Random Thought

That was a What If? but an interesting one.I think the actor who plays Special Agent Coulson on
Marvel's Agenst of S.H.I.E.L.D. would have made a good choice if you want to go with more
recent actors.  

ISIS/ISIL/IS or whatever they call themselves this week came out and announced they were going to
attack the Kaaba in Mecca.Not even Al Qaida is that moronic.
And now the Sunnis in Iraq who welcomed them as liberators are fed up with their desecrations and
beheadings.

The bbc has release a report about the Dr.'s leaked stuff
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28291316
Now I'm intrigued.

ISIL That's a joke. They are not gonna want to alienate all their saudi supporters. Nor could they breach the border. If any it would have to be an inside job. But then again they would act in the interest of Iran, their shiite enemy. So no way.

Looks like the Gaza conflict is nearing the end as expected.

Edit: nearly forgot.
The public is being encouraged to apply names for exoplanets.
http://nameexoworlds.org/
The catch is only astronomy organizations & clubs are eligible to submit 1 name for the selected 305 planets. And only the top 20-30 systems will be selected for actually naming. Voting starts in October!
So Mitsuki, your acosiate's club needs to be official first, then registers and apply.

Names for exoplanets:
1.Vulcan
2.Q'onos
3.Jurai
4.Nemesis
5.Praxis

How's that?  

Twitchy had fun with a cover article in Rolling Stone about the 5 most dangerous firearms in America:
1.guns
2.pistols
3.rifles
4.automatic weapons
5.derringers

and you think it was a slow day over there at Rolling Stone?

Speaking of Twitchy,I didn't read it but it seems that Thor comic over at Marvel is having a bit of a er..."change" in character.  
I think considering the "change" in question they ought to rename it Thora now.

Those names may fall under copyright, though.

I believe guns covers it all, hence, guns rule.
But a derringer is elegant!

I bet they change Thor so he is more movie compatible.

----------
The Malaysian flight MH-17 was obviously shot down over the Ukraine. Of course obviously by a large missile; no way a portable missile can go 5 nautical miles. I bet Putin is quite upset. Anyhow, the world's gonna come down onto this case. This will likely end the conflict.

There's rumor the black boxes/flight recorders and missile (evidence) were move to russia for destruction... This gonna be interesting. And Putin's speech is at its political best as if it has nothing to do with him.
In any case I don't see much coverage for the people who lost their loved ones. There's only a single press conference in Malaysia nothing compared to before. It's such tragedy.  

Part of the blame has to go to the European version of the FAA since they said it was ok to fly over what is after all an active war zone.
Everyone is blaming everyone else so we may never really get the correct facts, at least not for awhile.

James Garner died at age 86 on Sunday.Best known for playing rugged everymen such as Bret Maverick
on Maverick and Jim Rockford onThe Rockford Files,he was an authentic war hero winning
not one but two purple hearts during Korea.
Besides his two well known shows he also appeared in two Western Spoofs:
Support Your Local Gunfighter and its sequel Support Your Local Sheriff.
He also appeared in the big screen version of his iconic tv Western that starred Mel Gibson in Garner's
role of Bret Maverick as a sheriff.
Garner was fortunate in not only his roles but also his co-stars:Jack Kelly who played brother Bart
Maverick and pre-James Bond Roger Moore who played their English cousin on Maverick.
On The Rockford Files he was just as fortunate to work with veteran character actor Noah
Berry as Jim Rockford's down to earth and practical retired truck driver father affectionaly known
as 'Rocky' and John Santos as Rockford's often put upon and bemused best friend police detective
sergeant Dennis Becker who often gave Rockford a rather reluctant hand in his cases.
According to Adam West's book Back To The Batcave in real life Garner was the same way he appeared on screen in real life,and the behind the scenes workers such as the carpenters and
grips knew he was their friend and would always take their side.
so long Bret!        

RIP.
I'm so used with him in oldies I thought he was already gone. I know he was in the "new" Maverick movie but... *shrugs*

Certain groups in africa seem to have used the opportunity (attention gap) made by the media to start lots of havoc. Most interestingly Lybian attacks on the Egyptian border. Obviously some want to join hamas/ISIL.

Anyway, Switzerland has signed a treaty with China for the exchange of Renminbi. With no import tax among each other it seems switzerland wants to expands as the man in the middle for others, too...called exchange hub dream.

I goofed...it's Joe Santos not John....  

Looks like Tony Dungy is getting heat for saying that he wouldn't have drafted Michael Sam because of all the distraction.The fact is that there has been too much of a circus about Sam's homosexuality
even before the draft combine.

Someone in Mosul is going around tagging the ISIL anti-Christian graffiti by adding:"We are all
Christians".So looks like there might be a bit of a silent resistance.

At least according to the folks at Breitbart.

If I were those in iraq I would simply tag all homes, hence, level field.
Since the government sucks there's nothing to expect any time soon.
They might be better off splitting up now so other people can take the initiative resolving the problem.

