The Light Was Green!

Conditions: Cold.


The More Things Change.

It seems there are universal constants in America's war on ...well, everything. One constant for instance is America's built-in confidence in telling other countries what to do. And another constant is in America's total inability to keep track of the weapons it gives away. This is such a long-standing trend that they're starting to repeat themselves. Yet again, America is admitting they've lost track of the weapons they've given away in Afghanistan.

The US military has failed to keep track of thousands of weapons shipped to Afghanistan, leaving them vulnerable to being lost or stolen, a report says.

The report has been compiled by congressional auditors, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).

It found that, in the four years up to June 2008, the US military failed to keep complete records on some 222,000 weapons entering the country.

• US military officials failed to keep proper records on about 87,000 rifles, pistols, mortars and other weapons sent to Afghanistan between December 2004 and June 2008 - about a third of all the weapons sent
• There was a similar lack of management of a further 135,000 light weapons donated to Afghan forces via the US military by 21 countries
• The military failed even to record the serial numbers of some 46,000 weapons, making it impossible to confirm receipt of weapons or identify any which had fallen into the hands of militants
• The serial numbers of 41,000 weapons were recorded, but US military officials still had no idea where they were

- news.bbc.co.uk/

Well, you know, that's okay. I mean, what harm ever came from America giving away huge amounts of weapons in Afghanistan without keeping track of them? It's not as if they're dangerous, or could be used against America in some way, right?



Not Your Ordinary Everyday Fenderbender.

Despite the sereneness of life down here on the surface of the planet, in orbit above us is a constant twisting maelstrom of giant metallic objects, all swinging around our world at breakneck speed. Each one of them represents years of work and millions and millions of dollars worth of effort. Now, you'd think with that much at stake there'd be some kind of organization going on. But no, it's as out of control as can be.

US and Russian communications satellites have collided in space in what is thought to be the biggest incident of its kind to date.

The US commercial Iridium spacecraft hit a defunct Russian satellite at an altitude of about 800km (500 miles) over Siberia on Tuesday, Nasa said.

The Russian satellite weighed about a ton, and the Iridium one about half that, and the impact itself occurred at roughly twice the height of where the International Space Station regularly hangs out. Gee do you think that could be a problem?

Litter in orbit - caused in part by the break-ups of old satellites - has increased to such an extent that it is now the biggest threat to a space shuttle in flight.

Mr Johnson said that at the beginning of this year about 17,000 manmade pieces of debris were orbiting Earth.

The items, some as small as 10cm (four inches), are tracked by the US Space Surveillance Network - sending information to help spacecraft operators avoid the debris.

- news.bbc.co.uk/

Can you imagine how many more pieces of debris would be caused by crashing a half-ton object into a 1 ton object in space? And each of these new pieces of debris is going to be launched onto their own new erratic orbit. So how many more collisions do we require before the entire orbital plane is choked with debris, and mankind is finally confined to Earth? Whatever the number is, it just got reduced by one.



More:
newscientist.com: satellite collision more powerful than chinas asat test



Film Review: Valkyrie

It's always a tremendous challenge to tell a story that everyone already knows the ending to. And even more so when the ending will be a bad one. The protagonists are doomed to fail before you've even sat down in your seat. James Cameron solved this dilemma with Titanic by creating a Romeo and Juliet love story on the ill-fated liner. But Valkyrie has no such pleasant distractions. This is the tale of Count Von Stauffenberg's failed attempt to assassinate Hitler, and that's all it is. And so because there is nothing else here, the movie fails too.

But not for a lack of talent. The film is positively peppered with brilliant actors, most of them British, topped by Tom Cruise. Tom's taken a lot of flack over the years, but the one thing about him is that he really can act, and he really throws himself into roles. And Count Von Stauffenberg's tale has the ingredients of a great role, it should be a stirring one. But there's something wrong here. The accent's are the first problem. Every WW2 movie I've ever seen had the Germans sounding German. Here for the first time we have an exclusively-German WW2 movie and the only guy who actually sounds German is Hitler himself. It's odd, and a little off-putting. But ultimately, that's not the real problem. The real problem relates to an odd feeling of "stiffness", or formality, that pervades this film, from the actors to the setting to the plot itself. It's almost as if everyone is nervous about making this film.

Films are meant to be an entertainment. I mean, we're not here for our health. And this film ultimately is not that entertaining, it works more like a documentary. And that would be fine, but documentaries give you a lot of information about the various people involved and the plot itself. Here, director Brian Singer has concentrated on Tom Cruise pretty much to the exclusion of everyone else, and even then he's kept strictly to the parts of the script that move the plot forward. Count Von Stauffenberg wants to kill Hitler in order to save his country, there's a bunch of other high-ranking officers who want likewise, and that's it. There's no debate, no resistance, no argument: so there's no drama. Conflict, and therefore drama, is the heart of everything. WHY do these men, these highly-decorated officers want Hitler dead? What, specifically, have they seen, what have they heard, what have they maybe participated in, during the war that has made them make this ultimate decision of betrayal and bravery to plot the assassination of their leader? A quick shot of Stauffenberg handing out medals in a packed hospital, or looking at his new fake eyeball, is not enough compared to the size and scale of this plot. It's almost as if the idea of German officers organising a Hitler assassination plot is assumed to be enough all by itself to keep us all riveted. Well it's not enough. The ship is going to hit an iceberg. Watching the sailors just sail the ship toward the iceberg for two hours is actually kinda boring. Two and a half fingers out of Five.


- Peace out