The North Cave Weblog

Especial Iran: updates

2009-06-15T14:56:00.006+02:00

15:06

Pese a las contradictorias informaciones que hablaban de la cancelación oficial de la manifestación, una gran cantidad de gente se ha reunido en diversas plazas y universidades para protestar tal cómo estaba previsto (muchos iranianos creen que la cancelación es falsa y un psyops del gobierno). El número de manifestantes varía según la fuente de varios miles a un millón, difícil de verificar puesto que todo el contaje se está haciendo de forma amateur y dispersa. Hay mucha presencia policial, no de policia regular sino de milicianos basij, y se rumorea que hay emplazamientos armados en la ruta prevista de la manifestación. Corren rumores no confirmados de que Mousavi y otros políticos se encuentran entre los manifestantes.

EDIT: Parece que Sky News (iba a poner SkyNet) está pasando imágenes de la manifestación. Se habla de cientos de miles de personas. Hay informes de autovías y calles importantes de Teheran y cercanías cortadas. Y mucho más importante, parece que algunas cadenas de TV internas han dejado de ignorar la insurrección y están cubriendo los disturbios.

EDIT (15:34): Se ha confirmado que Mousavi y Karroubi (otro de los candidatos) están en la manifestación, reclaman la celebración de nuevas elecciones y dicen estar preparados para ello. Se rumorea que el expresidente Khatami también está en la manifestación, aunque esto no se ha confirmado.

EDIT (15:47): No sólo hay manifestaciones en Teherán: este es un video reciente de Tabriz.

Más links

2009-06-15T12:34:00.002+02:00

Un par de liveblogs,
http://enduringamerica.com/
http://niacblog.wordpress.com/

un canal de youtube con videos de la revuelta,
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=ahriman46&view=videos

un recopilatorio de tweets sobre Iran,
http://iran.twazzup.com/

y otro blog con artículos de interés.
http://garysick.tumblr.com/

Michael J. Totten sobre Irán

2009-06-15T11:36:00.002+02:00

Totten sigue informando con su calidad habitual sobre la insurrección. Videos y imágenes en el enlace, aseguraos de verlo.

Especial Iran: Recopilatorio

2009-06-15T00:35:00.002+02:00

Pongo a continuación un pequeño resumen de lo sucedido desde el dia 12 hasta ahora, tan sólo para poner un poco en perspectiva lo que ha pasado. No garantizo que todo sea exactamente cierto, dado que incluso los datos más básicos están ahora bajo sospecha, pero hasta donde yo he llegado pretende ser una burda reconstrucción de los hechos.

El dia 12 de junio se celebraron las elecciones presidenciales entre los 4 candidatos autorizados por el consejo de clérigos iraní, entre ellos Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, el anterior presidente, y Mir-Hossein Mousavi, ex-primer ministro iraní y candidato "reformista" (todo lo reformista que se puede ser cuando te tienen que aprobar los clérigos).

Aunque en los días previos y durante el dia de las elecciones hubieron algunos incidentes (por ejemplo, el que muchos colegios electorales fueran cerrados dos horas antes de lo previsto), no hubo ningún suceso destacable hasta la noche del dia 12, cuando en un momento determinado el gobierno iraní se puso en contacto con Mousavi para comunicarle que su canditatura iba muy por delante de las demás en aquel momento del escrutinio. Media hora más tarde, mientras Mousavi y sus partidarios ya celebraban la victoria, el gobierno cambió de opinión y comunicó a Ahmadinejad que era él el vencedor. Pocas horas después salió el recuento oficial de votos, donde Ahmadinejad obtenia aproximadamente el 63% de los votos contra el 34% de Mousavi y un 2% que iba a los otros dos candidatos. Estas cifras dudosas, que contrastaban con el sentimiento general y los sondeos realizados en los días anteriores, fueron aún más sospechosas al comprobarse el extraño timing de la comunicación de las cifras. Eso, aparte de que era físicamente poco probable de que un país con una extensión varias veces la de España, con una vez y media su población, y con una infraestructura gubernamental muy deficiente, hubiera podido escrutar el 100% del voto en tan poco tiempo. Poco después, el líder supremo de Irán Ayatolah Khamenei bendició el resultado y declaró a Ahmadinejad presidente, rompiendo sin precedentes una gran cantidad de leyes electorales en el proceso.

¿Què pasó realmente? La versión más plausible es que a Mousavi le fueron comunicados los datos reales del escrutinio, y que poco después el consejo de clérigos, con una medida salida del pánico de ver al reformista vencedor, emitieron datos evidentemente falsificados para dar por vencedor a su candidato favorito, Ahmadinejad. Esto explicaría la extraña cadena de sucesos acontecidos hasta aquel punto, y en cierto modo aquellos que vinieron después.

El sentimiento de traición de la población se reforzó al saberse que poco después el candidato Mousavi era detenido junto con más de 100 políticos y partidarios opositores. La policia y las unidades paramilitares salieron a la calle, controlando edificios gubernamentales como el Ministerio de Interior, y controlando puntos estratégicos de varias ciudades como Tabriz y Kermanshah. Mientras los medios de comuncación mundiales debatían si había habido manipulación electoral, los iraníes sabían que lo que tenían ante ellos era poco menos que un golpe de estado. Su promotor no estaba aún claro, aunque fue obvio que Ahmadinejad tenía algo que ver, si no era él mismo el autor. La falsificación era demasiado descarada, y la actuación policial evidenciaba que había habido una planificación de antemano.

Lentamente al principio, pero cada vez con más fuerza, se esparció una revuelta por todo el país (aunque prácticamente todas las informaciones oficiales que nos han llegado son de Teheran; en el resto del país prácticamente no hay prensa extrangera). El gobierno desplegó unidades paramilitares basij, y la policia antidisturbios (de la cual muchas unidades se negaron a obedecer, y unas pocas pasaron del lado de los manifestantes) para contener a los manifestantes, liderados por estudiantes universitarios pero constituidos de todos los estratos de población en general. En rápida sucesión fueron bloqueados los servicios de SMS, redes de telefonía móbil, redes sociales en internet como Facebook (y posteriormente Twitter) y canales de televisión. Incluso se verificó que señales provinientes de Irán hicieron jamming activo a como mínimo un satélite de la BBC que impidió su funcionamiento y dificultó la transmisión de ese canal (y otros) desde el país persa. Poco a poco se fue impidiendo a los periodistas extrangeros que filmaran o retransmitieran desde el país, deteniendo a algunos de ellos y amenazando a los demás para que abandonaran Irán. Con todo el bloqueo informativo, aunque algunas personas consiguieron burlar las prohibiciones, el flujo de información se hizo escaso y fue difícil a partir de entonces establecer exactamente lo que había pasado.

Por lo que se sabe, durante los días 13 y 14 las protestas se intensificaron y extendieron a incontables ciudades del país. Se han visto grandes destrozos, edificios en llamas, batallas campales, fuego y humo en todas las grandes urbes. No hay cifras de muertos y heridos fiables pero se estiman en centenares y millares respectivamente, y hay muchos testimonios de haber visto entre la policía antidisturbios tropas paramilitares de Hezbollah venidas del Líbano para reforzar la seguridad (otro rumor sólido dice que unidades de policía venezolana se dirigen hacia allí también con ese propósito). El sentimiento general es que la atmosfera de revuelta tan sólo puede compararse con la de la revolución del 1970, y la magnitud de lo que está sucediendo es escalofriante y a la vez un poco esperanzador, aunque muy poco optimista.

Durante el día 14 circularon una serie de rumores, de los cuales no sé exactamente la validez, que hablaban de que Mousavi había sido liberado, y de que él y otros políticos opositores planeaban reunirse en algún sitio indeterminado para determinar un plan de acción. Si esos rumores son ciertos, podríamos estar hablando de una guerra civil en toda regla, o cuanto menos de un intento de secesión. Muchas partes de Irán son profundamente anti-régimen, como por ejemplo la zona del Kurdistán iraní, y verían con buenos ojos la oportunidad de separarse de Teheran. Cual es el fundamento de tales argumentos, tan sólo se verá en los próximos días, puesto que no hay forma de verificar nada de eso.

Las últimas informaciones hablaban de unidades del ejército (probablemente del ejército de élite Guardia Revolucionaria) en las calles de Teheran (apenas hay informes de otras ciudades), unidades de la policía entrando en casas deteniendo a la gente, entrando en hospitales, asediando universidades (e incluso asaltándolas), y de detenciones masivas de estudiantes. Hay muchos testimonios de muertos por acción policial, con uso de fuego real incluido. Se confirma que centenares de políticos y partidarios opositores de todos los colores han sido detenidos, y los periodistas extrangeros están siendo sistemáticamente expulsados. Hay varios informes de ataques DDoS a webs de la oposición (y la oposición también ha hecho DDoS a webs gubernamentales, entre ellas la web personal de Ahmadinejad).

Para el día 15 a las 4 de la tarde se ha convocado "oficiamente" una gran manifestación de protesta, y para el martes 16 hay convocada una huelga general. De momento el sentimiento de los protestantes es relativamente pacífico, pues esperan que el gobierno retroceda en su decisión y declare nulas las elecciones, pero eso podría cambiar pronto. Como continuará esto, sólo la historia lo sabe, pero parece que la maldición china continua funcionando de maravilla.

En cualquier caso, son las 3:00 y me retiraré a mis aposentos. Si quereis manteneros al día lo mejor que podeis hacer es leer por los twits (los que posteé antes y otros) para tener la información más fresquita disponible. Mañana, más.

Sir Sefirot, signing off.

Especial Iran: La revolución será blogueada

2009-06-15T00:08:00.006+02:00

En fin, que la cosa es gorda, y si los rumores son ciertos, va a peor (para ellos, naturalmente).

Voy a seguir como pueda el alud de informaciones que llegan desde allí (aunque desde luego, no de los medios de comunicación, que con poquísimas excepciones están haciendo un pésimo trabajo, uno debería preguntarse si intencionadamente). Lo que pueda lo verificaré y sourcearé, lo demás lo dejaré caer, pues a cada hora es más difícil tener informaciones "oficiales" o "creíbles" de Irán. Dentro de algunos meses seguramente estará más claro lo que pasó estos días, pero, señores, esto es el directo. Y la cosa está que arde.

Pongo a continuación algunos links para que podais buscar y comprobar por vosotros mismos. No creais lo que yo os diga, la verdad está allí fuera!
(y si encontrais otros, comentádmelo y los añadiré)

http://www.pajamasmedia.com/
http://www.hotair.com/
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/
http://www.stratfor.com/
http://www.debka.com/
http://www.drudgereport.com/
http://twitter.com/Change_for_Iran/
http://twitter.com/StopAhmadi/
http://twitter.com/iran09/
http://twitter.com/TehranBureau/
http://twitter.com/alirezasha/
http://twitter.com/jimsciuttoABC/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/14/iranian-election

EDIT: El servidor de Blogger tiene una parada de mantenimiento prevista para algún momento de esta madrugada, avisados quedais.

2009-05-21T20:07:00.001+02:00

1460 days left for 2012!

2008-11-07T01:17:00.000+01:00

Després de fer un review dels resultats, la cosa ha estat bastant menys dramàtica del que podria haver sigut (tot i que el resultat en vots electorals fa semblar una altra cosa), i el que aparentment ha passat és que, per una banda, el GOP ha sobreestimat la seva capacitat de convocar la seva base (que s'ha de recordar que són profundament anti-moderats, ergo, anti-McCain), i per l'altra els demòcrates, tot i també tenir part de la base en contra (com s'ha pogut veure en els percentatges de vots dels estats més "blaus", bastant més baixos del que serien normalment) han movilitzat de forma molt bona a la població jove i als hispans, Diox sap com. La dada curiosa és que la població negra ha votat aquest any MENYS que a les eleccions del 2004. Un altre interrogant per als sociòlegs?

La nota bona del dimarts és que a la cambra de representants i al senat els demòcrates no han aconseguit la majoria "filibuster-proof", és a dir, els republicans tenen la capacitat de tallar en sec la majoria de les lleis que passin per les seves mans, si ho consideren oportú.

Repassant les enquestes, es pot veure com Rasmussen la va clavar (com porta fent des de fa unes quantes eleccions), Fox News i CNN s'hi van acostar bastant, i tota la resta s'escampaven en un scattering ample cap al blau, amb algunes donant resultats de fins a +15%. Per l'altra banda, un parell d'enquestes deixaven entreveure empats, diferències de +1/-1 punts, i fins i tot alguna donava un +4% per a McCain.

Moraleja: No tornaré a desconfiar de la Rasmussen mai més...

Només queda resar per què els 4 anys passin ràpid, i preparar la parella guanyadora del 2012. La meva aposta és Palin/Jindal, però qui sap, qui sap, podria ser que...

Robant un paràgraf de Steven Den Beste,
"The main reason this will be a "coming of age" moment is that now Obama and the Democrats have to put up or shut up. Obama got elected by making himself a blank slate, with vapid promises about "hope" and "change" -- but now he actually has to do something. Now he has to reveal his true agenda. And with the Democrats also having a majority in both chambers of Congress, now the Democrats really have to lead. And they're not going to do a very good job of it. It's going to be amusing to watch. And the people who fell for the demagoguery will learn an invaluable lesson."

Be careful what you wish for...

Well, shit.

2008-11-05T12:13:00.000+01:00

Oops. Un tant (negatiu) per les meves capacitats predictives...

