The Meaning Of Tokyo War Crime Tribunals
Sorry to go on about this, but it really ticks me off that people who haven't read their history books go on about this; and I would damn well include some world leaders and newspaper editors outside of Japan on this topic.

Here is an Op Ed piece from Asahi Shimbun about a recent careless remark by a LDP pollie in the lower house in Japan.

When the war ended, the victorious allies set up the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, convicting 25 Japanese leaders as Class-A war criminals, including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and six others who were executed.

Japan may not have fully welcomed the outcome of the proceedings. In fact, Judge Radhabinod Pal of India insisted Japan was innocent. But Tokyo chose to settle the issue of its wartime responsibility by accepting the tribunal's verdict. That is an indisputable fact.

The San Francisco Peace Treaty incorporates the issue in Article 11, welcoming Japan back into international society. Many countries that signed the treaty renounced claims for compensation in consideration of Japan's rehabilitation efforts. From that point, postwar Japan made a fresh start. Accepting its responsibility in the last war at the Tokyo tribunal was the foundation of the country's resurgence, and Morioka's comments essentially negate that history.

The government is paying pensions to descendants of Class-A war criminals to ease the hardships of their daily lives. That should not be construed as denying what the war criminals did during the war.

We cannot but say Morioka's remarks are startling from the international point of view. If the world believes that Tokyo considers the military tribunal was wrong, people might wonder if Japan plans to start arguing about its war responsibility from scratch and whether it wants to review the San Francisco Peace Treaty.

Asahi is a newspaper renowned for its unashamed left-leaning media bias. It never has anything good to say about the successive LDP governments of year after year, and can be relied on to voice the traditional old Left Wing position that dates back to the Cold Warin a day and age when such politics is rather obsolete (though I know Conservative Weasel still has much faith in it - sad man).

So I think it valuable to note that:

1) Even the old Left in Japan consider the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals and its outcomes are in direct connection to alleged war crimes perpetrated by the Japanese forces during WWII. In other words, yes, war crimes were commited, not denying it.

2) That people were held 'accountable' and were executed for these crimes.

3) That the San Francisco Treaty signed by the nations to bring Japan back to the International community signed on the proviso that reparations were made or renounced their claims.

4) This fact, combined with the outcomes of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal essentially makes it that the case is closed.

The more centre-right Yomuri had this to report about the Yasukuni shrine visits by PM Koizumi.

Hidenao Nakagawa, head of the Liberal Democratic Party's Diet Affairs Committee, said that Koizumi made his visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which includes Class-A war criminals, out of his personal feelings toward the war dead enshrined at the facility.

Nakagawa made his remarks on a Fuji TV news program on Sunday, saying Koizumi said in response to a question about his visits to the shrine at the House of Councillors Budget Committee on May 20 that he made the visits in a personal capacity.

"The Chinese government didn't raise any objection when former prime ministers Masayoshi Ohira and Zenko Suzuki visited [the shrine]. So I believe Prime Minister Koizumi's words indicate that he hopes to be able to visit the shrine under circumstances similar to those of the Ohira and Suzuki era," he said.

Since an official visit to the shrine in 1985 by former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, China has taken issue with such visits by Japan's prime ministers. In an effort to win Chinese understandng, Koizumi stressed his visits had been made in a personal capacity, he said. Nakagawa also said that it was desirable for the bereaved families of soldiers who died in World War II and Yasukuni officials to voluntarily discuss enshrining the war dead and Class-A war criminals separately.

In other words, Yasukuni isn't about the A-Class War criminals, it's about the war dead. If China's objection is that the A Class War criminals are enshrined there, then this is a practical solution.

- Art Neuro

Babe Ruth
Clearly, he is standing the wrong way relative to homeplate; that, or he is demonstrating how he is going to slam that ball into the catcher's mask... The caption reads that Babe Ruth held his breath during his swing, thus he is not exerting full force; remarkable given that he is a prolific 'power' hitter. Something else we didn't know.
- Art Neuro

The Babe's Reflexes
I was reading the Hardball Times and came across this little doozy of an experiment conducted by psychologists in 1921 on Babe Ruth:

The scientists discovered exactly how quickly Ruth's eye functions by placing him in a dark cabinet, setting into operation a series of rapidly flashing bulbs and listening to the tick of an electric key by which he acknowledged the flashes.The average man responds to the stimulus of the light in 180 one thousandths of a second.

Babe Ruth needs only 160 one thousandths of a second. There is the same significance in the fact that Babe's response to the stimulus of sound comes 140 one thousandths of a second as against the averages man's 150 thousandths.

Human beings differ very slightly in these sight and sound tests, or rather the fractions are so small that they seem inexpressive; yet a difference of 20 or 10 one thousandths of a second indicates a superiority of the highest importance.

Translate the findings of the sight test into baseball if you want to see what they mean in Babe Ruth's case. They mean that a pitcher must throw a ball 20 one thousandths of a second faster to "fool" Babe than to "fool" the average person.

Now that's interesting. I wonder if anybody conducted similar tests on the late Sir Don Bradman at his peak?

- Art Neuro

Russian History Text Books
Just to show that history text books is not a uncontroversial topic outside of Japan, we can look at this little entry here. I'm going to quote it wholus bolus because it covers the essential problems of any history textbook:

Russians remember the Siege of Leningrad--a brutal, 872-day blockade of Russia's second-largest city by Nazi troops that killed 1.7 million people--as a dark, crucial moment in their history. Yet one of the most popular history textbooks in Russian classrooms casually distills the event into a mere four words.

"German troops blockaded Leningrad."

Glaring omissions abound in Nikita Zagladin's textbook, "History of Russia and the World in the 20th Century." The Holocaust is never mentioned. The book barely acknowledges the Gulag labor camps. And it flits past Russia's 10-year conflict with separatists in Chechnya, reducing a pivotal episode in modern Russian history to seven paragraphs.

For some Russian academics, Zagladin's penchant for smoothing over the bumps in
Russian history is precisely the reason his textbooks have become mainstays in Russian classrooms.

In recent years, authorities have increasingly sought to whip up patriotic fervor among Russians, often at the expense of illuminating Russian history's darker chapters.

Josef Stalin oversaw a murderous regime that killed millions of Russians. But with the country's celebration of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, the Georgian-born ruler has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity. The Siberian city of Mirny erected a statue of Stalin earlier this month, calling him "a great son of Russia who gave the people everything he had." The city of Orel recently asked the federal government for permission to change street names to honor Stalin.

It is in Russian classrooms, however, where authorities particularly want a renewed sense of national pride to take root.

When President Vladimir Putin met with historians at the Russian State Library in late 2003, he stressed that history textbooks should "cultivate in young people a feeling of pride for one's history and one's country."

A month later, Putin asked the Russian Academy of Sciences to scrutinize the country's history textbooks "at the earliest possible date." At the time, one of the most widely used history texts was Igor Dolutsky's "National History: 20th Century." For years, the book had been favored by teachers for its upfront discussion of sensitive topics, including Stalin's purges, Chechnya and anti-Semitism in Russia.

Dolutsky's textbook also did not shy away from talking about Putin, challenging students to discuss whether the former KGB colonel should be considered an authoritarian leader. The Kremlin leader's comments were heeded by Education Ministry officials, who suddenly pulled Dolutsky's book from classrooms after having given it their endorsement for seven straight years.

"They said my book was `blackening' Russian history," Dolutsky said during a recent interview. "It was the first prohibition of a textbook in schools in 25 years.

The offedning portions

Later, Dolutsky's publisher told him which historical references in the book irked authorities: Stalin's non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939; Soviet occupation of the Baltic states; the execution of thousands of Polish officers by Russian intelligence agents at Katyn in 1940; Stalin's deportation of legions of Chechens to Kazakhstan in 1944.

"Basically, they were dissatisfied with chapters devoted to Stalin's regime and Putin's leadership," said Dolutsky, 51. "Sections that dealt with [Nikita] Khrushchev and [Mikhail] Gorbachev, they ignored." Dmitry Ermoltsev, a Moscow teacher who has used Dolutsky's book, said he believes Kremlin attempts to polish the history taught in classrooms simply reflect a national reluctance to examine and learn from low points in Russian history.

"Russians don't like sharp criticism of their country's history--it makes them feel humiliated," Ermoltsev said. "Revising history and history books helps them overcome this discomfort. And Putin reacts to these signals from society."

Dolutsky, who teaches at a private school in Moscow, says his students have little appetite for lectures on human-rights abuses or Stalin's repressions. Recently, when he tried to rouse students into a discussion about the human toll that World War II took on the Soviet Union--26 million Soviet citizens died in the war--they appeared bored.

"Their reaction was, `Let it be 100 million--we don't care about that,'" Dolutsky said.
When he explained the war's impact in terms of the number of tanks and fighter planes destroyed, his students sat up in their seats.

"That's what really impressed them," Dolutsky said. "They didn't care about human life, but they cared about equipment."

Should textbooks shame?

Author Zagladin's view of history in the classroom differs radically from Dolutsky's. He agrees with Putin--a history textbook should make a pupil feel proud about Russia. It shouldn't depress, and it shouldn't shame.

