Is Nicole Kidman Overrated?
So asks the Sydney Morning Herald in her 'home town'.

AGREE: I liked her in Dead Calm - red afro, pre-Michael Jackson skin dye and all. I liked her even more in To Die For, where she played a calculating starlet with such malignant brilliance she could only have been playing herself. I even liked her in that Gothic ghostie flick The Others.

But other than that, I don't warm to Nicole Kidman. I'm even a bit frightened of her. Those serial killer/sniper/suicide bomber eyes freak me out. She reminds me of that creepy 2002 movie S1m0ne, where a producer creates a cybernetic actress. The robot actress becomes wildly famous, as has Kidman. The robot actress never ages -
neither does Kidman (does she actually have pores?).

She's a Stepford Actress extraordinaire - plastic skin, plastic smile, all facade and no dimension, which would explain why she seems only to shine doing cold and scary.

Nic, go get some sun and some food, and a touch of soul. Never don a big plastic honker again - you really didn't deserve that Oscar. Give your Chanel squillions to charity. Then maybe we can reassess this relationship. Maybe.

Sharon Verghis

DISAGREE: The tall poppy syndrome is an evil that thrives in Australia. Raise 'em up, then tear 'em down. So it is with Nicole. After head-turning performances in 1989's Dead Calm, 1991's Flirting and 1995's To Die For, Kidman became a BIG star; then promptly, the secateurs were unsheathed, despite her nuanced, award-winning turns in The Others and The Hours.

But here's the thing: actors are often blamed for the sins of writers and/or directors. Take Eyes Wide Shut. Kidman was merely reasonable, but Stanley Kubrick's overwrought lump of a rumination ensured she couldn't have been any better. Same goes for Moulin Rouge!, where her character needed to be better written. Compare Lars von Trier's Dogville and this year's Birth: intelligent films, excellent performances.

But for me, the film in which she finally dispelled any doubt was the little-known 2001 comedy Birthday Girl, where she plays a Russian mail-order bride. Take a look, put aside your tall poppy prejudices, then reconsider.

Sacha Molitorisz

When I checked in 72% had dissed her and 28% had felt she was okay. I feel like I live in an almost 3/4 sane city. :)

More Links on Sino-Japan Tensions
Pleiades sent in this list of links people might want to look up.
I've said my piece so all I'm doing now is letting the press say theirs.

- Art Neuro

Who's Got It?
As the days wear on in this Sino-Japanese row, it seems to me that the Chinese really mean to drag everything through the mud. Now they want the site of the infamous Unit 731 commemorated by UNESCO.

Jin Chengmin, a researcher with the Harbin Municipal Academy of Social Sciences, pointed to the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan as precedents for UNESCO protection of war ruins.

"The Unit 731 site should also qualify as a World Heritage site," Jin was quoted as saying. Located south of Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province, the laboratories, prisons and crematoria were notorious for experiments on humans to develop germ weapons, such as bubonic plague, typhoid, anthrax and cholera.

At least 3,000 people, including Chinese civilians, Russians, Mongolians and Koreans, were killed in the experiments between 1939 and 1945, Xinhua said. Outside the site, more than 200,000 Chinese were killed by biological weapons produced by Unit 731, it said.

"We will apply for World Heritage status to let more people in the world know the truth, which may serve to remind us of the barbarity of war," Wang Peng, curator of the 731 Exhibition Hall, was quoted as saying.

In a landmark ruling in 2002, the Tokyo District Court acknowledged that the unit had tested biological weapons in China. But it rejected demands for compensation from 180 Chinese plaintiffs who said their relatives were killed by the unit, saying the issue had been settled in post-war treaties.

Japan's government officially neither denies nor recognizes the activities of the unit.
"The government is not in possession of materials that tell us about the activities of this unit. If we do find some materials, we would accept it as a solemn fact of history," Foreign Ministry deputy spokesman Akira Chiba said.

So I smirked.
At the end of WWII, the USA's OSS swooped in and grabbed everything it could on Unit 731. Of course the Japanese would have no documentation on that today because the Americans took it. And of course they are still using knowledge gathered there today. Heck, they even sold some of that tech to Saddam Hussein, which is why they knew he had access to BW; they even knew the first BW threat would come as anthrax, which was the bacillus used by Unit 731. And of course Saddam bought Sarin gas CW Agents off the Aum Supreme Truth Sect. All this results in the Japanese government effectively saying, we don't have any papers that document, let alone comment upon the said Unit. These are all merely allegations, blah, blah, blah. Well, the Executive arm of the Japanese government's got some reasons to keep playing dumb. Chalk it up to another irony of history.

However, I do draw your attention to the bit where the judgement handed down by the Japanese courts in 2002 that acknowledged Unit 731 happened, but also that the compensations were paid out at the time of the San Francisco Treaty. That's no lie there.

- Art Neuro

Done
I've finished with 'The Ghostwriter, The Stuntman and The Body Double Girl' project out at iCompositions. 12 tracks, all in all. The project took a lot of energy. I'm looking forward to the rest. If you haven't checked it out, please do; you might be pleasantly surprised.
I promise I didn't play any guitar on it. :)

- Art Neuro

Do All Philosophers Start With An 'S'?
They're looking for the new Einstein. Maybe they are just hoping. One of things that they've had to point out was that Einstein had read a significant dose of philosophy in his formative years.

"The independence created by philosophical insight is — in my opinion — the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth," Einstein wrote in 1944. And he was an accomplished musician. The interplay between music and math is well-known. Einstein would furiously play his violin as a way to think through a knotty physics problem.

