Things that make the brain go "boom", part 1

For today, let us take a break from politics. Annoyingly enough, the impotence of UN has deleted this organisation from the international map of political power.
Today I will present you with the first installment of a series somewhat related to the paradox series that I wrote earlier, a series that refers to things that force the brain to the limit and sometimes have caused people to go mad.
In this episode one, we will deal with the concept of black holes and the information paradox. The information paradox is a pretty famous concept in physics. This paradox stems from the very first axiom of science: information cannot be destroyed. As you may (or may not), in physics information is well defined as the state of particles. Under the balance given by Eintein's generalized theory of relativity neither mass nor energy is spontaneously created in the universe, but transformed from one to another. Therefore particles of a quantum state can be subject to transformation (by means of energy or mass and therefore by quantum state - which by definition is a wavelength function that defines any state in which a particle can be) but not destruction (by destruction meaning its dissapearance from the universe).
What does this have to do with black holes? Well, let's see.
A black hole is a concentration of mass of such nature that it develops a gravitational field of an escape speed greater than the speed of light (again definition time, escape speed: the speed necessary to escape the gravitational pull of an object - eg, to escape Earth: 11655 km/s). A black hole is formed if a sufficiently big star (above 5 times the mass of the Sun) consumes all its fuel for nuclear reactions and suffers a collapse where all its mass would be compressed towards its center beyond the limits of known physics. This center point would be then known as a singlarity while the limit of no escape (going towards the singularity beyond that limit would make it impossible for you to escape being drawn towards the singularity) would be known as an 'event horizon'. A black hole becomes a distorsion in space-time as time would pass slower in its proximity. Actually that's debatable since time it's just a convention to measure the interval between sending and receiving information, but we'll go along and play nice and use this concept.
For example, let us take two people Jane and Jimmy. Jane is well outside the event horizon, while Jimmy moves towards it and eventually steps over the event horizon. What happens then?
One intersting aspect is that Jane will -never- see Jimmy dissapear. As he passes over the event horizon, the light that carries this information is also caught by the black hole and never reach Jane, all this while the light that departs near the event horizon takes an exponentially longer time to reach Jane as it is more and more difficult to escape the gravitational pull. As the distance between Jimmy and the event horizon, it takes longer and longer for the light to reach Jane while the light that departs sufficiently close, but still outside of the event horizon will take an infinite amount of time to reach Jane. An observation would be that, hypothetically, looking at a black hole would reveal images of all objects that have once been sucked in. (i've inquired a professor in physics from the Virginia Institute of Technology about this ... I'll update the blog with the reply .... if it will come).
Of course if Jimmy was already inside the black hole, Jane wouldn't see him at all.
What happens to Jimmy? Well, physics dictates that his body would be ripped apart then compressed into the black hole's structure and eventually spit out via Hawking radiation. What about the information carried on his body?

Playing THE GAME

Yesterday I intended to write about movies and some interesting aspects of some of the more recent movies I've seen. Unofrtunately I've eventually decided against that.
Today I'm going to write about a game. It's called 'the game of interests'. Actually the game resembles more of a subtle war that takes places at the border between words and actions. Actions show one image, words show another, but in the end actions are those that reveal the new state of things after a given event.
Usually there're great discrepancies between words and actions and there's nothing better to reveal this that the latest developments in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.
The essential element in the battle of words is that words should try to cover as much as possible for actions, when actions contradict words and similarly, to boast actions whenever actions go the same way as words. Knowing this makes it easy for an observer to ask the right questions when the current state of facts opposes the expressed intentions.
Let's begin with a very simple example: yesterday in Lebanon four UN observers were killed in an Israeli raid while they were taking cover in an underground bunker. Additional facts: said bunker belonged to UNAFIL, the UN mission in Lebanon and it was specifically marked to be indetified from both air and land. Additionally it was marked on regional maps and on extended country maps. Additionally, the entire camp was shelled 17 times by artillery. In this stituation, the commander called the Israeli troops to notify them of their proximity and the fact that the target was a UN camp. Logs show 10 calls made by UNAFIL, while the Israeli military liaison shows only 6. Additionally, reports identified that another UNAFIL rescue mission was shelled by artillery while trying to remove the bodies from the rubble and check for suvivors. The weapons used were american-made laser-guided precision bunkerbuster.
In this situation, the Secretary General Kofi Annan called the attack 'deliberate' and demanded explanation. The Israeli ambassador to UN, called Annan's conclusion 'premature' and that the raid was a 'regrettable mistake'.
Recap: was it deliberate or maybe the Israeli army simply couldn't read maps, was blind to markers, didn't hear the phone, finger slipped on the laser targetting system and the slipped again on the release button three times? Somehow I'm inclined to believe the Israeli ambassador and further suggest that the Israeli army should lay down weapons before it hurts itself

