Butcher Of The Balkans - Dead

Slobodan Milosevic is dead, aged 64, found in his cell having died of "natural causes." Milosevic has been fighting war crimes allegations in the Hague and was denied the medical care he sought, which likely would have involved him fleeing to Russia and never being heard from again. Milosevic's history and legacy are fraught with contested facts, but the trail of dead is undeniable.

The collapse of Yugoslavia freed up four sets of people to go at each other's throats. The irony is that they all claimed that they were fighting for their lives and that the others would seize the first chance to try and kill them - which came about rather quickly.

When I was living in Prague, there were many Serb and Croat refugees taking up residence. Most of the Croats, around my group anyway, seemed to get by through selling hash. In Prague, the Serb and Croat expats got along fine.

The issue gets a little thornier when you take history into consideration. Not the 2,000 or 3,000 years worth that the area requires, but even the relatively recent events of WWII. While the Croats seemed to have come off a lot better in international opinion by portraying themselves as hapless victims, many Serbs remember staunchly fending off the Nazis while the Croats willingly and gladly helped the Nazis build death camps and fill those camps with Serbs. If this proves anything, it's that the Serbs hold grudges like you wouldn't believe.

The Serbs' problem is that Yugoslavia was a loose confederation of various areas that contained pockets of Serbs, and once Yugoslavia itself for the most part vanished, these enclaves were cut off and isolated, at least in the Serbian mind. Milosevic waged a civil war by attempting to forcefully join up the areas between these enclaves into one Greater Serbia. The ethnic cleansing, mass graves, forced relocations, rapes, murders and other sundry atrocities should all be fresh enough in everyone's minds.

Here's a piece of the puzzle that gets overlooked, however. No matter how much of a brutal madman Milosevic was, and how many people he was responsible for murdering, there were no heroes on the opposing side(s) either. Ethnic cleansing was the new national pasttime of the (former) Yugoslavs. Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and Albanians all got into the act. No one was guiltless.

Once the Serb army was repelled, the Croats not only took back the linkage lands but also forced the Serbs from their homes and engaged in the military pursuits like rape and murder and taking of spoils. But somehow at this point the world opinion had shifted into thinking that Serbs somehow "deserved" this for their earlier actions. The Serbs, however, have a long list of reasons why their actions were justified and responses, not instigations. And so on.

It gets worse when Kosovo is brought into the discussion. Albania is a separate country from both the (former) Yugoslavia and all of the newer areas. Albanians moved into the Kosovo region and tried to cut off all ties with the Serb government there. The "Kosovar Albanians" wanted, essentially, to live under Islamic law, which the Christian Serbs had (obviously) no intention of obliging them with. To put it in more familiar terms, this would be like Mexicans moving in large numbers into Arizona and then declaring themselves part of Mexico and exempt from United States' law. Our own State Department categorized the main Albanian group as a terrorist organization, yet this same group of terrorists, the KLA, became our buddies when we instigated a 78 day air campaign against the Serb army. The army was called in after the KLA declared Kosovo autonomous and then called Albania for recognition. In essence, the KLA tried to present Kosovo as a newly liberated territory that could then simply be annexed. Naturally, Milosevic resisted this, and resisted it by sending in the army and forcibly moving the Albanians back to Albania. Under international law, this is a war crime.

Before anyone gets too self-righteous here, there is a list a mile long of war crimes committed by the United States in violation of international law just since our invasion of Iraq, so it's good to keep this in perspective.

At the end of the day, these groups in Yugoslavia are linguistically culturally, religiously, and ethnically distinct. Whether they can ever live together remains to be seen. The history of bloodshed at least has one chapter now closed, now that a mastermind of mass graves and rapes is at last dead. The trial continues, because the world still wants answers, but I think the answers are going to be unpleasant realities such as, all sides were wrong, all sides murdered, all sides raped, all sides pillaged and plundered. In the end, this is what armies do. This is what happens when nations go to war. There are no winners here.

Crazy Conspiracy Video

Watch this movie, it's about an hour and twenty minutes long, and takes you on a whirlwind tour of the September 11th attacks from the perspective of them being aided, abetted and maybe even perpetrated by intelligence agencies. The link is: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848

Is it true? Most likely, no. But it is compelling and some of their points surely are correct, although I'd recommend this just for the sake of seeing how you can change your mind, or be manipulated into changing your mind, by seeing a documentary.

