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| Kuchma offered get-out clause.
Ukraine President to get immunity - if he pushes through vote reform. |
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Widow of Opportunity?
In my view it´s a good thing that there´s at least one serious competitor for Abbas in Palestinian presidential elections. He´s earned the support of the old guard of Fatah and now he has to earn the support of the majority of the Palestinian voters. He will not be a predetermined choice put upon them by old men who haved lived most of their life in exile - fighting a good fight, but still away from the people who have lived under Israel´s occupation - but a man that the people themselves can elect to be their leader if they think him to be worthy of the honour and foremost capable of fullfilling the goal of national liberation. If he´s the right person to win that fight, then he will win the hearts of the population. If not, then somebody else will. That´s democracy.
In my view it´s a good thing that there´s at least one serious competitor for Abbas in Palestinian presidential elections. He´s earned the support of the old guard of Fatah and now he has to earn the support of the majority of the Palestinian voters. He will not be a predetermined choice put upon them by old men who haved lived most of their life in exile - fighting a good fight, but still away from the people who have lived under Israel´s occupation - but a man that the people themselves can elect to be their leader if they think him to be worthy of the honour and foremost capable of fullfilling the goal of national liberation. If he´s the right person to win that fight, then he will win the hearts of the population. If not, then somebody else will. That´s democracy.
Freedom’s front line.
Let´s not get overly romantic about this. The orange revolution should win, the elections were fraudulent, but the picture in Ukraine is not totally black and white - and the question is not about any kind of universal freedom, the battle of good and evil. The people on the streets in Kiev are fighting for a national and personal freedom: They don´t see themselves as pieces on the game board of a new Cold War. Nor should they be such.
Whining Americans are asking "Why the Europeans support democracy in Ukraine but not in Iraq?" Because a)There´s not bloody war going on in Ukraine, there´s only a fear of a possible civil war b)Ukraine is working state - totally unlike Iraq as it´s now - where parlamentary democracy has functioned - not well, but functioned it has still - for 13 years and c)Most Europeans support democracy in Iraq, but not the formation of an American client state on the ruins of a once sovereign country.
The youngest known galaxy in the universe, I Zwicky 18.
Zwicky comes from the name of the astronomer Fritz Zwicky.
Zwicky comes from the name of the astronomer Fritz Zwicky.
Paleontological fight gets personal.
I think that Beauvillain´s is on thin ice here, whatever his rightful piece of the fame is. The skull of Toumai, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, hasn´t been hidden from other scholars nor could as crude forgery as claimed by Beauvillain be able to pass nowadays - modern "Piltdown man" is impossible. Those that claim that the skull belong to a gorilla - no fossils of gorilla ancestors have been found from this time - are the finders of Orrorin tugenensis. An interesting specimen, which has sadly been tainted by the attempts of it´s founders to make rather farfetched claims of it´s importance and to haphazardly discredit the standard version of hominid evolution - which wouldn´t be bad, if they just would have the evidence to prove that this is the case, which they don´t have - in favor of their own find and take cheap shots against other major findings, like Toumai.
I think that Beauvillain´s is on thin ice here, whatever his rightful piece of the fame is. The skull of Toumai, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, hasn´t been hidden from other scholars nor could as crude forgery as claimed by Beauvillain be able to pass nowadays - modern "Piltdown man" is impossible. Those that claim that the skull belong to a gorilla - no fossils of gorilla ancestors have been found from this time - are the finders of Orrorin tugenensis. An interesting specimen, which has sadly been tainted by the attempts of it´s founders to make rather farfetched claims of it´s importance and to haphazardly discredit the standard version of hominid evolution - which wouldn´t be bad, if they just would have the evidence to prove that this is the case, which they don´t have - in favor of their own find and take cheap shots against other major findings, like Toumai.