Els resultats han resultat ser una sorpresa per pràcticament tothom (per uns una sorpresa agradable, per altres, no tant...), i les enquestes resultaven estar realment equivocades... per l'altra banda. La major part de les previsions que s'havien fet sobre les diferents demografies no s'han acomplert, però el resultat és el que és.

Què ha passat? Que em pengin si ho sé. Aquesta setmana em divertiré bastant remenant números i dades, però ara mateix (com en l'aftermath de qualsevol elecció) les coses són un caos.

Tot el que es pot fer es esperar que les coses no se'n vagin massa de mare. A males, serà un curiós experiment polític veure com el president més d'esquerres de la història dels EEUU manega les coses. Hope and change? Del segon en tindrem de sobres, del primer, ja veurem...

En qualsevol cas serà divertit. Estem vivint temps interessants certament.

"Every people gets the government they deserve"

The Silent Majority

2008-11-04T01:56:00.000+01:00

Avui tenia previst fer una predicció dels resultats de les eleccions del dimarts, basant-me en el que he anat llegint per internet i pels regustos que deixen darrere seu tota la ristra d'enquestes que les diferentes cadenes i organitzacions han anat fent.

Per coses de la providència, a TV3 han fet notar que, amb la immensa majoria de les enquestes donant com a guanyador a Obama, una hipotètica victòria republicana significaria que hi ha alguna cosa molt podrida amb les enquestes i les agències que les administren. I afegiria jo, i totes les cadenes informatives que hi ha al darrere.

Per suposat, aquesta idea que TV3 ha hipotetitzat com a cas fantasiós és la meva tesi, doncs crec que el gener del 2009 serà el President McCain qui jurarà el càrrec sobre la Constitució.

Les raons son variades, i com acostuma a passar no son simples, sinó que molts cops es retroalimenten entre sí.

La primera i més important, que en la meva opinió ha sigut la més ignorada per enquestadors i votants en general, és el factor PUMA. Per aquells que no estiguin familiaritzats amb el terme, PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) és una pseudo-comunitat de votants demòcrates que van apoyar a la Hillary a les primàries i que, enfadats amb el tracte que han rebut de Obama i escandalitzats del seu programa han passat a apoyar a McCain a les generals. Aquest segment de la població podria ser tant com un 15-20% de l'electorat. Tot i això, ningú ha parlat d'ells més que com grups aïllats de demòcrates desilusionats i enganyats per la conspiració republicana, i les enquestes els han considerat com a tal, fent que els seus "pesats" dels resultats quedin quantiosament deformats. Aquesta és la raó per la que aquest any les enquestes han sigut més discordats que mai: Les agències, al no considerar els PUMAs a dintre els seus càlculs, van probant diferents models en busca d'algun que els hi faci quadrar els nombres. De moment, la majoria d'elles no l'han trobat.

La segona és l'anomenat "Efecte Bradley", també anomenat efecte PC (Politicament Correcte). Fent l'analogia a Catalunya, per exemple, si un és votant socialista o convergent i li pregunten en una enquesta és molt més probable que digui la veritat que si és, posem per exemple, votant popular. A Estats Units, Obama és el fenòmen de moda, lo més fashion, i molta gent que no simpatitza totalment amb ell dirà votar a Obama a les enquestes per l'efecte gregaritzant. Això vol dir que, models apart, hi ha una deformació dels nombres que aparentment afavoreix a Obama en les enquestes. Alguns entesos diuen que solament aquest efecte podria significar un extra de 5% o més de més, que Obama NO té a la realitat.

La tercera raó és el fenòmen dels indecisos: Tradicionalment (a Estats Units i a qualsevol lloc), els indecisos que arribat el dia de les eleccions encara no han optat per cap candidat tendiran a votar al candidat més tradicional i conservador, per alló de "millor mal conegut que be per conèixer". També en aquest cas l'efecte és molt accentuat per la imatge de canvi radical que Obama ha volgut vendre, que ha provocat que aquesta última setmana la gran majoria dels indecisos que s'han decidit per un partit han passat a engrossir les files republicanes. Tenint en compte que segons les enquestes hi ha un 9% de indecisos, això és potencialment un altre 5-6-7% de ventatge amb que McCain pot comptar el dimarts. Fins i tot se sap de votants decidits d'Obama que a l'últim moment han canviat el seu vot, menjats per el neguit de deixar la feina de més responsabilitat del planeta en mans d'un nouvingut a la política sense apenes currículum.

Més enllà de les raons purament numèriques, de tot el país arriben diversos testimonis, mig amagats en una multitud de blogs, sobre les sensacions que desprén aquesta campanya, i moltíssims republicans de gairebé tots els estats coincideixen a dir que la situació és substancialment millor de la que els mitjans tradicionals de comunicació han donat a entendre, i que el dimarts ens espera una gran sorpresa. Tot i que m'agradaria poder creure en això (i si resulta ser veritat serà una enorme noticia), prefereixo ser conservador (ha, ha) fins a tenir els resultats a la ma.

Donada la complexitat de l'assumpte, no donaré numeros, però la meva predicció és la següent: McCain guanyarà a Obama per una ventatge de vots i delegats molt similar a la que Bush va tenir el 2004, potser un pel per sobre o per sota. La Cambra de Representants continuarà sent demòcrata, i el Senat continuarà en l'estat d'empat tècnic en que ha estat aquests dos últims anys, sense que hi hagin canvis significatius. Tot això, per suposat, asumint que els rumors que van arribant nonstop d'internet són falsos.

També predic que, guanyi qui guanyi, a diversos estats s'organitzarà una batalla legal que farà empal·lidir la del 2000. Tant de bo m'equivoqui, però hi han molts nombres. Also, si Obama perd a Chicago i Detroit hi hauran aldarulls que duraran bastants dies (això és una cosa en la que coincideixen pràcticament tots els analistes), cortesia de les joventuts Obamarianes.

Tot i que podria dir més coses, a aquestes altures tot està en unes mans més elevades. Deixarem que els resultats que sortiran el dimecres siguin el jutge de les apostes que cadascú ha fet.

Si guanya McCain, hi haurà per part meva una petita festa (modesta; no hi ha res a celebrar seriosament) i una mica d'esperança per als pròxims 4 anys.

Si guanya l'Obama, el mon continuarà girant, però a efectes pràctics Europa i els demés països civilitzats s'hauran d'espabilar durant un lustre sense el seu germà gran. Estic segur que serà un detall que Rússia i Iran sabran apreciar.

Farewell, time will tell.

Three Heroes

2008-01-15T13:47:00.000+01:00

Michael Totten writes about the bravery of the Iraqi soldiers, and specially about three of them who sacrificed themselves on Sunday, tackling a suicide bomber as he intended to bomb an Iraqi army parade, probably saving tens of lives, in an article in Commentary Magazine.

Iraq between the time of the initial invasion and 2007 was easily as nasty a place as Lebanon was during the 1980s, and the conflict is eerily similar. Thomas Friedman made a haunting observation about anonymous death during the civil war in his book From Beirut to Jerusalem: “Death had no echo in Beirut. No one’s life seemed to leave any mark on the city or reverberate in its ear.” Then he quoted a young woman. “In the United States if you die in a car accident, at least your name gets mentioned on television,” she said. “Here they don’t even mention your name anymore. They just say ‘thirty people died.’ Well, what thirty people? They don’t even bother to give their names. At least say their names. I want to feel that I was something more than a body when I die.”

Malik Abdul Ghanem
Asa’ad Hussein Ali
Abdul-Hamza Abdul-Hassan Rissan

These are the names of the three soldiers. Three more names to honor and remember when the time is right, three friends of civilization. As Michael Totten says,

They were friends the Americans and Iraqis did not know we had until they were gone.

Iraqi Report i updates sobre el reactor Bussard

2008-01-14T21:45:00.001+01:00

Els meus lectors asidus recordaràn el breu butlletí que vaig fer sobre "la guerra de las quatre iis", que podeu trobar aquí http://www.fotolog.com/sir_sefirot/33907082 .

Ara que ja han passat un parell de mesos més i les tendències van prenent més forma (si es que podia ser més evident), es pot veure com per norma general tant les baixes militars americanes (http://icasualties.org/oif/US_chart.aspx) com les civils i militars iraquianes (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/ i http://icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx) han estat disminuint des de fa més de mig any de forma pronunciada i constant, al mateix temps que els progressos sobre el terreny estan avançant a passos agegantats.

* La provincia d'Anbar, que fins fa no gaires mesos era la ovella negra del país, i el refugi principal d'Al Qaida, està tan pacificada que els marines que la patrullen ja no tenen l'armadura personal com a protecció obligatòria, i l'economia de la provincia és de les de creixement més ràpid del país (potser excepte el Kurdistan). A més, la disminució de la violència i els gestos de reconciliació de la població sunni i chii, junt amb la descoberta de camps de petroli a les zones sunnís (la ausencia dels quals era un motiu de tensió entre les dos poblacions) ha disminuit radicalment la tensió entre les dos ètnies principals del país. Està previst que el control de la provincia passi al govern central Iraqià en algun moment del març d'aquest any.

* Els últims reductes d'al Qaeda, la majoria d'ells a la provincia de Diyala, han estat assaltats durament durant les últimes dos setmanes per una operació conjunta de l'exèrcit Iraqià, la policia Iraqiana i algunes brigades de l'exèrcit nord-americà. En aquesta operació s'estan destruïnt les últimes restes de la infraestructura de la organització al país, i els soldats s'han trobat amb molta menys resistència de la que estava prevista. En els raids s'han capturat gran quantitat de documents i ordinadors portàtils que podrien donar un gran momentum a la operació, i potser fins i tot proporcionar informació sobre agents fora del país.

* L'exèrcit Iraqià és cada dia més un pes a tenir en compte al país, i ara que ja ha arribat a la força humana prevista pel govern central està dirigint els seus esforços a millorar l'entrenament i l'equipament dels seus soldats, i la diferència s'està fent notar. Ara mateix, la gran majoria de les operacions militars al país estan sent dutes a terme pels iraquians, ocasionalment amb supervisió i suport aeri americà en els casos més delicats. L'exèrcit americà actua, en la immensa majoria de les provincies, com a supervisor i suport de les forces de seguretat Iraqianes, i no a l'inrevés com passava fins fa un any. L'exèrcit Iraqià és la segona entitat amb més popularitat al país (després de les forces de la coalició i la selecció de fútbol nacional), i les estacions de reclutament no donen l'abast amb l'allau de voluntaris que reben diàriament. L'exèrcit en si és cada dia més una entitat mixta de sunnis, chiis i kurds, amb mentalitat cada cop menys centrada en les diferentes religions i tribus i cada cop més focalitzada en servir al país.

A més, l'exèrcit Iraqià ha sigut el primer de la regió a estar format per voluntaris i entrenat a la manera occidental, arribant a uns nivells de proficiència inèdits per un exèrcit d'aquella zona. Tot i que ara per ara tenen uns medis considerablement pobres, sobretot pel que fa a material, està previst que en el 2008 es reequipi a tots els soldats amb rifles M-16 (molt més efectius que les AK-74 que tenen ara) i uniformes de combat moderns i amb proteccions de Kevlar i plaques ceràmiques (també, el primer cop que un exèrcit arab tindrà aquests equipaments), a més dels vehicles Stryker i d'altres de última generació que està previst que adquireixin en els pròxims anys.

Hi ha vàries coses més, però si segueixo se m'acabarà l'espai, així que ho deixo aquí.

I ara a l'altre tema del dia: Els primers tests del reactor de fusió Bussard WB-7.
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2008/01/wb-7-first-plasma.html
Seguint un model de fusió considerablement diferent que el de l'ITER, un reputat físic, Richard W. Bussard, va dissenyar un tipus nou de reactor de fusió que hauria de permetre obtenir la reacció nuclear amb una facilitat radical comparada amb les reaccions nuclears "tradicionals". Va estar buscant financiació per poder construir un reactor test i comprovar la viabilitat de les seves idees, i la va obtenir fa dos mesos, uns dies abans de morir de càncer. La marina dels EEUU va otorgar un ajut per poder fer la prova pilot, que es va realitzar fa uns quatre o cinc dies, amb èxit.

ot i que només és una prova preliminar, indica que el procés de reacció és viable, i si les coses van com han d'anar en molt pocs anys podriem tenir un generador d'energia net, inocu, de capacitat infinita i sense problemes de combustible. Lo qual podria significar un final al problema del petroli molt més aviat del que estava "previst".

Robert W. Bussard. Recordeu aquest nom. Perquè aquest nom serà un nom que els nens d'aquí 10 i 20 anys (i més endavant) estudiaran als seus llibres d'història.

"And yet it moves"

2007-05-21T14:47:00.000+02:00

Here are a couple of great links in which the myth of Global Warming is analised from a very physical point of view (my faculty colleagues will love this). And here's a more mundane take on the topic.

What the US army DID find in Iraq

2007-05-18T14:46:00.000+02:00

While it is widely claimed and publicized that the US did not find any NBC weapons in Iraq (which isn't true, as 500 mustard gas artillery shells found prove), it is not so widely claimed what DID they found there.

Gateway Pundit has a roundup on the topic, with reason of the 4th aniversary of the first mass grave uncovered in the sands of Iraq.

Keep this in mind when you hear someone feeling nostalgic about the good old days of Saddam's rule.

What my mom taught me

2007-05-13T17:13:00.000+02:00

Priceless

Brazil has decided you're cute

2007-05-13T16:31:00.000+02:00

Just doing my bit to spread the meme.