Today, universities have produced millions of physicists. There aren't many jobs in science for them, so they go to Wall Street and Silicon Valley to apply their analytical skills to more practical — and rewarding — efforts.

Those who stay in science don't work alone. At labs like CERN, the world's largest particle physics center in Switzerland, 100 researchers collaborate on a single atom- smashing experiment. Publishing the results takes years. It's hard to imagine a renegade like Einstein tolerating it.

"Maybe there is an Einstein out there today," said Columbia University physicist Brian Greene, "but it would be a lot harder for him to be heard."

Yeah. Or he's making money on the stock exchange. After all, who wants to contribute to the sum total knowledge of humanity when you can make big bucks?

Boss Loses It
I would too if I spent US$200million on payroll and got a 4-8 start to the season.

"Enough is enough," Steinbrenner said in a statement through his publicist, Howard Rubenstein. "I am bitterly disappointed, as I am sure all Yankee fans are, by the lack of performance by our team. It is unbelievable to me that the highest-paid team in baseball would start the season in such a deep funk.

"They are not playing like true Yankees. They have the talent to win and they are not winning. I expect Joe Torre, his complete coaching staff and the team to turn this around."

Steinbrenner, who watched the game from his home in Tampa, Fla., had time to work on his missive. This game was over early.

In his first start of 2005, Kevin Brown virtually repeated his disastrous effort in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series last fall. Brown gave up six runs in the first two innings, the last four coming on a grand slam by Miguel Tejada.

Aiyah. That's just not good. Fortunately for me, Jeter and Matsui are hitting okay. Unfortunately for George, the rest of them have been stinking it up.

Korean Sentiment
There's a Korea boom in Japan. Things South Korean are a bit of a fad. The Japanese are visiting their neighbouring country in unprecedented numbers. The South Koreans on the other hand feel that Japan is the number 1 threat to their Security. Yes, more than Kim Jogn-Il and his crazy nuclear programme to the north, Japan is the number 1 threat to their security.
It's a bit willfully wrong-headed, but there are crazies in every nation.

The analysis here is interesting from the Sankei paper (Sorry it's in Japanese):

≪強硬姿勢前面「得点稼ぎ」≫　韓国政府が十七日、発表した日韓関係に関する声明は、竹島問題や教科書問題などでの日韓関係の悪化を踏まえ、盧武鉉政権の対日姿勢を整理し日本に注文したものだ。とくに竹島（韓国名・独島）問題で高まっている反日感情を背景に、当面の狙いとしては日本に対する「断固たる強硬姿勢」を示すことで国内世論をなだめる意味がある。　ただ声明は革新政権らしく「日本の良識ある知性や市民たち」といい「日本の良心勢力との連帯」「両国の市民社会間のネットワーク構築」などへの期待が強調された異色のものだ。対日外交で今後、政府・国家レベルよりそうしたＮＧＯ（非政府組織）を重視する姿勢を示したもので、日本政府としても対応が難しくなりそうだ。　新しい対日外交を目指すという今回の声明は、一九六五年の国交正常化以降、日韓の協力関係による成果には触れず、領土問題や歴史認識問題、さらなる過去補償など未解決あるいは対立部分をことさら強調している。これは過去の政権の対日外交を否定的に評価したもので、その結果、日本に対しあらためて「真摯な謝罪と反省」などを求めるという主張になっている。　声明は「人類普遍の価値」とか「普遍的常識」「われわれの大義と正当性」といった言葉を繰り返し強調し、韓国の要求や主張に従うよう求めている。しかし日本側の主張に歴史認識など韓国側の意見と合わない部分があるからといって、国家レベルで繰り返し「謝罪と反省」を要求することに日本としてはそのままうなずけないだろう。　外交は妥協の産物だということを考えれば、声明のような「普遍的」とか「大義」を大上段に振りかぶった外交には、なかなか歩調は合わせにくい。声明は日韓関係を「同伴者であり運命共同体」といいこれまでの交流、協力には変化はないとしているが、政権中枢には既存の対日外交のやり方を変え、日本を外交的に屈服させてそれを政権の業績にしたいという気分が強い。　革新政権として「過去否定」の政策を対日外交にまで広げたいというわけだ。米国に対してもこの間、「自主外交」と称してかなり大胆な言動が見られ“米韓摩擦”にまでなっている。盧政権の新・対日外交が言葉ではなく具体的にどういう形で現れるのかは今後を見なければ分からないが、日本としても“摩擦”は覚悟しておいた方がよさそうだ。（ソウル　黒田勝弘）

In a nutshell, it says that the Korean Govenrment is looking to score quick points by diplomatically humiliating Japan, turning it into a big win for the new left-leaning government. The 'change in direction' as the Korean government officials call it seems to be heading towards a more 'independent diplomacy' which seems to cnonsist of insulting old geopolitical allies such as the USA and Japan. Perhaps that is true, but I have a different take.

Historically speaking, there is much in Korean hisotry that has an emotional investment in a strong China; especially having paid so much in tribute to the Emperors of China for so many centuries, adopting Confuciansim slavishly, and generally appointing itsel China's number 1 friend. Maybe the geopolitical reality is that both Koreas should be part of China's 'spehere of influce, hurling insults at nations across the sea, protecting itself with the nuclear umbrella coming out of Beijing and not Washington DC. In this light, it can easily be understood as reverting to historic norms, rather than radically shifting diplomatic positions.

Chinese Sentiment
Meanwhile the sentiment keeps sinking in China.

