Controversy Ahoy

Conditions: Overcast.


Let the Exercise In Futility Begin

At this point there is nor further debate over the whys and hows America and Britain declared war on Iraq on behalf of the rest of the world. They did the wrong thing for the wrong reasons, in a combination of greed, fear and hubris. And no justice will ever be delivered to these architects, they are free to live out their lives as respected statesmen. However, for some reason a panel in Britain has been put together to go over it all once again

LONDON — A panel investigating Britain's role in the Iraq war begins questioning witnesses this week in an inquiry that critics hope will humble former Prime Minister Tony Blair and expose alleged deception in the buildup to conflict.

The investigation is the most sweeping probe yet into the war by any nation that was involved.

It is expected to consider allegations Blair secretly backed President George W. Bush plan's for invasion a year before Parliament authorized military involvement in 2003.

The panel, which opens public hearings Tuesday, will question dozens of officials over several months — including Blair, military officials and spy agency chiefs. It will also seek evidence from ex-White House staff.

Bereaved families and anti-war activists have long called for a comprehensive study to consider Britain's role in a conflict that left 179 British soldiers dead and triggered massive public protests.

But some worry the hearings will do little to answer lingering doubts about Britain's rush to join the war. Led by a panel appointed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the inquiry won't apportion blame, or establish criminal or civil liability — only offer reprimand and recommendations in hopes mistakes won't be repeated in the future.

- www.google.com/

Yeah, well, big deal. While it's always fun to dig all the old stuff back up again, and it's always fun to turn the spotlights on and watch the cockroaches squirm, it really is going to end up as another slap to the face of Iraq. They did it, there's no justification as to why, the end.



Are We Under A Cloud Or Not?

Climate Change, that long held bogey monster, has now been challenged after a series of leaked emails showed some climate change scientists had actually been cooking the data a little bit. Does this challenge the very core findings of climate change, or is this just an over reaction to some practical scientific practices?

“Climategate,” as some label the controversy, concerns at least 1,000 e-mails and files leaked or hacked from computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in Britain.

Many of the e-mails are innocuous. But others depict a small, influential group of scientists – several of whom work on global temperature trends over the past 1,500 years – trying to prevent skeptics of their work from gaining access to raw data used.

Other e-mails suggest some researchers manipulated data and tried to block publication of papers that called their work into question. One e-mail urges colleagues to destroy e-mails related to work on the 2007 IPCC reports on global warming.
[...]

Testifying before Congress the same day, President Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren, told lawmakers that the science behind global warming, although “incomplete,” is sound. But he added that if data has been manipulated “in ways not scientifically legitimate, I regard that as a problem and I would denounce it.”

The IPCC chair has said the e-mails don’t undermine its reports. This is because climate-change research relies on many lines of evidence and thousands of research papers, while the e-mails relate mainly to one line of evidence and a relative handful of papers.

But the e-mails do show some scientists trying to protect a higher level of confidence in their results than the data allow, says John Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, and a target in the e-mails.

“This puts the whole field under a cloud,” he says.

- www.truthout.org/

If science really is the quest for truth, then all of this will end up for the good, as any and every theory should be challenged on a regular basis. The concern here is that if legislators, and people in general, suddenly think we've all been fooled, and we actually haven't, then getting them back on board again will be almost impossible. It's simple: the more complicated and controversial something is, the more open it needs to be in order for it to work.



The Games Afoot

In a striking example of treating the symptoms rather than the disease, Human Rights groups have criticized some video game makers for creating games that depicted war in an ungoverned and unregulated way.

Video games depicting war have come under fire for flouting laws governing armed conflicts.

Human rights groups played various games to see if any broke humanitarian laws that govern what is a war crime.

The study condemned the games for violating laws by letting players kill civilians, torture captives and wantonly destroy homes and buildings.

It said game makers should work harder to remind players about the real world limits on their actions.

War without limits

The study was carried out by two Swiss human rights organisations - Trial and Pro Juventute. Staff played the games in the presence of lawyers skilled in the interpretation of humanitarian laws.

Twenty games were scrutinised to see if the conflicts they portrayed and what players can do in the virtual theatres of war were subject to the same limits as in the real world.
[...]

The testers looked for violations of the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols which cover how war should be waged.

In particular, the testers looked for how combatants who surrendered were treated, what happened to citizens caught up in war zones and whether damage to buildings was proportionate.

Some games did punish the killing of civilians and reward strategies that tried to limit the damage done by the conflict, said the study.

However, it said, many others allowed "protected objects" such as churches and mosques to be attacked; some depicted interrogations that involved torture or degradation and a few permitted summary executions.

- news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/

You have got to be freaking kidding me. War Video Games come under fire for allowing gamers to commit war crimes? This is like prosecuting Race Car Sim players for speeding and dangerous driving. I seriously doubt that there's a lack of real-world conflict and human rights abuses for these guys to be sticking their noses into. Maybe they figure it's a hell of a lot easier to go after Video Games companies than it is to go after members of the U.N security council, and multi-national corporations. And while that's probably true, it means that if you can't go after the top dogs, then you shouldn't be going after anyone at all.


- Peace Out