24.11.06
23.11.06
16.11.06
NYT: Iraqis too Stupid and Violent for America's Valiant Atempt to Instill Democracy
I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate the New York Times. Did I mention that my feelings towards that particular paper are less than positive? Well they are.
There's an NYT article published on 12th Nov with the ominous heading of "Stability vs. Democracy". lenin-with-a-little-l does a good job of dissecting the underlying creepiness here. It seems that after the mid-terms there's a new impetus towards criticism of the war in Iraq, but no new understanding of how to do so. Based on this article and a couple of questions by American reporters heard elsewhere, I am going to jump to the conclusion that the US media is now trying to oppose the occupation of Iraq in exactly the same racist, imperialistic and jingoistic terms that it once supported it - probably the only terms it knows.
What I'd like to discuss about this article is the way it casually rewrites history, starting with its header. The article
The elections of June 2004 were originally the time at which America was going to install an unelected 'provisional government' which would rule the country until it was deemed fit for democracy. As the situation in the country worsened, the number of years that the provisional government was expected to rule for was extended. Some powerful Americans started to wonder if perhaps they should just leave it that way, and never hold elections. However, the Americans in Iraq were crestfallen to discover that they were not the ones in charge of the Iraqi people. By and large it was Ayatollah Ali Sistani. And this religious nutcase, from the intrisically-incompatible-with-democracy religion of Islam, was adamant that the ones in charge of the Iraqi people should be the Iraqi people themselves. These Iraqis sure do have a different set of cultural standards to us, don't they! No wonder it was all doomed to failure!
Thanks to the Ayatollah's sway over the Shia people in Iraq and his dogged determination that Iraq should be a democracy, in June 2004, instead of installing an unelected government, Iraq held democratic elections. The US acted like this was what they had planned all along, and most of the media happily reported it this way.
Now that things haven't worked out so well, coincidentally after little matters like America policing the country with guided missiles, we are now being presented with this idea as if it were an uncomfortable but possibly necessary solution to a difficult problem, rather than what they actually wanted to do all along.
Fuck off The New York Times.
14.11.06
Dedicated to our American Betters
Sometimes I get the impression that apparently cash-saving DVD collections are just dumping grounds for discs that can’t be sold individually.* Take this three disc collection of Mad Max films, that just can’t seem to get any cheaper. On the second price drop, I had to pick it up.
But the movies are all in theirAmericanised Americanized versions for some reason. Hopefully, as far as I can tell, the most damage done to the actual movies is that Mad Max 2 is now ‘THE ROAD WARRIOR’ complete with swooshing metallic sound effect. When it comes to the first film, the movie seems fine, but there is something very unusual about the default settings of the disc. I post the following screen cap without further comment.
*EDIT: Actually, on further investigation, it seems the movies are still in these versions when you buy the DVDs separately.
But the movies are all in their
*EDIT: Actually, on further investigation, it seems the movies are still in these versions when you buy the DVDs separately.
13.11.06
12.11.06
Mars-Me-Do
Celebrating its tenth anniversary, it seems that the Mars Global Surveyor may have hit a snag. Ten years is a pretty good running in my book, but I really hope they sort it out. When it comes to robots on Mars, the more the merrier, I say.
Writing about this in the Planetary Society Blog, Emily Lakdawalla notes that this is actually a strange anniversary to celebrate for MGS. Tenth anniversary, meaning ten complete orbits of the Earth, while MGS orbits a certain other planet. As an aside, she links to this page, explaining the Martian calendar, such as it is.
Solar longitude, eh? Nicely heliocentric. Time to bring our own calendar into the post-Copernican age perhaps?
Here's an image taken by Mars Global Surveyor (of Mars, funnily enough). Visible are Valles Marineris (the ruddy great big canyon) and Olympus Mons (the ruddy great big mountain).
Image source
Writing about this in the Planetary Society Blog, Emily Lakdawalla notes that this is actually a strange anniversary to celebrate for MGS. Tenth anniversary, meaning ten complete orbits of the Earth, while MGS orbits a certain other planet. As an aside, she links to this page, explaining the Martian calendar, such as it is.
Solar longitude, eh? Nicely heliocentric. Time to bring our own calendar into the post-Copernican age perhaps?
