HUGE IMPACT CRATER IN ANTARCTICA
Another great story on PhyOrg.com today shows a 300 mile wide crater that has been discovered a mile beneath the ice in Antarctica. Using gravity fluctuation measurements, the crater is estimated to be 250 million years old, placing it before the extinction of the dinosaurs (65 million years ago). This impact could also have caused the breakup of Gondwanaland and caused Australia to break apart. What else lies under the ice? When we one day send a probe/camera/backpacker down under the ice, will we find a ruined civilization, kangaroo mummies, or what?
Friday, June 02, 2006
RED RAIN ALIENS
In 2001 in the state of Kerala, India, red rain fell in sporadic showers. Analyzing this "rain," a scientist has posited that these red droplets could actually be alien microbes brought to earth in a meteor or comet. Read it here, from Popular Science. Article spotted by Tapete. Is this the first step in their sinister invasion plans?
MAGLEVS ON THE RISE
A story in PhysOrg.com today details how far the science of maglev trains has come in recent years. Because magnetic levitation trains use magnets to hover centimeters above the tracks, there is no contact and no friction, which allows the trains to travel up to 400 mph. Imagine the way the world would be redesigned if you could jump on a 400 mph train! Los Angeles to San Francisco in 25 minutes! And you could walk around and have cocktails in the Observation Car. That sounds like the Future, to me!
In 2001 in the state of Kerala, India, red rain fell in sporadic showers. Analyzing this "rain," a scientist has posited that these red droplets could actually be alien microbes brought to earth in a meteor or comet. Read it here, from Popular Science. Article spotted by Tapete. Is this the first step in their sinister invasion plans?
MAGLEVS ON THE RISE
A story in PhysOrg.com today details how far the science of maglev trains has come in recent years. Because magnetic levitation trains use magnets to hover centimeters above the tracks, there is no contact and no friction, which allows the trains to travel up to 400 mph. Imagine the way the world would be redesigned if you could jump on a 400 mph train! Los Angeles to San Francisco in 25 minutes! And you could walk around and have cocktails in the Observation Car. That sounds like the Future, to me!
Monday, May 29, 2006
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a time for reflecting on all of the millions of people who have been killed in war. You can choose to color this remembrance as honoring those who "gave their all" (in the words of USMemorialDay.org) and you can interpret this "gift" as being responsible for the "freedoms" you currently "enjoy."
Without disputing the magnitude of someone sacrificing their life for an ideal or a concept, it's also important to remember that every war causes untold deaths and destruction to civilians and those who have not chosen to "give their all" but were instead just trying to live. And just because someone becomes a soldier it in no way minimizes their death. There seems to be a disconnect when talking of military deaths versus civilian deaths. To the families of the dead, there is no difference. The only real material difference is that if you kill and are killed while wearing a national uniform, you can have a flag for your troubles, or rather, your mom and/or widow can have the flag.
Howard Zinn has written at length on the concept of a "popular" or "just" war. The hagiography surrounding WWII seems to sell the idea that everything that our side did in the war was justified because we were the Good Guys. Zinn (who himself served on a bomber crew during WWII) and others, myself included, are against this glorification of war. Yes, the Nazis had to be stopped. Yes, Imperial Japan was overrunning its neighbors. But the millions of dead, the cities destroyed, the civilians slaughtered - is there really no other way?
When England's RAF firebombed the German civilian city of Dresden, over 100,000 people were incinerated overnight. This even is immortalized in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five." Dresden was of no military value and the sacrifice of its population was done to demoralize the enemy. The nuclear weapons exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasake were also products of this "just" war. Both cities were civilian. Something on the order of 160,000 to 180,000 people were killed.
Where is the remembrance day for these people? It is truly sad and tragic when soldiers die but it is even more tragic when the civilians who ostensibly are in charge of the armed forces and the leaders who send them into battle, abdicate their responsibilities or simply disengage from the world and allow the men who make billions on war to take our young to yet another foreign battlefield.
Every Memorial Day we need to make a new commitment to erasing the need for military solutions. We need to engage our enemies in ways that make the world a better, safer, more peaceful place. Dying for the service of oil companies and weapons manufacturers and career generals who want a few combat medals on their chest does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of death and ignorance.
