"Every indication we have is that this was a legitimate strike against forces that had attacked members of the coalition," he told a Pentagon press conference.

Other U.S. officials said earlier Wednesday that three aircraft launched about a dozen bombs into Pakistan after militants attacked coalition forces in a wooded area near a checkpoint. Conflicting reports about the Tuesday clash were being sorted out by the U.S. military.

U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where Pakistan's government also lodged a diplomatic protest.

"The United States regrets that actions ... on the night of June 10 resulted in the reported casualties among Pakistani forces who are our partners in the fight against terrorism," a U.S. Embassy statement said. It expressed condolences to the families of the dead.

- http://news.yahoo.com

Yes, in fact I think I can imagine the form of those condolences. 'So sorry your son or father is dead, but we thought he was one of the bad guys. You see, we sit so far above the battleground, from up here all you darkies look alike. Anyway, toodleoo.'

Islamabad, Pakistan - The Pakistani Army broadly condemned on Wednesday what it said was an airstrike by United States-led coalition forces that killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers during a clash with Afghan troops on the border with Afghanistan late Tuesday.

Calling the airstrike "unprovoked and cowardly," the Pakistani military said the deaths "hit at the very basis of cooperation" in the battle against terrorism, according to an army statement quoted by news agencies. "Such acts of aggression do not serve the common cause of fighting terrorism," it said.

The precise circumstances surrounding the reported deaths remained unclear and there was no immediate confirmation or comment from the United States military.

- Truthout.org

Well, the military 'Oh crap we screwed up' unit has been quite busy over the last few years, perhaps they're all too tired?




Also Making Things Worse.

If you're a truck driver in Spain, apparently things are pretty bad right now. The escalating fuel prices have squeezed profit margins to the point where a lot of these guys are almost in it just for the fun of being a truck driver. Naturally, they're very angry about this. The problem is that they've decided to exercise their anger by getting together in large groups, with their trucks, on the highways, blocking traffic. Now, that's annoying and counterproductive. Jamming up the highways makes everyone hate you, even if your cause is just. But the real issue is what happens after you've jammed up the highways, and made everyone hate you. The simple, obvious outcome in a pressured and emotional situation involving huge amounts of people.

Strikers tried to burn a lorry driver alive in the cab of his truck as violent fuel protests escalated across Spain today.

The terrified driver fled managed to leap free and was taken to hospital with serious burns in San Isidro, near Alicante.

The incident, being investigated by police, followed the death of a trucker in a picket line near Granada, on Tuesday, when he was hit by a lorry.

They are the latest in a series of deaths and serious injuries as protests and blockades over the soaring cost of diesel spiral into chaos.

Yesterday a striking truck driver was run over by a van and killed in southern Spain and a striker died in Portugal as he tried to stop a truck on a road north of the capital Lisbon.

The action has caused disruption for tens of thousands of British holidaymakers in Spain, as lorry drivers brought gridlock to many major motorway.

- http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Seemingly inevitably, violence broke out between two sets of people, both of which consider themselves to be in the right. And so instead of a news story about noble truckers who are going to lose their jobs because of rising fuel prices, a story that could well motivate many normal people to have empathy toward their plight, in the blink of an eye the story turns into one about rioting truckers on the rampage, burning and killing people. Who feels any empathy for the poor truckers now? Idiots.





Is There Anybody Out There.

Generally, punishment for a crime is scalable. If you steal something, you get a fine the represents the value of what you stole. If you steal a lot, or destroy property, you go to prison for a term representative of that value. And if you injure or kill someone you go to jail for quite a while. Recently the Senate Intelligence Committee sat to consider a report regarding the claims made by Bush and Cheney in the run up to war with Iraq. And surprise surprise they found the claims were not supported by available evidence. In other words, they made shit up. So what punishment is to be merited out for this one?

Washington - In a long-delayed report, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday rebuked President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for making prewar claims -- particularly that Iraq had close ties to Al Qaeda -- that were not supported by available intelligence.

- http://www.truthout.org

Yes, that's right. A rebuke. A rebuke? What the hell is a rebuke? Thefreedictionary.com tells us a rebuke is:

1. To criticize or reprove sharply; reprimand. See Synonyms at admonish.
2. To check or repress.
3. To scold sternly

Oh, a stern scolding! Well, that should make up for up nicely! Justice is freaking served, then!!


So, is that the actual end? Not if Congressman Kucinich has anything to do with it.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush late on Monday during a speech on the House floor.

