AMERICAN MILITARY CREATES SECOND EARTH
The US Army is building a second version of Earth on computer to help it prepare for conflicts around the world. The detailed simulation will be drawn from a real-world terrain database and will be drawn to the same scale as the original. The software Earth is being created for the US Army by gaming company There, which is currently working on a virtual world for gamers. The first version of the virtual planet should be finished by September.
The ambitious project aims to help the US Army plan future conflicts which are unlikely to involve set-piece battles and instead be smaller in scale. The emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.
Long before the Lone Ranger there has been American heros. Wild Bill Hiccup. Wyatt Burp. Sergeant Bilko, "Hotlips" Hoolahan and Frasier.
Contrary to what this online magazine may reflect. I like a lot about Americans. In very sweeping terms I may 'take the juice out of them' but they are big enough and ugly enough to take it. Lets face it they sure can dish it out. My twin sister was married to a G.I for 23 years. Ok, he was a woman and child abuser. But when she finally left Charles Bowen she married a British carbon copy. So we cannot blame the
Gulf war on my sister's poor taste in men. What tortures me about the yanks is that its very hard not to be xenophobic towards them when they are such a playground bully. Someone wrote that Americans "are like big friendly dogs in small rooms that wag their tails and knock all the furniture over." But they have been responsible far more than 'gobbling' up the world's resources and polluting three quarters of the environment and starting countless wars. They can't say 'please' either. It's 'gimme' this, and 'gimme' that.
Now in the horror of what this news item suggests. Not content already with systematically trashing other countries throughout their very brief, and boastful history, they now want to create an 'artificial' world just to plan further 'conflicts'. Well, don't be astounded. If you already do not live in the 'real world' you might as well simulate one. They don't know what planet they are on anyway.
Did Columbus discover America? Much to the dismay of Homer Simpson he did not.
On October 12th 1492 as dawn broke Chris 'Crossedoutagain' Columbus sailed to find the New World he first believed was to be, Asia. In fact he landed either in the West Indies or Greenland as they didn't have 'Tuf pathfinders' in those days. All he had was a map painted on Ox hide and a sextant called 'Millie'.
The Americans who hail Columbus as the discoverer of America are so convinced they even created a detective after him who had a wonky eye and a filthy raincoat. In fact Norsemen first gathered on the coast of North America in 1000a.d. So, Geordies have not just been shagging our women and drinking our beer in East Anglia as they are today, they were at it with the North American Indians, yanks , I mean yonks ago.
Only a few years ago a Portuguese nautical map was found dated in 1424. It claimed to have navigators reach "Antilia". So, was that America? The chart showed no other land West of the Azores. So, Poruguese sailors may have got there before Columbus.
If I was Columbus and landed at the Bahamas by mistake, would I bother looking for a New World elsewhere? I don't think so.
The American Indian. Bloodthirsty savage or noble child of nature?
You see movies, comics and TV all depict 'the red man' as a scalp slashing warrior who lived in a pointy house. Americans like John Wayne shot at from inside wagon circles. 'Tonto' used to iron a very good shirt too. The fact is they (native 'Red' Indians) were driven out of their territories by the white man stealing their homeland. Sure all tribes of which there were originally hundreds started to disappear within decades of the white mans arrival. Most natives were hunters, fishermen and farmers who were peace lovers. But the Apache loved a good 'ruck' as did most of the South eastern tribes like the Navahos who made war their business. They robbed and raided from the 'soft touch' tribes. But the Navohoes for all their bad attitude were artists and weavers of great distinction.
It was the white man that did most of the looting. That nearly wiped out the Buffalo. That traded 'firesticks' and alcohol and tobacco to Chieftains to gain territory. Before tobacco came along they put herbal preparations in their peace pipe for sore throats after a lot of chanting.
Some western tribes hunted buffalo but it was hard and dangerous work without horses and firearms. At that time the Indian had neither. Then in 1722 the Indian learned from the white settlers how to ride and shoot. In only seventy years the American Buffalo were all but practically extinct. Literally millions were slaughtered.
The Indians that had already had a Bison-full.
This new life for the Cheyenne Arapaho, Sioux and Commanche, meant, they could eat meat all year round and sell the hides to white men who like a bit of a tan. The whitemans furs and leather trade took off. As time went on they found their own customs and ways of civilisation becoming that of the white men. Their gods became hidden from them. Thousands of years and hundreds of tribes became slaves to the white men who brought greed, gold rush and pubic lice.
"Land of the free…Home of the brave"
Except the average 'brave' was no longer free. Within two hundred years the legendary freedom of the Iroquois and the Piegans had gone, as with their homelands.
The Iowa, Blackfoot, and Dakotas moved off their reservations and became busboys in saloons. Their hunting, feasting, dancing ceremonies replaced by shoeshining white landowners.
The Mohawks became barbers who like to cut hair on the side.
Why Indians had their reservations about the white man.
These were entire nations. Ancient civilisations with democratic governments with rich ancestry. They were a established 'League of Nations' centuries old made up from the Oneidas, the Tuscaroras, Gayugas and Seneca chieftains.
Then the cowboy came stripping the indigenous peoples of what was their birthright. Who worshipped animals as Gods. They took care of their land. They would imitate those beasts they hunted for food in ceremonial tribal dances to pay tribute to the ways of the eagle, bear and wolf.
Then comes the American. Who invented the term 'finders keepers'.
In fact most Americans think the name of their country is part of their own making. The word America was first used from 1507 by the German geographer Martin Waldseemuller to honor, Amerigo Vespucci an ocean going traveller and adventurer who claimed to be the first man to reach the Northern mainland of America. Not Chris.
So when you look at the swinging a St Christopher on your rear view mirror of a yellow cab, patron saint of travel and holding the Christ child…. He's just another fraud like George 'Dubbya.'
Preserving the future
911 should not have happened. I genuinely feel devastated for those families who bore such heavy losses. It is a harsh lesson to learn for all of us.
Everything we do together, or alone is based on the actions of people we have never met that lived before us. The games we play. The songs we sing. The hobbies we choose. The food we eat. The clothes we wear. The things we read and learn. The jokes we tell. The habits we form. We simply mirror the achievements and dreams of dead people. We literally bring the past alive and everything we do from now on will shape the lives of others. We as separate individuals are history in the making. We drive a car as the result of one man's dream. We take a plane ride and rarely think that guys like Wilbur Wright gave us the opportunity.
Most of America's achievements in a short span of just a few centuries have contributed so much to the good of mankind. Space travel, The Internet, Spielberg and shoelifts. But like every aspect or ourselves it has been responsible for some heinous deeds and tragic world incidents. We cannot blame just Osama Bin Laden for his hatred of the West. While the attack on 911 was inexcusable we cannot be totally surprised. When we see what the West has done to other countries. Human conflict is necessary to empower freedom, faith, truth and understanding. Its when that conflict robs other of those basic things it becomes totalitarianism. I believe the West have been denying more vulnerable countries of their basic human rights since well before the Roman Empire. The irony is that the whole concept of any empirical knowledge is to 'break new ground' for civilisation and improve that and future generation and general quality of life. But knowledge is power and power corrupts. The early explorers and pioneers may have preferred to have kept their big ideas to themselves if they could picture from the grave what people have done with their ideas and what has happened as a result of such dreams.
But life is like that. Life is a mixture of comedy and tragedy. It is this continuity that binds us together and tears us apart. Like electricity. If you didn't have a negative and a positive you could not produce a force to be reckoned with. Like a car without a battery you ain't going nowhere.
If you have honest questions about the meaning of life. Dr Farquar will do his best to answer them. Please check here.
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