The Art Neuro Weblog

A veritable, rich treasure trove for all you spacefreaks to cogitate on today!
Today's Mars stories include:
1) The AP report that the Mars Rover is sitting at the bottom of something that was once an ancient sea. Don't get too carried away, the water there was at least 2 inches deep. Well, I've leapt puddles deeper than that so the Mariana Sea Trench, this was not.
2) There is a delightful piece from Canada about their space capability. As it turns out they have something called Synthetic Aperture Radar, a field in which they lead the world. I don't know exactly what the SAR technology does, but it seems it's important in remote-control of robotic arms. As usual, they need more money. Do we detect a pattern of lack of interest world wide?
3) The New York Times reports in the Business section no less, about the problems of having Boeing dominate the Aerospace industry. Because this is the NYTimes, if you are interested in seeing this article in the future, I suggest you save it as a .mht file.

All in all, it's been an exciting week in Mars exploration.

A moment to say something bleedingly obvious
We at SpaceFreaks totally disagree with Israel's assassination of Sheikh Yassin. We see it as a deplorable act that in no way promotes peace and in fact creates more obstacles for our ultimate goal of space colonisation. Regardless of political persuasion, whether we agreed with the Israeli or Palestinian position in the past, we see nothing that justifies, let alone makes it even close to remotely acceptable, to start assassinating leaders. From this single act we can only conclude that whatever spin they might issue, Israel is not interested in Peace.

The Fog of War
It seems appropriate at this moment to reflect on the lessons offered by Robert S. McNamara in the documentary, 'The Fog of War'. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it.

For the record, here are the Eleven lessons, from memory and jogging through web pages:
1) Empathise with your enemy
2) Rationality will not save us
3) In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.
4) Maximise Efficiency
5) Proportionality should be a guideline in war
6) Get the Data
7) Belief and seeing are often Wrong
8) Be prepared to re-examine your reasoning
9) Never Apply Military Force Unilaterally
10) Never say Never
11) You cannot change human nature

If this on its own means nothing much, then go watch 'The Fog of War'. There is much to be said about the world today that flies in the face of his sage advice, and we are worse off for it.

- Art Neuro