Kucinich, a former contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, pointed to "high crimes and misdemeanors" committed by the Bush administration, including misrepresenting intelligence in the lead-up to the war, violating domestic and international laws against torture, illegally spying on American citizens, obstructing justice and governmental oversight, and dozens of other violations.

Well, alright. Now we're trucking. Right, Democratic White House Speaker Nancy Pelosi?

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) and other members of the Democratic leadership maintain that such a resolution is "off the table," Kucinich, along with a group of his colleagues, has consistently pressed for a more urgent and direct response to the often unilateral and controversial actions of the Bush administration.

Despite the unlikeliness of impeachment gaining much traction in Congress, advocates of such a resolution continue to demand greater accountability of the executive branch.

As Kucinich began to issue his remarks, shuffling and talking could be heard in the background of the House chamber. Responding to the disarray, Kucinich objected to the Speaker, "The House is not in order." After several strikes of Pelosi's gavel, Kucinich started reading his articles into the record.

- Truthout.org

....they would rather talk amongst themselves about last night's episode of Lost instead of listening to a Congressman introduce articles of impeachment against the U.S President? Is this still planet Earth I'm stuck on?



Not Part Of The Club.

I think it's fair to say that America has brought the smackdown to the cause of human rights over the course of Bush's presidency. I mean, we're all sentient beings, yes? We can see the writing on the walls of the prison cells, even if the cells themselves are hidden away. So in this sense, it can not be a surprise to learn that the U.S has withdrawn completely from the Human Rights Tribune, a body set up in 2006 in order to scrutinize countries with concern to human rights. However, our lack of surprise is not found among the diplomats.

“We don’t understand the reasons nor the timing of the decision”, said Sebastien Gillioz of Human Rights Watch. “There have even been some positive signs during this Council. For example Belarus was not re-elected as a member in 2007 nor Sri Lanka this year”.

The stupefaction was made greater by the fact the US actively took part in the universal Periodic Review (UPR) process where 32 countries were scrutinized by their peers in April and May. In particular a series of recommendations were made regarding Romania, Japan, Guatemala, Peru, Tunisia, Ukraine, Indonesia and others.

Diplomats are equally concerned. If the current president of the Council, Doru Costea, declined to comment, his predecessor, Luis Alfonso De Alba said that he didnt see any reason to justify such a decision. Several observers mentioned Washington’s growing discontentment with the influence of the Islamic and African countries in the Council.

“It is an aberration”, said Peter Splinter of Amnesty International. “It seems that the government has lost its mind. How could it believe it is going to improve human rights by running away? It is like those who say, ‘I don’t like the way this town is governed so I’m not going to vote’”.

For Human Rights Watch (HRW), the US has shown very little commitment to human rights in general. The working group against arbitrary detention gave up going to Guantanamo last month because Washington would not allow its members to have face to face meetings with detainees. For its part, the Rapporteur against racism, Doudou Diene, has fought for years to be able to pay a visit and only recently got permission.

http://www.humanrights-geneva.info

It really asks the question, after Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, how on earth were the United States allowed into the Tribune in the first place?



Specialisation Run Amok.

Let this be a lesson to all you who thought sending a probe to mars that would scoop up a little dirt, drop it in a tray and check it for life would be a snap. Turns out you can lead a probe to mars, but you can't make it put the dirt in the oven.

NASA says its Phoenix Mars Lander will try a new method for sampling Martian soil after failed attempts to sift a pile of dirt on its instrument deck. Phoenix is designed to scoop up dirt and ice using a backhoe-like shovel on its nearly eight-foot (2.5-meter) robotic arm and drop various samples into eight tiny, single-use ovens. The oven openings are about the width of pencil lead; a set of screens filters out larger particles to prevent clogs. When Phoenix deposited its first sample on Friday, however, the dirt proved unexpectedly dense and none passed through the screens.

NASA announced yesterday afternoon that Phoenix vibrated its screens for 20 minutes on Sunday but only a few crumbs slipped through them. "We are going to try vibrating it one more time, and if that doesn't work, it is likely we will use our new, revised delivery method on another thermal analyzer cell," said William Boynton of the University of
Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, the instrument's lead scientist.

- http://www.sciam.com/

The 'revised delivery idea' is to try sprinkling dirt from the shovel, not unlike
sprinkling powdered sugar onto a cookie. And: "unexpectedly dense" dirt, on Mars? It's an Alien planet! How can they have made a mistake on how dense the dirt on an alien planet is? Nice to see NASA are still the planning masters.