Two ukrainian Su-25s got shot down. The ukrainian government says they were shot from 17000 ft(5000 m) and out of russia. If true those must be longer range missiles something in the 100 nautical miles range. (New real long-range are in the 400 nm range)
At least some of the dead were returned today to the netherlands. Some of my dutch associates should be relieved now. It was bad enough to swipe the dead of their personal effects but moving and keeping them somewhere is just an unspeakable thing to do.

True that.Though looting isn't anything new in wartime,unfortunately.

We had a big storm here during the last couple days.We weren't hit too bad but other places are still out of power 48 hours later.

Hey guys,
been busy a bit, but it's better late than newer at times like this
Wish i could add something you don't know, but as far as i can see from the papers - the news more or less represent the situation here, except for "quantity" factor. Especially when it comes to kia statistics - multiply at least by 10 and you'll get the idea...
During past couple of months it looked like we gonna push separatists out soon, but the closer to russian border it is now the harder it gets. First it's almos impossible to tell who's firing - is it separatists or is it coming from russian territory. Those two jets are one of such examples.
Right now Donetsk is strategic point and the hardest one. Urban warfare is a big no for such unskilled army, although the main problem is different - lack of proper command chain, poor supply and coordination, poor counter-intelligence (the information gets leaked all the time) etc.
Everyone knows we need to fight, but nobody sure how and where...and so "rage-rtillery" keep firing.
Honesly - i have no idea if it's gonna end anytime soon. Believe it or not - enemy has clear advantage in hardware. Most of the "fights" happen like this: ukrainian soldiers come to a certain spot and that spot gets bombarded with Grads or grenade launchers. Most don't even see any real enemies they can shoot at. Separatists even have drones

So the only weak spot - is russian support&supply of the separatists. Otherwise, no matter how few they are - if they are better armed, especially for long-range fights

There's another problem - the country is running out of resources while taking casualities. The third wave of mobilization has been signed and now people are summoned to army...almost everyone, not just people who had strong army experience. This begins to scare and anger people, especially with all the news about soldiers starving, surviving for days under Grad bombardments, poor command, entire batallions wiped out etc.
While there's no doubt of Russia involvement in all of this, on the other side there's popular joke among people - "The US will oppose Russia...until the last Ukrainian" Not sure how much truth in that saying..

That's probably no joke. I hope you don't have to get into the fray.
Now that the government is dissolved and you are about to have new election ?soon? things might get better on the leadership side. But honestly I won't bet on it.
I'm seeing the military having more free reign now that there's less of a clear chain of command politically. The way I see it you have no chance getting anywhere the way things are going. Winter is near and you don't have resources or money to deal with it whether in the short nor long term. It might be better to seal them off, train the military, gather things... But russian intel is way better I doubt you got any chance of winning. It's a race you cannot win without full NATO support. Imho you got a better chance on the political stage.
Putin seems to be in a bit of a rush. No doubt he's not done yet and is forced to speed things up due to recent incident. If we know what he really wants maybe we can do something in negotiation. There's just too many possibilities and he's not offering anything. I'm afraid this is gonna be a long term problem and you will lose some territory. Most likely he wants to connect a land bridge from Cremia to russia.

the media is now turning toward Lybia on the armed people (bad guys who are now free of Gaddafi's imposing reign). I'm not surprised rather that it's taken so long...
I hope not but this is just the beginning is the real bad things coming for whole region (and the world).

I hate to say this but this could drag on for at least a couple of more years.
On the plus side for Ukraine the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner is giving them more outside
sympathy so the Separatist really are going to be more dependent on Russia which after the airliner
incident is looking like a pariah more and more.
Calling up more people isn't going to work, since as you say Alex a lot of them don't have the proper
military expierence or training.
Also it could turn more pro-Russian and ethnic Russian inhabitants in East Ukraine further against
the government.

Schrodinger's cat observed!
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28543990
This might give rise to some big new tech other discoveries (of the forces)... I'm thinking of light sabers but that's still far fetched and to be seen in a century perhaps.

Though the problem with Schrodinger's cat is that the Observer can't open the box to make certain of the cat's actual condition.The box always needs to be closed for the experiment to work.So it's only
theoretical that the cat can be both paradoxically live and dead at the same time.Unless the
Observer somehow cheats by placing the cat in a glass box or has some other way of making it
possible to see without opening the box.
Not arguing that it can't work but noting the prime problem with it.

btw:Reading Forgotten History a TOS novel centering on the formation of the Department of
Temporal Investigations as originally seen on DS9.What's interesting is how the writer manages to
pull together a lot of different episodes from the live action and animated series plus the movies,
and I think some of the other novels and comics,and come up with a rather consistent narrative.

The Sudanese Christian woman and her family are now safe in New Hampshire.  

Meanwhile Christians in the Mideast are still under siege.

