Questions I like to see answered, Noam Chomsky, designed by hand and crash tests

Seems that nor the politicians nor the media are asking the right questions about Syria, let alone answer them.
So in an attempt to help them out here is what I like to have answered (truthfully if possible):

1. Can we believe the US this time when they claim they have irrefutable evidence?
2. Is it really so that the US and some European countries are appalled that chemical weapons have been used?
3. Or is it just a good excuse and is there a different agenda (gas pipeline?)?
4. If chemical weapons are so inhumane why has the US not disposed off its own chemical weapons yet? (It is working on this, but they still have a stockpile left according to wikipedia: The Chemical Weapons Convention signed in 1993 stipulated a deadline of April 2012 to fully dispose of all chemical weapons, the US missed the deadline and the Pentagon indicated that they are looking at a 2023 target!!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention)

I am sure that the media will keep us informed over every nitty-gritty detail leading up to the US Congress discussion and vote on Syria. Whilst you are watching that theatre, bear in mind the words of Noam Chomsky (he doesn't need an introduction - but for those who have never heard of him see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky). He made some remarkable statements during his keynote address at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn, Germany, 17 June 2013: “In the past, the United States has sometimes, kind of sardonically, been described as a one-party state: the business party with two factions called Democrats and Republicans. That’s no longer true. It’s still a one-party state, the business party. But it only has one faction. The faction is moderate Republicans, who are now called Democrats. There are virtually no moderate Republicans in what’s called the Republican Party and virtually no liberal Democrats in what’s called the Democratic [sic] Party. It’s basically a party of what would be moderate Republicans and similarly, Richard Nixon would be way at the left of the political spectrum today. Eisenhower would be in outer space.”


Now, today's blog may give you the impression I am US-basing. That's not the intention.
As a small token of appreciation, I include two movies. The first one has a big wow-factor for me. In my student days as engineer we were still drawing on paper when designing something. We also had some courses on computer drawing but they were rather rough. Elon Musk (the founder of Paypal and current CEO of Tesla and Space X) posted a movie where they design pieces of a rocket in 3D with hand gestures (!) and then print it in 3D. He speaks of a revolution and that is exactly what it is. (The more critical reader would say that Elon is a born South-African, so this is not an example of how great the US is, but Elon's businesses were started, nurtured and grown in the US, so see it as a tribute to the good-old American Dream).

The second movie is posted by NASA doing a crash test of a helicopter on August 28. The research is aimed at improving the survivability of helicopter occupants. A very and much needed, noble goal. I am particularly intrigued in this test as I worked in car industry for 12 years, mainly dealing with car safety and have witnessed a lot of car crash tests and in my current job, I am amongst others responsible for helicopter safety. So this really is an interesting combination of my two worlds! I would love to see the readings from those dummies. Especially the two dressed in white (as they only had lap belts!).

You probably guessed the song that has to go with it: Crash Test Dummies - Mmm Mmm Mmm

Homo sapiens are a strange lot, move a rat's tail and Venus blocks the Sun

We homo sapiens are a strange lot aren't we. No one blinks when ten thousands of civilians are slaughtered with guns, bombs and mortar attacks. A couple of hundred die in a gas attack and the world calls it monstrous and suddenly some countries happily switch to the punishing mode under the motto: 'let us stop the killing with gas by bombing them'. Did anyone, anyone, actually come up with a plan to stop the bloodshed? Or am I too naive and is that not the intent. And whatever happened to learning from history or from past mistakes? Those with their fingers at the button should realise by now that you can't bomb a country into democracy. At least the UK Parliament put a stop to it for now.
With many great thinkers and philosophers contemplating if the democratic system has passed its expiry date, let me remind you all that the UK's vote is the second time in a year that a national Parliament has stopped (at least for some time), what seemed to be an multi-national given. The first time was when the Cyprus parliament voted down the first full bail-in proposal that all Cypriots should pass on part of their savings to save the banks and the country. My respect to those Parliaments who vote using their common sense and not their political agendas.

Those who want to understand the Middle East, see attached summary by KN Al-Sabah published this week in the FT:

Now over to something completely different. This is a headline from Wednesday in the New York Times:
"Researcher Controls Another Person’s Brain Over the Internet".

Que????
Yes indeed. Researchers at the University of Washington have successfully connected two human brains over the internet. One researcher moved the hand of the other researcher by just thinking about it whilst their brains were, via EEG's, connected to each other through the internet. It's the first time they experimented from human to human, but it worked before between rats and it worked from a human to a rat (a human moved the rat's tail just by thinking about it, the article doesn't say what the rat's retaliation was...). Read the full article here: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/27/researcher-controls-another-persons-brain-over-the-internet/?smid=tw-share&_r=0
I'm sure this can lead to wonderful applications that can dramatically improve the life of paralysed patients but would I want my brain to be connected, let alone controlled, by someone else's brain? No thank you. My thoughts are purely my own. This world is getting crazy.

Whilst listening to the news this week I couldn't help thinking about a song from The Machines back in the eighties. The Machines were a Belgian band (don't worry they sing in English). The song that I've been humming all week is: 'I See the Lies in Your Eyes' (only the title is relevant as it is actually a love song).

And now we need something beautiful to offset these dark thoughts. How about a picture of a Venus eclipse of the Sun? Courtesy of NASA we have this amazing photo with the Sun imaged in three colours of ultraviolet light by the Earth-orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory, with the black circle being Venus. Enjoy it as the next Venusian solar eclipse will occur in 2117.