End of civilisation

The end of civilisation has come and it seems the world was too quick in forgetting the lessons of the two World Wars and disasasters such as the Panama.
By enacting the United Nations Organisation after the Second World War, there seemed to have been a consensus among the world's emerging powers that law and order was the only way towards peace and that a higher body was needed as a mediator between countries on international level, the exact role that the League of Nations had failed.
The exact failures of the League of Nations are now plagueing its relative, the UN. The same way the members of the League acted on interest rather than on the laws and regulations they had retified, now the UN members propagate. Its is no wonder that disasters such as the Rwanda massacre happen under the watchful eye of this organisation when countries such as US or France first take into consideration the profit from influence or weapons trade.
But probably the worst case that shows the failures of UN as an international mediation body is the creation of Israel. In 1948, when Israel was declared, nobody spoke out and after the first row of Israel - Arab wars, Israel received recognition as a state with borders drawn by UN in the Partition Act.
Taking advantage of sponsorships from Europe and US, Israel grew fast and soon began expanding, paying no attention to its neightbours or the UN who refrained from action, satisfied with enacting resolution after resolution, just like the League of Nations before it, less than potent in enforcing its decisions. What we have left from that time are over 700 of the General Assembly's resolutions asking Israel to stop the persecution of its arab population, renounce the service of terrorists group Irgun and Lehi, stop territorial expansion and return properties to expropriated arab inhabitants. Then there are over 400 of the Security Council's resolutions, again not enforced. Of course Israel ignored them and went on, blatantly ignoring international laws and the Geneva Convention. Any voice that dared to speak out against injustice was promptly dismissed with an accusation of antisemitism.
Today, the world reaps what's been sown 68 years ago. Two countries that seem to be above the law and the concept of human rights. Two countries that put dreams of conquest above values such as life or peace. These countries are, obviously, US and Israel.
The first gave us proof of this in 1991, the beginning of its war against Iraq. The destruction laid against a country whose only fault was that it chose to be paid in euros instead of dollars and that refused for a while to export oil to US in protest against US interference in arab politics. A country that never threatened the US or ever developed military capability against US. Yet that country burned and is still burning now with internal turmoil fueled by US' decision to break it apart piece by piece. The war was patched with the distruction of the Geneva Convention, massacres and rapes by US military, leaving millions of Iraqis dead and many others rotting in US prisons around the world, neither charged, not prosecuted. Just interrogated for years.

Israel in the meantime has went a long way in the same direction: breaking down the Middle East. After two uprisings from the arab population, Arial Sharon (yes, the guy responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres) finally saw the solution. Now Ghaza is the world's largest prison and even has a wall being built around it. All crossings are controlled by Israel, not to mention the airspace. Arab officials aren't allowed to travel outside, only those who have a pass issued by Israel. At the same time, Israel is allowed to kill as it pleases under various pretexts. The first is the famous 'buffer zone', a several kilometers area inside Ghaza that's constatly sweeped by Israel tanks and artillery, officially ment to prevent illegal border crossing. In practice, it's a land grab by Israel, despite the fact people own land there and there are even a few farms. Of course, those who dare go out and work in their garden, just die. Despite all the evidence and promises of inquiries, thousands of recorded cases of bombings, shootings and rape by Israel military against arabs never produced a single conviction.
Today we witness another act of the allmighty entity, the distruction of yet another arab state. The official pretext of recovering two Israeli soldiers is just ludicrous as Israel itself keeps hundreds of lebanese citizens in jails, some for the only guilt of having land near the border. But this seems enough for Israel to take power in their own hands and sistematically massacre the lebanese populace. For some this word might seem harsh but it's a fact that until this weekend no asset of Israel's arch-enemy Hizb'Allah was targeted, only civilians.

