Charlie Chaplin, Time Traveling, and a Fleet of UFOs

Seen these gems from the Interweb yet?





The first video (above) was debunked fairly quickly by a few armchair historians finding examples of hearing aids that looked awfully similar to what the time traveling woman was holding.

So far I haven't read any real hypothesis about the NASA video (below).

Watch it and decide for yourself.






The Chaplin cell phone video was intriguing but an old lady on a cell phone wouldn't be my first choice to send back through a man-made space-time wormhole so I figured there was a reasonable - and simple - explanation. The NASA video, on the other hand, has left me baffled.

What moves away from the Earth? In numbers? Movement away from the Earth requires energy in order to break away from the gravitational pull. Either it's a naturally occurring high-energy phenomenon or, it's artificial. If it's in space and NASA doesn't know about it...

Maybe the dolphins?

Ground Zero Mosque vs Park51

There has been an intense debate recently concerning the proposed "Ground Zero Mosque". Or maybe there hasn't been enough debate. Perhaps there has only been hate, anger, fear, ignorance, and raw emotion.

People aren't talking, they're yelling.
And nobody seems to be listening.

Sign from recent protest. From: BigPeace.com

A non-issue has been capturing headlines for far too long. In today's world we are bombarded by the media: 24-hour news stations, instant updates online, live video from next door or around the world on tv, online, on our phones.

But the more available information is to us, the less it seems that we are likely to search for answers ourselves. We've become content to sit in front of our screens and have a quick dose of news. Why read a whole article when you can read a blog? Why read a blog when you can read skim the headlines? We've adapted our attention to absorb only sound bites and buzz words.

That's ruining debate, it's ruining politics, and it's ruining democracy. Who cares about free speech if everyone is just talking at the same time? We need to think critically and at the same time we need to be open to other opinions and other points of view.


The "Ground Zero Mosque" are brilliant buzzwords that inherently create negative reactions. Ground Zero evokes 9/11 which makes one immediately think of terrorism and Al-Qaeda. Mosque is obviously Islamic, but once you're primed to think about terrorism and Al-Qaeda, Mosque becomes associated with negative feelings, horrible memories and a radical, violent form of Islam.

A good thing then that at least some news outlets are shying away from that name.


The Ground Zero Mosque could be baking apple pies but it'll still give you a negative gut reaction.

And it might be very well baking apple pies because the "Ground Zero Mosque" will, in fact, house a culinary center - it is not a Mosque in the traditional sense of the word. Yes, it'll have a prayer room but it will be much more than that. In addition to the culinary center, plans include: a swimming pool, fitness center, basketball courts, a library, an auditorium and several other features. It is meant to be a multi-cultural center and is in fact based on a Jewish model - the 92nd street Y. It is designed to promote interfaith interaction. All are welcome.

Feisal Abdul Rauf. From: NYTimes.com; Craig Ruttle/Associated Press

The man, the Imam, behind this threat against America? Feisal Abdul Rauf. Is he one of those extremists who is using his American freedom to subvert the country? Is he Al-Qaeda?

Plain and simple: No.

He is, in fact, one of those very moderate reformists that is standing up to radical Islam and who has been working steadily to promote peace and understanding.

In his 20s, Mr. Abdul Rauf ...was asked to lead a Sufi mosque, Masjid al-Farah. It was one of few with a female prayer leader, where women and men sat together at some rituals and some women do not cover their hair. And it was 12 blocks from the World Trade Center.

After 9/11, Mr. Abdul Rauf was all over the airwaves denouncing terrorism, urging Muslims to confront its presence among them, and saying that killing civilians violated Islam. “Targeting civilians is wrong. It is a sin in our religion,” and, “I am a supporter of the state of Israel.”

Before this controversy, the Iman was touring the world speaking to Muslims about reconciliation. He even had to convince less moderate Muslims that he was not, in fact, an agent of America.

Do you prefer Mr. Abdul Rauf's philosophy - and actions - or those of the Christian Pastor Terry Jones:

Perhaps the most radical opposition reported so far has been from Pastor Terry Jones at the non-denominational Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville, Florida. The pastor gained notoriety recently when he announced that he would be organising a burning of copies of the Koran on 11 September.

An imam is trying to sow seeds of cooperation and mutual respect whilst the "true American" is sowing seeds of racism and contempt.