“It shouldn’t be us who should apologise,” said Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei. “It is Japan who should apologise.”Simmering tensions over several issues came to a boiling point this month when Japan approved a new textbook that critics say whitewashes the country’s Second World War atrocities. Protesters in several

Chinese cities also have rallied against Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, with tens of thousands taking to the streets over the weekend.

Police in Shanghai stood by as rioters – some shouting “Kill the Japanese” - threw stones, eggs and plastic bottles at the Japanese

Consulate, and damaged restaurants and cars. Last week, demonstrators smashed windows at the embassy in Beijing and attacked at least two Japanese students. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao were arranging for a possible meeting in Jakarta over the weekend, where both will be attending the Asia-Africa summit.

But Koizumi, speaking to reporters in Tokyo, cautioned: “If it’s going to be the exchange of harsh words, it’s better not to meet”.

You'd think so. Especially when the Chinese foreign minister's contribution is: "You started it when you invaded in 1937..." Yes, Basil. Didn't they tell you "Don't mention the war"?
Oh, right, that's what got Japan into so much hot water - not mentioning the war enough... :)

- Art Neuro

A-Rod's Yankee Moment
It's been over a year since baseball's 252million dollar man moved in with the Yankees and since then he seems to be under the kind of microscope to see if he really is a Yankee. Take this piece in the NYT.

No one disputes his work ethic. It's his tireless effort at image control that seems to consume him to the point of talent debilitation. Who knew he could be so fragile? The first hint was his exit in Seattle.

Rodriguez equated the size of his contract with his self-worth when he declined the Mariners' offer to make him the highest-paid player in baseball so the Rangers could anoint him as the richest athlete in history.

Then Rodriguez's self-preservation mode kicked in when he fled the losers who were diluting his legend in Texas to re-establish his importance in New York. He had no idea his aura wouldn't travel to New York. He had no idea he'd lose his prom king's crown. Now, if he could just get over that imperfection, he might discover his true identity in pinstripes.

That's Selena Roberts for you. Kick a man when he's... a man. Or is this a new kind of Jeter hagiography where denigrating a great player makes Jeter's intangibles look even more amazing? I don't know.

Well, Today's BIG TABLOID NEWS is that A-Rod is actually a much better man than a ball player, and I for one am happy to relay this one.

Newsday
April 14, 2005
BOSTON -- For the first time in his Yankees career, Alex Rodriguez was cheered in Boston, but it had nothing to do with anything he did on the baseball field.

Rodriguez risked his life Wednesday to save an 8-year-old boy from getting hit by a fast-moving truck on Newbury Street, the boy's father, Joe McCarthy, said last night. As fate would have it, the boy, Patrick, is a diehard Yankees fan living in Red Sox Nation."I can't express enough gratitude," Joe McCarthy said. "He saved my son's life."

Rodriguez said he was about to enter a car when he noticed a truck heading in his direction and quickly decided to step back to protect himself. When he turned around, he saw young Patrick running into the street and directly toward the utility truck. A-Rod said he acted instinctively during the lunchtime incident, grabbing the boy and pulling him back with him.

"I was trying to get out of the way, and the kid was running the other way," Rodriguez said before last night's game against the Red Sox at Fenway Park. "He was about to run into the street and I kind of just put my arm around him. We both almost got run over."

"It was just unbelievable, truly a God moment," Joe McCarthy said from his Martha's Vineyard home. "A-Rod could have been seriously hurt, but that didn't stop him. It was the best catch of his career."Joe McCarthy said he, Patrick and the boy's mother, Grace Bochicchio, had just left a Niketown store in the heart of Boston's downtown shopping district.

McCarthy said he was off to the side and didn't see the situation develop, but heard the sound of a screeching truck, "oohs" from the crowd, then cheers. When he looked up, he saw his son in Rodriguez's arms as well as a few stunned expressions from onlookers.

"The kid was running into the street and he was about to get run over by a car," Rodriguez added. "From his vantage point he couldn't see the truck coming."

According to his father, who said he was born and raised in Manhattan, Patrick told Rodriguez how much he followed the Yankees while still in his arms. McCarthy said A-Rod then waved over Yankees players Jorge Posada, Tino Martinez and Randy Johnson, who were nearby leaving the team's hotel, to meet the family.

"It was such an unbelievable scene, especially since we're the only Yankees fans in Martha's Vineyard," McCarthy said. The family is headed to New York this weekend for a grandmother's 70th birthday party and will see the Yankees Monday and Tuesday.

McCarthy estimated that the family goes to about 15 Yankees games a year at the Stadium and said Patrick even received a personal letter from general manager Brian Cashman last week after the boy mailed the Yankees his Little League baseball cards."Brian wrote a great letter back and said they're going to keep the cards on file," McCarthy said. "Patrick just keeps saying that when he becomes a pitcher for the Yankees, he hopes Alex is still playing."

I don't know about you, but it fully evokes that feeling of Babe Ruth promising to hit a homer for that sick boy. Okay A-Rod, I forgive you for your crappy season with the glove so far. You are a Yankee when you do this kind of stunt.
The joke doing the Sabermetric circles is that, had it been Jeter on the spot, the kid would've "...gone past a diving Jeter" under the truck.

P.S. Next time A-Rod, don't risk your life, but throw a Red Sox fan under a bus instead. :)

- Art Neuro

History Repeating
In recent weeks, the relationship between Japan and her neighbours has deteriorated over the textbook known as 'The New History'. The book is already unpopular with the Teachers' union and so only 18 schools (8 of them Private) out of 11, 102 schools actually use it. In other words, 0.1% of the Junior High School population get to see its contents.