Here's an image taken by Mars Global Surveyor (of Mars, funnily enough). Visible are Valles Marineris (the ruddy great big canyon) and Olympus Mons (the ruddy great big mountain).Image source
11.11.06
Two Thoughts on War
A poppy growing in High Wood war cemetery, France.You were between the devil and the deep blue sea. If you go forward, you'll likely be shot, if you go back you'll be court martialled and shot, so what the hell do you do? What can you do? You just go forward, because that's the only bloke you can take your knife in, that's the bloke you're facing.
We were sent in to High Wood in broad daylight in the face of heavy machine-gun fire and shell fire, and everywhere there was dead bodies all over the place where previous battalions and regiments had taken part in their previous attacks. We went in there and C Company got a terrible bashing there. It was criminal to send men in broad daylight, into machine-gun fire, without any cover of any sort whatsoever. There was no need for it; they could have hung on and made an attack on the flanks somewhere or other, but we had to carry out our orders.
But there was one particular place just before we got to High Wood which was a crossroads, and it was really hell there, they shelled it like anything, you couldn't get past it, it was impossible. There were men everywhere, heaps of men, not one or two men, but heaps of men everywhere, all dead. Then afterwards, when our battle was all over, after our attack on High Wood, there was other battalions went up and they got the same! They went on and on. They just seemed to be pushing men in to be killed and no reason. There didn't seem to be any reason. They couldn't possibly take the position, not on a frontal attack. Not at High Wood.
Most of the chaps, actually, they were afraid to go in because they knew it was death. Before we went in, we knew what would happen, some of the blokes that had survived from previous attacks knew what they'd been through. It was hell; it was impossible, utterly impossible. The only possible way to take High Wood was if the Germans ran short of ammunition, they might be able to take it then. They couldn't take it against machine-guns, just ridiculous. It was absolute slaughter. We always blamed the people above. We had a saying in the Army, 'The higher, the fewer.' They meant the higher the rank, the fewer the brains.
W. Hay, Private*
There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on.
G. W. Bush, Commander in Chief
*Source: 1914-1918: Voices and Images of the Great War, Lyn Macdonald
6.11.06
Sam and Max are back!
When I was a kid, I loved The Adventures of Sam & Max: Freelance Police beyond words. Of course, the cartoon show was only the tip of an iceberg comprising indie comics and a Lucasarts adventure game. However, the game is difficult to find in the UK, and the complete collection of their comics is now fetching 175 quid in the Amazon marketplace. What joy, then, to find that the much hoped-for Sam and Max sequel is finally abroad, and creator Steve Purcell is (very slowly) posting new comics to the web. Click the image above to see, or click here if moving your mouse that distance is too much effort.
3.11.06
Thank Fuck for Oni Press
Whenever you're looking for western comics that aren't about superheroes or gangsters, and things seem their bleakest... there is Oni Press, arriving on the scene in its reassuringly normal car, with no rocket boosters or bulletproof windows, full of flawed human beings, imaginary horses, strange monsters and pirates!
31.10.06
Five Horror Films
LISTS! Expect me to be posting a few of these on Space Cat Rocket Ship throughout November - aka NaNoWriMo month. These lists are likely to be personal and possibly obscure and even boring. I find it interesting to compile them and try and figure out my opinions. You may not find it interesting to read them. Anyhoo, here goes: in time for Halloween, five horror films. I don't recommend that you actually watch any of these films unless you have a good idea what you're letting yourself in for, by the way.
5. Perfect Blue
Not a film that I can readily recommend you watch, as it is genuinely disturbing throughout, but I am a fan of director Satoshi Kon, so it made my list in fifth place. I can't say that I'm in a hurry to watch it for a second time: Perfect Blue excels at maintaining an intense and palpable sense of threat throughout - not just a threat to your physical and emotional well-being, but also to your identity and your sense of existence within a coherent reality.
4. The Thing
I only saw this for the first time quite recently. I'd been interested in it for a while, because it seems to be the kind of thi- uh, movie that I'd either really like, or really freak out at. And, happily, it fell into the first category. The Thing is a movie about an isolated group of men, some of whom are not what they seem. So far, so unoriginal, but what sets The Thing apart is the nature of the shape-changing menace and the grotesque forms it takes. The incredible imagination shown by the guy in charge of effects (who was admitted to hospital with nervous exhaustion late during filming) resulted in a warped visual aesthetic that no contemporary movie could equal, stranded as we are between real and computer generated effects.
3. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
The first Evil Dead film was much too nasty, the third way too silly, but in Evil Dead 2 Sam Raimi managed to create the perfect blend of sheer terror and hysterical comedy. The laughs and scares feed perfectly off one another as, for example, beleaguered hero Ash fights his own demonically possessed hand in a slapstick homage to the Three Stooges, before severing it with a chainsaw.
2. Shaun of the Dead
Two of the coolest things in the world, as least as far as I'm concerned, are George A. Romero's Living Dead films and Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's sitcom Spaced. Imagine my quasi-religious ecstasy, then, when Pegg and Wright went and made this fantastic half-horror half-comedy tribute to Romero; defying all previous measures of coolness and setting a new standard for contemporary British movies (it was actually possible for them to be good).
1. Dawn of the Dead
How many times has the word 'dead' appeared in this post? In George A. Romero's anti-capitalist horror, four survivors in a post apocalyptic America find that they have the whole mall to themselves. Cue decadence and callousness as they steadily lose sight of their humanity. On top of that, the dead are returning to life and they only have two things on their mind: eating the flesh of the living… and browsing aimlessly at the shops.
5. Perfect Blue
Not a film that I can readily recommend you watch, as it is genuinely disturbing throughout, but I am a fan of director Satoshi Kon, so it made my list in fifth place. I can't say that I'm in a hurry to watch it for a second time: Perfect Blue excels at maintaining an intense and palpable sense of threat throughout - not just a threat to your physical and emotional well-being, but also to your identity and your sense of existence within a coherent reality.
4. The Thing
I only saw this for the first time quite recently. I'd been interested in it for a while, because it seems to be the kind of thi- uh, movie that I'd either really like, or really freak out at. And, happily, it fell into the first category. The Thing is a movie about an isolated group of men, some of whom are not what they seem. So far, so unoriginal, but what sets The Thing apart is the nature of the shape-changing menace and the grotesque forms it takes. The incredible imagination shown by the guy in charge of effects (who was admitted to hospital with nervous exhaustion late during filming) resulted in a warped visual aesthetic that no contemporary movie could equal, stranded as we are between real and computer generated effects.
3. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
The first Evil Dead film was much too nasty, the third way too silly, but in Evil Dead 2 Sam Raimi managed to create the perfect blend of sheer terror and hysterical comedy. The laughs and scares feed perfectly off one another as, for example, beleaguered hero Ash fights his own demonically possessed hand in a slapstick homage to the Three Stooges, before severing it with a chainsaw.
2. Shaun of the Dead
Two of the coolest things in the world, as least as far as I'm concerned, are George A. Romero's Living Dead films and Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's sitcom Spaced. Imagine my quasi-religious ecstasy, then, when Pegg and Wright went and made this fantastic half-horror half-comedy tribute to Romero; defying all previous measures of coolness and setting a new standard for contemporary British movies (it was actually possible for them to be good).
1. Dawn of the Dead
How many times has the word 'dead' appeared in this post? In George A. Romero's anti-capitalist horror, four survivors in a post apocalyptic America find that they have the whole mall to themselves. Cue decadence and callousness as they steadily lose sight of their humanity. On top of that, the dead are returning to life and they only have two things on their mind: eating the flesh of the living… and browsing aimlessly at the shops.
27.10.06
McMurdo Panorama
Spirit, the less healthy of the two Mars Rovers, spent the last southern Martian winter hunkered down on a small hill, its solar panels aimed square at the dwindling sunlight. It wasn't just sitting on its arse and doing nothing, though: it was compiling the most detailed panorama of Mars so far.
This panorama has finally been released, to mark Spirit's 1000th Martian day on the red planet. It was expected to last for 90 Martian days.
Follow these links to read about the story in more detail and find higher resolution images. The biggest image is about 90Mb in size. O_O
Pink Moon
So I'm finally changing from the default templates towards something a little more personal. My webcomics links have taken a bit of a beating - I'll sort them out later. I'm sure you all recognise the world in the header image - it's certainly one of my own favourite moons. If I've never blogged about it before, it's simply because no-one has been there in about 17 years.
Triton is Neptune's largest moon - the third body in the solar system discovered to be volcanically active (after Earth and Io), and the second moon (after Titan) discovered to have an atmosphere (albeit a very thin one). One of the really intriguing things about Triton (aside from the fact that it's pink) is that it's very clear that it didn't form in its present neighbourhood, but instead was captured by Neptune after they had both formed. Add to that the fact that Triton seems very similar to Pluto (taking into account that we know relatively very little about Pluto at the moment) and that Pluto's eccentric orbit crosses Neptune's, and you have two worlds that are apparently siblings somehow.
