I must have been dozing in the early 1990’s when Saddam Hussein drained the 8,000 square miles of Iraqi wetlands considered by many to be the cradle of Western civilization. Thought by Biblical scholars to be the site of the Garden of Eden, the legendary marshland was twice the size of the Everglades and teeming with thousands of bird, fish and plant species.

Not anymore. The butcher of Bagdad spent 8 years building dams and rerouting rivers to punish 500,000 Marsh Arabs for opposing him during the 1991 Gulf War. The area was turned into an “ecological and human disaster” said Curtis Richardson of Duke University who is heading up an international team helping to restore the marsh.

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This tragic, sickening scenario stops me in my tracks. What do left wing heroes Ward Churchill and Michael Moore think about this? If asked, how long do you think it would take them to blame the United States government for Saddam’s policy of environmental genocide? And what sort of punishment does Saddam deserve for this indescribably vulgar and premeditated crime against the history of civilization? I really want to know.

The Story from MSNBC.

In honor of black history month, Gregory Chess , an African American who resides in Half Moon Bay and owns HMB Environmental had this to say about his grandmother’s hands.

Grandma’s Hands, Lord they really came in handy!
As a young man born and primarily raised in the deep south,I have come to understand but never forgot the rage that i felt while in the military and needing to return to Louisiana for my grandfather’s funeral, being brought up in a culture where the matriarch,the hub, the disciplinarian was grandma, I’ll never forget the feeling of rage and disgust that rocked my body when my grandmother was delegated to the second row of seats at my grandfathers funeral due to the fact that his former employer and family decided to grace us with their presence and custom, fear , Jim Crow or whatever warped sense of protocol dictated that they had to set alone in the front row,nearest the casket of the man that died sweating for them.

Perhaps in everyone’s life there is a defining moment when the abstract becomes tangible and solid; the end of your first teenage love affair can bring clarity and meaning to the word love, a death of a love one defines grief and loss, in that moment for me, it was beyond outrage and although at the time I was being trained to hate and kill the Vietnamese,it was that day in a small church in Louisiana that I discovered that I had never embraced hate before.

It seemed that grandma had an awareness that no one before or since has possessed, a deep awareness and sensitivity of the pain of anyone in the community,so while everyone else at the funeral was paying attention to the ritual and circumstance, she seem to sense my very real pain and rage, with a trembling hand she reached back and touched mine and said, “Baby! Grandma left her scarf in the car, would you go out and get it for me? Iit was such a small thing at the time and only now do I come to understand,the comfort,safety,the >> love

A new strain of HIV has been found in New York City that causes AIDS incredibly rapidly and is resistent to almost all known HIV treatment drugs. This story has caused a scare in many communities, but one small bit of information should scare people even more. One of the New York man’s sexual partners has so far refused to be tested by doctors, and could possibly be a part of the origins of the sped up deterioration of the sick man. This shouldn’t scare people because there is possibly an HIV positive person in New York who doesn’t use protection, this should scare people because there is possibly an HIV positive person in New York who refuses to be tested, refuses to cooperate with health officials, and who, like many others, has his head in the sand with regards to HIV and AIDS. That is the attitude that keeps the virus spreading.

According to a NY Times article, the future of our Armed Forces is with robots. Well, I guess that solves the draft problem.

A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to the Battlefield:

The American military is working on a new generation of soldiers, far different from the army it has.

“They don’t get hungry,” said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon. “They’re not afraid. They don’t forget their orders. They don’t care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes.”

The robot soldier is coming.

The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade, hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of the Army’s effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the biggest military contract in American history.

The military plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in automated armed forces. The costs of that transformation will help drive the Defense Department’s budget up almost 20 percent, from a requested $419.3 billion for next year to $502.3 billion in 2010, excluding the costs of war. The annual costs of buying new weapons is scheduled to rise 52 percent, from $78 billion to $118.6 billion.

Military planners say robot soldiers will think, see and react increasingly like humans. In the beginning, they will be remote-controlled, looking and acting like lethal toy trucks. As the technology develops, they may take many shapes. And as their intelligence grows, so will their autonomy.

The robot soldier has been a dream at the Pentagon for 30 years. And some involved in the work say it may take at least 30 more years to realize in full. Well before then, they say, the military will have to answer tough questions if it intends to trust robots with the responsibility of distinguishing friend from foe, combatant from bystander.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/technology/16robots.html?ex=1109221200&en=dea58784dfc8c2f8&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY

This was in the NY Times:

“Reggie Fowler, a former professional linebacker who made millions as the founder of a company selling plastic cups and containers, agreed in principle yesterday to purchase the Minnesota Vikings, putting him in line to be the league’s first African-American club owner.”

Has it really taken this long for a black person to own a team?

-Jean Chen