If you don't know what's all this about, read the whole webcomic, and don't dare to come back till you do (like I would write something meanwhile...).

And while we are at it, go and read this one too. I guarantee both comics are superb.

5 things about me almost no one knows

2007-03-27T01:01:00.000+02:00

A couple months ago several blogs started posting entries called just exactly like this one, and I really liked the idea (some of the posts where really hillarious and/or eye-opening). I meant to write one of those of my own, but at that time I was having a serious writer's block, as you can see in my archives, so I just forgot about it. Today I've come across one of these old posts and well, it's about time to hit the keyboard!

1- I use to cry a lot when watching films and/or anime. This is one of the reasons I use to watch them only when I'm alone and certain that no one will break in in the middle of the film. Same applies when reading comics or novels. After watching/reading them I also like to have a little walk to let all the thoughts in my head go free and crystallize, and allow me to have a deeper understanding of what I just watched.

2- I love playing sports and doing exercise, although I rarely do it (at most I go a couple times a week at the taekwondo dojo). I'm brown belt and with a little luck I'll get my black belt this summer.

3- I am totally addicted to music. I CAN'T survive 24 hours without listening to at least some of my favourite tracks (and preferably to lots of them), and I NEVER go out home without my MP3. Plus, I took music classes since I was 4-year-old till five years ago, and I stopped taking classes because I had learned everything I could without going to the music faculty.

4- Even though I am a science man, I totally love history and social sciences, and in fact I think a self-consistent knowledge needs them to truly understand physical laws and the way the universe works. This is also a consequence of the Chaos Theory.

5- I LOVE animals! But I'm not allowed to have one at home, so I'm looking forward to rent a flat to have a couple of cats and a dog...

That has been it. Now, I tag Looking for a meaning and Ichhock!

Iran is pushing the limit

2007-03-23T16:36:00.000+01:00

15 british sailors have been captured by the Iranian Navy. Another milestone. Another step to World War IV. Currently the US has several carriers in the gulf, plus several USAF wings in Iraq. I wonder how long it will last till shots begin?

Insight of the leftist religion

2007-03-22T15:35:00.000+01:00

(Via PM) Oleg Atbashian has an excellent essay about the origins and "logic" of the leftist religion. It's a bit long but it's worth the effort.

Brought to you by Bizarre News Inc.

2007-02-27T21:09:00.000+01:00

(via IMAO) Let's do some math, shall we?
2 + 2 = 4
5 + 2 = 7
Muslims + Cartoons = Riots
Muslims + Kites = ¡¡11 Dead!!

In other news, the Pentagon has begun the development of a new secret weapons system, based on the use of stealthy GPS-guided kites to smite muslims more effectively. Deployed by a B-52 bomber above a muslim population, a payload of those kites would have an effect similar to several atomic bombs.

I... CAN'T... STOP... LAUGHING...!!!!

Civilization calls

2007-02-27T15:10:00.000+01:00

Watch this, then act accordingly.

Wake up, people. American or not, we are all on the same ship on this.

The situation in Iraq: A wider perspective

2007-01-28T19:19:00.000+01:00

Some days ago I wrote a comment on The Belmont Club about the situation in Iraq, and though I wanted it to be a short post at first, it ended being sort of a little essay, so I'll post it here as well. I'll erase some parts that would be out of context here, but you can see the article and the full comment at the links above.

pantapon, sarah, I think you're misunderstanding the basic nature of the "Iraq War". You (and most people) think about Iraq as being The War, so all definitions of victory or defeat are related to finishing the violence there. And that's just plain wrong, because the Iraq War is not The War, but it's a single battle in a war that started some years ago and won't finish at least for a decade. In this greater war (call it GWOT, or whatever you like) Iraq plays an important paper, but to finish insurgency there is not critical. In fact, in several ways it is beneficious for us (although not for the iraqis).

1. For what I know, it is a general agreement among military strategists that the initial invasion of Iraq has been one of the best executed wars in recorded history, both in the speed, effectivity, low losses, civilian protection, fire accuracy, etc. The only weak point of the campaing was logistics, since no one expected the armored divisions to advance so fast and therefore they didn't commit enough supplies to support such a fast advance.

2. Guerrilla war certainly attracts foreign "investments" to weak the opposing party, but in out case it is worse for them than for us. In an attrition war, the side who can produce men, equipment and money faster and better wins. It would seem than human resources are at their side (after all we are fighting against some of the youngest populations in the world) but if you look at the casualty rates you'll see this apparent advantage is just and illusion, since, even with population adjustments, we are killing many more of their people than they are killing of ours. Plus, at the same time this guerrilla war keeps us "tied" in Iraq, it keeps their resources tied as well, resources that won't be used for worse things.

(...)

7. Counting on ALL Iraqis is silly (as it is counting on all Americans, I would dare to say), but counting on some is feasible and is producing good results. To find motivated people who want to take responsibility of their country takes time, but it can be done and it is being done. If we couldn't count on any of them we'd better reduce the place to ashes and move on.

8. What you say is only partially true. Several Iraqi Army units (mainly the ones created in the first years of the war) are in quite bad shape, with poor training, poor equipment, worse leadership and morale, with its only possible use being police duty. But situation has improved since then, and many Iraqi units have shown extremely good results, both in missions with the Americans and missions on their own, showing ability and resolve above what you would expect of any Arab army. If the trend continues to improve Iraq will have the best army of the Arab world.
Of course, there is sectarian disputes, corruption, but this is not new. Currently all the armies and governments in that area have the same problem, but only Iraq is fighting to do something about it, and that is revealing. Besides, old traditions die hard, and we may have to wait some years more to see a decent-to-west-standarts Iraq.

9. I would be interested to hear your definition of "immensely". American casualties are at a wartime all-time low, and the country is having no problems in replacing them (in fact there's an excess of volunteers in some branches), so in this aspect there's nothing to recover from. The only thing that America is having "problems" with is equipment such as spare parts for vehicles, armor packs and newly developed weapons, but that's a natural consequence of the American style of war. And it is something the army can recover in short time if it needs to (which it doesn't right now).
One of the reasons logistics are such a problem right now is because the stuff the soldiers have now is mostly different from what they had in 2003. Technological advance has been so HUGE in this 3 1/2 years, and so many weapons systems developed and improved (such as UAVs, Strykers, armor kits, thermobaric missiles, battlefield internet, laser defense systems) that production has to be shifting constantly to begin producing items as needed as soon as they are developed. This is causing severe stress in the logistics system, but it is not necessarily a bad thing, since it is not a critical/irreversible stress. Think about it as going to the gym: You get tired there but you get out stronger than you were. Because that's exactly what's happening.
Plus, right now the US have several hundred thousand troops with war experience, something not a lot of countries can say, which is at the same time accelerating all the processes I stated above.

I hope this helps you to see all this with a more global point of view and more optimism.

2006 Summary, and what this year may bring along

2007-01-09T00:12:00.000+01:00

This post was originally written on January 3rd, but today I got it completed and finally posted.

So, Happy New Year everyone.

This now past 2006 has brought us both some good and some bad presents, some of which we will remember in the years to come as historic events and milestones that guided the world to the next hot World War that is coming right now to your screens. Meanwhile, we'll have to survive in this increasingly dangerous game that destiny is laying before our feet.

The year 2006 has seen the cristallization of the islamic menace in Europe and Israel, with public disorders and increasing rates of crimes in many European countries such as France, Sweden, and Holland (you can follow the news at Brussels Journal), and the exposing of the terrorist support network that Iran's been building for years and only after the Lebanon War has been exposed for everyone to see. Thanks to that, the world is slowly beginning to react to the menace, both with economic sanctions against the Mullah regime, and with military action against both Hezbollah and the Irani cellullas operating in Iraq.

Plus, the palestine problem is getting in the right tracks to be solved, as Hamas and Fatah are increasingly solving the main Israel's problem by each one"taking care" of the other party. And it doesn't look like they will stop anytime soon.

Also, one of the worst dictators that have ever existed has met his well-deserved end.

On a more political level, the Republicans have seen their first electoral defeat in several years, as their bases have turned their back to them after seing how their elected leaders acted under a program that has nothing to do with their ideals, and does seemingly nothing to face the most serious problems of the moment.

On a both political AND local level, Catalunya has again shown why we aren't an independent country yet, as the people have voted en masse those who have continuously shown for 3 years no capability at all to do what they're supposed to do, and have spent those years getting their checks from the taxpayers and doing nothing of use, to say it mildly.

We'll see what this next year brings to us. It may be not pleasant at all, but no one said it would be. You reap what you sow. Let them be interesting times and get through this mess as well as we can.

Civil War is official now

2006-12-17T15:38:00.000+01:00

The Hamas and the Fatah

One day, a hamas looked around at the refugee camp where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey terrorizing the cities and hills. He climbed over wreckages and under tunnels and kept going until he reached Israel.

Israel was strong and mighty, and the hamas stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't see any way across. So he ran up and down the border, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.

Suddenly, he saw a fatah sitting in the rushes by the West bank. He decided to ask the fatah for help getting across the border to terrorize Israel.

"Hellooo Mr. Fatah!" called the hamas, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the border?"

"Well now, Mr. Hamas! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the fatah hesitantly.

"Because," the Hamas replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot win alone!"

Now this seemed to make sense to the fatah. But he asked. "What about when I get close to the border? You could still try to kill me and get out!"

"This is true," agreed the hamas, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the frontier!"

"Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the fatah.

"Ahh...," crooned the hamas, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this border, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!"

So the fatah agreed to take the hamas across the border. He swam over to the West bank and settled himself near the wall to pick up his passenger. The hamas crawled onto the fatah's back, and the fatah started crossing the border. He kicked strongly through the first half of the border, his head down to avoid Israeli patrols.

Halfway across the border, the fatah suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the hamas remove his blade from the fatah's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

"You fool!" croaked the fatal, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"

The hamas shrugged, and did a little jig on the dying fatah's back.

"I could not help myself. It is my nature."

Self destruction - "Its my Nature", said the Scorpion...

Original story here.

You can follow current developments and news in Power and Control and Pajamas media.

MSM concedes victory: All your news are belong to us!

2006-12-17T15:15:00.000+01:00

(via Drudge Report): Time's Person of the Year is:

Person of the Year: You

Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.

That IS funny. I thought we were just commoners in pajamas wasting time in front of our computers. Isn't that what they have been saying for months?

I guess someone in the Time's staff realized they were losing the Media Wars and have begun an appeasement strategy of their own to avoid eventual obliteration. Well, kiss my feet if you like, but you are not going to stop destiny.

In other news, Victor Davis Hanson has another great article.

Great summary of the year

2006-12-16T16:08:00.000+01:00

Via Barcepundit, a pretty funny summary of the year 2006.

Crossposted at Ichhock.

Christmas' Anime Day

2006-12-12T14:14:00.000+01:00

From Chizumatic, a new religion is shining in the horizon, count me in!

If Ron Karenga can do it, so can I. The newly-formed Otaku religion celebrates Anime Day on December 25. It's a jenn-you-wine traditional Japanese holiday (that I just made up) which otaku celebrate by putting up life-sized cardboard cutouts of Sailor Moon. We demand that Usagi be placed next to Rabbi Bogomilsky's menorah, and if they won't do that then we'll sue.

Wonderduck has some comments too...

Let's think about this. Pikachu, Sakura and Chiyo-chan would be in attendance as prophets, kawaii be their names. Various mecha would have to serve as angels, and the Space Battleship Yamato playing the role of the Ark.

Communion would be given in the form of Pocky and caffinated drinks.
I think Steven's onto something here!

IMHO Aya Tojo's cutouts would do a much better job (plus there are pictures of Aya in christmas costumes, so we wouldn't have to photoshop one), but I guess I could be religiously tolerant enough to live with a Usagi in my dining room. I'll post a couple of pictures so you loyal readers can decide for yourselves...

Update(13/12/06): Another Candidate for Goddess has jumped into the ring, and doesn't look bad either!

Rest in Peace

2006-12-08T22:28:00.000+01:00

My friend's father has passed out this morning. May your prayers be with her and her family.

My 22th Birthday

2006-12-04T23:02:00.000+01:00

Today I've added one more year to my account, one less for Singularity! Plus I've achieved the official "natural monument" status (see below). May it be the last year I bear it...

Natural Monument: Objective Achieved!

2006-12-04T22:57:00.000+01:00

A prayer

2006-12-03T16:48:00.000+01:00

The father of a good friend is in the hospital after suffering a cardiac failure, and in severe health danger. I'm not into religions, but if anyone of you is a believer then a prayer is in order for a good outcome and a fast recovery.

Those Signs...

2006-11-20T22:48:00.000+01:00

Images are finally working! Links and images the same day, this is a present from the Gods...

North Cave bajon appu!!

2006-11-20T16:30:00.000+01:00

I've been doing a few upgrades on the site (after all, I am supposed to be studying computer programming...) and I've finally discovered the way to put links on the sidebar. It's not that difficult when you figure the way (and Frontpage helped a bit). So we have a website bajon appu! (for you non-geeks, version up!)

Captain Herlock: First Review

2006-11-20T11:31:00.000+01:00

I recently watched Captain Herlock: Endless Odissey, and I finished it with mixed feelings.