Feet Off The Table, Indeed.




This is either:

a) A humiliation of a beloved character from the movies.
b) A clever representation of a classic movie monster, in funiture form.
c) A kickass coffee table.

- http://gadgets.boingboing.net



- Peace out.

The Wall Of Space

Conditions: Cold and getting colder.


Finally.




Barack Obama, after an endless, grueling, and wasteful campaign, has finally secured the numbers to ensure he is the democratic candidate who will take on John McCain in another endless, grueling, and wasteful campaign. Is it too late to catch up to the momentum John McCain has built up? Will he put Hillary on the ticket? Logic would say yes, since they roughly split the registered democrats 50-50. But could Barack be comfortable as President if he had the popular and openly ambitious Hillary as his V.P? And would 'Americans' vote for a black man/white woman ticket? On the other hand, haven't the Republicans made such a meal of everything they've been responsible for that at this point John Kerry and Al Gore would probably seem like Lincoln and Jefferson right now? One thing is for certain, the television networks are busy building new hands to rub together at the prospect of another five months of massive ad spending from both parties.



Distant Sound Of Thunder.

Something, goes the rumour, is afoot. Despite all the intelligence briefings, all the evidence to the contrary, all the common sense in the world, it seems the Bush administration is contemplating a war with Iran. There have been several moves over the last few months that point to the possibility of yet another disaster in the making. Consider:

-The Bush administration claims that the 2002 resolution that led to the war in Iraq gives it the right to strike at "terrorists" wherever they are. Last September, the Kyl-Lieberman Sense of the Senate resolution designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a "terrorist organization."

-The administration has sharply increased its rhetorical attacks on Iran in a way that is disquietingly similar to the campaign that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

-According to the Israeli website DEBKAfile, Cheney's trip to the Middle East in March was seen in the region as a possible harbinger of war. "The vice president's choice of capitals for his tour is a pointer to the fact that the military option, off since December, may be on again," DEBKA concluded. "America will need the cooperation of all four [countries he visited] -- Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey."

-There has also been a steady buildup of naval and air power in the region. A new aircraft carrier battle group has been assigned to the area, Patriot anti-missile missiles have been deployed, and U.S. Naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean have been beefed up.
[...]

Militarily, there is little Tehran could do in response.

Iran's army is smaller than it was during the Iran-Iraq war, and in a recent "show of force," its air force mustered a total of 140 out-of-date fighters. It navy is mostly small craft, and while it has anti-ship missiles, Tehran would probably think twice about trying to shut down the Gulf. The current regime depends on the sale of oil and gas to shore up its fragile economy.

Will no-one learn anything anymore? Didn't Iraq prove already that, faced with annihilation, a country will do anything to save itself. You better believe Iran will start blowing up every oil tanker it can sight an RPG on if the Americans begin bombing them. What good are future oil earnings to a country facing the American military machine and the certainty of complete collapse a la Afghanistan and Iraq?

At this point it might be prudent to ask why the Bush administration would be contemplating such an ...inhuman idea. Well, one can talk about supporting Israel, and disbelieving, or simply ignoring the intelligence reports regarding Iran and nuclear weapons, but here's another idea to keep in mind:

The Republicans know they are going to lose seats in the House and the Senate, but at this point the race for the presidency is still tight. Might a new war against the demonized Iranians make voters stick with "war hero" John McCain? It's a long shot, but this administration has always had a major streak of riverboat gambler about it.

- alternet.org

Well, could the box of old tricks be wheeled out yet again?



Ship Of Fools.

Ah, war. Such unlimited scope for shattering both humans, and human rights. This week: Is it possible that the United States is not only holding people in illegal prisoners in various countries around the world, but is also holding them on secret ships out in the oceans?

Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.

The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organisation Reprieve, also claims there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.

It is the use of ships to detain prisoners, however, that is raising fresh concern and demands for inquiries in Britain and the US.

According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is claimed.

Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans.

Well, surely being held a prisoner on a ship is a bit nicer than being stuffed into a dusty cell in Guantanamo, right? I mean, fresh sea breezes, fantastic sunsets, great food, a change of scenery. This has got to be a pretty cool prison, yeah?

The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more severely than in Guantánamo."

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights.

- truthout.org

Wow. It just goes to show. Just when you think you've finally scraped the bottom of the barrel, a crusty bit breaks away and you suddenly get into a whole extra bit of filth you didn't even know was there.