"If a young person finishes school and feels everything that happened in this country was bad, he'll get ready to emigrate," Zagladin said during a recent phone interview. "A textbook should provide a patriotic education. "It's necessary to show Russian youths," Zagladin continued, "that industrial development during the Stalin era was successful, and that the repressions and terror during that era did not touch all of the population."

Zagladin acknowledged making mistakes in "The History of Russia and the World in the 20th Century." He said he barely mentioned the Siege of Leningrad because he believed he didn't have enough space. In hindsight, he said, "that's my mistake."

He added he should have included material about the Holocaust: "I decided to delete it because, if I mentioned it, I would have had to mention other repressions, also in detail," Zagladin said. "And I didn't have enough space in this book."

Despite such omissions, Zagladin's book has fans. Irina Safanova, a teacher at School 818 in Moscow, called the textbook "a very calm book, which tries to avoid shocking or extreme remarks. It's a strong point of the book.

"History books should not condemn," Safanova said. "It's important to avoid provoking feelings of shame in students."

Zagladin's critics say Russian students do not need to be shamed, merely enlightened about history's darker chapters, especially in a country where the truth has been lacquered over for so many years.

"According to polls, the majority of the population still considers Stalin to have played a positive role in Russian history," said Yuri Samodurov, director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum. "And the problem here is, our schools don't do anything to change this attitude."

The thing that gets me is that the discussion about history textboks is going to be ideological which ever way you carve it, slice it, dice it or compost it. Poeple who have an interest will seek out the knowledge and most people don't give a fig. One man's glorious victory is another man;'s senseless massacre and so on. After all, words are terribly insufficient to the task of describing events that have abstract dimenstions.

So what's the solution? Leave ideological wars over history text books to the nations. Dare we as outsiders comment on Russia on how Russia should put together its history books? I mean, do we want the *favour* repaid? I think every country's got a soft underbelly in its history texts; it might actually be better diplomacy to not comment on these matters to another country. You know? - Let their experts fight it out. have some respect. One is certainly not going to win freinds by trying to push one's lay-man's opinions in the face of their serious acamdemic concerns.

- Art Neuro

Merchant Ivory Era Ends
That is to say, Ismail Merchant has passed away and was buried in Bombay in his native India.

Merchant, 68, died Wednesday at a London hospital. He had recently undergone surgery for abdominal ulcers, according to Indian television reports. He was unmarried and had no children.

The Merchant-Ivory brand of costume drama spans some 40 films from "The Householder," a 1963 film set in India, to Le Divorce in 2003, an art house hit. Their films won six Academy Awards, including the best-actress Oscar for Emma Thompson for the 1992 film "Howards End."

They usually teamed up with screen writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala for movies filled with lush panoramas of the English and Indian countryside and told riveting stories of class, manners, desire and love.

He met Ivory in a New York City coffee shop in 1961. Their first film, "The Householder," was based on a novel by Prawer Jhabvala, and its 1963 premiere was held at the residence of then-U.S. Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith.

Merchant and Ivory used to be such institutions within the period piece genre; so much so they garnered a position as a sub-genre of historic pieces all on their own - usually with a snide derogatory sneer at how corny they were from modernist cynics like me, but let's face it, if they weren't good on some level, they wouldn't have been able to keep going fo so long. Not having anymore to mock and sneer at makes me feel a little sad.

Back to Space
Millionaire scientist Greogry Olsen bought a berth on to the ISS for 20million dollars. He was delayed because of health concern, but his 'mission' is back on.

Olsen, who co-founded infrared-camera maker Sensors Unlimited Inc., appears to be confirmed for the next Soyuz space capsule mission in October, said Marshall Cohen, president and co-founder of the company based just outside Princeton, N.J.

"He's very excited," Cohen told The Associated Press. "He's having a great time. He said it's going very well."

The October Soyuz mission is one of two regularly scheduled flights each year, when the spaceship brings supplies and a fresh crew to the International Space Station, Tearne said. She could not confirm when Olsen, who is footing the bill for his flight, will depart.

However, Cohen said that Olsen, originally scheduled to fly in April, now is training with the two astronauts slated for the October mission. "He never gave up hope. The guy's a bulldog," Cohen said.

So there's hope for us all yet; we just need to fork over 20 million for the Russian Space programme.

Not Back To Space
More delays are reported on the Discovery shuttle mission.

Discovery's launch delay not only tacked extra time on Earth for the seven STS-114 crewmembers, it also lengthened the amount of time the space station - currently manned by the two-member crew of Expedition 11 - must wait for a shuttle resupply mission. NASA space shuttles have not visited the ISS since December 2002, when the Endeavour orbiter undocked from the station and returned to Earth during the STS-113 mission.

"We'd rather see the space shuttles up here sooner rather than later," said NASA astronaut John Phillips, flight engineer for Expedition 11, during a NASA TV video downlink with CBS News. "I was certainly disappointed." But the astronauts agreed that, launch chagrin aside, paying strict attention to safety and risk management - not schedules - should be the prime concern for NASA's space shuttle program.

"It was the failure of risk management that led to the Columbia disaster," STS-114 mission specialist Andrew Thomas told Australian reporters via NASA TV. "So I think these steps of risk management that you're seeing are entirely appropriate."

Right.

- Art Neuro

Out Of The Jungle
Today used to be Japan's Navy Memorial Day commemorating the victory by Admiral Togo's fleet over the Russia's Baltic fleet in the sea of Japan. More on that later.

It seems therefore a little bit appropriate that we find out today that perhaps up to 3 men of the former Imperial Army have survived the post-war years in Mindanao Island of the Philippines and are requesting to be taken home to Japan. It's been over 30 years since Lietenant Onoda came out of the jungle in Lubang.

Japanese officials in the Philippines are to meet two men who claim to be Japanese soldiers who have lived in the jungle since the end of World War II. The pair, now in their 80s, were found on the southern island of Mindanao. They reportedly said they wanted to return to Japan, but were afraid of facing a court martial.

Their claim drew comparisons with the 1974 case of Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, who was found in the Philippines jungle unaware the war had ended.

'Incredible if true'

The two men on Mindanao had contacted a Japanese national who was collecting the remains of war dead on Mindanao, according to government sources. They had equipment which suggested they were former soldiers. "It is an incredible story if it is true," Japan's consul general in Manila, Akio Egawa, told the AFP news agency. "They were found, I believe, in the mountains near General Santos on Mindanao Island. "At this stage we are not saying either way whether or not these two men are in fact former soldiers. We may be in a better position later today," he said.

According to Japanese media reports, the pair had been living with Muslim rebel groups and at least one of them has married a local woman and had a family. The BBC's Tokyo correspondent says the likelihood is that they are well aware the war is over but have chosen to stay in the Philippines for their own reasons.

Remote jungle Mindanao has seen more than two decades of Muslim rebellion and many areas are out of central government control. Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, and set up a brutal puppet government. In the closing months of the war, there was heavy fighting with US troops in the mountainous, heavily forested islands.

The Sankei Shimbun daily said the men would most likely be members of the Panther division, 80% of whom were killed or went missing during the final months of the war. It speculated there could be as many as 40 Japanese soldiers living in similar conditions in the Philippines.

When Lt Onoda was found on the Philippines island of Lubang in 1974, he initially refused to surrender. Only when his former commanding officer was flown over from Japan did he agree to leave the jungle. He later emigrated to Brazil.

Oh boy. Stay tuned for more.

The Muslim group operating in Mindanao is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF, which is reall unfortunate for them because there are such things as MILF Hunters now (Warning, Sexual Content!!!). :)

Update:
Mainichi Shimbun newspaper has this report:

＜旧日本兵＞「数十人生存」情報も　半数が帰国希望　フィリピンに出征した旧日本兵らでつくる「曙光会」の近藤敏郎さん（８３）によると、昨年１２月２０日にフィリピンから帰国した厚生労働省の遺骨収集団から、ミンダナオ島のキバウエ東方で中内続喜（つづき）さん（８５）＝高知県明治村（現・越知町）出身＝ら３人が生存しているとの連絡が入ったという。近藤さんは「３人は現地のモロ族という部族に保護されているらしい。同島には旧日本兵の生存者が５７人おり、半数が帰国を希望していると聞いた」などと話した。　◇未帰還者は２１人　厚生労働省によると、戦死情報がなく家族などの話から判断した旧日本兵の未帰還者は今年４月現在、２１人。中国１６人、旧ソ連２人、樺太とビルマ（現ミャンマー）、ベトナムの各１人で、フィリピンはゼロとなっていた。ただ、ミンダナオ島については、旧日本兵２６人が集団で住んでいるという情報があり、７２年８月と７３年１１月に現地を捜索したが、確証が得られなかった経緯がある。
（毎日新聞） - 5月27日15時57分更新

It says that up to 57 missing in action Japanese soldiers from WWII could be living on Mindanao Island, protected by the muslim Moro people. Heck, maybe Eiji Sawamura is alive too! That would be the laugh of the century.

Sea of Japan
Here's the link about the commemorations. That's the Russian take on it from Itar-Tass.
Here's another from Russian sources.
Asahi.com has this article. It's in Japanese.