Of course, UN is as always reluctant to take any action. Perhaps Sharon was right claiming a few years ago (on radio) that Israel own too much of US to fear it. But even if it wasn't the case, Israel has nothing to fear. The only european powers that are in a position to do anything are France and Russia, but any action by Russia will be countered by US, who has a direct interest in the conflict to go on (as it might draw Iran into it and Israel combined with US will surely break the arab world) while France doesn't have the capability to go in alone. Given all this, we have ruled out any UN participant who could actually act in this crisis.
Other might include Spain, but Spain has lost the last train to being an international political presence. Italy has no interest in standing up to US and Israel or taming down the Middle East crisis, even more since much of its oil and natural gases come from Russia.
So we are left with China. China has yet to take a firm stance in the matter but it's doubtful it will ever take one since for China it would do better to trade Lebanon in order to protect North Korea and have the coreean arsenal as an ally in case the US/UK/Israel troika will continue to expand towards East.

Therefore, UN has failed. Utterly. Completely. And with it the last hope for civilisation. What we're left with is the troika that has become the new Inquisition, surround by a propaganda machine led by CNN that has mission to offer a single-sided view, that of the Inquisition.

So where are we heading, going like this? Is the world really incapable of multiculturalism? Why can't civilisations live together in peace? Why security for oneself means that the other has to vanish, has to suffer, has to give up? Will the world ever give up the militaristic way of thinking ?

Remember

I'm not sure if anyone of my readers remember what should've been commemorated last month. I wrote a post just the day after the even't date but somehow the blog refused to accept it (no conspiration though, just net problems) so I had to wait and posponed the posting ... until today.

The date is June the 4th. Year is 1989. By some twist of fate, reporters from most media networks are in Beijing to cover the visit of communist leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which took place the month before. Yet some of them feel that something big is going on.

What started as student protests in the month of April (protests regarding the resignation of Secretary General Hu Yaobang, who had been forced to write a shameful letter which was followed by his death following a heart attack same month) turned in May in a full scale riot in Beijing, rioting minimized by the regime in Beijing.

But in May the number of protestors that marched in Tiananmen Square was of over 100 thousands and their demands now included direct dialogue and a free media.
On the 20th of the same month martial law is declared, yet the army's marched is delayed by even more protestors, while the hunger strike continued. As the 38th Army stationed in Beijing joined the protests, the 27th and 28th armies began to enter the city, facing many blocades built by local residents.
The beginning of June saw the crackdown of the protests with the two armies affectively assaulting the square.
The day of the 4th hosted the events that were covered live by many television stations around the world and featured the famous video of the unknown rebel, one man who single-handed barred a column of tanks from entering the square and thus buying time for those fleeing the square to escape with their lives. Later, Times Magazine voted him one of the most influential people of the 20th century.
The finding ended but leaving a big question regarding the victims as before the battle ended, the chinese state managed to cut all satellite links of those broadcasting and supress cameras placed at vantage points around the square.
The State claimed 300 dead, while CIA sourced pushed the numbers up to 800 and the Chinese Red Cross which spent the following weeks with a body count claimed 2600 bodies before they were orderer away from the investigation.
The body count was later enlarged by a number of summary trials followed by execution.

While the main outcome of the riot was the image of the obtuse and vengeful communist system that the PRC has today, there's little else that changed. The supression of information regarding Tiananmen led to a generation gap where the new citizens of China grow without little to no information about this and thus the struggle for freedom of speech in China hangs with the few dissidents that still carry on.
Yet the memory of this grusome chapter in the fight for media freedom in China was delivered a monstruous blow by media giants Microsoft, Yahoo and Google who agreed to participate in the censorship imposed on the chinese people.
But the world doesn't forget.