Teachers' concerns over the content have limited use of the textbook, which covers all of Japan's history. The current edition has 236 pages, only about 20 of which deal with the 1920-1945 period, the height of Japanese expansionism.

But those 20 pages are highly inflammatory, with passages defending Japan's militarism as an attempt to liberate Asia from western colonialism and claiming that resource-poor Japan was pushed into a corner and used aggression as a last resort.

Similar logic was used by Japan's wartime leaders. Critics say the text underscores a disturbing, broader trend.

"All history textbooks are shifting their focus away from Japan's wartime atrocities," said Mikio Someya, a spokesman for the liberal Japan Teachers' Association, the country's leading teachers' union.

For example, he said, none of the textbooks approved this month mentions Japan's official role in establishing front-line brothels during the war. Historians say as many as 200,000 women from Korea, China, the Philippines, Taiwan and the Netherlands were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers.

Japan's military also seized up to 800,000 men from China, Korea and other Asian countries in the early 1900s and shipped them to Japan to work in coal mines and ports under brutal conditions.

Tokyo has acknowledged its wartime offenses, but refuses to compensate victims directly or apologize, saying all government-level compensation was settled by postwar treaties.

How do I put this diplomatically?
In accepting the Potsdam declaration, Japan surrendered at the end of WWII unconditionally. If one goes over the transcripts of the cabinet meetings that included the Emperor in the heat of July and the dog days of August, it is clear that the Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki and his cabinet are stuck on is the word unconditional. In other words, what would the allies do with Japan after the surrender?

The Army felt it was better to go out in blaze of glory as they had been working up to that event for a good 20 years. The decimated Navy staff felt that process had already taken place. The Emperor finally interceded and told the cabinet to accept. Now a lot of people who hate the late Showa Emperor around the world would object, but this was a very good call that saved lives on both sides. Not the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, boys & girls.

Part of the 'unconditional surrender' meant the undertaking of Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal as well as having no sovereignty until 1952 when the peace treaty was signed in San Francisco. People came and laid their claims. Compensations were paid to those states. In fact the payment of these compensations was a prerequisite deal in the signing of the San Francisco Treaty. In other words, the weirgyld for compensation had to be paid before Japan could be a sovereign state again. This is why Tokyo gets a bewildered look when people come out years later and say they didn't get paid. For all of her war crimes it is not Tokyo's fault that the respective states didn't pass on the compensation.

Not only that, Japan has been sending Overseas Development Aid for decades. This sum runs to billions of dollars a year. That plus the investment that Japanese industry has been making across Asia runs to trillions; and it's undeniable those things have benefited Asia. You can see why some people in Japan get quite irritated with the people who want more compensation for WWII or want more apologies or more contrition or changed textbooks or whatever.

Bottom line, you either accept the weirgyld and shut up, or you refuse to accept the weirgyld for whatever reason and keep feuding; you can't take the weirgyld and still feud. That is incredibly bad faith.

The Korean War As Part Of The Global War
While we're on this topic, loyal reader Pleiades sent this along as today's food for thought. It's sort of funny because the writer clearly believes in the Illuminati who are trying to go for world domination. But if you side-step that, it's still a sort of interesting read.
This bit made me laugh:

For most of the past ten years or so, it has been my 'expert' opinion that the current Global Civil War began on April 17th of 1995, or just two days before the event at the A.P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. That was the day that an Air Force Lear jet carrying a senior defense electronics expert named Clark Fiester and a senior Air Force general named Glen Proffitt II was either shot down or bombed out of the air over northern Alabama. Sources have advised me that this criminal event, an assassination by air crash, was in fact an Act Of War related directly to what happened two days later in Oklahoma. They say it has to do with government corruption too.

After viewing Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo twice, however, and taking notes for a close analysis of the movie, it dawned on me that I wasn't wrong about the assassinations of Fiester and Proffitt being acts of war, but that I was wrong in thinking that this was the kick-off to world-around civil war.

It was simply the kick-off for the newest phase of this on-going war !!

Yeah. There's no end to the sources of paranoia: now it's some Korean war movie about the Korean War.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but I do give credence to geopolitics forcing the same issue over and over again. The reasons for the conflict in the Korean peninsula are remarkably similar for the 1895 war between Japan and China, the 1905-1905 war between Japan and Russia, and the 1951-1953 war between the USA and China. That's a highly strategic piece of real estate the Koreans are sitting on. Russia wants access to a port that doesn't freeze over in winter. In 1895, it was willing to rip off China to do it. In 1904, it was willing to invade Korea to do it. In 1950 China was willing to coax the North Koreans into getting total control of the peninsula; thus threatening shipping lanes. And every times this happened, people marched through Korea.

But there are other places on the planet like that. Like the Bosphorus, where once Troy was laid siege, where Constantinople was laid siege and everything else inbetween. Or the Hellespont where the men who marched across it form a who's who of generals. Darius, Alexander, Crassus, Julius Caesar, Constantine the Great, Richard the Lion Heart, even our very own Anzacs at Gallipoli went there at the behest of Winston Churchill.
And guess what. The Turks and Greeks still stare across there with mutual contempt and hatred.
It's just a very valuable piece of real estate.

Riots Every Day In China
Related to the textbook issue is the issue of Japan possibly joining the UN Security Council as permanent member thereof. Of course this is very uncomfortable for China who won their seat on the basis of WWII, but more so, by ousting the legitimacy claims of Taiwan.
Now I'm not here to suggest Taiwan's claims over mainland China are legitimate. But you can see that Communist China's claim to its seat isn't exactly without controversy.