日本海海戦から１００周年を迎えた２７日、神奈川県横須賀市稲岡町の記念艦「三笠」前で式典があり、海上自衛隊員ら約千人が集まった。
　当時の連合艦隊司令長官東郷平八郎のひ孫で、式典に参列した自衛艦隊司令部指揮通信計画幕僚の東郷宏重さん（４５）は「歴史を大切にするこのような行事が、平和の中で今後も続いていって欲しい」と話した。中曽根元首相も出席した。財団法人「三笠保存会」などが企画した。
　日露戦争で連合艦隊はロシアのバルチック艦隊に勝利を収め、東郷の乗った旗艦「三笠」は、現在陸上に固定され、記念艦として保存されている。

Basically, Admiral Togo's great grandson works as a communications staff officer in the Maritime Self Defense Service Command and he attended. That's no big surprise.

Yomiuri has this to say:

日露戦争の日本海海戦１００周年記念式典が２７日、神奈川県横須賀市の記念艦「三笠」前で開かれ、国内外の関係者約１０００人が参加した。
　１９０５年（明治３８年）５月２７日から２８日にかけて展開された海戦で、戦艦「三笠」を旗鑑とする日本の連合艦隊が、ロシアのバルチック艦隊を破り、日本に勝利をもたらした。
　式典には、連合艦隊を率いた東郷平八郎元帥のひ孫らも出席。両国の国歌吹奏、黙とうなどに続き、記念大会名誉会長の中曽根康弘・元首相があいさつ。戦没者の冥福（めいふく）を祈り、両国の友好を誓った。

No big surprises,
The BBC take on it is here.
Time Magazine's take on it is here. It's a crappy take.
For something more balanced from Nashua:

By LANCE GAY, Scripps Howard News Service

A century ago, the navies of Russia and Japan squared off in the Battle of Tsushima in what one naval strategist concluded at the time was “the most decisive and complete naval victory in history.”It was supposed to be a turkey-shoot. Russia sent its Baltic fleet – the pride of the czar’s navy – on a nine-month, 18,000-mile voyage halfway around the world to confront Japan, which then was regarded as an exotic and backward land with no naval experience.

Japan, which had broken out of its self-imposed isolation only a half-century before, copied Western traditions in a rapid modernization program building a navy and army in the last half of the 19th century. It had never before faced a modern Western navy.The fleets met on the afternoon of May 14, 1905. After the smoke
cleared from the seas around the Japanese island of Tsushima, Japan had won a lopsided victory that changed the balance of power in Asia. Russia lost 22 vessels – a stunning defeat made more humiliating to the Kremlin because only three Japanese destroyers were sunk.

Tsushima hasn’t caught fire in the public imagination like Horatio Nelson’s victory in the Battle of Trafalgar of 1805, even though Japan’s victory had a major impact on the United States.U.S. naval strategists used the fight as justification for building a mighty American navy that 36 years later would confront Japan for dominance of the Pacific Ocean. It also drove home a lesson being relearned in Iraq today about what happens when war planners forecast a cakewalk and fail to assess correctly all their enemy’s capabilities.

British naval strategists like Sir Julian Corbett, who called the fight the most decisive in history, altered their navy’s tactics and warship construction programs using lessons learned from Tsushima.

President Theodore Roosevelt clearly foresaw the significance.“In a dozen years the English, Americans and Germans, who now dread each other as rivals in the trade of the Pacific, will each have to dread the Japanese more than they do any other nation,” Roosevelt wrote.

Russia’s defeat rearranged the structure of power in Asia and exposed the weakness of Russia’s czarist regime. It also provoked violent street riots and demands for government reforms that culminated eventually in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Russia’s European allies were shocked at Russia’s military weakness and rethought their tangle of alliances that had guaranteed peace in Europe for almost a century.

Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize by negotiating the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese war in talks held that fall in Portsmouth, N.H.But when the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth became public in Japan, there were riots in the streets because the treaty did not require Russia to pay the Japanese war debts – something the Japanese thought their victory justified.

The war is still a sensitive issue in Japan today, partly because Russia entered World War II in 1945 to redress its 1905 losses by seizing Japan’s northern islands. Russia and Japan have never signed a peace treaty ending World War II because of the dispute over those islands.

Dartmouth College historian Steven Ericson said the centenary of the battle is rekindling interest in the Russo-Japanese war in Japan, where he has been invited to give a paper at a “World War Zero” conference being held at Tokyo’s Keio University later this year. Dartmouth is sponsoring a historical conference of its own on the war in September, while Portsmouth has invited Russian and Japanese scholars for a centennial celebration of the peace treaty session.“In a sense, it was a dress rehearsal for World War I,” Ericson said. “It had all sorts of ramifications for Northeast Asia, many of which are lingering today.”Edward Segal, a professor of history at Reed College in Portland, Ore., said the battle signaled a remarkable shift in the global balance of power and reflected the growing significance of Asia.

“This war had long-range effects that have not eaten into the public mind as others have done,” he said. “It was the first major victory by an Asian power over a
European power. It signals the rise of Asian strength and Asian nationalism, not only in Japan but also ultimately in China and elsewhere.”Clayton Black, chairman of the history department at Washington College in Chestertown, Md., said Tsushima was only one of a series of crushing defeats Russia endured in the war that began in 1904.

With a troubled economy and growing unrest, Russia’s interior minister mused in 1903, “in order to prevent revolution, we need a little victorious war.”But Russia wasn’t victorious on either land or sea. The war began with a Japanese blockade of the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, and the army’s efforts to relieve it bogged down.

The czar decided to send his Baltic Fleet, based in St. Petersburg, to the rescue.“Tsushima was a dramatic climax to a disastrous effort for the Russians,” Black said.He said the Russians didn’t take the Japanese seriously. The lesson to be learned: “Unfounded assumptions about our opponents, failure to take their abilities seriously, can have enormous consequences for ourselves and for international relations.”

Timothy Francis, a historian with the Naval Historical Center in Washington, said the war had an impact on the modern development of the U.S. Navy. He noted that “lessons learned” articles on the war appeared within months in U.S. Navy publications.

So there you have it. One Hundred Years. Still no peace deal with the Russians.

-Art Neuro

From The Mail Bag
Avon Brandt sends in these two links today.

The first is a guy who has decided Windows is simply too unreliable in its security and so has moved to the Apple Platform.

Why does WinTel have these problems? I have heard all sorts of explanations, and I don't subscribe to any of them. I've come up with my own (hopefully rational) reasons WinTel will fail - and has to fail:

Windows is complex, trying to be everything to everyone. This complexity comes at a terrible price: downtime, help desks, upgrades, patches and the inevitable failures.

When a new operating system or service pack is released, there are tons of change to the functionality.

WinTel machines use different versions of BIOS. They are not all equal, nor do they all have the same level of compatibility.

Some Windows software applications are well written; others take shortcuts. Shortcuts may work in some environments, but not all, and ultimately the consumer pays in lost time, availability and productivity.

Hardware. There are hundreds of "WinTel-compatible" motherboards, each claiming to be better than the next. Whatever.

Memory. Not all RAM is equal. Some works well. Cheap stuff doesn't.

Hard disks. Same problem: cheap or reliable. Your call.

Yeah. Don't I know it, as I still run both a PC and Mac for reasons of work.
It's weird. I have a bitch of a time actually writing with a Mac. Even writing entries for this blog is easier with a PC. Don't ask me why. Years of comfort don't get supplanted by the superior technology of the Mac.
OTOH I will never again attempt to do media work on a PC again. Ever.

The second concerns power from cold water at the bottom of the sea.

Craven's system exploits the dramatic temperature difference between ocean water below 3,000 feet - perpetually just above freezing - and the much warmer water and air above it. That temperature gap can be harnessed to create a nearly unlimited supply of energy. Although the scientific concepts behind cold-water energy have been around for decades, Craven made them real when he founded the state-funded Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii in 1974 on Keahole Point, near Kona. Under Craven, the lab developed the process of using cold deep-ocean water and hot surface water to produce electricity. By the 1980s the Natural Energy Lab's demonstration plant was generating net power, the world's first through so-called ocean thermal energy conversion.

"The potential of OTEC is great," says Joseph Huang, a senior scientist for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and an expert on the process. "The oceans are the biggest solar collector on Earth, and there's enough energy in them to supply a thousand times the world's needs. If you want to depend on nature, the oceans are the only energy source big enough to tap."

Stephen Oney, vice president of Ocean Engineering and Energy Systems in Honolulu, which will design CHC's Saipan pipes, agrees: "The technology is there, and the science is there. It just needs to be improved." Oney, who recently inked a deal with the Pentagon to build an OTEC power plant for a US naval base on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, envisions a day when floating OTEC platforms produce enough hydrogen to meet all of the world's energy needs.

Sounds good right? Of course the only way the first one gets up is by appealing to the military.
There's even more good stuff:

CHC's success depends on two projects that expand on Craven's ideas: a vineyard in Kona to grow table grapes for local restaurants, and a more complex, much larger-scale version of his oasis, on Saipan. A stable US territory, the island is a booming destination for Japanese tourists. Tokyo is just two and a half hours away by air. And the Marianas offer generous tax deals to Japanese who retire there. But Saipan has a limited supply of freshwater and must import, at great expense, all of its food and oil. On the northern end of the island, CHC plans to sink a 24-inch-diameter pipe and build a hundred-acre development featuring 100 townhouses, a golf course, soccer fields, and even an athletic complex where Japanese sports teams can train. Like a cross between an industrial park landlord and a public utility, CHC will supply electrical power (generated by a mix of ocean water, sun, and biomass), freshwater, and air-conditioning, as well as its cold-water agriculture tech to tenants and
farmers of specialty crops. It will also sell freshwater to hotels that now rely on expensive reverse osmosis desalination.