When viewing the first episodes I thought I had done a bad buy. The main storyline of the series, that goes about a great archidemon called nu who tries to awaken from its prison vaporizing the earth, made little sense to me, and many other details that required massive suspension-of-disbelief made me extremely afraid that this secuel of Captain Harlock was nothing more than a GPS-guided product for fanatics of the old series. It had some good things, like massively-improved animation compared to the older series, great dialogues and big scary spaceships (this always helps), and (except for the very first scene) no fan service at all, which is a plus (I have always stated that good series must have lots of fan service, or either not have any at all), but it simply didn't look good enough for the 40 euros I paid for it.

I was much relieved later when I watched more of the series, where I realized that Captain Herlock, like lots of my favourite series, is not about the story, but about how every character things, what principles they stand for, and how they react to each adversity in the story. There's a lot of simbolism in every scene, that you may miss if you're not careful, and some friends have told me that there's tons of references to the old series (I haven't seen them myself so I can't say much about that). Although the topic of bravery and integrity gets a little boring in the middle of the series, where it becomes a recurrent scene that Herlock and his crew are invulnerable to fear and psicological attacks (again, barely reasoned at all), at the end of the series I found the story and all the ideologic background to finally have some sense, and I can say I really enjoyed the last episodes.

IMHO, it would have been so much better if, instead of a new series, they had taken some scenes from the first chapters and connected it directly to the last DVD to make a good-quality OVA. But hey, who am I to go against Arcadia's desires?

In short: Good but not that good, a series I would recommend to borrow from a friend and watch, but not good enough to buy it if you aren't familiar with the saga. So you are warned.

Various thoughts

2006-11-20T11:03:00.000+01:00

* American elections: What to say about them? The results were predictable (although they were way worse I had thought), but not less horrible because of that. There are some views (with which I partially agree) that see the Democratic takeover of both houses as a good move for the Republicans (I won't go into the details right now), but it doesn't help my feeling of eventual doom to go away a bit.

* Catalan elections: CiU won the elections, lost the bet, and now they'll have to wait till the next crisis cracks the government AGAIN (Carod is in there, so it won't take much long) and pray people gets their common sense back and vote, now for real, for a real, civilized, first-class government, not the Generalite-du-Soleil that we got for the last 3 years.

* War in Iraq: Everything's going just fine, no one is noticing. This is what happens when you mix the most safe, most impressive, fast timed, ambicious-reconstruction included, kind-of-war with Europeans and Democrats. 2.800 killed? Just fine. The other side has 80.000 terrorist asses to bury, and they can't even manufacturate the shovels to do that.

* War in Iran: That isn't. Yet. As the song goes,

The times are changing so fast, I wonder how long it lasts. The clock is ticking time is running out. The hatred fills this Earth and for what is worth, we're in the end before we know.

* War in Israel: Idem. Wait a few months for the full 2nd Season of "Hezbulla'h rockets o'Doom!", and let's hope the caliber gets bigger from the Israeli side. Forget 500 lb bombs, get the big stuff once and forever! And get Siria join the party.

* The military and me: I've been seriously thinking about joining the military reserves as soon as next year, and I can't find a good reason not to do it. If I do I'll tell you.

* Neural Nets and me: After reading Kurzweil's book "Are We Spiritual Machines?" I've begun to design a small neural net (surely run on C++ or Visual Basic) to see how that weird thing works. Nature DOES love chaos theory, and I do too. Because I'm a thermodynamic, statistical and irreversible geek.

Obituary

2006-10-14T10:28:00.000+02:00

(not original - source unknown)

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn’t always fair, and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they themselves failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Panadol, sun lotion or a Band Aid to a student – but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband, churches became businesses, and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason.

He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I’m A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

About "disproportionate responses"

2006-08-29T12:34:00.000+02:00

Steven den Beste goes at it again, and he analizes from a military point of view the reasons behind the acusations of "disproportionality" that have been throwed to Israel in the last weeks. Read it.

More about the war, part II

2006-08-08T17:22:00.000+02:00

Great coverage in pajamasmedia.com

We are well into the 3rd week of fighting, and the developing has been difficult to understand, even to follow. The best word one could use would be "confusing".

In the first week, Israel raided by air most of Lebanon infrastructures, stopping maritime and air traffic, and disrupting the main highways south of Lebanon and in the Syrian border. It also took good account of Hizbullah HQ in Beirut, plus neutralizing all the coastal radars in response to a missile attack against an Israeli warship. Ground incursions were limited in size and goals, and never crossed the frontier significantly.

In the second week, SF and the Golani brigade began attacking some key towns in south Lebanon, like Bint Jubayl and Martoun Al-Ras, destroying terrorist infraestructure and getting some intel.

Then, a partially-staged "massacre" happened at Qana, and operations switched to a new phase. Aerial raids changed from mainly strategical mode (bombing infraestructures and command chain) to mainly tactical mode (bombing missile launchers and providing air cover for ground operation). Simultaneously to the aerial short cease-fire, a massive ground attack began in the whole southern border, and Israeli forces managed, in a few days, to take over most of the territory they had already occupied till 2000, and started chasing terrorists. They also did a in-deep raid in a Hizbullah base in the Bekaa Valley, that provided what seems to be a huge amount of intel.

Every step of the way was a complete surprise, and surrounded with an appearance (real or no) of incompetence, cowardy, and unresolve. The guys in Belmont Club have tried to throw some light at this chaos, and if what they say is true, then the IDF is doing an awesome job...

The situation right now is not very clear. Everybody is focused on the diplomatic advances (curse them) and the media news, and very few people are still reporting about the military advances. One of the few sites that do is this one (in spanish). But right now the Fog of War is really really thick, at least here.

There are some contradictory reports, it seems official that Israel is now present in most of the territory south of Litani river, but at the same time Israeli brigades are fighting really hard around Bint Jubayl, where 3 soldiers have died today and 13 more have been reported injured. My guess is that the IDF is conducting a bubble strategy, going behind enemy lines to surround the enemy and then crush the resistance bubbles one at a time (that would explain that the IDF "occupies" the area but are still fighting very near the border), but it's only a hypothesis based on the little information available. It would be a risky but reasonable thing to follow this strategy, since this strategy has been widely used in lots of wars (like the six day war), although I'm not sure of its effectivity against Hizbullah tactics.

I'll stay tuned to any information available.

Update(9/8/06): I've been researching a bit, it looks like my assumption was more or less right. Right now the IDF is planning expanding its operations to the north of the Litani river, to face the missile launchers that are raining rockets on Kiryat Shmona. Let's hope they'll follow through.

Candidate for Goddess

2006-08-08T16:20:00.000+02:00

While posting a comment to an entry at pixane.net (link here, worth thinking about) I wrote a page about the situation of some countries that may be candidates to inherit superpowerness or, at least, get a close second in the race. At first I wanted to do it short, but it took some lengh, so I'll post it here.

(...)The EU is rich, yes, but it is also in stagnation, with an anual growth around 1%, unemployment in double digits in some of its countries, and economists all over the world have predicted that it collapse around 2015. I don’t think this is the profile of a candidate for superpower.

China is starting from a quite bad situation but has been growing steadily for a long time now. The problem is that this 10% growth won’t last forever, since their industry is based on its low prices, and economic growth precisely increases the prices in the country, so it will start slowing down in short notice. There’s some more factors but it would require a whole post to describe them.

Russia economy has shaped since 1989, granted, but it’s still nowhere near developed countries, and its growth is quite mediocre. And you have to have in mind also the social situation of Russia, it is so bad that its UN ID Score has actually gone down to 0,795 from 0,8 in 1975 (I don’t know of any other country that has worsened its score apart from Russia). Not a Candidate for Goddess, as well.

Last AND least, the muslim nations. Who cares if we like them or not? They have oil, we buy it. Period. This is the only saying they currently have in the world, and at the present research rate they won’t even have this advantage for too long. They are living in an illusion of grandness that they will soon enough find to be false.

The only true emerging superpower in the list is India. They have the population, the education, the economy, the government, the military, and the attitude to become future world’s number 2. But India happens to be the most pro-US country in the world (except for the US itself), has a practical alliance with the US, and is currently involved in lots of cross-military training programs. They are a country that really wishes to prosper and be civilized, and I can’t object to that.

WTF!?!?

2006-07-28T21:11:00.000+02:00

What the heck is that? Is it serious?? Is this some kind of VIP party or what?

"In keeping with her “serious” mood the Secretary of State performed two pieces from the brooding repertoire of Johannes Brahms – a solo Intermezzo number two, and Brahms Sonata for violin and piano, opus 108, with a Malaysian guest soloist.

Other acts ranged from the bizarre to the hilarious. The Australians usually bring the house down but were curiously absent this year, leaving it to the Russians to deliver a self-deprecating skit that drew gales of laughter.

The Japanese meanwhile put on a sci-fi act that styled Foreign Minister Taro Aso as a Bogart-style time-traveller who saves the world from disaster and heralds a new era of regional cooperation.

Previous US secretaries of state, however, have caused a splash at Asean.

Two years ago Colin Powell, initially wary of lampooning himself at his first ARF in 2001, had them rolling in the aisles with a version of the Village People hit “YMCA.”

Bill Clinton’s secretary of state Madeleine Albright relished the occasion – once donning a bowler hat and tuxedo for her star turn.

“When you’re not so sweet, I call the Seventh Fleet, That’s the American Way,” she crooned, jabbing at her Chinese counterpart one year, to the tune of Bob Hope’s “Thanks for the Memories.”

After reviewing the article, it looks like it's some kind of diplomatic anual event in Asia, that has something to do with high-level diplomats doing weird perfomances. Weird, indeed... I wonder why nobody is making fun of it?

Update(28/7/06): Hopeless. I've looked everywhere, even in the Empire HQ and IMAO, and couldn't find a single reference. I guess they're sleeping or something...

A prophetic song

2006-07-22T18:48:00.000+02:00

I found this link to the lyrics of a song by Bob Dylan.

More about the war

2006-07-19T20:38:00.000+02:00

Now war is in an interesting phase. After 6 days of bombardments, Lebanon's communication lines and infraestructures are totally dead. The two main ports (Beirut and Tripoli) are suffering a maritime blockade by the IDF marina, the main commercial airport has been "closed" by repeated attacks (there's reports of another missile today), there are rumours of attacks on military airports as well, and all the main roads, highways and bridges have been blown up too. Other strategic objectives have been targeted, like factories, (refineries?), gas stations and trucks. I don't know the details from the ground, but it looks like, in practical terms, Lebanon is in a total immobilization. Plus, most of the electrical grid of the country is offline, and it looks like water isn't flowing as it should, as well.

This is, at all signs, an awesome preparation of a massive ground invasion, directed to disrupt both any preparation for defense, and logistic lines needed by Hizbullah to fire its missiles.

There's something strange about this, though. Israel doesn't look like it's preparing to invade anything.

Reports on the ground say only 3 brigades have been movilized to enter in Lebanon, and that isn't an invasion force large enough even for Andorra. Some clashes have been reported, casualties yet unknown, but for the looks of it it seems like the invasion is taking place by "infiltration teams", I guess Special Forces operatives or veterane troops, that target and/or neutralize enemy troops and facilities near the frontier or deep inside Lebanon, with aerial support. But no armies entering the battlefield yet, and no prospects for the near future.

From my point of view, there's a couple of possible interpretations.

A) Israel is not planning to invade Lebanon, and the plan is to neutralize Hizbullah with aerial raids and limited SF incursions, much till today.

B) The same as A, but with "blitz" assaults of regular army in key positions of the enemy, attacking and retreating short afterwards, with heavy support of artillery. But I don't know if this kind of strategy is very feasible, for it would require a degree of stealth that maybe the army doesn't have.

C) An invasion is planned, but not for the next days. Maybe there's some more preparation to go before ground troops can enter en masse, so the IDF is waiting till the last moment to call up the troops. The confusion element is also in this plan. But again, preparing troops for an invasion is not something easy to do stealthy, so by the moment they were ready, everyone in the world would know what they are up to. Plus, they don't have much time, for in a few weeks world pressure will be so huge that Israel will surely have to stop the attack. I don't expect that to happen before 10-20 days, though.

D) Something else??? This Israelis are crazy, crazy strategists, I tell you!

Here are some useful links.

A map that points the location of some bloggers in the region, and the most recent news.

Another map that resumes all the events of the firsts days of fighting.

The people in Pajamas Media are doing an awesome work gathering all the news available about the war.

From this site you can access lots of lebanese, palestine (sic), and Israeli blogs.

BTW, more news about The Iranian Conection(tm)

Update(22/7/06): It looks like both B and C were correct. Now over 3 divisions are being amassed in the border. Now THAT's an invasion force. The days to come will be highly interesting to see!

Thoughts

2006-07-18T10:07:00.000+02:00

These days I've been posting several comments on a lot of blogs, american, english, israeli and even lebanese ones, and lately I've been noticing that my comments have generated some kind of anger in some places, like this lebanese website.

Usually I wouldn't care at all, as all you know that I'm not precisely a PC boy, and I tend to use some kinds of humor waay too much, but well, a commenter comrade made me realise that, what the hell, these guys are under attack and are not in the best position for reasoning, not even listening rationally, and may have what we could call "special sensitivities" these days.

Even though in a normal situation I can't care less if someone gets depressed because of my comments, I think the situation is grave enough so that I shall refrain a bit from too acid commenting. So, from now till the "war" ends, I'll try to post responsably, for once. And if someone felt very, very bad because of my words, you have my apologies.

But don't misunderstand me. This is just a truce. Once the situation has changed, I'll charge again in my style. Till then, be safe.