But China as a nation did 'earn' its spot through its being on the winning side in WWII. I guess that's why it gets to re-hash gripes about WWII in order to block Japan's entry. And maybe it is worth orchestrating public opinion and making it look like there's a nationwide outrage about it; but when the oil prices hit US$100, the people might want to riot about something else other than whether Japan is on the Security Council or not. Heck, by then they might want an Asian ally in that seat.

- Art Neuro

Location, Location, Location...
If you're going to build a Moon base you'd want it to be on the perfect plot of land; after all, there's a heck of a lot of moonscape to choose from. Researchers feel they've got their first pick sorted out. The idea is to be close to the North Pole where there's lots of light and near the suspected ice for the water.

Permanently sunlit areas would provide crucial solar energy for any future Moon settlement, a goal for NASA outlined last year by President George W. Bush. Such sites would also have resort-like temperatures compared with other lunar locations that fluctuate between blistering heat and unfathomable cold.

Equally important, in the permanently shadowed depths of craters around the lunar north pole, water ice may lurk, according to previous but unconfirmed observations.
Melted, it would be vital for drinking. Broken into hydrogen and oxygen, the water could provide breathable air and be used to make rocket fuel for a trip to Mars. That fits in neatly with the White House vision of using the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars.

The best spot to settle on the Moon may be on the northern rim of Peary crater, close to the north pole, says Ben Bussey of Johns Hopkins University. The analysis, to be published in the April 14 issue of the journal Nature, is based on 53 images from the spacecraft Clementine, which orbited the Moon for 71 days in 1994.

Of course, as Robert Heinlien once titled his book, the Moon is a harsh mistress, so she's going to be a tough place to sustain a colony, let alone a base but there are of course possible rewards and riches up there.

A Workable Design
Saharastega and Nigerpeton were amphibians from 250million years ago, a long time before Reptiles ever got their big break in Evolution; and in what is now the Sahara lived these amphibians who happened to share a lot of features with crocodiles:

The species, named Nigerpeton and Saharastega, were found in the Saharan Desert. The region was dry back when the animals were alive, too, but since they were amphibians -- something like giant salamanders -- some water must have been present.

In appearance and behavior, Nigerpeton and Saharastega resembled crocodiles, which are reptiles. Understandably, the croc's body type and predatorial approach seems to have been quite popular, even if you were an amphibian.

"Several fossil groups have converged on the 'crocodilian' body form, as it's well-suited to an amphibious lifestyle," said study leader Christian Sidor of the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. The discoveries will be detailed in the April 14 issue of the journal Nature.

"The skull of Nigerpeton, in fact, looks a lot like that of a Nile crocodile," Sidor told LiveScience. "The eyes are elevated and positioned far back on the skull, and the snout is very long. The nostrils are also somewhat elevated, so it could breath with its body mostly underwater."

Nigerpeton was about 7-8 feet long, and it "probably ate anything it could get its fangs into, either in the water or land animals that came too close," Sidor said.

Sounds like some of the people I've met in job interviews.

- Art Neuro

Oil For Dollars
We're very sensitive here on this blog to energy policy as it impacts heavily on the viability of civilization. In that light I bring to you today's post...
Loyal reader Pleiades sent in this link which leads to this link. The Latter is probably more 'mainstream'.

The US strategy for using oil to finance its deficit is, of course, brilliant. America's elected officials knew that at some point those independent foreign central banks would start getting edgy about buying more dollars to pay for the United States' war and deficits. The $650 billion trade deficit is breathing down the dollar's neck. So which central banks can the US continue to use as the fall guys to buy the dollar?

Why not the Persian Gulf oil states - but where would they get the dollars to buy US Treasuries? Well, with the Chinese piling up dollars and growing like crazy, at some point the oil market had to tighten. It was only a matter of time before the Chinese would start bidding up the price of oil. The Asians, therefore, are hung out to dry when the price of oil rises because they have to spend more of their dollars on oil. As the price of oil goes up, extra money floods into the Gulf kingdoms. With the US secretary of defense putting troops all over the ground in the Middle East, and those nimble aircraft carriers nearby and ready to deliver the "shock and awe of sudden
democracy" to the Gulf monarchs, it's a sure bet that America's OPEC buddies will stash their newly found Asian lucky bucks into good old American Treasury notes.

With such a simple policy to fund its deficit for another year, it's no wonder the United States can get by without any brain power at the Treasury Department. In effect, the US and its Gulf Arab allies just pulled off the biggest central-bank heist in the history of the world. The price of oil just went up 60% or more, which really cuts down to size that $3.4 trillion of net foreign holdings of US financial assets. As a loyal American, one would like to cheer one's government's deft move to pick the pockets of our trading and financing partners. Moreover, the US gets the Arabs to fund a large share of our deficit, subsidize our interest rates, and help keep our taxes low for another year. Surely I can afford to buy another gas-guzzling sport-ute, get a rifle,
and wave a flag.

If America continues to manipulate the flow of oil 'strategically' as it calls it, there are going to be a lot of nations chafing at this control. Echoes of the events that led to the attack on Pearl Harbour anybody? I wonder how the Chinese are going to feel about this? Surely they're not going to sit back and let their economy shudder to a halt... or are they?
Well, I'm uncomfortable with all of this.

- Art Neuro

Blogger Bum Out
For the last 2 days Blogger has eaten my posts. I should know better than to write directly into blogger, but you know how it is; you expect the technology to work. :)

So in the best interest of this blog, here are some stories I wanted up but got lost.

1. A conferene of scientists in Colordao about the future paths of Space Exploration.
2. The Condition of Man's Closest Relatives - they're going extinct faster than we thought.
3. Getting to the Bottom - Drilling down the Earth's crust until we hit the mantle.