Anyway, check out both the articles.

Steven Goldman's take on 'SWEp3 ROTS'
Columnist Steven Goldman writes the Pinstribed Bible, a web column of great erudtion, wit and Yankeeography. Now he hasa blog called (naturally) the Pinstriped Blog. He's a funny man. I've been a reader for about 5 years now and he's always a font of interesting observations. More recently he reviewed the final instalment of the Star Wars film thus:

STAR KABUKI: THE LOVE SUICIDES AT CORUSCANT

As with the two films that preceded it, Revenge of the Sith is a mixed bag. There are many scenes that offer compelling excitement. There are many more that not only fall flat, they crash through the floor. Whether the scales balance closer to good than bad is almost too close to call; the fall of Anakin Skywalker is affecting, but George Lucas really makes you work to feel it. The current film has more good in it, to
paraphrase a Star Wars locution, than the other two combined, but it still has many, many scenes in which the actors comport themselves, in dialogue, behavior, physical movement, as if the filmmakers had no experience with the way people actually behave. Specifically, any scene between Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman is like a window into a parallel universe where everyone has an IQ of 75 but are still allowed to serve as politicians and police officers. If you had never seen these actors in other films, you would have no clue that either of them could act. These are career-breaking parts, acts of pure assassination by the writer/director. Forgive me if I paraphrase the dialogue between the two ・I wasn't taking notes:
Anakin: You look beautiful today.
Padme: That's because I am in love.
Anakin: No, I am in love, and therefore beautiful as well.
Padme: We are beautiful because we are in love. Hold me, like you did at the Red Roof Inn in Rapid City.

In one of their scenes, Portman, who spends most of the film hanging out in her apartment, is wearing an odd bit of leather headgear that suggests she is either about to go out for a scrimmage with Red Grange or will be joining Snoopy to hunt for the Red Baron. The distracting wardrobe choices are almost as sloppily inattentive as the dialogue. In the Star Wars cycle, the characters speak in lofty, greeting card language that is to actual English what Albert Speer's Nazi monumentalist buildings were to architecture. Yet, as long as everyone talks in this odd sort of way, at least the film has an internal consistency. That goes out the window twice in Sith, when Portman is momentarily receiving signals from a John Hughes film. "I'm pregnant. What're we gunna do?" she asks. Gunna? Ms. Portman, you're the princess of Nabu, not Jersey City. This doesn't take you out of the film nearly as quickly as Chewbacca's Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan yell in 'Return of the Jedi' (repeated here, just in case we didn't get it the first time), but it's close.

The descent of Anakin Skywalker into evil, supposedly the whole point of this second trilogy, is breezed past as if Lucas never thought through the reasons for the change. Since one goes into these films knowing that they are watching the origin of Darth Vader, suspense isn't a big part of the transformation. What maintains dramatic interest, then, is the tragedy of Skywalker's fall. The film gets only about halfway there, but then the tragic aspect of the character was fatally compromised by the previous film, Attack of the Clones, in which Skywalker was portrayed as a petulant, moody, humorless, arrogant, unlikable brat. We can't be watching a hero fall into evil if he seemed to be more than halfway there already. "A good man who went astray" is a compelling story. "A bad man who got just a little worse" is not.

In interviews, George Lucas has responded to this criticism by saying, in essence, "Hey, I was depicting a teenager, and guess what? Most teenagers are whiny, self-centered, and irritating." True enough, but most teenagers are not the main characters of an epic story. If your typical shallow teen was meant to be the main character of a movie, you wouldn't need a script or special effects; you could just set up your camera at the local mall on Friday night and see what transpired. We're supposed to be dealing with exceptional people here, or to put it more directly, your story either has a hero or we can stay home. Lucas didn't get this, and because of it, his saga has a hole in the center. Lucas's failure to come to grips with his own hero's journey (reference here to Joseph Campbell is made pointedly) is hit home in Sith. Anakin's slide into evil is then presented as a series of shrugged-off decisions. "Now, Skywalker, you will join me," says Chancellor Palpatine. "Yeah, okay," says Skywalker.

In a few wholly unconvincing scenes he appears to agonize over the decision when in actuality he made the call quite casually, about 15 minutes into the film. Any regrets expressed thereafter are strictly pro forma. Because Lucas himself is aware that Skywalker's turn appears to be unmotivated, he tries to give him some extra incentive. Skywalker dreams that Padme will die in childbirth and comes to believe that only the dark side of the force can save her. Later, he is told by Palpatine that his fellow Jedi are threatening to overthrow the state and he must choose between his loyalty to democracy and his loyalty to his religious order. Yet, Skywalker knows from the outset that this is not true. Again, we are robbed of the chance to view the story as that of a hero who went astray despite noble intentions. He is not seduced by the dark side, he does not do the wrong thing because he believes it to be right. He merely acquiesces. The greatest evil the galaxy has ever known is born because Anakin Skywalker has expectant father syndrome.

That's not tragic, it's pathetic. Our main character isn't a man of destiny, he's a patsy. Imagine if the anxiety over Padme's delivery was never mentioned and the revelation of Palpatine's revelation of his Sith-hood to Anakin was saved for the end of the film, not the beginning. The makings of a true tragedy reveal themselves. Anakin trusts Palpatine, who has become his second mentor. Palpatine tells Anakin that the Jedi are involved in treasonous activity. Normally Anakin wouldn't believe him, but because the Jedi are suspicious of Anakin's closeness to Palpatine, they close themselves off from him, which serves only to lend credence to Palpatine's story.

Now misconstruing everything he sees, Anakin turns on the Jedi. Believing in democracy, he slaughters its protectors in the service of a man whose intention is to become dictator. And the slaughtering part it's strangely compelling, kind of a turn on. By the time he finally learns the truth he has sacrificed everything he believed in. His teachers are dead, his friends and loved ones betrayed. He is stuck in a metal suit because he believed a lie and acted out of good intentions. He has killed and enjoyed it. He is lost. That's tragic.

The political and philosophical aspects of Sith have been much commented upon. They're really not worth the time. Jedi Manichaeism is contrasted to Sith relativism. The former is naive and the latter would have been more interesting had Palpatine meant it sincerely, but Palpatine is (again) not a megalomaniac taking over the government because, he, Hitler-like, thinks he's the only one who can do the job. He's just a comic book villain, in the worst meaning of that expression, with a blind lust for power. That characterization renders his motivations utterly unimportant. Crazy people don't need thoughtful motivation. Their condition is self-justifying.

In one of the film's most facile scenes, Anakin goes to Yoda and professes that he's a bit anxious about losing someone or something. The cat. Yoda's comeback is out of Stoicism for Dummies: Fuhgeddaboutit. Let it go. Learn to live without the, um, cat. This is not necessarily a bad point, but it's the beginning of a long lecture about emotional self-denial, not the end. It begs a follow-up: "In the short term, try this... "This" isn't forthcoming, because Lucas doesn't know what "this" is.

The film's climactic battle takes place above, on, and around a river of molten lava. It's strange what your willing suspension of disbelief can and cannot endure. Force powers, sure, I'll buy that. Hanging around a lava flow like it's the Danube, sorry. Your lungs would suppurate moments before your flesh burned from your body, and that's without ever touching them.

What is left then, is the ghost of Lucas' intentions. Skywalker's tragedy can be moving if you let John Williams' score take you along and convince you that it's
supposed to be. Ewan McGregor's semi-Alec Guiness Obi-Wan Kenobi is well done. He has some fun moments chasing down a vicious droid with emphysema. It's not really relevant to anything, but it's amusing. Samuel Jackson is good, as always, and he has a truly tragic part ・a powerful man who lives just long enough to see that he wasn't paranoid ・they really were out to get him. And if you dig light saber battles, well, this is the film for you. There's one approximately every two minutes, for a total of 73. Finally, of course, seeing Lucas set up his linkages to the second/first trilogy makes for a nice game of mental trivial pursuit as the characters sweat what they're gunna do.

Those of us grew up with the original Star Wars, for whom the film was almost a religion, perhaps we're living the real tragedy. We invested a lot more thought, emotion, and rationalization in these films than Lucas did. He had a fully realized universe, however cardboard its structure in places, and millions of people ready to believe in it. He even had a compelling story to tell, a classic of rise, fall, and redemption. In the end he had less regard for his creation than we did, building it into a baroque edifice of merchandizing and special effects, one without a message to convey or a story to tell. It's insincere and betrays a disdain for the audience. His emperor has no clothes, so what did we bother for?

And so, from one Evil Empire to the other, Goldman lashes out mercilessly. Pretty cool huh?
It's the anguished scream of the betrayed fan, the follower let down. Believe it or not sometimes he takes the same high-octane-fuelled verbal blow-torch to the Yankees.