Nazi book burning. From: socialistworker.co.uk

But let's not judge America by one man. Let's not judge America by the Ku Klux Klan. Let's not judge America on the violence at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Let's not judge America by the Jim Crow laws. Let's not judge the good Christians who built America on the backs of slaves.

And let us not judge Islam by Al-Qaeda.


A practitioner of Islam is building a multi-cultural center in New York City.
Islam is not Al-Qaeda.

George W. Bush understood this. In his 2006 State of the Union Address, President Bush distanced Islam from Al-Qaeda:

No one can deny the success of freedom, but some men rage and fight against it. And one of the main sources of reaction and opposition is radical Islam — the perversion by a few of a noble faith into an ideology of terror and death.

Obama - and he isn't even Muslim - also understands this.

The current Republican and Conservative leadership do not.
That's why Rush Limbaugh equated Muslims to Nazis.
That's why Evangelist leader Franklin Graham calls "[Islam] a religion of hatred... a religion of war."

Does that mean the Christian world should go to war against Islam? Do we need to wipe them out before they wipe us out? Do we ban Islam from every Christian country? Do we murder in the name of peace?

Didn't that happen already?

From: stmaryscollegehull.co.uk

Remember also that historically, some of the most shocking brutality in the region was justified by the Bible, not the Koran. Crusaders massacred so many men, women and children in parts of Jerusalem that a Christian chronicler, Fulcher of Chartres, described an area ankle-deep in blood. While burning Jews alive, the crusaders sang, “Christ, We Adore Thee.”

If we are to avoid another holy war, more hate and more deaths, then we must be quick to act against misconceptions, big and small.

Islam is "a religion with a billion adherents, and al-Qaeda, a terrorist outfit that claims to speak in Islam’s name but has absolutely no right or mandate to do so."

Al-Qaeda is not building a mosque at ground zero.
A moderate Islamic Imam is building a community center several blocks away from ground zero.

You want to keep Ground Zero sacred? Then start by banning the vendors making profit on towers and t-shirts atop the graves of so many Americans. Or do you approve of the commercialization of 9/11?

Don't try to limit America's freedom of religion.
Don't give into fear or ignorance
Don't try to exclude Muslims from America.

America is better than that.


Pulitzer prize winning journalist William Kristof writes:

Now many Republicans... are cynically turning the Islamic center into a nationwide issue in hopes of votes. It is mind-boggling that so many Republicans are prepared to bolster the Al Qaeda narrative, and undermine the brave forces within Islam pushing for moderation...

Some Republicans say that it is not a matter of religious tolerance but of sensitivity to the feelings of relatives to those killed at ground zero. Hmm. They’re just like the Saudi officials who ban churches, and even confiscate Bibles, out of sensitivity to local feelings...

For much of American history, demagogues have manipulated irrational fears toward people of minority religious beliefs, particularly Catholics and Jews. Many Americans once honestly thought that Catholics could not be true Americans because they bore supreme loyalty to the Vatican...

Today’s crusaders against the Islamic community center are promoting a similar paranoid intolerance, and one day we will be ashamed of it.

Some already are.

The September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows is forming a coalition with over 40 religious and civic organizations in an attempt to "support religious freedom and diversity" and reject "crude stereotypes meant to frighten and divide us".

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg - echoing the (then untrustworthy Catholic) President John F. Kennedy - said in a recent speech:

"let me declare that we in New York are Jews and Christians and Muslims, and we always have been. And above all of that, we are Americans, each with an equal right to worship and pray where we choose. There is nowhere in the five boroughs that is off limits to any religion."

As it should be all across America.

A Nude Booster Rocket Descending from Space

The STS-124's booster separation and its fall back down to Earth.

I'd be so lucky to fall from space one day.

I recommend watching the whole thing (even though the first 1:30 is a bit boring). Turn up the sound, turn out the lights and be an astronaut for 7 minutes.




Just awesome.


Make a great music video.
Maybe for Radiohead's Lucky?

Nagasaki: The Dirtier Bomb

With the Russians ready to move on Japan, and the blast over Hiroshima still radiating in the minds of a war-weary world, a second atomic bomb was detonated by the US military on August 9, 1945.