As usual, I had glib comments for all of these, but feel free to come up with your own. :)

Music Update
For 10 years I have been muttering about recording a surf guitar version of Yellow Magic Orchetsra's 'Technopolis'. Well, I've done it now. it will go up onto iCompositions some time later this month after I finish with the current project.
It was gas doing it.

Key Psycho Update
This is tunring into my daily nightmare. Terry P the soundman is once again incommunicado. This time he doesn't have the Tsunami as his alibi/excuse. :)
Don't ask me how this happens. I keep getting out of touch with this man; so I have no report on how the sound post-production is going. It's a real drag. On a better note, Jim McCrudden is scheduled to finish his Bernard Hermann-inflected score on the 20th of this month.
Will this project never end? :)

Jack Kerouac Memorial League Fanatasy Baseball Update
I'm coming fourth. Just as I thought, my pitching is a problem. I've had shaky starts from everybody except Mike Mussina and pick-up Scott Kazmir who is pitching for me instead of the injured Mark Prior. Like the Yankees last year, I'm short of a dominant Ace. Oh well.

Now if Blogger eats this post, I'm going to scream.

- Art Neuro

Shuttle Update
Loyal reader JF sent in this info regarding cracks in the shuttle's fuel tanks.

Discovery was set for a Noon rollout to Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, before engineers detected the crack in the external tank. After consulting with tank engineers at NASA's Michoud facility, shuttle officials decide to proceed with rollout at 2:00 p.m. EDT. At 2:04 p.m. EDT the craft indeed began moving out of the Vehicle Assembly Building, according to a NASA statement

"The crack is about the size as a hair on the lens of a camera," NASA spokeswoman Eileen Hawley told reporters at NASA's Johnson Space Center. The crack was located just above the intertank door on the rear of the tank, opposite the orbiter, Hawley said."They said they will be flying as is," Hawley said.

The launch is to be the first since the disastrous end of the shuttle Columbia mission two years ago, which was blamed on a chunk of foam that fell from the external fuel tank during liftoff and struck a wing. The tank has been extensively redesigned since that disaster.

"It doesn't sound like it's a major issue, but because the foam is a sensitive issue we want to make sure we're in a safe and right configuration,'' Rye said earlier Wednesday, when the crack was discovered.

And so on.
Also, JF sent in the folloing bit where there's an update on...

Japan's Big Space Plan
They had to have one eventually. Apparently it has robots, it has nanotech, it has Mach-5 Hydrogen-fuelled craft, it goes up to 2025.

By 2015, JAXA will review whether it's ready to pour resources into manned space travel and possibly building a base on the moon. A decision to possibly to try for Mars and other planets would be made after 2025.

The plan emerges two months after JAXA sent a communications satellite into space aboard the country's workhorse H-2A rocket -- its first successful launch since November 2003, when a rocket carrying two spy satellites malfunctioned after liftoff and was destroyed in mid-flight. That accident forced officials to put the entire space program temporarily on hold.

It also marks a major policy shift that was set in motion last year when a Japanese government panel recommended that the agency focus on manned space flight instead of unmanned scientific probes.

Despite being Asia's most advanced space-exploring nation, Japan has been playing catch-up to Europe in commercial satellite launches. Tokyo also has struggled to outdo China, which put its first astronaut into orbit in October 2003 and later announced plans for a trip to the moon.

Well, there you have it. Another space program.

You have to be in it to play, and right now, Australia are not in it because, well, our powers that be just can't imagine it.

- Art Neuro

And They Are Off! Scribbling Jeter Hagiography
The MLB season is 2 games old and there is a wave of Jeter hagiography.
Well, he hit a walk-off homer to bail out a 4-3 win and helped out his good friend Mo.

Newsday has this piece of Hagiography.
The New York Post has this one.
NYT has this piece of hagiography.

Boston scored in the fourth on a home run by David Ortiz, and in the seventh, when Damon singled off Stanton to score Mueller. But Stanton got Trot Nixon to ground into an inning-ending double play, and Gordon followed with a 1-2-3 eighth.

Rivera struck out Renteria to start the ninth, then Varitek homered to tie the score. With two outs, Damon's fly ball expired on the warning track in right field. The Yankees exhaled, and when they returned to their dugout, Jeter grabbed his batting helmet and went to work.

"He's the captain of the team," catcher Jorge Posada said. "It seems like he's always at the plate when we need a big hit."

Yeah. I like him too, but this was just game 2 in a series of 19 regular season Rivalry-Bashes. C'mon guys, this is a little early for all this, no?

And another piece of Jeter-Worship in the NYT.

Jeter set up his final at-bat with patience. He did not bite on three pitches that missed the strike zone because he wanted to reach base. Foulke pushed the count to 3-2 on two fastballs, and Jeter fouled off a changeup. Jeter kept waiting for another fastball, which was no surprise. When Jeter got it, what he did with it was no surprise to the Yankees, either.

"He's the best clutch player in baseball," Martinez said. "It's tough to describe it to people that don't see him all the time because the stats aren't there. But if you see the day-in, day-out performances, he's the best."

Oh yeah. That's how he stunk up my Fantasy Team last year, day by day of my faith betrayed by that slump from hell... but we'll let that slide today. He's doing mighty fine after 2 games. It's only 2 games out of 162, mind you... :)

- Art Neuro

The Ghostwriter, The Stuntman and The Body Double Girl
I'm putting up a new album of my latest musical stuff at iCompositions this month.
It's about a Hollywood Ghostwriter; except he has real life experience as a Private Eye - Think 'Hammett' starring Frederic Forrest, directed by Wim Wenders. A star in the mold of Marylin Monroe is found dead, the police announce it as a suicide, but it hides a dark, film noir secret that the Ghostwriter must uncover. Along the wya he is helped by the Stuntman and the Body Double Girl as they get closer to the identity of the mysterious film dircetor Alan Smithee.

