Gen. Robert L Scott, Jr

Well, one of my personal hero´s passed away today. Gen Robert L Scott, died this morning. He had a huge impact on my life - something I´m sure he didn´t know. Something I was thinking about just the other day actually.

I´ll never forget how I first got interested in so much - in flight, history, travel, the world. So much of that was because of him. His stories about traveling the world have inspired me to do the same. He followed the old silk road as a young man, through europe and parts of the middle east before the second world war, on a motorcycle. Years later, in the 1980s, he went back to roughly where he´d stopped and followed it the rest of the way to China, and then somehow managed to see most all of the Great Wall of China - something that probably no-one else ever has done.

In between, he was a pilot - a fighter pilot to be exact, though to get into the second world war, to meet Claire Lee Chennault, as he said in The Day I Owned the Sky "I had to lie cheat and surely steal." What´d he steal? Why a Boeing B-17E, Flying Fortress of course. He flew it across the Atlantic, and North Africa to India - where he, along with the rest of the contingent was held up (originally the were to team up with Dolittle on the raid against Tokyo). There he flew supplies across "The Hump" into China. Eventually he convinced Chennault to give him just one P-40, with which he became "The One-Man Airforce", accompanying the rest of those flying supplies into China. Later, he became Chennault´s second-in-command, of the 23rd Fighter Group.

Together they helped to keep the Burma Road open, despite the efforts of the Japanese and some of the top-brass of the US Army Air Force - namely old "Vinegar" Joe Stillwell. Eventually they were both forced to leave China, and Chennault was thereby denied the right to stand on the USS Missouri when Japan surrendurred. But their stories live on, and enspire those of us who know them.

Scotty was a hero, and more so for me than most. He took the time to write me back, and to send me The Day I Owned the Sky, along with a poster and a couple of pictures - all of which are still hanging on my wall, along with other posters, and pictures of that time. One of the pictures is of him getting into his P-40 all those years ago, another is him getting into the cockpit of an F-15 Eagle, "About to fly an F-15 at age 89, but that makes me feel 18. Bob Scott" it´s signed. I hope your still flying Scotty. I for one will always remember you.

Robert L. Scott Fan Club Association

RIAA

So, now the RIAA has a new novel idea about how to infringe on our rights when we buy CDs etc. It now claims that you do not actually have the right to back-up your CDs via your computer and then put them onto your iPod etc. Apparently, it thinks that if you want a digital copy of a song you ought to buy it off of iTunes or some such, and if you want it in the form of a CD you ought to buy the CD too.

Somehow, I think this is a bit contradictory seeing as Mr Don Verrilli just told the Supreme court that:

"The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod."

So yeah, now we get to re-buy everything. Oh right, and they also aparently think that if a CD is damaged "replacents are readily available at affordable prices"... So yeah. We now get to pay for things truely multiple times - we must pay for it on CD, in digital format, and if something gets broken, we have to re-buy... because they are "readily available" and "affordable"...


Anyhow more info below:

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060215-6190.html

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004409.php

Opera for the DS!!

Now this is cool! My long-time favorite web browser Opera is going to release a version of the browser for the Nintendo DS!!! There´ve been rumours of an impending browser for the system, but I for one never imagined it´d be Opera!! Soo exciting. I´ll definetly pick this up when it comes out... Awesome. Absolutely awesome.

Link: http://www.opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/02/15/

Of Wasps and Cockroaches

Recently I stumbled on Carl Zimmerman´s blog and have been reading it daily to see what he posts, its really quite cool.

My favorite story so far (and the one which brought me to The Loom originally), is The Wisdom of Parasites, which is about a wasp that hunts cockroaches - and basicly turns them into Zombies. Its really quite fascinating. The wasp stings the cockroach in a very specific part of its brain and then leads it back to its nest... where it is put into what amounts to suspended animation - it doesn´t die but its body functions are greatly slowed down. Its crazyness.

Here they are!

Right, so seeing as probably most of you folks have not seen the cartoons which have caused FAR more controversy than they ever deserved, and have sparked international protests, riotings, kidnappings, etc... Here they are.



These are the original images printed in Jyllands Posten. Now, call me crazy but while I see how at least a couple of these pictures are offensive... I really don´t see how anyone can possibly justify the crazyness thats going on over them. I just really don´t get it. But maybe somebody does. If so, please, clue me in ??

For more info directly from Jyllands-Posten go here: http://www.jp.dk/udland/tema:fid=11328/


And this is the picture printed on the front-page of El Pais February 5 or something. I have the issue =)

Oh right, almost forgot, this was actually orignally printed by Le Monde (French), and the lines say "I must not draw Mohammed" =)


But personally, I´m a fan of this one. Yay for Filibuster Cartoons!!

For more info check out Mohammed Image Archive