I firmly believe that the decision to use atomic weapons at Hiroshima was flawed, short-sighted and ignorant.

Nagasaki then, was criminal.

In an earlier post I outlined the reasons why I think the bomb was used - and why it shouldn't have been: Harry Truman had been an out-of-the-loop senator who was now trying to end the war and prove himself as capable as FDR; The Manhattan Project was enormous and no decision-maker ever questioned its use after years of investment in money and manpower; The US was preparing for the post-war world - using the bomb would give it leverage against a suspect Soviet Union; and the government, the military, and the civilian leadership didn't quite understand the destructive force that was to be unleashed on a nondescript Japanese town in early August 1945.

After Hiroshima they should have known.

They'd used the bomb they spent so much money on.
They'd shown the world their scientific and military might.
Truman was no longer a pencil pusher but a wartime President.
And they knew the bomb could kill like to other weapon in the history of death.


Why Nagasaki then?

Probably because it was already set in motion.
Groupthink had consumed everyone.
Like Hiroshima, nobody stopped and asked:

"Why?"
"Is this necessary?"

Greg Mitchell looked at the second bombing for the Huffington Post: "How Press Censorship Hid the Shocking Truth About Nagasaki A-Bomb 65 Years Ago." Early reports by George Weller - who arrived days before other journalists - never made it to press. It seems, for the most part, the military didn't want the world to know about radiation poisoning.

I understand the want for controlling the flow of information - especially during wartime - but to censor American journalism after an event isn't protecting the country's ability to wage war, it's protecting their actions during war.

For years the US (and then the Russians) stockpiled weapons with huge immediate destructive power and tried to hide much of the long-term health and environmental consequences from the world, from citizens, from humanity.

Such arrogance.
Such ignorance.

Communication

In terms of the history of human communication networks, it wasn't that long ago when people relied on hand written letters to stay in contact with friends, family, and business associates. We used to take pride in our letter-writing abilities - pages of prose telling our story and communicating our feelings for the recipient. We took time to think and express ourselves meaningfully.

LOL! ur sooo wicked. BRB...

Now, of course, we are interconnected by a vast network of tubes.
Those tubes rely on computers, local networks and vast server farms.


We are living in the future of communication. With smartphones you can access the Internet, shoot and edit HD quality movies, take pictures and instantaneously share them, use it as a GPS device, a credit card... the list goes on and on.

The communicator from Star Trek? Good for making voice calls.

I think science fiction needs a reboot.
We're catching up too fast.


Smartphones will soon be the number one way people connect to the Internet, and in a sense, each other. But are we really still connecting?

The average length of a phone call has been steadily decreasing for years. We used to e-mail, but now we mainly text. Or Tweet.

Pages of handwritten letters compressed to 140 characters.
Communication built for speed, not content.

With cosmetic surgery and photoshop we've artificially tweaked our outside appearance. With social networking, we're tweaking our inner selves to be just as superficial. A couple weeks ago Peggy Orenstein had a great piece on personality and how social networking is changing the way we construct our identities: I Tweet, Therefore I am. Are we moving completely towards an external sense of self?

Am I not me? Am I only who you say I am?
And do I only have 140 characters to convince you otherwise?


On Star Trek, the crew was surrounded by technology - dependent on it for communication, exploration, and survival. But at the heart of every episode of Star Trek was human interaction. Sure, we were on the Enterprise going boldy into the darkness of outer space but the more we explored the universe and learned about alien life forms, the more we discovered about ourselves, about humanity.

Let's hope that our current revolution in communication gives us that same opportunity.

The Bomb

“The world in its present state of moral advancement compared with its technical development would be eventually at the mercy of such a weapon. In other words, modern civilization might be completely destroyed.”

- Excerpt from a memorandum recommending the use of the atomic bomb against Japan, drafted by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson

“This is the greatest thing in history”

– President Harry S. Truman, upon receiving notification that the bombing of Hiroshima was a success.

August 6th, 1945 - a day that should live in infamy.

Today, of course, marks the 65th anniversary of the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. On the morning of August 6th, at 8:10AM, a weapon of previously unimaginable power was unleashed upon Japan - and upon mankind. This new weapon was over 2000 times more powerful than any bomb ever detonated before and ushered us into a new era of military threat and fear.