I hope you enjoy the drama as it unfolds this month. Don't miss out!
All you gotta do is click on my badge on the right-hand column. :)

What The F...?
The MLB Season has kicked off.
The Yankees face the Red Sox. Apart from all the other reasons on the planet that I have a fan's stake in the proceedings, I just want to point out this truly, truly absurd thing.

Yankee Line Up du jour:
1. D. Jeter
2. A Rodriguez
3. G. Sheffield
4. Reuben Sierra
5. Hideki Matsui
6. J Posada
7. J Giambi
8 B Williams
9. T. Womack

I know the Bosox starter David Wells is a lefty and Reuben's a switch-hitter, but how on earth does this justify putting him ahead of Matsui, Posada, Giambi and Williams who have no problems hitting lefties; or for that matter cary a much heftier career OPS?
Hey Mr. Joe Torre, I don't get it. Please explain!!!!
As it is, Hideki Matsui and Jorge Posada have 2 hits for 3ABs a piece before the 7th inning and Reuben is hitless. Without a walk! This is not surprising, Joe. It was predicatable.
Go Yanks.

-----
Post Script. Subsequent to the game I found out the reason why Torre started Sierra in the clean-up hole waas because he had a career average of .371 against David Wells . It just might be a mirage of small sample size.
-----

Fantasy League Update
The Jack Kerouac Memorial League also kicks into action as the MLB season begins. My life is suddenly alight with the wonder of baseball as well as creative endeavours. :)
My lineup this year is virtually identical to last years' thanks to having kept a bunch fo position players. Amazingly, I managed to pick up David Ortiz in he early rounds which off-sets some of the power outage I had last year.

C: V. Martinez
1B: D. Ortiz
2B : J. Vidro
SS: Captain Intangible D. Jeter.
3B: Aramis Ramirez (in his contract 'walk' year)
LF: Hideki Matsui
CF: Mark Kotsay/Vernon Wells
RF Aaron Rowand
Util: Craig Wilson

It's okay, but I don't project to enough Total Bases if Derek Jeter and Jose Vidro turn in slump-bunny seasons once more. And yet... My pitching is far more suspect this year (if such a thing is possible):

SP:
Mark Prior
Carlos Zambrano
Mike Mussina
Matt Clement
Livan Hernandez
Adam Eaton

RP (a.k.a. My assembled gaggle of mediocrities):
M. Gonzales
J. Affeldt,
CH Taso [DL],
M. Adams,
J Cruz(Oak)
J. Colome

I'm going to struggle for 'Saves' again with Jeremy Affeldt, Chin-Hui Tsao and Mike Adams *ugh*. :)

- Ar Neuro

Big Foreign Planet
Space.com reports it has the first confirmed pictures of a planet from a different solar system. Apparently it is twice the size of Jupiter.

The star, GQ Lupi, has been observed by a team of European astronomers since 1999. They have made three images using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile. The Hubble Space Telescope and the Japanese Subaru Telescope each contributed an image, too.

The work was led by Ralph Neuhaeuser of the Astrophysical Institute & University Observatory (AIU). "The detection of the faint object near the bright star is certain," Neuhaeuser told SPACE.com on Friday. The system is young, so the planet is rather warm, like a bun fresh out of the oven. That warmth made it comparatively easier to see in the glare of its host star compared with more mature planets. Also, the planet is very far from the star -- about 100 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, another factor in helping to separate the light between the two objects.

The discovery will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Neuhaeuser's co-authors include Ph.D. student Markus Mugrauer, who performed the observations, and Guenther Wuchterl. "This is the first directly imaged and confirmed companion to a Sun-like star, and as such marks the dawn of a new era in planet detection," said Ray Jayawardhana, a University of Toronto researcher who was not involved in the discovery but has seen the scientific paper.

So there we have it.
That ought to trouble the astrologers of this world. :)


Pope Passes Away
It's not Space News; I'm not Catholic; I'm not particularly interested in it except as an event in history; but it seemed stupid not to note it today. Pope John Paul II has passed away on this day.

The Vatican said the pope died at 9:37 p.m. (2:37 p.m. EST). The assembled flock fell into a stunned silence before some people broke out in applause — an Italian tradition in which mourners often clap for important figures. Others wept.

John Paul's passing set in motion centuries of tradition that mark the death of the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. The Vatican chamberlain formally verified the death, which in the past was done by tapping a pope's forehead three times with a silver hammer. The Vatican summoned the College of Cardinals, and the Vatican chamberlain destroyed the symbols of the pope's authority: his fisherman's ring and dies used to make lead seals for apostolic letters.

I bet in the distant past that silver hammer tapping thing was done a few times to make sure some much less loved Pontiff was dead... :)

John Paul II, may you rest in peace. You were the Pope for the better part of my life and in many, many ways you have contributed greatly to the world I live in, shaping it, nursing it and shepherding it.

- Art Neuro

More On Global Dimming Information
This is positively mind-boggling. Dandruff, and other skin peelings seems to be a major contributor in the aerosols that cause Global Dimming. I kid you not.

Jaenicke reported that the percentage of biological materials in aerosol pollution topped 40 percent in Mainz in September and 30 percent in October. And a study at Lake Baikal, Russia, showed more than 30 percent in September.