- Art Neuro

Willie The Pimp
I have done a version of Frank Zappa's classic guitar-excess track from the 'Hot Rats' album from 1969. It's obscene lyrics followed by seven or so minutes of guitar overdose. I go hell for leather in this version; as Frank did in the original. It's an epic 9 minutes 38 seonds. I certainly didn't skimp on the effort I tell you. Took me all of three days.

I played it to Pleiades and Mrs. Pleiades; and they were both quite delighted by it as they have actually seen Frank playing live on stage and they thought it compared well enough to merit a thumb's up. Now that's very flattering. I do promise that you won't walk away feeling like there isn't enough guitar playing going on. It's got the highest gnat-note-swarm density of anything I've ever played. It also features my first ever slide guitar solo in recording (whatever that's worth).

So please check it out at iCompositions. You can simply click on my badge to the right to go to my artist page and there, you should find a link to the track... unless they've taken it down already.
- Art Neuro

New Look
Yep, it's the new look Space Freaks Blog. Might change it again in the near future, but I got bored of the old look.

- Art Neuro

Robert McNamara Rides Again
88 Year old Robert McNamara had this to say:

The former World Bank president and U.S. defense chief in 1961-68, said the Iran and North Korea situations pose a great danger to world security, especially because "if both countries continue their present programs, other nations will follow." He mentioned Japan and South Korea in east Asia, and Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East as potential "copycats."

"If the conference fails (to deal with Iran and North Korea), as I predict it will, I think the Security Council and secretary-general should assume responsibility," McNamara said.

He said that as nuclear risks increase, U.N. chief Kofi Annan should recommend Security Council actions to deal with them. The council has the power to impose economic sanctions, for example, or even authorize military force.

Much as I like McNamara since watching 'Fog of War', I have to disagree with his assessments; I don't think Japan is a likely candidate for copycat arming with nukes. Also, I'm not sure how much it's worth playing the blame-game when this conference fails, as inevitably it will. It's not like Kofi Annan can begin to *wear* the consequence of the failure in any sensible way.

- Art Neuro

Voyager Probe Update
Voyager 1 is set to leave our Solar System.

"Voyager has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space, as it begins exploring the solar system's final frontier," said Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which built and operates Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2.

In November 2003, the Voyager team said data indicated the probe might have entered the termination shock region of the solar system. Some scientists thought it was only approaching that tumultuous layer, however. In fact, scientists don't know
where the edge is. They assume it moves, as changes in the speed and intensity of the solar wind force the boundary in and out.

"The consensus of the team now is that Voyager 1, at 8.7 billion miles from the Sun, has at last entered the heliosheath, the region beyond the termination shock," said MIT's John Richardson, principal investigator of the Voyager plasma science investigation. When the solar wind meets interstellar gas, a teardrop-shaped shockwave develops as it is slowed dramatically from an average speed of up to 1.5 million mph (700 kilometers per second). The solar wind, made of charged particles constantly streaming from the Sun, becomes denser and hotter at that point. Voyager 1 has sent back measurements of a stronger magnetic field at its current location.

That indicates the solar wind speed has decreased, scientists said. The magnetic field does not gain overall strength, but it becomes more dense and so stronger at any given location. As a rough analogy, consider how cars huddle closer when highway traffic slows, researchers suggested The magnetic field in November 2003 had increased in strength 1.7 times compared to previous levels. In December 2004 it jumped another factor of 2.5 and has remained at this higher level until now.

"Voyager's observations over the past few years show that the termination shock is far more complicated than anyone thought," said NASA scientist Eric Christian. The leading edge of the solar system, as it orbits the Milky Way, is called the bow shock.

It resembles the ripples of water raised by the bow of a boat. Voyager 1 still has years to go before it crosses the bow shock.The Voyager probes surveyed the outer planets as their primary mission. Each probe could operate through the year 2020, NASA said today in a statement.

The twin probes are on different paths out of the solar system. Voyager 2 is about 6.5 billion miles away. NASA has an animation showing Voyager approaching the solar sytem's edge.

We know what happens eventually in the 23rd century don't we? It comes back as a gigantic machine-sentience and ries to destroy the carbon units infesting the Enterprise but Spock mind-melds with it and all is okay when a couple of people go on some transcendent experience. It's all in Star Trek: the Motion Picture. :)

More Aggravation
China is complaining about the Yasukuni shrine again. The secretary general of the Liberal-Democratic Party of Japan, Tsutomu Takebe flat out told Hu Jintao it's none of their business and it's meddling in internal affairs. Son in a move as mature as a five year old taking his marbles home the Chinese government cancelled meetings for their Vice Premier Wu Yi and sent her onto the next stop in Mongolia.

The New York Times report is interesting:

One of five Japanese ministers to publicly criticize China today, Mr. Machimura reminded reporters that it was China's foreign minister, Li Zhaoxing, who had requested the meeting with Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi.

Japan's internal affairs minister, Taro Aso, bluntly warned, "This will contribute to a worsening of Japanese sentiment toward China."

Well, we could've guessed that, thank you very much. :)
Then, it goes on to say:

In April, anti-Chinese feelings were inflamed here after a series of protests in China against Japanese history textbooks that play down the atrocities it committed in China during the war, and against Mr. Koizumi's visits to the shrine. In a country as repressive as China, the protests - which degenerated into vandalism against Japanese businesses and government buildings in Shanghai - were widely seen as officially sanctioned. In a mid-May poll of 1,880 Japanese, 92 percent said they were dissatisfied with Beijing's refusal to apologize or compensate for the vandalism.

In the poll conducted for Yomiuri Shimbun, a conservative newspaper, 85 percent said Mr. Koizumi should demand an apology and compensation, 74 percent said they were concerned about the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Beijing and 77 percent said Japan should be more assertive in a dispute with China over gas deposits and a string of islands in the East China Sea.

On the question of the Yasukuni Shrine, 48 percent said they supported the prime minister's visits, while 45 percent were opposed.

Today, the president of the Democratic Party of Japan, Katsuya Okada, criticized Mr. Koizumi's insistence on visiting the shrine, acknowledging that it "was a big factor in Vice Premier Wu's decision to cancel."

"If I become prime minister, I will not visit Yasukuni Shrine," the leader of Japan's main opposition party told reporters at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan. Over the last half century, an opposition group has held power only once in Japan, from 1993 to 1996.

In other words, If China is seriously trying to get an outcome it should negotiate *something*. As it stands it is seen to be making grand-stands in order to humiliate the Japanese into doing something (or cease doing something as it were). As it stands, it looks like the Chinese are taking a free pass to humiliate Japan as much as possible for no forseeable outcome. They really should be doing the sums: Do they want the investmet or not? There are already murmurs in the investment community saying they'd rather invest anywhere but China where possible.

Reading the polls reported from Japan, it seems clear that only 48% think it's okay for the Prime Minister of Japan to visit the shrine. However upwards of 92% think that China should keep its nose out of internal affairs of another nation.

- Art Neuro

Coelacanth Notes

Tonight I'll be putting up what is ostensibly the final track for Coelacanth, 'Wang Zhaojun Goes West'. It's the difinitve closer track of the 12 song set. Thank you to all the people who came along to iCompositions to have a listen.

I was speaking to AudioDarnok yesterday and he made the observation that posting songs up at iCompositions is the recording equivalent to doing live gigs. That is to say, one is involved with music without making a dime, but the material is getting out there. I thought that was an astute observation.

Censorship Blues

During the current 'release' of the Coelacanth material, we ran into a strange difficulty involving censorship. That's right. Unlike Blogger here where I can practically run my mouth off to my heart's content the Terms of Service over a iCompositions allows its staff to police the general 'G' ratings. As it turns out they

1) Unilaterally remove songs if they find it offensive
2) Do not explain what the specific circumstances of the 'offensiveness' might be
3) and watch your next move carefully.

How did we find this out? It's actually really creepy.
Track 10 of the 'Fish Don't Carry Guitars' album is called 'Uberpussy'. I loaded it up with the requisite 'EXPLICIT' content tag according to their Terms of Services only to find it removed within hours.

Now, while 'pussy' is undeniably euphemism for female genitalia, when one looks up the Shorter Oxford Dictionary it is the fifth definition of the word pussy. In other words, to interpret the pussy in 'Uberpussy' to mean female genitalia is only one of at least five interpretations of the word. The lyrics of the song are actually not about female genitalia at all. The most suggestive line is:

explore with me anatomy

Now how mild is that? If that got your pocket rocket rocking, you have a pretty high testosterone count. In fact, we re-titled the song 'The Birth of Tragedy' AND labelled it 'EXPLICIT' and it finally stuck. What did we learn from this exercise? It wasn't the lyrics, it was the title. *gasp* And iCompositions were willing to unilaterally remove the track without any discussion or consultation whatsoever on account that they thought it specifically meant female genitalia.

Well folks, it's only as dirty as your own mind, and frankly, my mind isn't that dirty.
In the description I made sure to make the point:

Censorship is the unashmed hand of Fascism.
Hypocrisy leads to Stupidity.

