The Wind and the Lion

In the beginning of The Wind and the Lion, Eden Perdicaris warns her son William not to play near the edge. She's referring to the edge of the cliff that their home is on, but she hasn't any idea just how close to the edge she and her family are about to get just before they are kidnapped by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni. Descendent of Mohammed, Raisuni was the last of the Barbary pirates. Fighter of government corruption and oppression, Raisuni (known as Raisuli to the English speaking world) was considered a heroic figure by some Moroccans, and a thief by others.

In the film, there are a few inaccuracies. Notably, Raisuni never kidnapped Eden, he actually kidnapped her husband, Ion Perdicaris, and his stepson, Cromwell Varley. This was changed in the script for the sake of the film's drama and plot line. It provided the audience with a common ground to emotionally grip; family. They stuck close and worked together, surviving life on the edge while trying to escape as captured hostages, fearing for their lives. It also provided a subtle amount of romantic tension between Raisuni and Eden, which never actually happened, but provided for more drama.

Music Review: HORSE The Band

HORSE The Band is a unique fusion of several popular and obscure genres. Horse was started in 1999 by founding members Erik Engstrom and David Isen while they were in high school. The band booked its own self financed tours by 2002, including a self financed three month tour throughout seven countries. With Erik on synthesizer, and David on lead guitar, they created an obscure fusion, combining metalcore with "8-bit" electronica, or Chiptune - a nerdy sub-genre of nostalgic electronic music using low-fidelity synthesizers to recreate the sounds of classic 1980s video game systems such as the Nintendo NES. The band jokingly referred to itself and coined the genre "Nintendocore". By 2008, the band had booked the Horse the Band Earth Tour, playing in 40 separate countries. At this time, the band stated: "We've become disillusioned, bad-attitude nerds and pariahs of the established music industry." As well as becoming a remotely famous underdog in the chiptune fan base, their songs have great lyrical concepts, uniting metaphores of vocalist and lyricist Nathan Winneke's life with classic video game and pop culture references. The band's sound is not limited to just the genres of metal-core and 8 bit electronica. Their sound is diverse and can be described anywhere from alternative synthesizer-rock, to post hardcore rock, with even a little disco here and there. Currently, Horse the Band has five released studio albums, the latest being May 2009's Desperate Living, four EP's, and three live concert DVDs. The band is currently on a break from touring and recording, the first break they have taken in over six years of being HORSE The Band.

External Links:

HORSE The Band's Website
Music Video for HORSE The Band's A Million Exploding Suns

(By the way, they're really ridiculous.)

Commercial Spaceflight Success

This week, for the first time, a commercial spacecraft returned to Earth from orbit on Wednseday. The rocket was launched by private space travel company SpaceX designed and launched the Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, with a total flight time of 3 hours and 19 minutes. The launch was a demonstration to NASA for how the rockets could be used to shuttle cargo and possibly astronauts to the International Space Station. The inside of the cabin of the Dragon capsule (the very top of the rocket where cargo is stored) already has a pressurized cabin, required to maintain people at high altitudes. These sorts of experiments are only the beginning of the future of commercial space flight.

Sources
-NY Times
-SpaceX.com
-Wikipedia

Wikileaks Controversy

This week, there has been much controversy over the Wiki based website Wikileaks, a wiki which publishes online documents that are otherwise unavailable to the general public. This week they published more than 250,000 confidential documents from American embassies around the globe and the U.S. State Department. These documents, spanning from over the last three years include details of backroom U.S. Diplomacy and criticism of foreign leaders. Many people are probably wondering, how could a website such as "Wikileaks.org" could obtain such valuable secret data. It is uncertain, but the main suspect is PFC Bradley Manning, an army intelligence analyst who has previously released sensitive data having to do with the Iraq War.


-MSNBC
-Wikileaks

Huge Energy Bubbles

Something huge is happening in the center of our Milky Way, and scientists have no clue as to what it is. Two newly discovered gamma ray and X-ray energy bubbles together span a distance of more than 50,000 light years. They contain energy equivalent to 100,000 supernova explosions. “They’re big,” said Doug Finkbeiner, leader of the team at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who discovered the balls. The source of energy of these cosmic balloons is unknown, but a possible theory is that they are fueled by star births and deaths at the center of the galaxy. Another theory is that they are a giant "burp" from a black hole known to live in the center of the galaxy. “And we think we know a lot about our own galaxy,” Dr. Spergel said, mentioning that the bubbles are roughly the size of our entire galaxy, and that they were previously undetected. It really just goes to show how little we know about our universe. Nobody on Earth understands exactly just what these balloons are, and in all honesty, the only reason it matters to us is because we are afraid of the implications it has for our little planet. Could this be the coming of the end of our world as we know it? Probably not. This reporter says: the galaxy has got some pretty big balls.

Sources:

-NY Times
-Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Prop 19 Defeated

This Tuesday, California voters rejected Proposition 19, a measure that would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana for adults at least 21 years of age in the state. It's a very controversial subject, but the events of this election surprised me. I honestly thought prop 19 was going to pass, it seemed to me like that was actually the wisest choice for the people to select. If prop 19 had passed, it would have made it much more difficult for minors to get their hands on the herb. The penalties under prop 19 specifically for offering or selling marijuana to minors were harsher than the current prohibition laws restricting it from minors, or otherwise. This wasn't the only initiative in California to legalize marijuana. In fact, in November 1972, proposition 19 was to "Removal Of Penalty For Personal Use of Marijuana", but it failed too. I just hope it doesn't take another 40 years for California to attempt to legalize this plant which has so many uses and benefits.

Sources:

- The New York Times
- Ballotpedia

Two Earth's Resources Needed by 2030

October 19, 2010

The WWF, the Zoological Society of London, and the Global Footprint Network released a study called the Living Planet Report. It looked at 8,000 populations of 2,500 species and their change in land use, and water consumption worldwide. It estimates that by the year 2030, humans will need the natural resources of two whole Earths. Human demands on natural resources have doubled in under 50 years and are now exceeding the amount our Earth can cope with. We continue our overuse of resources without clear indication of when we are going to stop, and if we continue to live such a lifestyle we would need 2.75 planets to survive, estimates the study.

Sources

- India Report
- Daily Mail
- WWF
- Zoological Society of London
- Global Footprint Network