It was about time!

2006-07-16T11:22:00.000+02:00

(via Emperor Misha I) Finally, it looks like people is awakening at the evidence that we are at friggin' war with the Religion of Peace. It would have been better if it had happened 5 years ago, but anyway, better late than never they say. Ah, the humanity...

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)

2006-07-13T16:29:00.000+02:00

HOT World War IV has started (you can laugh if you want, but I'm deadly serious). Links here, here, here, here, here, here and here. A blogger from the Lebanon is liveblogging here.

It's really weird that the news didn't talk about all this stuff in appropiated depth, they are really covering this as another raid. They are missing the war of the decade.

Update(14/07/06): Lebanese bloggers are doing an awesome work reporting every bit of information available about the progress of the attack. Last raids have been made primarily on infraestructures (Beirut International Airport has been hit several times, as well as some main highways and bridges), this seems to indicate that Israel is not pointing to snap terrorists from the air but is preparing the grounds for an infantry offensive. For the moment, the lebanese army is stood still, and no hostile actions have been reported, apart from some AA fire.

BTW, that's what some lebanese think about this war.

Eretz Yisroel!

Update(16/07/06): I've changed WWIII to WWIV after realising the mistake (WWIII was the Cold War). Right now there's some fisking taking action in one lebanese blog, here. Not sure of what's happening now there, there's not a lot of news and for what it seems, Israel has mostly stop bombardments on infrastructures (there's nothing much left to destroy) and are punching the Hizbollah neighbourhoods south of Beirut. Could that mean that infantry will go in in short time? Maybe Lebanese army may want the privilege, if they can manage themselves out of under the bed.

Told'ya collection: There WERE WMDs in Iraq

2006-06-22T09:19:00.000+02:00

Let's see how the left will turn around this one. But for the moment, let's enjoy their anger.

Links here, here, and here .Here's a related article.

Alone in the lab, 1a part

2006-06-20T00:35:00.000+02:00

Què hi feia ell allà? Bé, això és una bona pregunta.

Sentat sobre una caixa, intentava inútilment calmar la seva febril ment. Les visions que havia vist tant sols uns minuts abans del que succeia a les plantes superiors d'aquell edifici li revoltaven l'esperit, i amenaçaven d'esfondrar tot allò que ell havia construit com a base de la seva cordura.

Fes el que fes, anés on anés, estava destinat a acabar trobant-se amb aquelles abominacions, com un destí inescapable, com si algú el castigues una vegada, i una altra, i una altra, per un crim que ell ni tant sols coneixia. Devia haver sigut una persona perversa en una vida anterior.

Pero ell sempre sobrevivia. Ell era un supervivent, o almenys la major part d'ell. Perquè aquestes criatures infringeixen ferides que no es tanquen. Però altra gent no havia tingut tanta sort.

I tot per una ximpleria, al capdavall.

La gent ja ho tenia assumit. Aquestes coses passen, son llei de vida, i no s'hi pot fer més que acceptar el desenllaç que el destí t'ha portat i continuar vivint com si res haguès passat.

Però ell no ho assumia. Per això s'havia autodesignat com a protector d'aquell laboratori.

Poca cosa hi havia pogut fer, realment: En la seva impotència, no disposava ni tant sols de les mes bàsiques armes, com un ganivet, i ja ni parlar d'una d'aquelles bones Ingram que tant desitjaria en un moment com aquest.

Encara que les haguès tingut, l'esforç era futil; En una d'aquestes grans ironies de la història, el govern havia decretat que aquestes criatures estaven amparades per la llei, afegint un cop mes el sentit comú a la llarga llista d'espècies extingides. Després de tot, deien, son part de la naturalesa i no som ningú per jutjar aquestes criatures.

En la seva opinió, la naturalesa podia anar-se'n a prendre per cul.

Mentre a dalt continuava la tragèdia que semblava desafiar tota lògica, ell podia sentir perfectament com les rialles del seu fat particular ressonaven com campanes en aquell soterrani, i els sorolls perseguien el seu pensament com un depredador a la seva presa, sense rastre de pietat.

Si no aconseguia mantenir la seva cordura fins que el Sol sortís, tot hauria estat en va.

Cedint a la desesperació, va agafar el telèfon que penjava de la paret d'aquella sala, i va començar a marcar nombres en el teclat, però es va aturar a mig camí. Trucar a algú era en aquests moments completament inútil. A hores d'ara, ell era la única persona racional que quedava en aquell edifici, i trucar a la policia no avisaria, ja que, després de tot, ells jugaven per l'equip contrari, i que se'n riguèssin a la cara no era el que més necessitava en aquell moment. Si sobrevivia hauria de ser per sí mateix, com totes les altres vegades.

En mig d'aquella voràgine caòtica, estava completament sol.

Va obrir una de les poques llaunes que havia pogut conservar amb una mà tremolosa, i lentament va assaborir el contingut, abandonant-se a l'allau de sabors i sensacions per intentar no pensar què havia sigut dels seus amics, i coneguts, que estaven a dalt quan tot va començar i no van ser capaços, o no van voler, salvar-se a temps d'aquella invasió infernal. Per suposat, va fracasar.

Ell mateix encara no era gaire conscient de com havia arribat aquí; tot el que recordava eren fragments i traces d'imatges i sons obscens, de quan havia intentat parar aquelles bèsties; però recordava el suficient per saber que aquesta amnèsia selectiva era una concesió del Totpoderós per permetre-li seguir vivint un temps més amb l'esperit intacte. Després de tot, ningú tornava a ser el mateix després de veure tals visions, i amb les vegades per les que havia passat per allò, era un miracle que ell encara no haguès embogit totalment.

Tant sols recordava haver esquivat totes aquelles criatures com va poder, corrent desesperadament a través de sales i passadissos, fins arribar al soterrani. Era un lloc aïllat, ple de maquinària extranya, tubs i cables de tot tipus: Un lloc perfecte, al seu parer, per esperar que s'acabés aquest anormal malson. Va tancar totes les portes amb totes les caixes i eines que va poder trobar, i va pregar perquè aguantèssin fins al matí.

Tant sols unes hores més...

In the search for the lost Yita's Power

2006-06-18T21:22:00.000+02:00

I've been reading through a friend's blog, and I've found a great piece of story there. For you guys who like fantasy stories, this is your chance! (in spanish).

I should take example of that, and start writing seriously once and for all. Not that I have a lot of time now, with the exams and all that...

BTW, it looks like it will be an awful semester again. Call it fate.

Update (18/06/06): I've been reading the rest of her blog, and man, this girl HAS a gifted hand.

Great FanArt

2006-06-08T15:17:00.000+02:00

A few days ago I found a great website with lots of extremely beautiful pictures (as all my msn contacts can see), just go here and enjoy the view.

Other things...

2006-06-08T14:59:00.000+02:00

These days I've been too busy to post, but, still being late, I'd like to celebrate now the 62th aniversary of Operation Overlord. I'd post some images but the server won't let me do it! (This is becoming quite a problem...).

Military Geeks all over the world, rejoice!

BTW, it was supposed to be Apocalypse Day as well... Quite a dissapointment, if you ask me.

Who's next!?

2006-06-08T14:53:00.000+02:00

Zarqawi is dead, at last. Links here, here, and here.

There will be some serious partying in Iraq today. Cheers!

The Singularity and Project Aurora

2006-05-15T12:47:00.000+02:00

Fate is cruel sometimes.

Last Saturday I came across a great website, KurzweilAI.net. I'm still researching what is all that about, but it looks like it's the website of Mr. Ray Kurzweil, an AI engineer of some kind. The thing is, this website has some of the best articles I have ever seen, and I spent the whole saturday just reading and re-reading the site.

There were many things that called my attention, but the first one was one word: "Singularity". Of course, this word isn't new to me: we use it in physics constantly, it comes to mean "infinite", or "discontinuity", and many more things. But Mr. Kurzweil used it for a very different meaning: It was supposed to be the starting point of a new ear (paradigm, as he calles it) of the human race.

But it's useless to try to explain it. Just read it. (WARNING: It's extremely long)

I found it so illuminating, I've spent a couple of days just thinking about it. I don't know for how long we'll have to wait to see the paradigm change, but mine has already changed completely. It has really widened my perpective of things, and this isn't something that happens very often.

Now, the problem. If I am to believe the Singularity hypotesis, all the plot of the Project Aurora will be trashed completely. After all, being in 2090, no IA, no nanotechnology, and Singularity cannot live together.

What the hell I am supposed to do NOW??

Damn it.

I'm back!

2006-05-15T12:42:00.000+02:00

I'm quite sorry of having not written anything for such a long time, but from time to time it's good to spend some days just "receiving", if you know what I mean. Plus, I have quite a load of things to worry about right now.

I hope I'll see you more often from now on (at least till exams season).

Links of the day

2006-03-23T10:54:00.000+01:00

Emperor Misha I has some good news from the Iraq front.

A new mental disorder discovered: The Muncha$$hole syndrome.

An extremely interesting interview with Antonie Sfeir.

Yesterday, the mytical antennas of Radio Liberty went down. A sad day for the memory of freedom.

Links of the day

2006-03-22T13:01:00.000+01:00

For starters, a great article from Ian Traynor about the nowadays tendencies of the far left and far right.

Rand Simberg talks about the other civil war.

Last, another jewel from Victor Davis Hanson

Links of the day

2006-03-21T13:56:00.000+01:00

Salvador Sostres talks about the french riots, with his usual effectivity.

Not anything else today, boys. Everyone seems a bit sleepy around here, better for them.

The Pirate Armada

2006-03-21T13:34:00.000+01:00

Some of you may have noticed that beautiful skull picture here in the sidebar.

A few days ago I joined a group called "The Pirate Armada". As the name indicates, we board various democrat sites and set them ablaze with our huge arsenal of facts, data and common sense. In these days there has been quite a lot of assaults, but I couldn't participate in any of them. The articles ablazed are primarily domestic affair's ones, so I really cannot help a lot ^^¡ Let's see if things improve.

For you guys who read the blogosphere, let's lots of blogger celebrities like Emperor Misha I. Kinda exciting!

Old posts

2006-03-21T01:42:00.000+01:00

I'll repost here an old article I wrote two years ago, that I thought would be good to move from the old website and have around here again.

24/02/2004

The european way of thinking (I)

Some days ago I had quite a discussion with some classmates in the university. All started when a friend and I were talking about who should win the next US general elections, and a group of leftist classmates got into the discussion. (Note: All of my classmates are leftist; I only use the expression "leftist classmates" to refer to the most radical ones). Logically, the discussion soon escalated and turned into a "shoot-the-yankee" session.

The details of the "discussion" are not important, but some of the content is actually interesting, since it offers a clear picture about how europeans see the world. They asked me ("shouted" would be the exact word) some questions, most of them were antiglobalization trash but there were some questions that illustrate the leftist ideology quite well. Now I'll try to analyze these questions and to deduce the leftist ideology from them.

"Who gives you the right to attack other countries?"

That's one of the most common questions, and generally the first to be asked by any leftist, so we should presume it must be somewhat important. First of all, this question makes me think there must be someone who must give us the right, so we can formulate a previous question, which could be something like "Who shall we ask permission from to attack other countries?".

The right answer would be "the US Congress", but this is not satisfactory to leftists, since they don't seem to give the US Congress and the Constitution any power of decision on these points. From the liberal point of view, the correct answer is, logically, the first one, and this last objection just makes no sense at all. But let's look for a moment from the other side.

Leftists seem to think there is some kind of entity that must have a greater authority over the US than the US Congress itself. So, let's think about international organizations that might play the part. Hum... Gotcha!. This organization could be the UN, since it's the largest and most "international" organization in the world.

Then, if I have deduced it well, when waging war, or, by induction, when we want to do anything, we do have to ask for the blessing of the UN. Well, if that's true, then we don't need the Congress and the Constitution any longer. We can simply dismantle the US government and the ideas that origined her 300 years ago, relax and prepare ourselves for an *ideal* transnational progressivist dictatorship via UN.

To the leftists, that's not a bad-taste fantasy. That's a prophecy. Marx, Allah and Michael Moore have told them that the US is a sacrilege, and that she will dissapear very soon by the will of God. This is not a mere hipothesis, since I hear this same sentence daily from my leftists classmates."The US will fall" is their strongest dogma. They fully trust in this words, and act accordingly to it. They say, US is not allowed to defend herself, because actually she hasn't the right to exist. The US should give up her Constitution and obey the wise elites of the UN, so we can all live in peace in a transnational progressivist utopia.

Damn it! Are these people really so crazy? No, I must have misunderstood that question. A sane person could not think such things and be able to sleep at night. Guess I'll have to go deeper and see what's not working.
"Iraq had no WMD, it wasn't an imminent threat"

This one is easy, both to analyze and to counter to.

Iraq wasn't an immediate threat to us, so we should have tried diplomacy exhaustively untill the threat was undoubtous and imminent, as the transnational progressivist rules command.

Until it was too late to counter to.

Arthur Neville Chamberlain thought the same way. During the years before WW2, as prime minister of England, he followed and appeasement strategy with Germany, arguing that a war would be unnecessary and very expensive both in money and lives, and that there were no evidences that Germany would go to war in the short run. Some months later, the evidences run over him and his allies riding Panzer tanks. France was totally crushed and defeated in three weeks, and England was only saved from invasion by its powerful navy and air force, the US help and the German strategical incompetence.