I didn´t went to watch Alexander, I went to watch another lambasted movie, Kenny Corran´s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I was pleasantly surprised, because it wasn´t as bad as I had expected based on the reviews or as bad as it seemed at first. But it certainly lacked depth. The plot was largely an excuse to show in the screen the director´s visions, so the characters should have been given more room, the interaction of the main characters and giving them more time to do so could have hidden the poor plot somewhat. I say poor in the terms of realistic movie making; this movie is really a comic book in the screen, so if taken so, the plot is pretty standard for comics - but it could still have been more.
There are couple of points where more could have been made of Totenkopfs disillusion with humanity and his willigness to destroy for it in exchange of a new beginning; for example, the fact that he died in 10.11.1918. Now, Corran expects everyone to know that he died a day before the Armistice that ended the the First World War - or, as it would have been known to the movie´s characters(who speak of the First World War in the movie, even if the movie´s timeline probably hasn´t got a Second World War hidden somewhere in the 1920s or 1930s; the movie is said in reviews to be placed in 1939, but the Sky Captain is said to have flown with American volunteers in China three years before the movie, so that should make it 1940):The Great War - and that the horrors of that war were the reason for his plan. But how many in the audience remember this and connect the dots correctly? It wouldn´t have taken many exchanges of lines between the characters to enlighten the audience.
Altogether, the movie has the feeling that we should already be acquinted with the previous adventures of the Sky Captain and his world, but these exists only in the mind of the director himself, which he seems to have forgotten. More world building for the Director´s Cut on the DVD, please.
Some problems:
- Those amphibious airplanes sure have odd wings. When they hit the water at that angle, the wings should just rip away from the hulls...
- How did the robot get to the spaceship?
- Why didn´t the Sky Captain´s base put the other airplanes in the air as there would have been ample time to do so? There´s not much sense having tens of airplanes when you leave them on the ground to be destroyed... They could have just been shot down in the movie etc.
- Putting Angelina Jolie´s name on the posters and in the opening credits with Law´s and Paltrow´s is really cheating the audience...
Good points:
- As a first full digital movie, this one is pretty good. Artificial to the eye almost all of the time, but it fits the "comic book on the screen" -style.
- I enjoyed it surprisingly much in the end. Could even watch it for a second time.
There are couple of points where more could have been made of Totenkopfs disillusion with humanity and his willigness to destroy for it in exchange of a new beginning; for example, the fact that he died in 10.11.1918. Now, Corran expects everyone to know that he died a day before the Armistice that ended the the First World War - or, as it would have been known to the movie´s characters(who speak of the First World War in the movie, even if the movie´s timeline probably hasn´t got a Second World War hidden somewhere in the 1920s or 1930s; the movie is said in reviews to be placed in 1939, but the Sky Captain is said to have flown with American volunteers in China three years before the movie, so that should make it 1940):The Great War - and that the horrors of that war were the reason for his plan. But how many in the audience remember this and connect the dots correctly? It wouldn´t have taken many exchanges of lines between the characters to enlighten the audience.
Altogether, the movie has the feeling that we should already be acquinted with the previous adventures of the Sky Captain and his world, but these exists only in the mind of the director himself, which he seems to have forgotten. More world building for the Director´s Cut on the DVD, please.
Some problems:
- Those amphibious airplanes sure have odd wings. When they hit the water at that angle, the wings should just rip away from the hulls...
- How did the robot get to the spaceship?
- Why didn´t the Sky Captain´s base put the other airplanes in the air as there would have been ample time to do so? There´s not much sense having tens of airplanes when you leave them on the ground to be destroyed... They could have just been shot down in the movie etc.
- Putting Angelina Jolie´s name on the posters and in the opening credits with Law´s and Paltrow´s is really cheating the audience...
Good points:
- As a first full digital movie, this one is pretty good. Artificial to the eye almost all of the time, but it fits the "comic book on the screen" -style.
- I enjoyed it surprisingly much in the end. Could even watch it for a second time.
It´s that time of the year... New explanations of the Star of Betlehem.
The fact is, that the whole Star of Betlehem business was likely invented decades after the death of Jesus. That was not uncommon; for someone to be a really important person during the antique and the middle ages, there had to be some signs of your birth and death in the sky. If none were seen, they were invented - or someone started a rumour and when it had circulated for a decade or two it became a truth and was written down by someone who believed in it.