  

And now for something totally different:

According to Reason Online three Ohio Democrats decided to show why the minimum wage needs
to be raised by living on it themselves for a couple weeks.
The problem as was pointed out was that none of them knew how to properly budget(or apparently
what coupons were for).
One of them complained having to walk over a mile to his office because he couldn't afford the taxi fare.Like really?!
First most people on minimum wage don't ride in taxis,they either walk or take the bus(and beside
walking is supposed to be good for you in any case),and second just cutting down what you
live on doesn't prove anything since none of them tried actually living in the same conditions
as those working on minimum wage or taking the same sort of jobs.So in the end it was a wash as
it didn't really proved a thing one way or the other,except that politicians are nuts!  

Heh. It's not the first test of this kind and the results are pretty much the same.
Texas is famous for the least caring for pedestrians, hence, as good as no paveways exists. As a student I walked half the time but even in urban Houston it's difficult to get around all the waterway trenches. As far as bus fare goes you can only change bus lines once. Parking isn't cheap either even on campus ground. Well, it's also challenging to avoid the rain pockets. Aome meters apart could mean he difference between getting soaked or not. Not really a problem unless you consider the AC cold interior of the class room. I got more sick from ACs than real cold weather.

We had a bad thunderstorm over the weekend here.Some parts the wind got up to 60 mph.Branches and trees down everywhere.People still without electricity in places.
We were lucky in that we didn't loose any power and only a few small branches came down.
Other people not so lucky.
There's a trailer park on the way to Spokane that got hit hard by an earlier wind storm and most of
them were still without power by the time the thunderstorm hit.
And of course didn't really help the fire situation to the west of us.

Looks like the Ukraine military is about to start a large scale operation. People got told to leave and Putin has doubled the military presence on the other side. This is going to be a hard and bloody operation. It's possible Putin could use some event for an excuse for invasion. There's no telling.

Now, it really looks like that the Gaza conflict is about to end. Hamas ran themselves into a corner regarding negotiations so this is their opportunity to keep face and stop.

Ebola has reached Nigeria. What's not said all this time is that it's going to stay wherever it goes. With this central africa has been conquered. Most likely the next two large scale outbreaks could cover the whole continent. Since cases happen every year, that's a pandemic threat waiting to happen. An experimental antibody vaccine is being used about now but a real one is a year away. Until we got some in stock that's at least another year. In the worse case this is gonna be a close call.

Yep, so far if Putin does not interfere directly - we're winning this. Who "we" is yet to be confirmed, but at least a relative peace will be estabilished to switch attention to internal problems. Although like i said - dealing with separatists inside the large cities is very hard.
There's another likely scenario - soon the contract for largest separatist merc groups will end and they'll likely leave. I think the remaining "locals" will try to "blend" or escape and live like before so the war may be over before any serious cleanup commences.
P.S. I'll be heading in that direction in about an hour, waiting for my transportation as i'm writing this so i guess i'll take a closer look

Seems to be more fighting around the Donestk area.
I think though more attention is being paid to what's happening in Israel/Gaza Strip now.
That seems to be the war du jour now.

In the meantime ISIL/ISIS seems to be invading Lebanon now,a country that certainly doesn't need
any more violence considering the history of the last 34 years or so there.And this was the country
that once upon the time was considered the Riveria of the Mideast with Beirut once upon a time
referred to as 'The Paris of the Mideast'.

As far as Ebola goes,the biggest problem of course is that it will turn into even more of a panic than it is already and even people with simple colds will be treated as though they have it.

I hope it does end as you say, Alex. In any case, at least the chances are better than the middle-east. Since you are already going, good luck man. And come back with the shield.

Well, the Levant may have been so, but imho it was just a temporary thing. Looking at history even without the isreali state the region was in constant struggle. The longest peace time probably didn't last a century.

So far it looks like things are progressing well in the Ukraine.

Despite all (hypocrite) discussions we aren't going to do much about the christians in Iraq. But we do intervene if islamic people are endangered like last time in africa. Providing air support is the most there is. The west most likely won't take those christians as before but rather the islamic refugees. There's really not much to discuss but sadly that's how things have been.

Anyway, some interesting news recently is that Yahoo wants to offer PGP encryption for e-mails. As if it's going to protect anything if they are holding the keys.

Babylon 5 gets a movie reboot. I thought it last died due to lack of reasoning for e.g. the mysterious "Hand" plot. I guess it's something similar to the first TNG movie with B5 getting destroyed

Edit:
Since it's now legal in switzerland to do the Nazi salute I came across a swiss cheese commercial with an arian hunk + black-SS-uniform-esque attire. No, it's not a "Lützowschen Freikorps" uniform. Looks like Switzerland is showing more and more its true face.

The Pentagon is currently having a briefing as to what they're supposedly going to do next in Iraq.
Heck even some of the Dems now realize that what we need to do is carpet bomb ISIL.

Well B5 was shown to be destroyed in one of the episodes,I forget which one.But I think that turned
out to be a red herring as it was one of the other Babylon stations.
I wonder if they'll have an all new cast for the movie.

I read in the paper today there was a supposed study that came out and said that the XL Pipeline
would in fact result in more pollution.Of course the study was funded and conducted by the
people who are anti-XL Pipeline and thus came out with what they've been wanting.
Kind of like doing a study that shows liver causes cancer,rather bogus.