Fuck Barry Bonds, Bud Selig and Roger Clemens
Bonds' steroid imbroglio is just getting worse. A book written by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters offers a wealth of detail on Bonds' steroid usage. Bonds, despite suddenly, massively bulking up in his 30s and going on a homerun binge, denies using steroids - but here's the kicker: the reporters are reporters, and they have proof, but he still denies it! It's all over the news.

Bud Selig, the Baseball Commissioner (which calls to mind all the dignity and authority of Mayor McCheese) has said he is meeting with lots of people to find out what happened, but Bonds has not been one of them.

Roger Clemens, the famed hot-tempered asshole formerly of the Yankees, offered his support for Bonds and mentioned how hard this last year has been for the multi-millionaire, anti-social, pampered, coddled baseball star. So fuck all three of them. It's obvious Bonds used steroids. Clemens? Maybe he did too, hence his spirited defense of the most hated man in baseball (besides himself). Selig? He has said to the public that he is trying to clean up baseball, but he does nothing. Bonds' homerun records should have an asterix next to them. He cheated. He defrauded the sport, the fans and the record books.

The one thing baseball fans care about is history and context. They memorize stats because they are part of the history of the game, and that history is now suspect on all fronts. How can anyone claim that Roger Maris' 61 homerun records should be taken down in favor of Mark McGuire, who obviously used steroids? The old records are broken by cheaters. Why not allow corked bats?

This is not only a symptom of the problem of baseball but also its death knell. How can ordinary talented athletes compete when the person vying for the same spot as them is juicing and putting on muscle and gaining an edge illegally? Look at these players now. They are destroying what was already a boring and stupid game. And Bonds is hailed as some kind of a legend for his homeruns, but if the homeruns are due to his juicing, how "legendary" is that? Add to it the fact that Bonds is despised by his own team and everyone else in the game.

By contrast, I offer a view of the Football Association in the UK, which is the governing body that oversees everything soccer. If a player is caught using drugs, and that includes recreational drugs and performance enhancing drugs, they are banned from participating in any games for two years, sometimes longer. A player on Manchester United, Rio Ferdinand, missed a drugs test and was banned for 9 months, without there being any evidence he used drugs, just for missing the test! They take that seriously over there, and it allows the fans to know that the players they are seeing are the real deal. It allows a fan growing up watching the sport to know that with enough practice and a little natural born talent, he/she too could play at the top levels.

Baseball, by contrast, is becoming a freakshow. Kids in high school see that talent and practice is not enough anymore. They want the money and giant diamond stud earrings and cars like their hero Bonds. Bonds has desecrated the game, and any apologist fuck like Clemens should be ashamed of himself. For all those juicers in the sport, in 20 years when your organs start failing and you end up dying in your mid 40s, I hope you think it was worth it.

Cold Fusion One Step Closer To Reality

We all know that in the near future we will power our DeLoreans with a Mr. Fusion motor, but maybe you didn't know just how close we are. Prof. Rusi Taleyarkhan might be an unknown geek today, but if his tabletop nuclear fusion process turns out to be legitimate, you will know his name because he will be the savior of our planet. Read about him and sonofusion, here, from PhysOrg.

Seafood Lovers --- Eat This

In New Scientist, there's a photo of a new species of lobster that is white and furry. It's actually kind of pretty, compared with normal lobsters. Seafood is killing you. Here's another look at this "yeti crab" from PhysOrg.com. Ever hear of mercury poisoning? Seafood contains mercury in higher levels than the water they swim/crawl/bike in. Mercury causes birth defects. Mercury stays in your body for life. Eat up, suckers.


Sandia's Z Machine Reaches 2 Billion Degrees Kelvin

What in the name of fuck are they doing at Sandia? Their Z machine just blasted out radiation in excess of two billion degrees. Take a look at the Z Machine, here, from PhysOrg.com. Here's my favorite line from the article:

The unexpectedly hot output, if its cause were understood and harnessed...

If these scientists don't know what the fuck they're doing, maybe they should...stop? Didn't they ever play Half-Life? Don't they know what could happen!

Keith Olbermann Bitch-slaps Bill O'Reilly

From MediaMatters comes this piece concerning O'Reilly turning nearly rabid when a caller to his radio show attempted to say a kind word about Olbermann. The best part is Olbermann joking that O'Reilly police are going to show up armed with loofahs, a reference to O'Reilly's bizarre phone sex antics that were taped and ended up in a lawsuit being settled out of court. Go Keith!