The result of the war: 50 million dead, the nazi death camps, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Europe and Japan being devastated.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea after all.

Now, let's imagine, just for a moment, that in the 1930s, France and England had realized the danger and had rearmed themselves well enough well to face Germany, then attacked.

The probable result of this war: 1-2 million dead at most (maybe lower), Germany devastated and thinking twice about trying to build a new Reich. No death camps, no atomic bombings, no Pearl Harbors, no D-Day, no Stalingrads. No Europe becoming a moonscape. (Opinions about this will be welcomed)

I, personally, modestly, think it was worth the price

Now let's return to the present. A year ago, Iraq, a country was suspicious of having forbidden weapons of different kinds, and possibly WMDs.

We had 3 ways to face that situation:

a) Option A: As Europe is doing right now, we fight terrorism by deploying bureaucrats. Wait and negotiate until the threat becames evident and imminent, as leftists want. Let's say, ten years from now. Time enough for Saddam to get a couple of nukes from North Corea, or Pakistan, and use his SCUD missiles to deliver them to Tel-Aviv. Better, let's wait a little more until he gets an ICBM.

Likely result: Say, 1 million Israelis/Americans killed in the initial blast, from 2 to 1.000 million arabs killed in retaliation. Arab countries simply cease to exist. Europeans could be added to the dead list if collaboration with arabs was found.

b) Option B: More or less the same than option A, but with a little difference. We take the nuclear blast, then we just apologize and surrender, just like the french way. After that, the world becomes an Islamic empire. That, if the arab countries don't begin their own World War V to decide who of them will rule the world. Pakistan, Iran and other opportunity countries (maybe China and NK) could add the nuclear factor into that war.

Likely result: In two words - Autodestructive Apocalypse.

c) Option C: We decide we won't wait until the threat becames a REAL threat - We'll start here and now to be sure that no one can attack the West and go home to tell it. We preempt Afghanistan, then Iraq, then...

Actual results, by the moment: less than 600 Coalition soldiers KIA, maybe 2000 civilians killed (most of them by the "resistance"), Afghanistan free of the Talibans and trying to become a peaceful country, Iraq liberated, Saddam under arrest, and 23 million Iraqis re-learning what Freedom is. 8.000 Iraqis a month NOT being assassinated by Saddam repression thugs. Al-Qaeda heavily injured and hiding everywhere it cans.

There's anyone that still thinks the US is not doing the RIGHT thing?

Hello?

Will continue!

Various

2006-03-21T01:08:00.000+01:00

Lately I've been talking about politics with a friend of mine.

What kind of friend? Well, she's a girl, extreme-leftist, conspiration-believer, anti-american-and-capitalism girl if you ask me. Bad stuff.

But it's refreshing to have some opportunities to be in contact with the collective mind that dominates every single brain in the continent here. It's in these special situations when you realize why you're doing what you're doing.

Plus, it's great to know what your enemy thinks.

The story goes like this:

At first, she told me that she was planning to spend some months in the USA studying in her carrer, and wanted me to tell her something about the country.

Well, I realized quite fast that this wasn't exactly what she was looking for. As soon as she realized I wouldn't be telling her how white racist neocon gangs tortured and empoverized the blacks and hispanos all along the country, and how everyone completely knew that the War of Iraq(tm) was illegal, she began to reveal her true intentions. To my surprise, it revealed to be quite a piece of a neoliberal death squad.

The details of the talks? Not too much to highlight, that's for sure. Basically, you can put together all the leftist topics you can find, add some sugar, salt and conspiration machine, and voila! That is basically it. I'm amazed at what fear can do to a person.

As you know, I'm not a newbie in the topic, but this girl is specially interesting. First of all, although I've rebated her assertions several times, she seems to think what her university social matters teacher says is more reliable that what the CIA world factbook does. I guess she will be doing great in her career. Others would have already fallen or hidden or ran at these heights, but she looks quite persistent.

For example, she just maintains that the 11-S and the JFK murder were an "inside job", that the War of Iraq(tm) was for oil, and that the reason it isn't so, and that the US is sending such a huge river of green dollars TO Iraq it's because they "didn't do it the way they had it planned". Same reason to explain the communist catastrophe, though.

More targets of opportunity are the debates about liberal economy and social economy. She argues that we need the government to give us public health care, education, protection, and all that stuff. The reason why is that, if we didn't pay taxes to the government, but payed all our expenses ourselves, we wouldn't have enough money to live on. Stupid affirmation (and mathematically impossible), but let it be for today.

She would do great material if she just would use her head a bit. Really a shame, because she's such a wonderful girl. I've known her for many years, and it's so sad to see loved people just wasted in this sea of ignorance. She's not the only person I've lost to zombieness, as people that know me can testify, but this doesn't make things less painful.

Funny. I thought we warmongers weren't supposed to have feelings.

Europe must find its roots in America.

2006-03-21T01:04:00.000+01:00

That's the title of an excellent post in the Brussels Journal. Be sure to take a look.

Not to miss this one as well.

Operation Iraqi Freedom, 3 years later.

2006-03-20T22:07:00.000+01:00

In the name of the US Army, the merciful (and everybody in the planet who believes in freedom):

Let's give thanks.

Thank thou, for today 20 million persons are free of tiranny, and may tell us their lifes.

Thank thou, for today the flame of liberty is burning alight in the horizon, again.

Thank thou, for you haven't surrendered to the huge efforts of the ones who hate the humanity.

Thank thou, for your actions have awaken thousands of people around the world that, like me, think that a better tomorrow is possible.

Thank thou, for thanks to you the shadow of the dark ages has gone behing another decade.

Thank thou, for when the shadows shall arrive, you'll be here to fight for what is right.

And, even if I die, I'll know that, thanks to you, liberty will live on.

May History and Destiny bless all of you.

More about the Civil War in Iraq(tm)

2006-03-16T11:37:00.000+01:00

Ralph Peters has recently come back from Iraq, and he exposes his views of the situation on the ground in this great article.

Links of the day

2006-03-11T19:45:00.000+01:00

Kantor exposes a good theory about what was happening on 11-M.

The murderer Slobodan Milosevic is found dead in his UN detention jail.

On that day, 2 years ago...

2006-03-11T19:43:00.000+01:00

In Memoriam.

May God (or whoever else is up there) bless them.

It's already beginning!

2006-03-10T15:37:00.000+01:00

Told you.

The Third Wave: first thoughts

2006-03-09T11:22:00.000+01:00

Today I've been re-reading "The Third Wave" from Alvin Toffler, a book edited in 1980 that reviews human history and the nowadays crisis from the perspective of three "revolution waves" going around the planet, changing the ways we live: The agricultural (first) wave, the industrial (second) wave, and the "third" wave (today we would call it the "information" wave, I guess). This point of view is not new, but the book itself is quite good. Not 100% true in its statements, but very accurate taking in account its age.

But the thing that shocked me hard was the introduction of the book. I'll reproduce here the first paragraph (in spanish).

En una epoca en que los terroristas practican juegos de muerte con rehenes; cuando las monedas se desploman entre rumores de una Tercera Guerra Mundial, arden las Embajadas y tropas de asalto hollan el suelo de numerosos países, nosotros contemplamos, horrorizado, los titulares de los periodicos. El precio del oro - Ese sensible barómetro del miedo - bate todos los récords. Tiemblan los Bancos. La inflación se dispara, incontrolada. Y los gobiernos del mundo quedan reducidos a la parálisis o la imbecilidad.

Ante todo esto, un apiñado coro de Casandras llena el airo con sus agoreros cantos. El proverbial hombre de la calle dice que el mundo "se ha vuelto loco", mientras que el experto señala todas las direcciones que conducen a la catástrofe.

Looks quite recent, to tell the truth. This is more or less the nowadays situation. There's diferences, of course; The soviets are no longer there, and the economic crisis is no more for a lot of countries that were in quite a bad shape then. But the basics of the situation are still there.

I'll post more about this as I read more parts of the book.

Links of the day

2006-03-09T10:31:00.000+01:00

Some photos of poor Iraqi terrorized children. Damn imperialists!

News of Civil War in Iraq... Kind of. And be sure to read this report of the atrocities commited by the Iraqi Army. (Yeah, I feel satirical today).

Now seriously.

The mother of a british girl killed by terrorists resigns from his church because she doesn't feel capable of forgiving the killers. My simpaties be with her. As the Fremen like to say, never forgive, never forget.

And, last of all, it looks like France is starting to follow the "Bush Doctrine". But I don't see the antiwar demonstrators anywhere. Strange, isn't it?

Links of the day

2006-03-05T16:22:00.000+01:00

Great harvest today! We have here some great links for you guys...

First of all, we have the adventures of a soldier in Democratic Underground. His mother should be proud of him.

After this, we have Gutfeld's Oscar Predictions for 2006.

Also, a good view about why Gun Control is a bad idea.

And last but not least, a great article from Salvador Sostres.

The end of Mahoromatic, Part II

2006-03-03T20:35:00.000+01:00

The ending of Mahoromatic

2006-03-03T10:38:00.001+01:00

Mahoromatic is one of the manga collections that I have been following for a while (maybe a couple of years), and finally yesterday I bought the last number of the collection.

I was a little afraid to do this. In case you don't know this manga, Mahoromatic is a romantic story about Mahoro, a female combat android who has retired from active service and tries to live a normal life, and Suguru, an orphan who lives alone in his house.

Although the beginning of the manga is not very good, and the storyline resembles extremely to lots of other mangas/animes, the story gets much better at the middle chapters. I definitely would recommend this manga to everyone. (And, for you guys, there's LOTS of fan service).

The only problem is that, I had heard than in the Anime version of the manga (the TV version) the end sucks, is completely awful. I haven't seen it but the information looks quite reliable.

That's why I was at first a bit affraid to read this last comic of the series. I didn't want one bad storyline to destroy all the enjoyment I had gotten from this wonderful series.

But, to my relief, I have to say than the comic end is much, MUCH better.

Won't say any details, though - No spoilers in this website.

More to come about this topic!

How to fight a REAL war

2006-03-02T11:25:00.000+01:00

A new piece of wisdom from His Majesty Emperor Misha I. Priceless, as usual.

Is Stalin winning after dead?

2006-02-28T00:01:00.000+01:00

A friend just told me about this great article, I think I read it some time ago but I don't remember when exactly...

Well, anyway, it's a must-read.

Update(28/02/06): I really HATE to be right. It's not that I believe that there's a russian conspiration right now, but the soviets definitely had something to do with the creation of the EU. Just take a look at the teatries, and at the projected EU constitution.

These days I've had the weird vision, that it won't be China, but the EU, that will be the next big foe of the United States. It may not come to that but, anyway, there will be quite a big mess, whatever happens.

And people asks me why I train myself in military instruction...

Don't say we didn't warn you!

2006-02-24T20:27:00.000+01:00

More profecies about the brilliant future of Europe.

I totally agree with the article, but I disagree with the afirmation that secularism is to blame for this decadence.

Decadence comes because of a lack of moral codes to follow, as it is happening right now in some countries of Europe (here in Spain it can be noticed everyday), but religion is not a requisite for moral codes, although it's true all religions have a moral code :p. The problem is, Europeans forgot to put something in the hole that religion left, and now they will pay for the error.

They can all go to hell. I'm going to Texas.

About our Religion of Peace(tm)

2006-02-24T20:14:00.000+01:00

Looks like someone put a science-fiction film in the wrong shelf, in Turkey:

Rantings of a Sandmonkey: Valley of the wolves

Now we know what country will be next after we deal with those Iranians. And this scum wanted to join the EU?

Oh, wait. Giving it a second thought, it's not THAT different of the pictures here.

Someone's joining the Crusade?

Project Aurora: Update

2006-02-22T13:34:00.000+01:00

Lately I've been writing the script of the first chapters of the book. I'm trying to make it very focused on the situation and the mistery of the whole city, but it's very hard to get exactly the kind of atmosphere I would like for the text. In fact, anyone that knows me knows that I usually don't use a lot of adjectives, and that is a BIG problem when writing anything that resembles a literature text. I guess I'm kinda of a logic guy.

Well, hell, of course I am.

That's why I always begin with kind of a film script. Just the facts, the big picture. This way, I can build the scenario first and then concentrate on all the "feeling" stuff. The problem is that, man, it makes you lose huge quantities of time. I guess that's part of the job, as well...

The first chapter is coming SOON. I hope it will be to the level of your expectations.

Lots of things

2006-02-21T16:34:00.000+01:00

1) I'm leaving to the academy in 30 minutes, but I'm quite tired.

2) Didn't tell you? I have a job! I'm working as a science teacher in an academy near here.

3) Can someone tell me why Palestine has not been nuked yet? I think we should rename it to "extra big target practice area".

4) In the same way, Iran will be renamed "Super deluxe gorgeous target practice area".

5) Pakistan, Syria and Lebanon to be renamed "targets of opportunity" as well. But I digress.

6) It's so sad that I don't know how to insert pictures in here, I would like to post all of the 12 famous cartoons, to further "inflame" the "arab street". Let's see if we can get their heads to spontaneously burn. Explode to be preferable.

7) By the way, those cartoons aren't what I would say "offensive", they aren't even funny. There's extremely bored people in this world. I am, too. :p

8) Time has ran out, I'm leaving for a while. See ya!

Update(22/2/06): I've been reviewing some old posts and correcting all the errors I could find. No content change, though.