He said he did similar studies of the air over ocean environments, on mountains and in ice cores. There was no strong annual cycle, he said, although pollen was more abundant in spring while decaying cellular matter was more common in fall and winter.

He estimated that the amount of biological particles in the air, worldwide, annually is 1,000 teragrams. A teragram is somewhat more than a million tons. By comparison, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environmental Program, estimated biological particles at 56 teragrams, compared with 3,300 teragrams of sea salt and 2,000 teragrams of mineral dust.

The new finding means researchers should take biological materials seriously in climate modeling, in cloud physics and in hygienic questions such as allergies, Jaenicke said.

Hmmm. 1000 and 56 are a whole 2 orders out. This is really surprising.

Laughing It Off
That's right, meanwhile the hairy, unwashed animal kingdom providing so much aerosols is laughing it up, laughing it off.

"Indeed, neural circuits for laughter exist in very ancient regions of the brain, and ancestral forms of play and laughter existed in other animals eons before we humans came along with our 'ha-ha-has' and verbal repartee," says Jaak Panksepp, a neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University.

When chimps play and chase each other, they pant in a manner that is strikingly like human laughter, Panksepp writes in the April 1 issue of the journal Science. Dogs have a similar response.

Rats chirp while they play, again in a way that resembles our giggles. Panksepp found in a previous study that when rats are playfully tickled, they chirp and bond socially with their human tickler. And they seem to like it, seeking to be tickled more. Apparently joyful rats also preferred to hang out with other chirpers.

Laughter in humans starts young, another clue that it's a deep-seated brain function.
"Young children, whose semantic sense of humor is marginal, laugh and shriek abundantly in the midst of their other rough-and-tumble activities," Panksepp notes. Importantly, various recent studies on the topic suggest that laughter in animals typically involves similar play chasing. Could be that verbal jokes tickle ancient, playful circuits in our brains.

It still doesn't explain why there are so many humourless people; but now we know: They're brain-damaged. :)

- Art Neuro

Global Dimming... Holy Smokes, Batman We're In Trouble
Forget Kyoto and the debate about whether Global Warming is true or not or whether it is observable. Check this out.

NARRATOR: Burning fuel doesn't just produce the invisible greenhouse gases which cause global warming. It also produces visible pollution, tiny airborne particles of soot and other pollutants. These produce the haze which shrouds our cities. So Ramanathan wondered: Could this pollution be causing Global Dimming? The Maldives were the perfect place to find out. The Maldives seem unpolluted, but in fact the northern islands sit in a stream of dirty air descending from India. Only the southern tip of the long island chain enjoys clean air coming all the way from Antarctica. So by comparing the northern islands with the southern ones, Ramanathan and his colleagues would be able to see exactly what difference the pollution made to the atmosphere and the sunlight.

Project INDOEX, as it was called, was a huge multinational effort. For four years every possible technique was used to sample and monitor the atmosphere over the Maldives. INDOEX cost twenty-five million dollars, but it produced results - and they surprised everyone.

PROF VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN: The stunning part of the experiment was this pollutant layer which was three kilometre thick, cut down the sunlight reaching the ocean by more than 10%.

NARRATOR: A 10% fall in sunlight meant that particle pollution was having a far bigger effect than anyone had thought possible.

PROF VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN: Our models led us to believe the human impact on the dimming was close to half to one per cent. So what we discovered was tenfold.

NARRATOR: INDOEX showed that the pollution particles were blocking some sunlight themselves; but far more significant was what they were doing to the clouds. They were turning them into giant mirrors. Clouds are made of droplets of water. These only form when water vapour in the atmosphere starts to condense on the surface of naturally occurring airborne particles, typically pollen or sea salt. As they grow, the water droplets eventually become so heavy they fall as rain. But Ramanathan found that polluted air contained far more particles than the unpolluted air, particles of ash, soot and sulphur dioxide.

So while Global Warming has been proceeding at a runaway pace, the co-produced Dimming effect has been cancelling out this runaway effect which is why people have been finding it hard to measure the rate of the warming effect. It's extraordinary.

Imagine a guy with a decade long alcohol-abuse problem that makes him a little lethargic at work. He's in denial about it. You fight him all the way to get him to the doctor, who starts treating him, only to uncover the man has been hiding a wild cocaine habit for 15 years that would make anybody else a total maniac, except the alcohol has been keeping him relatively sedate. That is kind of like what the relationship between Global Warming and Global Dimming has been.

'Global Dimming', is now the other climate issue that the world is yet to tackle properly. In fact, until two years ago, nobody was really talking about beyond the circle of climatologists.

NARRATOR: This is the real sting in the tail. Solve the problem of Global Dimming and the world could get considerably hotter. And this is not just theory, it may already be happening. In Western Europe the steps we have taken to cut air pollution have started to bear fruit in a noticeable improvement in air quality and even a slight reduction in Global Dimming over the last few years. Yet at the same time, after decades in which they held steady, European temperatures have started rapidly to rise culminating in the savage summer of 2003. Forest fires devastated Portugal. Glaciers melted in the Alps. And in France people died by the thousand. Could this be the penalty of reducing Global Dimming without tackling the root cause of global warming?

DR BEATE LIEPERT: We thought we live in a global warming world, um but this is actually er not right. We lived in a global warming plus a Global Dimming world, and now we are taking out Global Dimming. So we end up with the global warming world, which will be much worse than we thought it will be, much hotter.

Here's a page of links. Do check it out carefully. We could be in for a heck of a lot of trouble, a Whole World of trouble.

- Art Neuro