In other words, hey iCompositions.com, you are censorious fascists and you are hypocritical to the point of stupidity. Within 8 hours, the site administrator 'Powermac99' made a post referring to the TOS. Why would this be so if it were not for the fact that they were 'watching' the Coelacanth moniker to see if we persisted in putting up offensive material. It's creepy stuff. The way I figure it, he wouldn't have posted if the description didn't hit the mark.

Well, powermac99, I'll say this on this page because it's my page: my conscience is clear that I exercised due dilligence in adhering to your Terms of Service. So really my beef is not with the Terms of Service and its guidelines itself, but how you choose to exercise your power over artists' contributions. I object to it greatly. Powermac99, you are a censorious fascist hypocrite moron.
There. I'm satisfied now that I got that off my chest.

- Art Neuro

Jack Kerouac's Play Uncovered
Wouldn't you know it? Jack kerouac had written a play by the name of 'Beat Generation' about his crew. That's Neal, Jack and Allen Ginsberg; absent lovers. The play was recently uncovered by one Stephen Perrine. The play will be published later this year.

"The part we're excerpting will show Kerouac and Neal Cassady at a racetrack, and they're partying and gambling," Best Life editor-in-chief Stephen Perrine said Monday. "But they're also talking about reincarnation and other obsessions.
It's more an exploration of their inner lives." The entire play will be published this fall by Thunder's Mouth Press.

Kerouac wrote "Beat Generation" — which draws on his life and those of other Beat writers, including Cassady and Allen Ginsberg — in 1957, the same year his classic "On the Road" was released. He tried to build interest for "Beat Generation" in the theater world, contacting such people as Lillian Hellman and Marlon Brando, but he failed and set the manuscript aside. Kerouac died in 1969.

Perrine said that he learned about the play while having lunch with Sterling Lord, Kerouac's agent. "I swear this is true: On my way to lunch, this voice came into my head, telling me to ask Sterling whether he had any old manuscripts," said Perrine, whose men's magazine focuses on family, career and self, has also published work by David Mamet, Steve Martin and Nick Hornby. "It turns out he had had a bunch of files sent to him from a New Jersey warehouse to his New York office and he came across this play."

It's an era where previously unreleased material is unleashed from the vaults to make an extra buck, even after one is dead; or perhaps especially after one is dead. After all dying artists immediately raise the value of their art works. You'd think somebody in the Kerouac estate is salivating at the cashflow.
I can just imagine how rambling this play would be. Even though I'm a fan and I've even named my fantasy baseball league in his honour, this play might be something I'll approach very carefully. In the mean time, dust off your old copy of 'Beat' by King Crimson; it's likely to be far more enjoyable.

- Art Neuro

Pervert Alert
My younger siblings used to study piano with a man who was later accused of possessing child porn and so was dismissed from a presitgious teaching position. Today, my sister has sent me this is article wherein I find that same teacher is accused of raping little kids.

A former music teacher, Gary Maxwell Featherstone, 55, has been accused of repeatedly indecently assaulting and raping a young boy over a five-year period
in the 1980s.

Featherstone once taught at the exclusive SCECGS Redlands school. The boy, now aged 29, today told Central Local Court he was a state ward living in a boy's home when he and his brother befriended Featherstone.

The two boys visited Featherstone on weekends. The boy said he often slept naked in the same bed as Featherstone when the abuse occurred.

Another four alleged victims are due to testify against Featherstone during the comittal hearing this week.

AAP reports: The boy, who was a nine-year-old orphan at the time and who cannot be named, told the court he was sodomised and forced to perform oral sex on Featherstone the first weekend he stayed at his home.

"I believe he raped me sir," he told the court.
Later that weekend he was forced to perform oral sex.

"I basically just started doing it because I knew what he wanted," the man said. "How did you know what he wanted?" prosecutor Michael Crowe asked. "Because he always wanted to be touched," the man replied.

He and his brother, both wards of the state, spent frequent weekends at Featherstone's home for about six years in the late 1980s.

They would spend the days horse riding, watching movies and playing video games, and at night would sleep naked either on the floor or in Featherstone's bed, the man told the court.

The hearing before Magistrate Les Brennan continues.

I cannot express the depth of my disgust as my younger siblings probably would recognise those accusers. In fact I think I saw those boys who would be at his place when I'd go and pick my sister up from classes. I always wondered who they were, where they came from. My sister swore back then that they didn't go to school but played all day long and did nothing. I put it out of my mind without really thinking about it. Now, it's just horrible to really contemplate what was going on. I am totally revulsed by this.

- Art Neuro

Inherit The Fart
More on the impulse in America that brings about Monkey Trials. Pleiades sent in this article, which originates from the Observer.

The razor-toothed Tyrannosaurus rex, jaws agape, loomed ominously over the gentle Thescelosaurus, looking for plants to eat. Admiring the museum diorama were old and young visitors, listening on headphones to a stentorian voice describing the primeval scene.

But the Museum of Earth History is a museum with a controversial difference. To one side, peering through the bushes, are Adam and Eve. The display is not an image of the Cretaceous. It is Paradise. 'They lived together without fear, for there was no death yet,' the voice intoned about Man and Dinosaur.

Nestling deep in the Ozark mountains of Arkansas, in the heart of America's Bible Belt, this is the first dinosaur museum to take a creationist perspective. Already thousands of people have flocked to its top-quality exhibits which mix high science with fundamentalist theology that few serious scientists accept.

The museum is riding a wave of creationist influence in America. Creationism, which holds that the Earth is just a few thousand years old and the biblical account of Genesis is fact, is central to a rash of furious arguments across America. From school boards in Kansas to elections in Pennsylvania, the 'debate' between creationism and evolution has become a political hot potato. Even as America's scientists make advances in palaeontology, astronomy and physics that appear to disprove creationism, Gallup surveys have shown that about 45 per cent of Americans believe the Earth was created by God within the past 10,000 years.

It is not just creationism either. Last week NBC's Dateline current affairsprogramme, equivalent to the BBC's Newsnight, investigated miracles. It concluded some could be real. It is hard to imagine Jeremy Paxman taking this stance.

That wellspring of popular belief, and the political clout that comes with it, is the inspiration behind the museum. It is not interested in debating with mainstream science. It simply wants to represent the view of a significant slice of America. 'We want people to see that finally they have something that addresses their beliefs, to show that we do have a voice,' said Thomas Sharp, business director of Creation Truth, the religious group that co-founded the museum. No expense was spared. The fossil casts, which range from a Triceratops skull to an 18ft-long Albertosaurus (a relative to T. rex), could easily grace London's Natural History Museum. Plans for a much bigger museum in Dallas are advanced. 'We would love to open in the United Kingdom if the right partner showed up,' Sharp said.

The museum forms part of a Bible-based theme park in Eureka Springs; the car park is full of cars and coaches from all over the country. To enter the museum is to explore a surrealistic parallel world. Biblical quotes appear on displays. The first has dinosaurs, alongside Adam and Eve, living in harmony. The ferociously fanged T. rex is likely to be a vegetarian. Then comes the Fall of Man and an ugly world where dinosaurs prey on each other and the first extinctions occur. The destruction of the dinosaurs is explained, not by a comet striking the Earth 65 million years ago, but by the Flood.

This, the museum says, wiped out most of the dinosaurs still alive and created the Grand Canyon and huge layers of sedimentary rock seen around the world.

Some dinosaurs survived on Noah's ark. One poster explains that Noah would have chosen juvenile dinosaurs to save space. An illustration shows two green sauropods in the ark alongside more conventional elephants and lions. The final exhibit depicts the Ice Age, where the last dinosaurs existed with woolly mammoths until the cold and hunting by cavemen caused them to die out. Scientists dismiss such claims as on a par with believing in Atlantis. Yet the museum is unlikely to be seen as a major threat to mainstream science. It was put in the heart of an area where Christian attractions are a mainstay of the local economy.

It was built in co-operation with the 'New Holy Land' theme park which re-created the biblical Middle East in the Ozarks. A huge statue of Christ, the largest in North America, looms over Eureka Springs. The site is the setting for The Great Passion Play, where each night in a 4,500-strong arena the last days of Christ are acted out.

The play has attracted more than 7.2 million people. But creationism is seeking to become more influential in other parts of the country. In Kansas the state school board recently held public hearings on the validity of evolution and the teaching of 'Intelligent Design' (ID) in classrooms. The hearings were boycotted by scientists who believed they were rigged against evolutionists.

The theory of ID holds that the world is so complex it must have been created, and has been dubbed 'creationism lite' by its critics. Kansas is now expected to recommend schools to include ID-friendly material in its science courses this summer.

In Pennsylvania, the issue dominated an election in the town of Dover after the school board decided to include mention of ID in its science classes. A vote last week between anti-evolution and pro-evolution candidates ended in an electoral tie. Creationism has found one high-level voice. President George Bush famously proclaimed: 'The jury is still out on evolution.' A CBS survey late last year showed that 45 per cent of Bush voters wanted creationism taught in schools instead of evolution, compared to 24 per cent of voters for John Kerry. 'Under the Bush presidency, we are clearly able to get a lot more done,' Sharp said.

The Museum of Earth History may be the first dinosaur museum of its kind. It is not likely to be the last.