Statistics and me

2006-02-21T15:03:00.000+01:00

It's been quite a long time since I last spoke about political and/or military matters, and now that the computer is free for a few hours in a row, I'll try to do something about it. But, to tell the truth, it may be difficult to say something worth of writing.

If you ever read any of the blogs and writers published around here about politics and you feel like a perfect idiot, you'll know exactly what I mean.

It's a statistical (and common sense) fact that, in any group of people and any field, there will be one, and only one, person that will be "the best" in that field (this means, to know something better, to do something better, etc.). This also means that, for everyone else in that group, there will always be someone who will be better than them at that field, even if that person is the close second (there's still the best one to beat).

Incidentally, the bigger the group, the bigger proportion of people that will have someone above them. In a group of 10 people, there will be 9 persons in that situation, that makes 9/10 = 90% of the people. If the group was of 100 people, there would be 99 people in that situation, that is 99/100 = 99% of people. Finally, in a group of, say, 1 million people, there will be 999.999 people out of 1.000.000 in that situation, for a proportion of 99,9999%. And we could go on and on. We could go right ahead and say that 99,99999998 of the world population is worse than someone else (always, remember, in a certain field).

This is mathematically true, but in the real life it doesn't work exactly this way. There may be someone out there who knows to make RPG plots better than me, for example (sure it is), but I may never hear about him, so, that I know, I'll be the better on my field, and that's exactly what everyone thinks in that situation. This means, the "effective population" from where to take the numbers isn't the total population (all 6 billion of us), but only the ones I know or I hear about, that will be more about the number of 10.000 people.

This number is made even smaller by the fact that someone that I know may have some ability, but I may not know that. In fact, in every field, this "virtual world" may be as little as 100 persons or less. This means that, in normal conditions, anyone has a 1% ratio of virtually being "the best" in one field.

For example, I can say that I am aware of the knowledge about military history of around 100 persons that are around me (I'm excluding Internet now), and I can pretty much say that I'm the one with the best knowledge about this field. That is, no one that I know phisically knows more about military history than me (that I know). So, it would seem pretty much easy to write about new ideas and new facts of military history, that would seem to the rest of the people like a good work or article.

But here comes another factor, that gives our theory a new dimension: Internet.

If I am looking for someone that could beat me in any field, classically I would have to ask all the persons I know, of whom a lot of them may even not know what's that field I am talking about, and the others would be good at that field, maybe better or worse than me. But, if I look at internet, I'll find, in a few seconds, information about hundreds and thousands of persons who are so good at that field that my poor knowledge looks worth that of a stone-age chaman.

That's basically the problem. When I get to write about anything, and I got some ideas to explain, it is made obvious than, when I compare my entry to the others in the net, there's lots of them who say the same I said, with better words, better style, and even more who say things I could have never thought of by myself. And, I don't know how you would feel about this, but it really depresses me. Call me narcicist.

Want some examples?

Bill Wittle (at www.ejectejecteject.com) writes the best essays about the american spirit and freedom philosophy that I have ever seen. A bit long, though, but in every essay he gets you to do a long journey around the world of the ideas, and when you get home again, you are a new person, having visited lots and lots of concepts and experiences in a few minutes. Kinda Kwistaz Haderach style, if you ask me. He has been one of my best references since I discovered his site.

Steven Den Beste (at www.denbeste.nu) is an engineer who writes just about everything: moral, buildings, computer systems, philosophy, politics, war, anime... He always communicates in all his posts using pure logic combined with a light flavor of common sense, that makes a perfect mix. He seems to know just about everything (or, if he doesn't know, he'll make a way to it), and it's able to say whatever he wants to say much better than almost anyone else.

Just to say a few.

That's what happens when you mess with the big league, I guess.

But I'll continue trying.

Update: MIDGAR 002

2006-01-24T22:15:00.000+01:00

THIRD ESTIMATION

Last but not least, we have another version of how the real Midgar could be, given to us by the film "FFVII: Advent Children".

In this sites we can see some pictures (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII) about how Midgar looks like. In all the pictures we can see than the city is much bigger than what we had previously estimated (that's to expect: we're looking at a realistic picture).

We will start with the first picture.

From the game, we know that Shin-Ra inc. HQ is a 70-story building, with every floor being pretty wide.

I'll supose that every one of the floors is 4 meters tall. This would make 70x4=280 meters of altitude. Plus, we know that the building starts at the upper level, that makes 280+50 meters = 320 meters.

If we look at picture nº1, from my point of view the upper section has a radius equal to more or less 2,5 times the Shin-Ra tower height (from the upper level), that would mean a radius of 800 m.

Also from the picture, looks like the central level of the city is as wide as another 300 meters (diameter). This gives us a radius of 150m.

The total available area in each level will be, then, pi*(800^2-150^2)=1.939.876,25 square meters. This is as much as 2.5 times the area of our last estimation. If we applied the same conditions than before, we would have a population of 63.000 people. This doesn't solve our problem. After all, I don't think my town (65.000 people) could EVER sustain such an army and structures.

But, from other pictures, it appears like if the city was, in fact, MUCH more bigger (after all, there are quite long highways going above the walls of the city, as we can appreciate in the film. I would assume that the director was much more interested in making a good scenario for the final fight than to make it, say, real (although, at first sight, it looks pretty good).

Finally, there's a good question to do: what if the population density is higher than we calculated? in the film we can see pretty big buildings, and very concentrated. This could leave us a rate 5 or 10 times higher than we expected, and this makes 300.000 - 600.000 people (big numbers here!)

Not sure about that, though.

Update(26/1/06): BTW, looks like there are some kinda problems with the pictures.

Project Aurora: Storyline finished!

2006-01-17T23:19:00.000+01:00

At least, after many turns in the story, I've finished the main plot of what will be (eventually) my first novel. Its provisional name will be "Aurora", although chances are that it will change at some point of the creation of the text.

The whole book will talk about history and "the perfect society", all stagered in a future-era martian metropolis, Aurora city. I'll not release any details yet but I'll post the new chapters as they are written, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it as much as I'm enjoying planning it.

You.Gotta.See.This. Period.

2005-12-01T22:10:00.000+01:00

Just watch it. And laugh.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=107179

(follow the .wmv link)

Updated: MIDGAR 001

2005-11-29T13:59:00.000+01:00

From where shall we begin? I think the most appropiate place to start our journey would be the dimensions and proportions of our city.

To get the proportions, in theory, is not a very difficult task. The game itself provides us with plenty of images and panoramics to try to catch approximately how the dimensions of the city relate. But then, we have to decide to what image we believe, because some of them are quite contradictory. For example, this one shows an aerial view of the city, but there are other pictures in which the same view looks completely different.

In the first picture, for example, one can see that the walls and the middle building are quite big and that the actual inhabitated part of the city is maybe less than 50% of the surface - merely 8 tiny portions in the middle of this big piece of cement.

But in the second one, one can see that the central building and the walls are not as big as they appeared at first, although the image is not very clear because of the devastation that appears in that picture. But by simple common sense we can estimate that this image is quite more realistic than the first one.

FIRST ESTIMATION

If we have to believe this site's point of view, looks like in every section of the city (in the upper sections) there are something like 100-200 buildings, mostly residential and industrial. The lower sections would be even less populated, maybe 50 buildings (or less) between the debris.
That would do a total of 800-1600 buildings in the upper level and something like 400 buildings in the lower ones.

This assumption seems quite correct from looking at this picture, since you can even appreciate individual buildings quite good from a panoramic view at the whole city.

Assuming that a quarter of the upper buildings and three quarters of the lower ones are dwellings, and assuming an average density of 3-4 persons per dwelling, we've got a total of 500-700 dwelling in the city, which make a total population of 1.500 - 2.800 h.

Looks OK for an RPG, but from a realistic point of view, doesn't it feel strange that the biggest metropolis of the world, and ruler of all the know civilization, has less than 10.000, even 100.000 people? As said, OK for a game, but not realistic.

SECOND ESTIMATION

Assuming true the (only) statement in the game about the size of the city, we know that the distance between the levels is 50m. Looking at the same picture than before, it would look like the whole city has a radius of maybe 500m, 100m of these occupied by ShinRa HQ. This would leave a base area of pi*(500* 500-100*100) = 753.982,08 square meters for each level.

The upper level seems to have available only 3/4 of its space (due to the walls, the Mako reactor and other structures), and of this space, we will assume just 20% is occupied by dwellings (after all, we will have plenty of shops, industries, and - between other things - roads and railroads). In the game it looks like most of the dwellings in the upper level are appartment buildings, like Junon - kinda an european city. Say, an average of 4 flats per buildings. It's supposed to be quite a middle-level city (although I wonder where do all the rich people - and ShinRa executives - live), so we will estimate 90 square meters per dwelling. In each one of these dwellings there will be an average of 3 people. That would be 150.796,4 available square meters, 1.676 buildings, 6.702 dwellings, 20.106 people.

The lower level is not much more than debris and some shacks, with some inhabited areas (like the Wall Market, or Don Corneo's surroundings, or the areas near the railroad stations. So we would say 10% of the area is available for dwellings. Most houses there are small, 40-70 square meters, with a single family in each one (lots of kids, though - say 4 people per dwelling). this makes 75.398 square meters, 1.077 dwellings, 4.308 people.

This makes a total of 24.414 population. Much better than the first attempt, but still very low. This number falls one to three orders below what we would expect of a world capital like Midgar. By the numbers alone, we should accept that the Midgar that the game gives us is wrong.

There are some more reasons to think this way. If the city has a diameter of 1 km, this means we can cross it walking (3 km/h) in 20 minutes, or by car (40 km/h) in a minute and half. How is it that Midgar has such a railroad system, then? I could understand that a couple of rails exist to move goods between levels and sectors (although, you know, trucks are for that), but why to build a railroad station in every sector then?

Then, there's the military reason. Assuming that the main source of troops is Midgar, and that every person in 100 works for the military (based on statistics from various countries), this would give an army of 244 people. Of these ones, half are support troops and the other ones are actual grunts (quite an optimistic view - the usual ratio is 10% combat troops). This leaves us with 122 soldiers. Given that in the game the characters kill much more than this number of troops, we shall conclude that in this side the city also fails. Not to talk about the navy or the air force.

Also, there' an economic side. There's no way 25.000 people and a corporation can generate enough economic power to build and mantain an army, Midgar itself, a giant cannon, and an aberrant scientific program, not to talk about the space program. Just to give some examples.

So, we shall conclude that, definitely, the Midgar the game gives us doesn't work.

The link I used mostly, has some reliable information (not too much, though): http://members.tripod.com/~CastorTr0y/NeoMidgar.html

(Post finally finished on 29/NOV/05, 13:58)

Update(20:17): I've been thinking about the possibility that Junon may be even bigger than Midgar (in population), based in the game pictures. After all, it contains a seaport, an airport, a huge military base and hundreds of meters of streets with tall apartment buildings - although there's the possibility than, apart from the small town outside the walls, it isn't nothing more than a huge military base (see the Sister Ray and the huge bunch of artillery displayed when Weapon attacks with short notice). But then, we're back to the economic issue... who's gonna pay for all these guns?

Project MIDGAR

2005-09-02T03:16:00.000+02:00

I've been long time wondering how Midgar might be if it was built in the reality. Have you ever wondered how many population Midgar has? Or what dimensions it has? How many budget does Shin-Ra have? How many troops? Wouldn't you have given away all your money to have its maps?

If you don't, this means you are not a freak. Get out of my site.

If you do, maybe you can help me in my new work: Answering these and other questions about one of the most famous cities in the freak mytology, and everything in the most pure logical-mathematical-nerd style.

I'm already working on the very first steps, but if any of you have some ideas or knowledges about this topic, feel free to email me here or leave a comment.

By the way, a very interesting link, here.

Some fun quotes FF7 characters would never say

2005-09-01T03:55:00.000+02:00

I don't like to copy things from other pages, but this is hilarious. Here are some of the quotes one can read at http://forums.ffshrine.org/showthread.php?t=16196 . Too much for the body baby...

Red XIII: "WAAA MY TAIL'S ON FIRE!!!"

Barret: "I'm changing my name to Ashley!"

Sephiroth: "Man, Mom, has anyone ever told you you look like a bloody freak?"

Sephiroth: "AHHHH!!!SOMEBODY!!!SMASH THAT BUG!!!"

Palmer: "Do I look fat?"

Aerith: "Cloud? you know the real reason why I like you? BECAUSE YOU LOOK LIKE ZACK! THAT'S IT, I DON'T CARE ABOUT CLOUD, I CARE ABOUT ZACK!"

Sephiroth: (after killing aeris) "OH, GOD! WHAT HAVE I DONE? IM A MURDERER, A MURDERER!!!!!!"

Sephiroth, walking through the flames in Nibelheim:"Owww! Oh, shit, owww! That hurts! Crap!"

Vincent-"HAPPY, HAPPY, JOY, JOY!!!!!!"

Barret-"Its jus' cos' im black isnt it?!"

Cloud: "Tifa, I have a confession... I think your boobs are TOO big."

Barret: "Here's your pay Cloud; 15 bazillion gil."

Tifa: "Cloud, I think you should end up with Aeris. She's definetly the right girl for you.*voice starts to accelerate and volume increases* Even if she is a stupid bitch who doesn't where the hell to put her innocent little-- *calms down, realizing her carrying on* Oh, what does it matter. You think my boobs are too big anyway!"

Yuffie: "Everybody, the error of my ways has made me confess. I hate materia! Take it, take it all!"