Sugar In The Gas Tank.

So, putting political appointees into NASA's public affairs office, how'd that work out?

An investigation by the NASA inspector general found that political appointees in the space agency's public affairs office worked to control and distort public accounts of its researchers' findings about climate change for at least two years, the inspector general's office said yesterday.

The probe came at the request of 14 senators after The Washington Post and other news outlets reported in 2006 that Bush administration officials had monitored and impeded communications between NASA climate scientists and reporters.
[...]

From the fall of 2004 through 2006, the report said, NASA's public affairs office "managed the topic of climate change in a manner that reduced, marginalized, or mischaracterized climate change science made available to the general public." It noted elsewhere that "news releases in the areas of climate change suffered from inaccuracy, factual insufficiency, and scientific dilution."

- truthout.org

Well, another triumph. I mean, what did they expect would happen when they placed people more loyal to politics than science in control of a large and respected scientific organization? Honestly, they can send a probe 20 billion miles, but they trip over their own shoelaces.



Historical Note.



Just a note to future archaeologists, at 14:00 hours UTC on 29 May 2008 at Bath University the first machine replicated itself. Link to the proud inventors here. I guess from your perspective this is really fracking ironic.



Afraid You Can't Change Lanes, Dave.

The propeller heads have done it again. iXs Research Corporation has invented a talking car navigation system, and cleverly disguised it as a teddy bear. This guarantees that at least a few people will step into a car thus equipped, turn on the engine and proceed to have a heart attack when the thing turns it's head to the left and tells them to proceed with caution.

The prototype robot stands 30 centimeters (1 ft) tall and has 6 joints in its arms and neck, which it uses to make gestures while providing spoken directions.
[..]

The company hopes to make the robot commercially available next year. “We want to make it more compact,” says CEO Fuminori Yamasaki, “and we’d like to offer a variety of shapes, including other characters and a plain mechanical version.”

- pinktentacle.com

Oh, yes, please, that's what I want. A foot-tall chromed endoskeleton on the dashboard, slowly indoctrinating me to the idea of taking orders from machines.




Film Review: In The Shadow Of The Moon.

"We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share."

- John F Kennedy.

It seems ever more amazing that we sent men to the moon back in the 60's. The amount of effort, the sheer will of the thousands of people involved is awesome, even all these years later. And the sheer audacity and courage they showed is reflected in the simple fact that we cannot send men back today. It's too dangerous, and too expensive to make it safe enough to be acceptable tp our modern sensibilities. Oh, sure, bombing a country in order to liberate it, that's fine, but we can't be sending Americans off into space. Truly, then, it was a different time, when the might of NASA (and various German rocket scientists), and the sheer chutzpah of the Astronauts resulted in one of the most impressive feats of human history.

Logically, In The Shadow Of The Moon is a documentary that doesn't really show us anything we haven't seen before. It focuses principally on the Apollo 11 mission, following it from formation to splashdown, intercutting with reminisces from the crew (sadly sans Armstrong, of course.). But it includes a lot of footage and interviews with members of other Apollo missions, and Nasa officials. The focus here is on the old footage, and what a treat it is.

To a haunting score, sheer awesome shots display the mighty rockets blasting off from the launch pad, and tearing out into space. Haunting imagery of the blue Earth hanging literally as a jewel in the blackness of space, growing smaller behind us. Then the moon, and long panning shots of it's cratered alien surface as it flies beneath us. The lander makes it's approach, touchdown and then fascinating shots of Astronauts struggling across the dusty, hilly surface in their bulky suits.

The lack of a voice over makes this a very intimate and human film. Throughout, the astronauts talk about the missions and their recollections. They come across as humble, calm, and still slightly amazed at the whole thing. Perhaps this documentary doesn't tell us anything new, but it is such a treat to travel back to those times, and to be whisked away to look down, god-like, upon all we take for granted, and to hear from the men themselves. A great night at the theater. Five epiphanies out of Five.



"We learned a lot about the Moon, but what we really learned was about the Earth. The fact that just from the distance of the Moon, you can put your thumb up, and you can hide the Earth behind your thumb. Everything that you have ever known, your loved ones, your business, the problems of the Earth itself, all behind your thumb. And how insignificant we really all are. But then how fortunate we are to have this body, and to be able to enjoy living here amongst the beauty of the Earth itself."

- Jim Lovell

- Peace out.