Triton is the larger of the two, by the way. Just sayin'.
It may turn out, once we know more (for example, after New Horizons reaches Pluto), that Triton was the first Kuiper Belt Object we ever got a good look at. If you're interested in getting a good look at it yourself, the full version of the image I used can be found here.
Triton is Neptune's largest moon - the third body in the solar system discovered to be volcanically active (after Earth and Io), and the second moon (after Titan) discovered to have an atmosphere (albeit a very thin one). One of the really intriguing things about Triton (aside from the fact that it's pink) is that it's very clear that it didn't form in its present neighbourhood, but instead was captured by Neptune after they had both formed. Add to that the fact that Triton seems very similar to Pluto (taking into account that we know relatively very little about Pluto at the moment) and that Pluto's eccentric orbit crosses Neptune's, and you have two worlds that are apparently siblings somehow.
Triton is the larger of the two, by the way. Just sayin'.
It may turn out, once we know more (for example, after New Horizons reaches Pluto), that Triton was the first Kuiper Belt Object we ever got a good look at. If you're interested in getting a good look at it yourself, the full version of the image I used can be found here.
26.10.06
Okie-Dokey
There's a lot left to do. I want to change the template a little - I think I'll need to, actually, to get some of these nifty new features to work. I also need to do a lot of work on categories. As it is, the two main focuses of this blog fall into the categories: Stories and Space.
There doesn't seem to be any real navigation within the categories - it just lumps everything on the same page, so I'll have to try and come up with some suitable sub-categories. I've already got a category for Saturn and its moons, for example.
Finally, my NaNoWriMo blog is up:
The Skeleton God in Oil Paint
There's not really anything there yet, and I need to work on the template for that as well. Good thing I abound with energy!
I'm going to take a nap now.
There doesn't seem to be any real navigation within the categories - it just lumps everything on the same page, so I'll have to try and come up with some suitable sub-categories. I've already got a category for Saturn and its moons, for example.
Finally, my NaNoWriMo blog is up:
The Skeleton God in Oil Paint
There's not really anything there yet, and I need to work on the template for that as well. Good thing I abound with energy!
I'm going to take a nap now.
Taking the Plunge Shortly
I'm about to upgrade to Beta Blogger. If you don't hear from me again, or if this site disappears or becomes unreadable (I'm not sure what might happen), you may find me ranting and raving at:
http://spacecatrocketship.wordpress.com/
I think that Wordpress isn't as good as Beta Blogger potentially is. How the reality of them both measures up, I shall soon find out.
http://spacecatrocketship.wordpress.com/
I think that Wordpress isn't as good as Beta Blogger potentially is. How the reality of them both measures up, I shall soon find out.
24.10.06
Lakdawalla Corrals Robot, Quilt
Emily Lakdawalla is back at the Planetary Society Blog. Apparently she left to make a quilt. She's hardly been back, and she's already drawn my attention to a robot that I've missed: the MESSENGER mission to Mercury.
Louis D. Friedman covers the Bush administration's revised space policy. It's not as bad as you may have heard, but it's still made it clear that the Bush administration's first priority is to kick ass and take names - even in a vacuum.
Finally, in the interest of appearing fair and balanced, Bill Nye (who is apparently some famous science guy), in the last blog before Emily returned, turned out to be the only guest blogger who supports Pluto's (and hence a lot of other objects') status as a planet. Read.
Louis D. Friedman covers the Bush administration's revised space policy. It's not as bad as you may have heard, but it's still made it clear that the Bush administration's first priority is to kick ass and take names - even in a vacuum.
Finally, in the interest of appearing fair and balanced, Bill Nye (who is apparently some famous science guy), in the last blog before Emily returned, turned out to be the only guest blogger who supports Pluto's (and hence a lot of other objects') status as a planet. Read.
So What's Going On?
I have written a few things over the past couple of weeks, but nothing that I've finished. Hopefully this is because I've been thinking about bigger projects and not because what little ability I have has deserted me.
A couple of weeks ago I became eligible to cross to Beta Blogger - something with almost as many good features as horror stories.