Aeris: "Time for a new lifestlye.. goth looks good."

Yes, I'm bored. So what.

Freakies of the world, unite!

2005-09-01T00:13:00.000+02:00

While trying to recover from my (kind of) illness, I've found what seems to be an invaluable link with information regarding to the Lord of the Games, FFVII. I've to look through a couple of things to certify that it's not another piece of junk as many others, but looks promising.

You can see it by yourself at: http://www.returnergames.com/worldbooks/ff7/ff7.html

Update (15:49): I have gone through much of the place, some of the material is quite good (the average level is the best I have ever seen in the net) but don't expect TOO much. And, as the song says, I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

Update (16:00): What looks to be another good link: http://forums.ffshrine.org/forumdisplay.php?s=69009329f60db39df22102f09b658c35&f=25 A forum with an unusual quantity of non-typical and deep topics. Not recommended if you are not an expert in the field :p . I'll look at it more in deep in my next 60-minute conection.

New project

2005-08-31T03:15:00.000+02:00

Another phenomena related to fever is an unnatural increase of creativity (some call this "allucination"), that has resulted very useful in the design of what will be my next -first- novel. No advances yet, but you can expect the first chapter by... Christmas, maybe :p

Rejoice!!!

Update(17/01/2006): This new project will be called "Project Aurora". Some advances have been made already.

I'm ill! Yaaayyy!

2005-08-31T03:07:00.000+02:00

I hope illnesses don't propagate through internet: If they do, you are in trouble :p

I don't think it's anything serious (after all, I've had enough energy to ride a couple of miles to get to the library), but today my selling timetable has ended somewhat early, say, at 16:15 (instead of 21:30), because of an unexpected tiredom, extremity pain and diziness, phenomena usually related to the increase of body temperature called fever. Looks like today I'll have to take it easy... and depending how it evolves, maybe tomorrow I'll take a break as well. Doesn't look to be anything important but, who knows...

To tell the truth, I was actually thinking of taking a couple of days of break, but looks like nature has taken care of this for me. Thanks nature... (you b**tard...)

News from the bookfield

2005-08-25T01:44:00.000+02:00

Hi, I'm still alive!

For the ones who didn't know already, I'm currently in my 7th week of door-to-door selling in the old city of Bakersfield, the hottest city in the whole California except Las Vegas, with temperatures going from 90*F to 110*F (30*C to 45*C), surrounded by evil black widows and crazy Americans who won't buy my books... mmm... a dream came true.

Not really...

Just that you know what I'm doing. That's why the posting rate has been SO low lately (the exams helped somewhat as well). I don't think anyone cares about that 'cos till the moment I think I only have one reader but...

Really, living for so long (one month and half) in the US has been very instructive in so many aspects, but I REALLY miss one good ol' Mechwarriors game with my friends there in Vilanova. Only one month more to go... Strengh and honor!

If I get very bored maybe I'll post something actually intelligent one of these days.

Update (29/8/05):Looks like I have actually TWO readers... we're improving!!

Some essays worth reading

2005-05-28T15:53:00.000+02:00

Another great essay by the greatest essayist in the blogosphere, Bill Whittle. It's called Sanctuary (part I and II).

From Emperor Misha I, some awesome reflexions about Star Wars, Jedis and Siths. You will see things very different when you finish reading, guaranted.

To read both of them you may need a couple of hours, so keep that in mind when planning your timetable.

After-Action Report, and some thoughts

2005-05-24T00:31:00.000+02:00

Today has happened one of these few epic debates that show from time to time in the life of a conservative behind enemy lines. It has been both a revealing experience, a mental and emotional challenge, and something I have really enjoyed.

I haven't been precisely treated in a way the nowadays progressist could consider "fair": A 5 versus 1 debate about Israel and the great world powers in the middle of english class. The typical conflict that starts when someone says something "politically correct" assuming everyone agrees with him, and from somewhere appears an appalling "no, I don't think so".

After a few seconds of absolute silence, one of the group turns to me and asks me to explain what I mean with a face saying, "come on, be a good boy...". No way. After some more tries from other classmates, the rules blow up and dirty fight on greasy oil begins. Nothing new; I've done that so many times that for me is a pure routine thing. Showtime! Or should I say ready, aim, fire? Execution would be the word that most suits to what has taken place at that room.

I have felt like a marine in a base being attacked by mortar squads: First you see a smoke cloud far there in the far mountain, then the eternal falling of the projectile, then a loud BOOUM at a few hundred meters.

And then the party begins. The counterbattery system detects the mortar and calculates its origin, and the 155mm cannons turn and aim that point, then, BOUM! BOUM! the mortar site dissapears. Vaporizes.

The debate has been that way. Someone in the Political Correct Brigade said an objection with under-minimum logical basis behind it, and a few seconds later I nailed it. And, to cite The Patriot, "I'm glad. I'm glad I nailed them". For me is something like a national sport, in which I have a lot of practice. A sport I LOVE playing. (By the way, this is something my opponents never seem to understand; for them it is painful to see someone not already abducted by the collective mind, for me is pure pleasure).

It isn't very difficult, either. It can be described as eating rice with sticks: nearly impossible, if you don't know how to do; easy as adding, if you know how to manage the situation. To the point that managing five opponents at your will becomes as simple as taking the rice from the bowl to your mouth.

And that's how I learnt it. I've been immersed in enemy territory since I was born (child of a hippy family, relative to peace-and-love aunts and uncles), and when I opened my eyes to the real world (say, two years ago) I realized I was ALONE. Simply and plainly, alone in a sea of liberal bork sharks constantly trying to assimilate me to the political correct leftist collective. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.

This situation plays as a natural selector for conservatives. Either you are simply undecided or not very convinced, or not very logical, in that case you are thrown to the sharks, or you have the resolution to grow up as a logical and independent person even with all these things surrounding you.

I chose the second way. And I'm glad I did, because I have learnt more things about the world and the people in the two last years than in the eighteen that went before.

Yeah, I've lost a lot of things because of this choice too. Some friends. A lot of friends. A possible girlfriend (dunno that for sure - I should ask her one of these days). Lots of personal relationships that could have been much more close and confortable, and are instead cold and distant.

But, even that has been compensed. I've discovered some friends that haven't gone away even when discovered I wasn't assimilated. I've discovered seas of philosophy and ideas that would have never been navigable if I had not done that choice. I discovered the real world out there, I saw it with my own eyes rather than with the ones of the collective, and realized... so many things. I realized I could SEE.

What would have happened if I hadn't done that choice? I'll probably would be sitting here, playing Half-Life or something of that sort, thinking about the demostration of tomorrow's morning while chatting with a cute ecologist girl, and blaming amerikkka for my failed exams and my empty pocket.

But I did not do that. I chose the red pill.
And now I see.

Update(22/2/06): Yesterday I watched again The Matrix, and realized the "matrix" pill is the red one, not the blue... Geekness failure here, I guess.

News from Iraq (this time, the good ones)

2005-05-23T22:12:00.000+02:00

(via Barcepundit) Chrenkoff shows his 26th review of the good news happening in Iraq. Recommended for left-wingers.

One point for the locals!

2005-05-23T21:23:00.000+02:00

(via Barcepundit): A left-winger abandons the camp, suddenly being revealed the light because... Guess what:

A must read.

Just divagating

2005-05-18T14:50:00.000+02:00

(via Barcepundit comments) "If America is the Empire and Bush is Darth Vader, ¿Is Al-Qaeda a Jedi organization?" (the original in spanish)

This has made me think quite a bit. Going straigh with this interpretation, and seemingly the one of George Lucas, if the United States of America are the eeeevil Empire (although I would say "the Rumsfeld Strangler" is Darth Vader - Bush would do better as Emperor) and the great martyrs of Al-Qaeda are the brave people who fight them, we could argue that Bin Laden is a perfect candidate to be Luke Skywalker (after all, the surname suits him [black humor warning]). Then Al-Zarkawi could be Han Solo, the great explosives smuggler (if Zarkawi's still not in pieces). But following the analogy till the end, they have to rescue princess Leia, who is being held by the Empire in the Death Star (dunno... the Pentagon?) so Leia must be either Iraq or Saddam Hussein... (personally I think Iraq it's a better analogy).

Again, if either Saddam or Iraq are the Princess, they have a robot that contains secret plans to destroy the Death Star... which are these plans? An A-Bomb, maybe? Something worse? Where is Endor? Too many questions for a single day...

2005-05-18T09:44:00.000+02:00

(via IMAO) Gotta see this before you see Star Wars III: "Countdown: 15 things to think about Before Star Wars III"

What does keep Europe united?

2005-05-18T00:44:00.000+02:00

Just see this article from Steven Zak: Priceless.

Nobody told me selling books was THAT hard...

2005-05-18T00:10:00.000+02:00

Phew...

How could I know that the apparently simple art of knocking on doors and selling products was so complex? Is not that difficult really, I mean, you "simply" go there, knock the door, pronounce your speech, and get cash... But, as little as I know, the reality is much, much more complex.

The simple task of going to the door becomes a premeditated process for the professional salesman. First, he leaves his bag in front of the door, both as a phisical element of separation between him and the potencial buyer (to make the buyer feel less stressed), and to give him an advantageous position to influence on the decision of the buyer, since the salesman has to advance to the door to take the bag again, and this move can make a response become a "yes" for the pure psicological pressure. After knocking the door, he walks a couple of steps behind, and turns to a side, to make the person who's going to open the door not feel intimidated, thus increasing your chances of getting a sale.

And this is only the first part. After the preparation comes the real challenge. In 30 seconds, the salesman has to be able to explain his client that he is not what he would expect of a salesman: a well-dressed, handsome man with a case full of books and CDs. Instead, he is an average student, miles from home, who is trying to do his job the best he can, and he really is interested in helping you with the studies, he doesn't only care about the money. Not as easy as it sounds.

If the plans go as scheduled, then he is inside the house, preparing the great presentation of the books he is selling. There is where life and death are decided: The more clarity and confidence you can communicate, the more interest you show for the family, the more inclined the person will be to buy your books. Simple but, again, not easy. At all.

And only after these few steps (and maybe 15 minutes of non-stop talking), you may be given the privilege to sell a book to an actual client. Statistics say this will happen each 2 out of 30 times - that sounds pretty bad, but the thing is you can get a lot of money - after all the effort. It may sound a little bit suicide to travel 10,000 kilometers to do this kind of job, but hey, when I'm back, I'll be like "relativity exam? EASYYY! I've done worse things before.", not to mention the money I'll make. Besides, I bet this helps to get a cute girlfriend...

Suuuure.

Founder Ideas

2005-05-17T16:20:00.000+02:00

This was my original ideals declaration of my blog. I don't know if I'll change something of it, but for the moment that'll do until I get some time and review all this chaos.

Founder Ideas

Update (18/5/05): Link corrected

Returning from the undead

2005-05-17T16:16:00.000+02:00

Test type blog initializing...

Menu bar...............................................GO
Main page..............................................GO
Personal page..........................................GO
Images.................................................GO

The North Cave is GO and running! Hi all, and welcome to my new site.
The North Cave Weblog
Just sit down, relax and have a good time. Party's just begun.

I wrote that something like 15 months ago, thinking that, having a blog would turn me into a consumate writer and make me stop wasting time and do something productive - daily (if a homemade web like that one could be considered a blog - I mean, it had no comments or anything like that). The place was The North Cave Weblog (Galeon version). It will remain online until the server shuts it down, but maybe I'll move some of the content to this new blog, or to the definitive one if I decide to try other servers (although it seems all of them are quite the same).

After something like a year without posting anything, I've decided to try it again - Because of many reasons.

The first one is that I feel like it; It's no secret that I love reading, writing, and giving my opinion about virtually everything (except, maybe, the sexual behavior of the manchurrian bees), and the thing is, here in Commieland, there's quite few people able to talk about politics, economy, or military, without screaming "you're a nazi imperialist" or something of that sort. I hope here in the net there will be more reasonable people to talk with, and exchange views.

The second one is that, after spending some years reading a lot of different blogs (or "opening the eyes to the world", if you ask me), I feel that I have something to contribute, to pay back to the net. Even if it is a mediocre comment to another blogger's post, maybe some day I'll say something new and original, or I'll post something that, although not being very impressive, will make another blogger create a great new idea, and this will be my way to contribute to the warblogosphere. If that happens anyday, I'll feel it has been worth my time. If I'm lucky I'll even learn something from it...

My third reason comes close to the second, and in fact it's the same one seen from a different angle: The patriotic one. We are at war, and our civilization needs every help we can give to face the new challenges of this world. This works out there in the material world, and here in the blogosphere. As Steve den Beste and Bill Whittle like to point out, as important as the actual war is the "information" war, the great battle in the market of ideas, that is our real weak point. Although a single person surely cannot be a great difference in such a massive war, as in the last point, if I can make something that helps the side of freedom to achieve victory, I will do it.

The last reason is that in a short time (one month and half), I'll be leaving for two entire months to the U.S. to work. My first job ever. Not bad, is it? The thing is, I have to improve my english a hell of a lot, because I'll be using it nonstop during the whole summer, 24/7.

Now you know. For those who care about it, I'm back!

Welcome to the North Cave Weblog!

Update (18/5/05): Some language errors corrected. Did I tell you I have to improve my english?

Test Type Entry

2005-05-17T12:22:00.000+02:00

If America is the Empire, then please prepare a black helmet and uniform for me too.
- Arthur Chrenkoff

Update (18/5/05): Link added