It's so stupid it's breathtaking. 45% of Americans polled. 45!!!!!
Meanwhile, the latest creationist argument is this:

Recent studies in information theory have come up with some astounding conclusions—namely, that information cannot be considered in the same category
as matter and energy. It's true that matter or energy can carry information, but they are not the same as information itself.

For instance, a book such as Homer's Iliad contains information, but is the physical book itself information? No, the materials of the book—the paper, ink and glue contain the contents, but they are only a means of transporting it.

If the information in the book was spoken aloud, written in chalk or electronically reproduced in a computer, the information does not suffer qualitatively from the means of transporting it. "In fact the content of the message," says professor Phillip Johnson, "is independent of the physical makeup of the medium" (Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, 1997, p. 71).

The same principle is found in the genetic code. The DNA molecule carries the genetic language, but the language itself is independent of its carrier. The same genetic information can be written in a book, stored in a compact disk or sent over the Internet, and yet the quality or content of the message has not changed by changing the means of conveying it.

As George Williams puts it: "The gene is a package of information, not an object. The pattern of base pairs in a DNA molecule specifies the gene. But the DNA molecule is the medium, it's not the message" (quoted by Johnson, p. 70).

IOW, there's too much information in DNA. Even Bill Gates says so (like, he's an expert on the issue because he's a gazllionaire). Therefore, only God could have coded DNA in the first place...
What's really funny is they cite a book with a title like 'Defeating Darwinism' as if it's so authoritative. I mean, the just title screams 'CRANK!!!!!'

Clearly these people cannot comprehend what they read. It's amazing they get through the Bible in the first place. *ugh* Maybe that's the problem.

- Art Neuro

From The Mailbag
Pleiades is always on the lookout for some funny tidbits at what can only be described as the edge of the Internet Sanity Belt. Today he has fished up this funny one.

The Woo-Woo Credo:How to be an Internet Woo-Woo

To be a proper woo-woo, you must follow these rules:Never look for the simplest, most obvious cause of something. Refrain frommentioning Occam´s Razor (it´s your nemesis).

Always favor the conspiracy angle over the boring angle. Mundane explanations (like saying that Roswell was a balloon) are for dullards and government drones. If you want to sleep with that curvaceous new-age chick, don´t tell her you think astrology is bogus! (Non woo-woos may benefit fromthat advice temporarily).

Don´t accept mainstream science unless it´s something you´ve believed in for years (like gravity).

Try to answer as few direct questions as possible. Always obfuscate and try to sound learned. Mimic Richard Hoagland´s style and you´ll go far.

Use "what if" scenarios to change the subject whenever possible. If youlinger on one topic too long you may be asked to provide annoying things like "proof." Don´t let that happen! Consult a creationist if you need practice with subject-changing.

If you´re cornered and asked for proof of something, always tell the person that they "can´t disprove" your claims. Many of them will just walk away shaking their heads, which of course means they agree with you. Aside-to-side head shake could be the same as a vertical nod. Anything is possible, after all.

Memorize all the sci-babble terms used in the Star Trek series. They are very useful if you get cornered by a skeptic, and you need to come up with some sort of "scientific" explanation.

e.g., Inertial Dampeners.

When all else fails, start asking hypothetical questions that have nothingto do with the actual debate. If your opponent chooses to ignore your pointless questions and remains on topic, repeat your meaningless question(s) over and over. This will make any Believers in the audience think that your opponent is evading the issue.

Accuse your opponent of being a liar, or try some other tactic that will(hopefully)make him angry. If he responds in kind to your endless taunts, change the subject to his anger, and accuse him of name calling. If heaccuses you of provoking him, then you have changed the subject of thedebate. If he stays on topic, keep the heat up.

The Believers in theaudience will forgive the worst verbal attacks you use, but they will think even the mildest replies he makes to you are personal attacks that undermine his argument.

Use the word quantum in a sentence, despite not knowing what it means. For amore impressive effect, use it with the name of your favorite superstition -"quantum dowsing" sure sounds mighty serious.

Two more words: Paradigm shift.

Always claim that the other guy is "closed-minded" and that you´re as free-thinking as a newborn baby. Other woo-woos love the concept of"open-mindedness" and will take you into their inner circle withoutquestion. They have no tolerance for those "mean old nasty" types who demandevidence for everything.

Drink heavily while posting.You must believe that the word "anomaly" means proof of paranormal activity.Use the word "anomaly" as often as possible. When your position appears hopeless, your entire audience is laughing at you, and you´ve lost all credibility (and perhaps even won a Kook of the Month) threaten everyone within proximity with a lawsuit. You don´t need to actually prepare a lawsuit, just make the threat. That will let them knowyou´re a serious person.

Go make your own newsgroup with a group charter drawn up to keep out anyone who doesn´t agree with your view of the world. Occasionally crosspost to other newsgroups from that one, then complain when people answer your posts, complain to their system admistrators that they´re abusing the terms of your newsgroup and demand their accounts be yanked for abusive spamming.

Respond to each answering message with a duplicate copy of the FAQ for your newsgroup.

Open numerous accounts under other names, then post agreeable responses toyour own messages from those accounts. Everybody knows that the only reasonanybody disagrees with you is that they like the belong to "the group" and have no independent thought of their own. Just manufacture a group of people who agree with you, and the rest of the mindless zeebs will fall into line,tripping over each other to become one of your supporters.Fix the ´reply to´ line of any post you make, to direct responses to youremail account - this will automatically mail you a copy of any response made to your posts on usenet.

Send copies of these mails to the postmasters and sysadmins of anyone who posts a disagreeing answer to you. Refer to these people as ´internet terrorists´ and demand their accounts be canceled immediately for sending you unwanted email spam.

Refer to anyone who doggedly uncovers your latest little scams, time after time as "stalkers." Write to their sysadmins and demand their accounts be removed for net abuse.

Remember to occasionally tell your opponents that you´ve handed all the information you´ve collected about them to the local police/Mounties/FBI who were extremely interested and grateful for the advance notice of where tofind criminals like you. You don´t actually have to collect any information, or send it to anybody, but this will keep your opponents edgy, and make them paranoid. Mention that the police/Mounties/FBI are closing in on them, and that their day of reckoning is just moments away.

Refer to anyone who does not immediately agree with you as being uneducated on the matter, lacking in important information, or just plain too stupid to understand your magnificent statements.

Pretend to write a book. Nothing says "I am beyond reproach" like having written a book. If asked for an ISBN number, just make something up. Nobody ever looks at those anyway.

Pretend to have a degree. Never let yourself be pinned down to what kind or where you got it. Just state repeatedly that you have one, and therefore are superior, and may not be questioned upon any subject by anyone.

Claim that there is no evidence that you are a fraud, kook, net-abuser, spammer, or liar.

Refer to any actual proof of this as "spinning" or"disinformation." Post messages that the system administrators of every system your opponents post from are on the verge of killing their accounts for net-abuse, and that you´re going to set things right, and get rid of all these cynical lying fact-spinners by sending one final massive complaint against them all.

When all else fails.... SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM.....When questioned, be sure to exclaim "They laughed at Galileo, too!" orperhaps "They laughed at Columbus, until he proved the earth was round!"Always bear in mind that The Conspiracy Against You can do almost anything. After all, they´ve kept those 300 MPG carburetors secret for years.

Keep trotting out the one "respectable" scientist who might possibly have said something that could be construed as perhaps giving a hint that it may theoretically support your position. Even better if said scientist has said it outright. Ignore all complaints that the work is 50 years out of date,the scientist has no experience in the field in question or that other experts in the same field think said scientist is a complete loony (and they can prove it, too).

Dig out one reference that supports your position. Complain when someone presents a reference that refutes yours. Say that this means they can´t think for themselves and your reference proves it. Ignore all queries on why you hold this hypocritical position. Whenever you read something on the Internet, re-post it as fact. Never bother to do even basic research into the matter.

Be sure to repeatedly spam your petty political rants onto lots of unrelated, off-topic newsgroups. (Those folks reading rec.culture.needlepoint are just dying to read about how much you hate a certain politician!)

One word: "Hyperdimensional."

When debating, remember that the best technique to "proving" your hypothesisis to start with a supposition, and when you get to the third point, refer to the supposition as a "fact". This may cause just enough initial confusion to let you escape with a momentary triumph.

Sock Puppets are very useful. If you can´t find a weak-minded soul who will blindly parrot you in support of your nonsense, create your own. Then you can refer to your "many" supporters.Quote Einstein, and do so often. Quote things he said if possible, but Einstein has been dead for ages now and so it´s permissible to bring him upto date. Change the odd word here and there to make it clear that Einsteinwould have supported your argument if only he knew what you know. Act as ifany arbitrary Einstein quote supports your position.Any and all communications problems including satellite failures, bad phone connections, mysterious messages when dialing known phone numbers, busy signals when trying to enter the grassy knoll on AOL, and radios left on during calls must be blamed on the ´Conspiracy´ trying to ´silence the truth´.

Use lots of ALL CAPS letters. Use them randomly: "I was posting my URL inalt.paranormal/alt.astrology. Then I was stopped because A MAJORITY OF POSTERS, PSEUDO-SKEPTIC RAVING FANATICS SCREAMED ABOUT IT."

Beware the "goodtimes" virus. When all else fails, try to redefine what "skeptical", "skeptic" and"skepticism" mean so that you become a ´real´ skeptic who accepts
your own nonsense at face value.

