Stonehead

I skip watching the movies anymore. All the good shizzle's in the trailers. Through a Scanner Darkly

video ode to the redneck rednecks, pickup trucks, hogs, mullets, racecars, CB radios, fish, gap toothed smiles...and more Turn on your sound & enjoy!

...the term “depleted” is a misnomer, since DU contains about 60 percent of the radioactivity found in natural uranium, according to Tod Ensign, a veteran and attorney with the veterans advocacy group Citizen Soldier in New York. “When a DU shell strikes its target, up to 70 percent of the depleted uranium vaporizes into fine dust, which then settles out in the surrounding soil and water,” he wrote. “Over half of the aerosolized particles are smaller than 5 microns and anything smaller than 10 microns can be inhaled. Once lodged in the lungs, these particles can emit a steady dose of alpha radiation.” --source article According to this article, there still exists a data gap in health effects from DU. Seems like a significant issue for returning GIs and civilian population where DU is utilized.

Why doesn't the government deal with marijuana in a rational way? Legalize and regulate it for tax purposes and employment. Could you imagine the employment gain through a quasi-amnesty type arrangement? All the people living on the boundary of the law could be brought in and gainfully employed. Organized crime would be dealt a blow and the government authorities and law enforcement could concentrate on the scourge of methamphetamine. Congress needs to get its ass out of the pork barrel and address this issue since the Supreme Court has thrown the issue back to our representatives. I know this sounds like easy answers but maybe we should consider viable alternatives to dealing with the issue.

Gotta love this statement: "...DU has the same properties as natural uranium, while being 40% less radioactive." --see link above No doubt, DU is valuable as a military material as it seems the report indicates that the benefits of its use outweigh its costs. However, as I recall, didn't it take quite a number of years before the military acknowledged the health effects of a particular jungle defoliant? A similar debate surrounds cell phone usage and whether the energy associated with it is 'safe'. As it now stands, there's too much benefit from it to be much concerned about long-term health effects. Anyway, I was interested in the questions about DU. It's not a blanket slam at the military. It's just that military sometimes gets so singleminded in pursuit of advantage that it overlooks drawbacks. In the case of Iraq, is this a potential health concern for ordinary Iraqis (and GI's for that matter) or is it one that can be mitigated through certain practices? Questions...just questions...

ARPANET

A long time ago I read some Lewis Mumford or someone like that, who said that technological progress produces societal upheavals. Perhaps the fundamentalism that we are seeing from "both sides of the world" are a reaction to that change, I mean, look at all the technological 'development' we've seen in the last 50 years (most of it for the better?).

are you suggesting that the space program has been focused on weapons development/deployment (even if it is not NASA's stated goals?) No, not explicitly. This is like art. I don't 100% research everything. I put things together. Sometimes it makes sense but that doesn't mean it's true. Sometimes it totally fucking wrong but sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. There's a little bit of an element of truth in every statement. Sometimes more truth but it's contingent on following a certain path of thought. So yeah, there's probably a strong military component to the space program, indirectly or directly. For example, map-making. Cruise missiles, I believe, rely on an accurate representation of the earth's surface.

I'm not certain that that's a point that I actually hold in spite of what I've written. Wars are costly but what price progress, if we can call it that?

Cassanova was a master of seduction.

Unconditional surrender by the Japanese government was seen as the primary goal. However, the explosion of the nuclear bombs was quite a world spectacle. No wonder the hubbabub surrounding the launch of Sputnik in '57. The beginnings of the ICBM era...

"democracy, human rights, and freedom" There does seem to be an ideal version of these aspirations but the reality sometimes comes across as a degenerate semblance. This is the best of all possible worlds.

Is this Mahayana? You know, the quick path is Vajrayana.

RIP. Twentieth Century

I don't see it as a Japanese versus American or German versus British thing. I see it as governments run by older men who send young men to war. Industrialists often support the war effort, too. I mentioned earlier about the 'innocents' but upon reflection I began to wonder since when has war been kinder and gentler? Was there ever a golden age of war where soldiers acted chivalrous? It's a myth, isn't it? War on a large scale has always been about 'total war' where the line between civilian and soldier blurs.

I think it's overly optimistic and utopian to believe in perpetual peace. It seems that to maintain the peace would require draconian measures. It simply goes against how we are hardwired. Competition is innate in most biological organisms. Even in examples of symbiosis, the symbiont is typically an invader, e.g., zooanthella in corals, that the host seeks to digest. Also, I'm not certain that the gender or sex thing would matter. Agricultural societies that were primarily matriarchal sometimes engaged in substitute sacrifice, e.g., sacrifice of humans to insure good crops. The reasoning is that the practice of agriculture takes from the earth so that the earth must be given something back in return. Widespread war is also associated with the development of these societies.

