GAMMA RAY BURSTS

A little geekiness for a change: looks like the source for gamma ray bursts has been identified. It appears to be supernovae. Gamma ray bursts are thought to be the most powerful explosions in the universe, but up until now no one knew why they occurred. Mainly because all of the detected bursts have occurred billions of lightyears away. Some thought that they were the result of black holes or neutron stars colliding.
Now a GRB only two billion lightyears away has been detected, and it's close enough for scientists to also see the optical afterglow, and that afterglow looks alot like a supernova. In another story, scientists predicted that the GRB would coincide with a supernova.
I believe I was lucky enough to actually see one of these events last summer, while stargazing at my dad's place.

Update: one theory seems to be that GRBs are just the bursts of radiation that supernovae give off in two directions along the star's axis, pointed towards us.

GONE OFF THE DEEP END

Well, I never had much faith in the professionalism of Estonian media. Today, my lack of faith has been more than justified.

Every daily newspaper is screaming 'Syria is next on U.S. hit list', quoting Wesley Clark as if he were a member of the Bush administration.

Get real, you idiots. The U.S. will not be attacking Syria, unless Syria does something completely insane. The U.S. is exerting political pressure on Syria, because Syria is harbouring Baathists and financing terrorists. War ain't cheap, and Syria's simply not worth the fight.

Not that I'd have anything against attacking Syria. It is my firm belief that the world will not be safe until the Middle East is democratized and prosperous. I believe I share this belief with the Bush administration.

All in due time, oh warmongering members of the Fourth Estate. Syria will crumble with the rest of the Islamofascists. Whether that requires Western military intervention remains to be seen. Syria is not 'next on the hit list'.

THE EUROPEAN MODEL

(via Instapundit)

I do not want this here.

Volkert van der Graaf, the radical animal rights activist who assassinated Pim Fortuyn on May 6, 2002, has today been convicted to a paltry 18 years inprisonment. The DA had demanded life. Dutch friends assure me that everyone who is well-behaved in Dutch prison is automatically released after 2/3rds of the sentence. That means the murderer is due to be released in 2014.

Now let me get this straight. A man commits cold-blooded, premeditated murder of a man, because he disagrees with him politically, he pleads guilty, and gets... 12-18 years? TWELVE years? He deserves death, and only because I am opposed to fallible justice systems dealing out such punishments do I concede that he should get life imprisonment without a chance for parole.

Prisons don't exist just for rehabilitation. They exist for justice. A cold-blooded, premeditated murder is far too serious a crime to warrant giving someone a second chance. Rehabilitate thieves, conmen, drug dealers, bank robbers, thugs. Van der Graaf has forfeited any value his sorry life ever had.

Thankfully, Estonia's new government has pledged to toughen sentencing.

THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS

Well, last night I watched the first hour of Bowling for Columbine. My thoughts?

Let's just put it like this: this afternoon, I had a root canal done. And I'd rather get ten more done than watch BfC again.

And I read today that Mel Gibson's Icon Productions is financing the fat bastard's new project, Fahrenheit 9/11. This had better turn out wrong, Mel.

BLOGGER'S BLOCK

Well, not really. I'm just feeling not very inspired at the moment. All that will change in a few hours, when I will sit down and watch Bowling for Columbine. If that won't make me want to repeatedly stab lefties in the (proverbial) throat with a (rhetorical) dull spoon, then nothing will.

OH, MAN

I'm sure a lot of members of the VRWC* caught the ANSWER* protest in L.A.* last night, on C-SPAN*.

For those who didn't, I'd just like to say that you missed a true comedic gem.

Reciting bad haikus. Wailing faux 'ethnic' chants, interspersed with shouts of 'racism!' 'imperialism!' and 'police state!'. Rapping to a recorder playing two notes over and over again. And as the icing on the cake, Ricky Martin's long lost evil half-brother showed up with a guitar, performing not one, not two, but three off-key 'songs' in spanish.

Meanwhile, the crowd consisted of about sixty to eighty people who primarily looked bored stiff. If they weren't having a 'die-in' instead (read=sleeping on the pavement).

This (and Janeane 'fucktard' Garofalo) is what remains of the anti-war left?

Bwahahahahahaha.

Glossary:

VRWC - Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
ANSWER - Assclown Noam fans Still giving Weak EEG Readings
LA - Los Angeles
C-SPAN - Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network

REAP WHAT YOU SOW, RUSSKIES

(via USS Clueless)

Oh dear, the folks over at Lukoil seem to be a bit grumpy.

Reuters reported that LUKOIL vice president Leonid Fedun told Kommersant business daily the firm would sue any new contender for the field for at least $20 billion and ask international courts to arrest tankers with Iraqi crude oil.

"Nobody can develop the West Qurna oilfield without us in the next eight years. If somebody decides to squeeze LUKOIL out, we are going to appeal in the Geneva arbitration court, which will immediately arrest this field," said Fedun to Reuters.

So now a new regime is accountable for the debts of the preceeding one?

Harasho, druzya.

How about honouring the border agreements between Estonia and Soviet Russia set forth in the Tartu peace treaty? How about those reparations for that 50 years of occupation and pillaging?

Or better yet, how about shutting the fuck up, you Russian oil tick bastards.