Our dead, our soldiers who are serving right now and those who spent time in the armed forces because they believed they were doing the right thing - they all deserve better.
As Billy Bragg sang in "Everywhere" -
Dig in boys for an extended stay
Those were the final orders to come down that day
Waiting to be saved in the Philippines
You'll wait forever for the young Marines
Now I believe to be here is right
But I have to say that I'm scared tonight
Crouching in this hole with a mouth full of sand
What comes first
the country or the man
Look at those slanted eyes coming up over the hill
Catching us by suprise
it's time to kill or be killed
Over here
over there
it's the same everywhere
A boy cries out for his mama before he dies for his home
Memorial Day is a time for reflecting on all of the millions of people who have been killed in war. You can choose to color this remembrance as honoring those who "gave their all" (in the words of USMemorialDay.org) and you can interpret this "gift" as being responsible for the "freedoms" you currently "enjoy."
Without disputing the magnitude of someone sacrificing their life for an ideal or a concept, it's also important to remember that every war causes untold deaths and destruction to civilians and those who have not chosen to "give their all" but were instead just trying to live. And just because someone becomes a soldier it in no way minimizes their death. There seems to be a disconnect when talking of military deaths versus civilian deaths. To the families of the dead, there is no difference. The only real material difference is that if you kill and are killed while wearing a national uniform, you can have a flag for your troubles, or rather, your mom and/or widow can have the flag.
Howard Zinn has written at length on the concept of a "popular" or "just" war. The hagiography surrounding WWII seems to sell the idea that everything that our side did in the war was justified because we were the Good Guys. Zinn (who himself served on a bomber crew during WWII) and others, myself included, are against this glorification of war. Yes, the Nazis had to be stopped. Yes, Imperial Japan was overrunning its neighbors. But the millions of dead, the cities destroyed, the civilians slaughtered - is there really no other way?
When England's RAF firebombed the German civilian city of Dresden, over 100,000 people were incinerated overnight. This even is immortalized in Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five." Dresden was of no military value and the sacrifice of its population was done to demoralize the enemy. The nuclear weapons exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasake were also products of this "just" war. Both cities were civilian. Something on the order of 160,000 to 180,000 people were killed.
Where is the remembrance day for these people? It is truly sad and tragic when soldiers die but it is even more tragic when the civilians who ostensibly are in charge of the armed forces and the leaders who send them into battle, abdicate their responsibilities or simply disengage from the world and allow the men who make billions on war to take our young to yet another foreign battlefield.
Every Memorial Day we need to make a new commitment to erasing the need for military solutions. We need to engage our enemies in ways that make the world a better, safer, more peaceful place. Dying for the service of oil companies and weapons manufacturers and career generals who want a few combat medals on their chest does nothing but perpetuate the cycle of death and ignorance.
Our dead, our soldiers who are serving right now and those who spent time in the armed forces because they believed they were doing the right thing - they all deserve better.
As Billy Bragg sang in "Everywhere" -
Dig in boys for an extended stay
Those were the final orders to come down that day
Waiting to be saved in the Philippines
You'll wait forever for the young Marines
Now I believe to be here is right
But I have to say that I'm scared tonight
Crouching in this hole with a mouth full of sand
What comes first
the country or the man
Look at those slanted eyes coming up over the hill
Catching us by suprise
it's time to kill or be killed
Over here
over there
it's the same everywhere
A boy cries out for his mama before he dies for his home
The Real Fake News
Jon Stewart has won millions of fans through his nightly "fake news" show, but this phenomenon is hardly unique. In an article from The Independent today, the Center For Media And Democracy uncovered over 77 instances of the Bush Administration and major corporations creating phony "news" segments that were aired and passed off by TV stations as legitimate, independent news. What's next?
Jon Stewart has won millions of fans through his nightly "fake news" show, but this phenomenon is hardly unique. In an article from The Independent today, the Center For Media And Democracy uncovered over 77 instances of the Bush Administration and major corporations creating phony "news" segments that were aired and passed off by TV stations as legitimate, independent news. What's next?