Friday, April 30, 2004

When UFOs Arrive. If ET turns up at NASA's doorstep bearing that invitation, it is in for a surprise. Instead of getting a handshake from the head of NASA, it will be handcuffed by an FBI agent dressed in a Biosafety Level 4 suit. Instead of sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House, the alien will be whisked away to the Department of Agriculture's Animal Disease Center on Plum Island, off the coast of New York's Long Island. Here it will be poked and probed by doctors from the National Institutes of Health. A Department of Energy (DOE) Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST) will tow away its spacecraft. Unfriendly as this welcome may seem, it is the chain of events that most likely will follow the visitor's arrival. Unique as the appearance of an alien-piloted spacecraft may be, the event incorporates elements of three situations familiar to federal emergency response workers: a plane crash, the release of radioactive material, and the capture of an animal suspected of harboring a contagious disease. Responsibilities in these situations are spelled out in Presidential Executive Orders. [Popular Mechanics] I can't tell if this is supposed to be a joke or not. I can say that I wouldn't be surprised if it's not, because it would be just like our government to immediately provoke a war with aliens advanced enough to manage interstellar travel. 7:05:57 PM    comment () U.S. Hands Over Some Positions in Iraq [AP World News] Led by a former Saddam Hussein general, Iraqi troops replaced U.S. Marines on Friday and raised the Iraqi flag at the entrance to Fallujah under a plan to end the monthlong siege of the city. And it did happen! 5:51:41 PM    comment () Meet Gen. Saleh. A correction on the name and background of the Iraqi general taking over Fallujah. [Back to Iraq 3.0] If this actually does happen it would be a significant victory for Iraq. Raed has also commented on this. 5:45:37 PM    comment () A piece of data for Americans about Europe and their media. No one here seems to know about the Dean Scream. It's not part of the folklore. Ask an educated European why Dean isn't the nominee of the Democratic Party and they turn the question back at you. There's more to it than the scream and the huge amount of play it got on the networks. Dean raised lots of money because he had support in the northeast and west coast. But the first primaries were in Iowa and New Hampshire. [Scripting News] Of course New Hampshire is in the northeast, so that isn't it. Or at least, not quite. What he really means is that Dean had support from socialists, who are concentrated in certain cities in those regions--but not in New Hampshire and Iowa. 5:13:52 PM    comment () As Bad As The Other Guys. As much as I would like to say otherwise, ill-treatment of prisoners of war is bullshit. I can understand situations where, as recently occurred, a soldier will ill-treat a prisoner to get information which could save the lives of his buddies. It may not be right, but it will never go away, and I can understand the motives. But if all the reports are true,... [Kim du Toit] I'm pleased (and rather surprised) to see a Crusader actually condemning the torture of prisoners in Iraq. 2:16:07 PM    comment () XP Users Cop a Feel of OS X. What's better than a nice new Mac running OS X? For some people, it's a cheap Windows XP box hacked and tweaked to look just like an OS X machine. For a lot of XP users, converting PCs into faux Macs is a consuming pastime. By Leander Kahney. [Wired News] I don't really understand why anyone would want to make XP emulate an inferior user interface. But then, my own XP systems use the "Windows Classic" (i.e. Windows 95) theme, because the native color scheme of XP gives me a headache. 1:09:50 PM    comment () Mail and Guardian.  This Iraqi prison story gets worse and worse (and the ramifications are going to be very, very bad).  Pics (mature content).  There is also a sub-story here about private mercenaries without legal controls (again).  See "Mercenaries Unbound" for background on this issue. Martin Van Creveld once pointed out that parties at war eventually converge on a common set of behaviors.  It looks like we are giving more ground than our opponents. [John Robb's Weblog] This is isn't really surprising, as the various Iraqi weblogs have mentioned that Americans are torturing prisoners before. It is nice that they go caught, thanks to one soldier who was brave enough to stand up to the torturers. Another disgusting thing that won't surprise me is the inevitable posts on Crusader web sites supporting cheering for the torture of prisoners and calling those who object "traitors." 9:53:09 AM    comment ()

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