Despair from Pakistan

A columnist whose work I admire and respect, Ardeshir Cowasjee, writes of the despair of the educated middle class youth of his country Pakistan. Many are desperate to leave the country.

Cowasjee seems to share their despair:
They point out that there is no governance because those who have been put where they are with an aim to govern have neither the will nor the intent, that their prime motivation is the lining of their pockets and the fleeting joys that accompany power. They have read and heard why and how, from president downwards, the main powerbrokers carry on their broad shoulders heavy baggage from yesteryear.
***
They know how a once viable country has been overtaken by religious extremism which, combined with the spirit of jihad as encouraged by the military that claims to be the ideological guardian of the nation, has spread a poison that has seeped into the national mindset. They realise the inherent dangers of the false pride that boasts of the possession of nuclear assets without giving one minuscule thought to the implications of such possession.

Cowasjee is not giving up. But I wonder how possible he thinks his solution is? Read the whole thing, if only to see English used in a totally un-English environment.

Coming to a beach near you soon

If you are on the east coast, or the Gulf coast, you may be making plans for a fun filled week at the beach this summer.

Don't.

Bubonic Plague: Not just for Medievalists anymore

Seems the Black Death is back. Via Andrew Sullivan and Chris Bodenner:

As practitioners of the Dark Ages, what goes around comes around:

At least 40 al-Qaeda fanatics died horribly after being struck down with [bubonic plague, which], swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. ... Now al-Qaeda chiefs fear the plague has been passed to other terror cells — or Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. One security source said: "This is the deadliest weapon yet in the war against terror. Most of the terrorists do not have the basic medical supplies needed to treat the disease. It spreads quickly and kills within hours. This will be really worrying al-Qaeda."

However, after noting a "total blackout from the Algerian media," Olivier Guitta says that Western nations should also be worried:

[I]magine if one of the infected individuals board a flight to Paris, London or New York, this person could be the means of "delivering" the weapon. The damage could be enormous.

While modern antibiotics can easily knock out the disease, it must be administered quickly, and still carries a 5% mortality rate.

Kind of a mixed curse, so to speak. But it is no laughing matter.

THE worst movie of 2008?

Other than a political documentary about the campaign? Hard to say. Clemens and Carmen did not watch too many movies and those we did watch were often for the under 12 set. "Wall-E" was great, "Bolt" merely very good. I can't even think of what else we have seen this year, good or bad.

But don't stress. The Washington Post comes to our rescue with an article detailing all of the worst of the worst as compiled by Rotten Tomatoes scores. Infallible.

And the loser is ... "One Missed Call." No. I didn't see it. Apparently the critics who were paid to see it were the only ones who did. Its rating on the Tomatometer was 0. It's a remake of a Japanese horror flick about people who get creepy messages on their cellphones.

BTW, to leave no dead horse unbeaten, here is what the article had to say about one of my betes noirs, Ben Stein's "Expelled."

Here's what the Globe and Mail had to say about Stein's attack on a scientific orthodoxy that allows no room for consideration of the so-called intelligent design theory of creation. The film, which garnered a Tomatometer score of 10, is "an appallingly unscrupulous example of hack propaganda and it sucketh mightily. What's more, I didn't laugh once."

If you can't laugh at anti-science propaganda, what's the point?

but at least it earned a Tomatometer rating of 10 out of 100.

The Destruction of a Galaxy

Click here.

What you are looking at is a jet from a black hole touching the edge of a galaxy a bit less than a million years ago.

A galaxy. Home to millions of planets that might have earth like conditions and, perhaps, earth like sentient creatures.

Wonder what they worshiped as they underwent this destruction?

A few thoughts on the bridge disaster in Minneapolis

As I described in the last post you can see that I take this accident very seriously. It is unlikely given the size of the place that I knew anyone dead or injured, but I may make a few phone calls this weekend, just in case.

The 35W bridge was built in '57, I think. It was at the time the best engineering that we could give it. It has been regularly inspected and while the last few inspections found deficiencies, this does not mean that it was in any danger of collapse.

Now Minnesota has, rightly, a reputation for clean government and a lack of corruption. That doesn't mean that something wasn't fudged, just that it might be less likely than elsewhere. Minnesota, on the whole, has always been more willing than most states to put money into its infrastructure.

In other words, if this could happen to an 50 year old bridge in Minneapolis, it can damn sure happen anywhere else in our aging and rusting transportation system. The problem has been noted for over two decades at least. No level of government wants to spend the money needed to keep these things in good shape. And they certainly are not willing to raise taxes for something that the public could not "see." So the bridges continue to deteriorate.

For all of you out there who think that government is the problem and should be starved of taxes so it can be spent on something better (bigger houses? more toys? bigger cars?), just keep telling yourself that the next time you cross a bridge with your loved ones on the back seat.

I'll be praying for you.