Refer to yourself in the third person.

Always. Props to Pleiades for wading through so much woo-woo-isms to find this funny post... You can just hear the scream let out by the writer who confronted all of this and felt the frustration of not being able to shove a dog's nose into its own turd.

The latest craziness that has gone through Godlike Production to my knowledge is the notion that a comet was going to hit the North Atlantic on 6th of June this year and that the Northern Hemisphere governments had made extensive contingency plans for this event. Of course, they were deliberately leaking it through Godlike Productions, a site where paranoia and conspiracy theories run rampant like cockroaches in a garbage dump.
6th June, guys and gals. Comet. North Atlantic. The woo-woos said so first at GLP. :)

- Art Neuro

NASA Tests Shuttle Again
Better safe than sorry, a second round of tests went ahead on the shuttle.

The second test comes just days before Discovery will be rolled back into a hangar to replace its tank with a safer, updated model. Shuttle managers decided to remove Discovery's fuel tank, which is attached to a pair of booster rockets, and install a brand new set that had been meant for the second post-Columbia flight, by Atlantis.

A heater will be inserted on the new tank to prevent the buildup of ice once super cold fuel is pumped in right before liftoff. Engineering tests found ice to be as dangerous as flying foam. As a result, the launch date was bumped from late May to mid-July.

Will she fly this year? Who's taking bets?

Fuel Cells For Your Laptop
A British research group has claimed a breakthrough in fuel cell technology for batteries for your laptop.

Cambridge-based CMR Fuel Cells said it had made a breakthrough with a new design of fuel cell which is a tenth of the size of existing models and small enough to replace conventional batteries in laptop computers.

"We firmly believe CMR technology is the equivalent of the jump from transistors to integrated circuits," said John Halfpenny, the firm's chief executive.

Fuel cells have for years been touted as the next big green power source. They produce electricity via a chemical reaction and emit only tiny amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) -- the main greenhouse gas blamed by many scientists for global warming.

Coal and gas-fired power stations produce far more CO2.But high costs and doubts about widespread availability of fuel -- usually hydrogen -- have held back the technology's transition to the mainstream despite years of research by energy firms and the automotive industry. CMR said the new design would run for four times longer than conventional batteries in a laptop or other devices like power tools.

"It's also instantly rechargable," said Michael Priestnall, chief technology officer at CMR. Priestnall and chief engineer Michael Evans came up with the design while working at Cambridge-based consultancy Generics Group.

Evans said the design, which would run initially on methanol, was based on new type of fuel stack which mixed air and fuel. Up to now fuel stacks have relied on complete separation of the two.

So they're going to talk to the department of defense to see how it could be used militarily.

Cloning On The March
While people debate the morality of it, cloning science simply keeps moving on. Today a British group claim to have succesfully cloned a human embryo using the nuclear transfer technique. We're talking the Dolly-The-Cloned-Sheep technique for cloning.

Britain, which four years ago became the world's first country to license cloning to create stem cells, is aiming to join South Korea on the leading edge of the research, which many scientists believe may lead to new treatments for a range of diseases.

A team of South Korean scientists who last year were the first to clone a human embryo announced Thursday that they had dramatically sped up the creation of human embryonic stem cells, growing 11 new batches that for the first time were a genetic match for injured or sick patients.

The Newcastle researchers were granted a license in August by Britain's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority. Ian Wilmut, the creator of Dolly the sheep, was later granted a license earlier this year to clone embryos as part of his research into motor neuron disease.

The Newcastle researchers hope eventually to create insulin-producing cells that could be transplanted into diabetics. Two of the team, Alison Murdoch and Dr. Miodrag Stojkovic, said they were "delighted" by the Koreans' progress.

"They have shown conclusively that these techniques can be successful in humans," they said. "The promise of new treatments based on stem cell technology is moving nearer to becoming a realistic possibility."

The researchers are not using cloning to make babies. Instead, scientists create test-tube embryos to supply stem cells, the building blocks which give rise to every tissue in the body and which are a genetic match for a particular patient, preventing rejection by the immune system.

If scientists could harness the regenerative power of those stem cells, they might be able to repair damage from spinal cord injuries, diabetes, Parkinson's and other diseases.

So they say. More interesting is the Korean team who have cloned stem cells as this probably leads towards a cure for degenerative diseases by replacing the lost cells with new ones.

- Art Neuro

Can't Win'em All
The Yankees lost. Their defense was poor. It turned into a bit of a slugfest and the end result was the Mariners winning 7-6. Moose had a less than stellar day giving up 4 runs in 5 innings. He did strike out 6 and walked none but it wasn't enough.

I was also wrong about the bi-coastal sweep possibility because Oakland actually won their first game back east. I forgot about that. My bad.
Still I take 10 from 12. That's not too bad to get to .500.

Artificial Gravity
We need gravity, being creatures that evolved under gravity. So whenever we think of going into deep space, we must make consideration for devices that can deliver AG.
Here's an article on NASA's research in this area.

Paloski said that previous studies have focused on the cardiovascular system, or on the bone system, or in some cases the muscle systems, "but not looking at all the body systems at once."

In the near future, there will be a general call for bed rest subjects for the artificial gravity study effort. For somebody who completes all aspects of the study, the pay is about $6,100, Paloski noted.

"It’s not going to get people to quit their day jobs to come and do this," he said, underscoring the fact that those wishing to take part must first pass rigorous psychological and physiological screening.

"We’re looking for people who want to go to bed…and have a number of tests done on them," Paloski said.

Anybody up for it?

X-Ray Vision
'X-Ray Vision' (the ability to see through a girl'sclothes, presumably used to be one of Superman's special abilities. Well, this has nothing to do with it.
Japan is launching an X-Ray Observatory.

JAXA said the satellite will carry five X-ray telescopes – which detect traces of light – to study the structures and movement of black holes and galaxies, find out when and where their chemical elements are created and what happens when matter falls into a black hole.

JAXA said it plans to use the satellite as an orbiting space observatory after the mission. The announcement follows the February liftoff of a communications satellite into space aboard the country’s workhorse H-2A rocket – its first successful launch since an accident in November 2003, when a rocket carrying two spy satellites malfunctioned after liftoff and was destroyed in mid-flight.

The Astro-Ell, developed with the United States, was originally scheduled to lift off earlier this year but was delayed as JAXA concentrated on successfully launching the H-2A.

Of course it may blow up on the launchpad like many JAXA launches... Hmmm.
Having made that wisecrack, it occurs to me that at least the Japanese have a space programme. We in Australia don't. Let's meditate on that one, shall we?

- Art Neuro

And Then, Ten
Carl Pavano pitched a complete game shutout as the Yankees won 6-0 against the Mariners who took 2 of three from the redSox coming into this series. That's convincing. Tomorrow, Moose pitches against Jaime Moyer, so the stage is set for a double bi-coastal sweep of the A's and Mariners. Again, in the spirit of Kylie Minogue, "We should be so lucky".

Some people have suggested that the A's and Mariners are merely weak teams, but "beat up weak teams convincingly" is what a good team does and they've done it nicely during their last 10 game winning streak. In that span, the Yankees have closed 4 games on the AL East top pack, so this has been a timely hot streak for them.

Jason Giambi found a bit of form, going 3-for-4 with a homerun. While he's not entirely 'back', announcements of his demise were a little premature. There's still something left in that tank; he's just not a firstbaseman anymore. Presumably for the rest of this season, Tino will be the glove man at 1B spelled by Andy Phillips (perhaps).

The DH Log jam consisting of Giambi, Williams and the injured Reuben Sierra made itself a little less complex with Sierra getting injured in his rehab game. Gotta laugh at breaks like that because it's a sure sign the Yankees are having some luck, delaying his inevitable return. As noted in the previous post, the rookies seem here to stay; at least Robinson Cano has found some form and has flashed his leather after a nervous start. Tiger Wang may be headed back tto the minors when Jared Wright comes off the DL, but heck, Kevin Brown's an injury waiting to happen, so Chien-Ming may chime in with some more much-needed league average pitching. On the days they put Bernie Williams back in the paddock, Tony Womack becomes the man without a position. His bat won't be missed. Watch the Yankees to make a trade for a Centerfielder with a good glove. Plenty of teams have made the post season from here; the Yankees are as of today, back in the businesss of hunting for the post-season.

Noteworthy too is how Tino Martinez went on the boil for the better part of the stretch and as soon as I picked him up for my fanatsy team, he went cool. Ain't that the way?

- Art Neuro

Nine In A Row
Tiger Wang did his thing and the Yankees beat the Mariners 6-3 making it now nine wins in a row. Robinson Cano had 2 hits scoring 2 runs, and now the baton goes to Carl Pavano, then Moose once more. I like the chances of walking away with 2 out of 3 from Seattle. Dare I say I'm hoping for a clean sweep? That would be 12 wins in a row against the Mariners and Athletics in a bi-coastal double sweep. Somehow I doubt they'll roll that far but you never know.

The best thing in today's victory is how the rookies contributed mightily to the positive result; the Yankee farm system might not be as barren as previously thought.
The next best thing is the feeling of being over .500 by even one game.

- Art Neuro