The only thing to fear is fear itself.
Oh, and nuclear weapons.
Did FDR leave that part out?

The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki quickly killed over 150 000 people, many - if not most were civilians. Cities were leveled. People were seared to death. Cooked where they stood.

Shadows were literally burnt into the ground:




150 000 people died this way. Double, maybe even triple the deaths in the days and weeks after the bomb fell. Radiation sickness, burns, injuries, other illnesses, starvation and dehydration were several ways the Japanese met death.

But the world was at war, right? And the Allies, the Americans really, were forced by the belligerent Japs to drop the bombs to end the fighting, right? At least that's what I was taught and what I believed when I was growing up. As a Canadian I was proud to have had my country participate in something so spectacular, so just.

But maybe those two bombs were a completely unjust action in an otherwise unusually just war.

1. The bomb as dropped in 1945 but the decision to drop the bomb was made in 1942. That was the year FDR authorized what became known as the Manhattan Project. The project, at its peak, employed over 129 000 people simultaneously and cost over $2 billion USD (approx. $25 billion in 2010 dollars). By the time the weapon was finally completed the Americans had justify so much time, money and ingenuity put into the project. The Atomic Bomb was proof to the world of American scientific superiority and can-do.

2. The was never any serious consideration by the military or the White House about whether or not to use the bomb. It was just a matter of when and where. Harry Truman took over as Commander-in-Chief rather quickly and somewhat unexpectedly when FDR passed away and inherited the monster project. As a senator he wasn't even authorized to know about it. Secretary of State and twice Sec'y of War Henry L. Stimson remembers:

" …I went to explain the nature of the problem to a man whose only previous knowledge of our activities was that of a Senator who had loyally accepted our assurance that the matter must be kept a secret from him. Now he was President and Commander-in-Chief, and the final responsibility in this time as in so many other matters must be his. President Truman accepted this responsibility with the same fine spirit that Senator Truman had shown before in accepting our refusal to inform him." - (Harper's Magazine, Feb., 1947)

In the article Stimson hints at Truman more as loyal servant to the cause than active leader. In hindsight, Stimson also realized that really no one else ever really questioned the use of the bomb. They had become so absorbed with the process that they forgot to question the outcome.

I find that crazy.

Especially when you realize that they intended for the most powerful weapon ever created to be used against civilians. From a proposal sent to Truman in 1945:

1. The bomb should be used against Japan as soon as possible.
2. It should be used on a dual target - that is, a military installation or war plant surrounded by or adjacent to houses and other buildings most susceptible to damage, and
3. It should be uses without prior warning.

Shock and awe indeed.


3. But wait! Didn't the bombs save lives by putting the war to a quick end? - No.

Yes, it's true that some lives were saved. Mainly American lives and not as many as is usually reported. Back in 1945, military estimates for American casualties were about 30 000 - an already inflated number. During speeches and later, post-war writings, numbers were again and again inflated. Truman was said 500 000 American lives were saved. Stimson estimated a million. But again, these numbers had no basis in reality. Back in '45, 22 Japanese soldiers were being killed for every 1 American soldier. In August, the Japanese didn't have the man power left to keep up those losses. Surrender was imminent.

4. The US wanted to stop the Soviet invasion into Japan and scare them off with a show of force. The US was already envisioning post-war scenarios and saw a conflict with the Soviets as inevitable. The USSR was trying to rush into Japan but by dropping the bombs and ending the war the Soviet force remained at home. Truman and others in the White House didn't want the Soviets to gain any more territory or influence - keeping them out of Japan was vital. You might even consider the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the first hostile acts of the Cold War.


The anniversary of the atomic attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki should always serve as a warning to us and future generations. We unleashed awesome amounts of power and we did so in the homes of our fellow man. We killed woman, children, grandmothers, grandfathers and soldiers with equal enthusiasm.

We used these destructive weapons without properly looking ahead to the future to see how they might endanger our civilization, our very world. And maybe worst of all, we didn't even use the weapons out of necessity. They were dropped because of politics, bad communication, and groupthink.

Forget about hope and prayer.
Let's work together to ensure that this never happens again.

UPDATE:
Here is a great slide show of previously unreleased photographs from Life of Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the bombing.

Day 0

Today, I decided to start a blog. Tomorrow, you'll find the world a much better place.