Ancient Threats.

Conditions: Tense.


Breathing Again

For a while now mankind has yet again been sweating under the name of an ancient Egyptian god. Apophis, perhaps reincarnated this time as a giant comet, was rumoured among the astrophysics clique to be on a collision course with Earth in 2036. Well, now it looks like we can all breathe a little more freely.

Refined calculations of the asteroid Apophis's path show it is far less likely smash into Earth in 2036 than was previously thought.

Earlier calculations put the probability of a collision at one in 45,000; the revised estimate puts the odds at one in 250,000.

Researchers from the US space agency Nasa showed that in 2029, Apophis will pass within just 30,000km of Earth.
[...]

Rather than a catastrophic scenario, the far more likely near-misses provide great research opportunities.

"The refined orbital determination further reinforces that Apophis is an asteroid we can look to as an opportunity for exciting science and not something that should be feared," said Don Yeomans, manager of the Near-Earth Object program office at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

- bbc.co.uk/

So it turns out to have something of a happy ending after all, where the scientists can learn some cool stuff without the world being doomed in the process. Makes a change.



Angry About Peace Prize

The reaction to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to President Obama has provoked a bit of anger around the world. For instance, from historian Howard Zinn:

I was dismayed when I heard Obama was given the Nobel Peace Prize. A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize. But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel Peace Prizes. The Nobel Committee is famous for its superficial estimates and for its susceptibility to rhetoric and empty gestures, while ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

Yes, Wilson gets credit for the League of Nations - that ineffectual body which did nothing to prevent war. But he also bombarded the Mexican coast, sent troops to occupy Haiti and the Dominican Republic and brought the US into the slaughterhouse of Europe in the first World War - surely, among stupid and deadly wars, at the top of the list.

Sure, Theodore Roosevelt brokered a peace between Japan and Russia. But he was a lover of war, who participated in the US conquest of Cuba, pretending to liberate it from Spain while fastening US chains around that tiny island. And as president he presided over the bloody war to subjugate the Filipinos, even congratulating a US general who had just massacred 600 helpless villagers in the Phillipines. The Committee did not give the Nobel Prize to Mark Twain, who denounced Roosevelt and criticized the war, nor to William James, leader of the anti-imperialist league.

Oh yes, the Committee saw fit to give a peace prize to Henry Kissinger, because he signed the final agreement ending the war in Vietnam, of which he had been one of the architects. Kissinger, who obsequiously went along with Nixon's expansion of the war with the bombing of peasant villages in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger, who matches the definition of a war criminal very accurately, was given a peace prize!

People should not be given a peace prize on the basis of promises they have made (as with Obama, an eloquent maker of promises) but on the basis of actual accomplishments towards ending war. Obama has continued deadly, inhuman military action in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

- truthout.org

I think in fairness it should be recognised that the American military has begun withdrawing from Iraq under Obama's watch. And the Afghani situation is currently in flux, and we don't yet know what the next move there will be. And Obama is making noises about resuming worldwide Nuclear Weapons reductions. And he's at least stood down from installing missile installations on the Russian borders. So while not perfect, and not exactly inheriting an ideal situation, I think we could at least see some of the logic in the choice.

However, that said I do think that perhaps the Nobel people have been a little hasty here, and that they could have waited a couple years to see how things go. Intentions are important, but what's more important is the outcome.



Film Review: Year One.

Comedies are hard to review, because none of the usual ground rules are in place. There's no real point in talking about dramatic intent when the whole point is just to have a laugh. Year One is the latest Jack Black vehicle, wherein he's a primitive and inept hunter who is banished from his tribe and, along with his sidekick, embarks on an epic adventure. You know, there must be a lot of pressure on Jack Black in this kind of film. Despite the quality cast he's effectively carrying the entire thing on his shoulders. He's in every scene and everything that happens is either happening to him or he's reacting to it. That's got to be a lot of pressure. He carries it well, though, effortlessly coming across as relaxed and laid-back at all times. What's striking most of all is how desperately everyone is trying to be funny.

I'm not certain, but I strongly suspect a lot of the film is improvisation, most of the scenes have that off-the-cuff kind of reactive banter feel to it. And while it's a reasonably funny film, the overall impression is that it's severely underwritten. The humour has kind of been left up to the actors, who then desperately mug and riff and posture for all their worth to try and make the scenes pop. And it's a shame because the idea is a reasonably good one, it's a romp through the land of the old testament, ending up in Sodom, with our two heroes constantly falling into and out of danger. But despite the odd laugh, it's just not as funny as you feel it should be.

I don't know if it needed to be taken more seriously, or if it just needed more jokes, or if it just needed 20 minutes cut out of it, but in the end we're left with a cheap-feeling kind of lesson in believing in yourself and following your own path. I mean, it has some genuine laughs in it, but I think it could have been a lot stronger if it had been better controlled and written. Still, it's amiable enough. Two and a Half costume changes out of Five.


- Peace out