Interesting Stuff

I realize the title is a bit forced. The worst thing is that if you unscramble the anagram, it’s still a bit forced. Oh, well; they’re both cromulent titles/headlines.

First, some heartening news, as horrible as it is: the Iraq Study Group’s report, which says again that we’re losing the war, our troops, and the hearts and minds of all people involved, has made a lot of people unhappy. However, public opinion seems to be pretty much in line with its claims (which seems unusual; typically expert analysis disagrees with “common knowledge”). The UN seems to be pretty upset with this whole imbroglio as well. It appears that even some Republicans are starting to view the situation from a more realistic point of view, and are beginning to search for a way out of this quagmire before it ruins the political party. Could there be a glimmer of hope for a withdrawl from Iraq? I am not aware of any way to do it without leaving Iraq less stable than it was with Saddam around, but it might still be for the best at this point.

How’s this for some really shiny news: a Firefly MMORPG appears to be on the horizon. Assuming this is as cool as I hope it is, it almost makes me wish I owned a Windows box. Almost.

NASA has announced plans to go ahead with Bush’s (perhaps ill-conceived) plan to put a permanent base on the moon by 2020. This could be really cool, or it could be a huge waste of money. I’m not sure anyone knows which it will become, but several other countries are interested in joining in on this project. We shall see what happens.

There has been another ceasefire between the Israelis and Palestinians, even though the Palestinians continued to launch rockets into Israel several hours after the supposed ceasefire began. Ordinarily I wouldn’t put much stock in this, but it has lasted a surprisingly long time. There was a bit of intra-Palestinian violence recently, but the truce has lasted remarkably well. In fact, this seems like the best news in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict since about 1993.

For the first time in a really long while, I don’t have any really bad news to post. Huzzah!

It seems as though Halliburton has been supplying US troops in Iraq with contaminated water, and have known about the problem and just kept quiet for months. Although I originally found this on Fark, the article I have linked to is, in my opinion, a more detailed account. Still, I liked Fark’s caption:

Stealing billions from US Taxpayers and doing business with Iran in direct violation of US Sanctions was obviously not enough. Halliburton is now giving polluted water to US Troops. Cheney seen mumbling “excellent.”

I wish it were possible to just put this company out of business once and for all. Bastards.

On a totally unrelated and happier note, I’ve begun watching Firefly, which really is an amazing show. It has some very subtle points in it, which obviously took a lot of thought from the creators: the ships only make noise when they’re in a planet’s atmosphere (they’re silent in space), everyone is bilingual in English and Chinese, and they slip Chinese expressions into their dialogue, etc. Not to mention that the characters are fascinating and the plot is quite fun. If you haven’t seen this, you might find a copy and watch at least the first couple episodes.