The fact is, that the whole Star of Betlehem business was likely invented decades after the death of Jesus. That was not uncommon; for someone to be a really important person during the antique and the middle ages, there had to be some signs of your birth and death in the sky. If none were seen, they were invented - or someone started a rumour and when it had circulated for a decade or two it became a truth and was written down by someone who believed in it.
There´s only one difference between days in Iraq, it seems:The people who die are different. These attacks are probably just a glimpse of what goes on in Iraq. Not the tip of an iceberg, but certainly not the whole of it either.
Ukraine set for election showdown.
Yutschenko guaranteed of victory, but the natives are restless in the east...
Yutschenko guaranteed of victory, but the natives are restless in the east...
Short, conservative account of Giotto´s life and the importance of his art. Thou should not believe everything you read from old books... Giotto the man and the myth of Giotto are hopelessly intermingled.
Friday, December 03, 2004
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Archaeology Magazine´s review of Stone´s Alexander. I intend to watch this movie, even if after reading this review I wonder if it´s worth it. I find it hard to understand how things like the battle of Issus could have been left out... It´s like making a movie of the Eastern front during the Second World War and don´t showing or mentioning at all the battle of Kursk in 1943. But what else to except from a man who thinks that there are "incredible parallels" between Alexander the Great and George W. Bush?
Archeologists have found evidence that an agricultural society with ceremonial centers existed in current Uruguay 4800-4200 years ago.
US family sues 'Hamas-linked' charities.
I wonder will they follow this reasoning to it´s logical end and sue also Likud, which supported Hamas financially in the 1980´s and early 90´s?
I wonder will they follow this reasoning to it´s logical end and sue also Likud, which supported Hamas financially in the 1980´s and early 90´s?
Ruanda has invaded the DR of Congo. Wouldn´t it be time for sanctions? 3-6 million Congolese have died since 1998.
US death toll in Iraq at record level.
A good thing. A horrible thing to write? Certainly most of them, if not all of them, didn´t deserve to die, but then, who deserves? I could give few names, but... They were occupying soldiers in a foreign country that wasn´t a threat to their own country. And nobody forced them to go. Nobody put a gun on their head and said "You go or else", nobody threatened their families if their wouldn´t have gone. And we have to remember that at least 50 000, maybe over 100 000 Iraqis - civilians, soldiers, guerillas - have died. So the death of even single American soldier is a good thing, because it´s brings US defeat a little bit closer. And what the world needs is US defeat in Iraq. Not because the world is anti-American and hates the US "freedoms", whatever they may be, but because if the United States doesn´t get it´s nose bloody in Iraq, it will continue on this path that it has chosen - a path, which majority of US citizens ( according to polls) give their support - and which will make the world a more dangerous place and create the kind of war and chasm between civilizations which Samuel Hungtingdon claims already exists. You can´t stop the US without killing US soldiers. Even if they may be good and nice persons when they don´t wear the uniform.
A good thing. A horrible thing to write? Certainly most of them, if not all of them, didn´t deserve to die, but then, who deserves? I could give few names, but... They were occupying soldiers in a foreign country that wasn´t a threat to their own country. And nobody forced them to go. Nobody put a gun on their head and said "You go or else", nobody threatened their families if their wouldn´t have gone. And we have to remember that at least 50 000, maybe over 100 000 Iraqis - civilians, soldiers, guerillas - have died. So the death of even single American soldier is a good thing, because it´s brings US defeat a little bit closer. And what the world needs is US defeat in Iraq. Not because the world is anti-American and hates the US "freedoms", whatever they may be, but because if the United States doesn´t get it´s nose bloody in Iraq, it will continue on this path that it has chosen - a path, which majority of US citizens ( according to polls) give their support - and which will make the world a more dangerous place and create the kind of war and chasm between civilizations which Samuel Hungtingdon claims already exists. You can´t stop the US without killing US soldiers. Even if they may be good and nice persons when they don´t wear the uniform.
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