I don't believe that's strictly a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Generally, I have faith in our nuclear triad against threats like the former Soviet Union and in cases such as North Korea. But, there are many other things to consider, such as balance of power and dealing with rational governments as opposed to terrorist groups.

Part of the rhetoric emitting from the Bush Administration and the President's supporters in the Republican Party is that Al Qaida and/or other Islamic extremist groups are seeking to explode nuclear devices including 'dirty bombs' within the United States. If this is a credible threat, I hope it never comes to pass. However, I have wondered if anyone has considered the health effect that we are causing with the use of depleted uranium (DU) during the Iraqi war and occupation. Should we give a damn if we're giving them what they need, i.e., representation through elections, and that's just the price they have to pay? Is it hyper-cynicism to not care because who in his right mind would think that they would care if the tables were turned? Is it not ironic that Bush and Company pushed the war based on the threat of the high potential of Iraqi development of nuclear weapons, yet we, through our representatives, our military, are potentially poisoning their land through the use of DU? Is it just our hubris to think that we are not making the problem worse? Will the crows come home to roost?

Ok, what gets me, is the way the situation is frameworked. When you present the issue as one of invasion vs. bomb, then it seems so parsimonious. And, that has always been the official line. Conceivably, given enough time the Japanese could have developed weapons of mass destruction such as the germ warfare research spearheaded by Unit 731, just as the Germans could have produced the atomic bomb. Seems ironic that the US through OSS (predecessor to CIA), brought German and Japanese military research scientists to safe haven to acquire their knowledge. Anyway, my point is that there is always the sense of a collective guilt and punishment. Someone mentions Nanking or Pearl Harbor and that justifies the dropping of the bombs without remorse. I hate to see civilians bear the brunt of war, war that is often precipitated by governments with a special agenda. Even though the people have nationalist sentiment, it's being harnessed by government for their purposes. As far as Pearl Harbor, that was a military target of strategic benefit and involved soldiers against soldiers. I can't speak to things such as Bataan and Nanking. It seems that the animal nature of all of us emerges from underneath the thin veneer of civiliation under the stress of war. Might I mention My Lai? So, it's for all the innocents that I take pause for. You might say that there really are no innocent people because they're actually a part of the 'war machine' that furthers the cause and means of war. That's the real tragedy and true cost of war.

Isn't that the sound of a theremin? Like in movies such as 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'?

"Funding is tough to come by these days," he says. "The biggest downside to a war in Iraq is what you could do with that money. What does a war in Iraq cost a week? A billion? Maybe a billion a day? The budget for the National Cancer Institute is four billion. That has to change. It needs to become a priority again. "Polls say people are much more afraid of cancer than of a plane flying into their house or a bomb or any other form of terrorism. It is a priority for the American public." Article--Fighting cancer is new mission for Armstrong

I hear a trilogy is in the works.

August 6 & 9, 1945....Two historians have new evidence disputing the 'official' explanation of using the atomic bombs to yield a surrender to prevent a planned invasion. From their research: New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman's main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia, Kuznick claims. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the atomic bombs themselves, he says. According to an account by Walter Brown, assistant to then-US secretary of state James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was "looking for peace". Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb. "Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan," says Selden. Truman was also worried that he would be accused of wasting money on the Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear bombs, if the bomb was not used, he adds. --source I think the correct way to state this is that their government was more than willing to sacrifice it's people. The government exploited nationalistic sentiment. The government is culpable. That's why we see the heads of government and other authority figures who get tried in war crimes trials. Maybe this GWOT makes it difficult to find the responsible leaders (e.g. Osama) but as I understand it, many religious leaders have been rounded up (I think it's something called extraordinatory rendition--'kidnapped') and sent to states that use torture. Sometimes I think of the horror stories (actual stories) I have heard of what happened in South Africa during apartheid. These are two different things, of course, but illustrative of what lengths a group in power will go to stay in control.

Another movie by the Wachowski brothers (Matrix)--- http://vforvendetta.warnerbros.com/cmp/trailer_lrg.html

You're motoring What's your price for flight In finding mister right You'll be all right tonight Babe, you know You're growing up so fast Mommy's worrying That you won't last to say Let's play Sister Christian There's so much in life Don't you give it up Before your time is due It's true