As usual, Chuck is the font of knowledge:
The Real Blogger Status
The Real Blogger Status - Beta
I definitely want to be on Beta Blogger - I want to categorise my posts, mostly. Also, there are hints that eventually blogger will try and force everyone to make the switch. Which should be fun given the number of people who have sworn never to go over given the number of problems.
But my plan is to first establish a blog on another host. If Blogspot decides to eat Space Cat Rocket Ship or something, then hopefully you should still know where to find me.
Either way, over the next few days, I'll have a blog up for my impending NaNoWriMo, um... novel. Between now and November I'll post a back cover blurb of sorts, and a few pictures/diagrams.
A couple of weeks ago I became eligible to cross to Beta Blogger - something with almost as many good features as horror stories.
As usual, Chuck is the font of knowledge:
The Real Blogger Status
The Real Blogger Status - Beta
I definitely want to be on Beta Blogger - I want to categorise my posts, mostly. Also, there are hints that eventually blogger will try and force everyone to make the switch. Which should be fun given the number of people who have sworn never to go over given the number of problems.
But my plan is to first establish a blog on another host. If Blogspot decides to eat Space Cat Rocket Ship or something, then hopefully you should still know where to find me.
Either way, over the next few days, I'll have a blog up for my impending NaNoWriMo, um... novel. Between now and November I'll post a back cover blurb of sorts, and a few pictures/diagrams.
23.10.06
Imitation; Flattery
Whenever I read the words of an American who needs medical treatment (perhaps even life-saving medical treatment) but has to pay for it, and is struggling to afford the cost (if they can afford it at all) it makes me so happy that the two main parties in the UK (the right-of-centre one and the far-right one) are doing all they can to change our out-dated public healthcare system to a more advanced, free-market model. That's what I call progress!
21.10.06
Retro Photo Quest: Space Year 2006
For various reasons, I've been looking at images from the 1920s at Wikimedia Commons. Here's something I found that I really like in and of itself:
Feeling down? Learn some science, foo'!
In context, given that this is a page from a 'sex hygiene manual' which includes other illustrations such as 'women love he-men', I believe that the 'natural laws' in question may actually be heteronormative standards. Which only makes my materialist perversion of this image all the sweeter, I think.
This is gorgeousness on a gold-plated stick:
A photograph illustrating the popular 'bob' hairstyle. No idea who she is, but she's certainly beautiful.
Are your children tired and cranky? Jayne's Vermifuge is the answer!
Click here to view this image. For some reason blogger decided to create a .png thumbnail with a huge filesize. I love blogger for giving us no control whatsoever over compression - especially because it always seems to do it way too much or way too little!
Look at these cuties:
Some teenage Minnesotans in 1924.
This one caught my eye, for obvious reasons:
Robert Goddard posing by his invention, the liquid-fuelled rocket. It'll never amount to anything, I tells ya!
Feeling down? Learn some science, foo'!
In context, given that this is a page from a 'sex hygiene manual' which includes other illustrations such as 'women love he-men', I believe that the 'natural laws' in question may actually be heteronormative standards. Which only makes my materialist perversion of this image all the sweeter, I think.
This is gorgeousness on a gold-plated stick:
A photograph illustrating the popular 'bob' hairstyle. No idea who she is, but she's certainly beautiful.
Are your children tired and cranky? Jayne's Vermifuge is the answer!
Click here to view this image. For some reason blogger decided to create a .png thumbnail with a huge filesize. I love blogger for giving us no control whatsoever over compression - especially because it always seems to do it way too much or way too little!
Look at these cuties:
Some teenage Minnesotans in 1924.
This one caught my eye, for obvious reasons:
Robert Goddard posing by his invention, the liquid-fuelled rocket. It'll never amount to anything, I tells ya!
20.10.06
Tennessee Cat Rocket Prize
Hooray! My fantabulous prize package is here, all the way from Nashville, Tennessee! Including a copy of The Independent Wife, so I can finally find out if human will triumph over tentacled sky-being!
There's also a sticker bearing the logo of something called Waylon Jennings, which I imagine is some relation or other of Waylon Smithers. I love sticking stuff on things, so I'll be sure to put that to good use.
Best of all though, is a Moleskine notebook. It's rather lovely, I have to say. I know it's just a notebook, but I'm reluctant to take it out of the packaging and do anything with it. I could only spoil it. O_O
Thank you, Roadchick. Your coolness tends towards positive infinity.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)