A Mars with flowing water?

The National Space Agency or NASA has been looking for flowing water on Mars because that would make the Colonizing or creation of an outpost easier. In the past years it was understood that there was water on the Mars but that this water was in a frozen state due to the low temperatures on the Mars. The NASA has continued to monitor Mars to gather general information concerning the planet. Recent pictures of a crater on Mars show a surprising picture which shows a crater with a small amount of frozen water there, water which had not been there in 1999. This brings an old question once more, which is there life on Mars since if there is a flow of water it is likely that there would be some sort of life form on the Mars. Further flowing water would make colonization and/or an outpost a great deal easier.
Colonization and an outpost differ in the following ways a colony is a collection of civilians living in a new territory claimed by a certain group while and outpost is a military and/or scientific installation which usually is rotated with other crews in a certain cycle which means that they a) do not live there and b)are being payed to sit there or make certain experiments but not produce anything.

Relevant articles to this issue
'Flowing water' found on Mars (Al Jazeera)
The first Space colony? (Paladin101)

And here is a link to Google Mars (Google)

First Advent present...

Here is a small gift to bring you slowly into a more 'Christmasy' moot, I will provide a video Clip each week until Christmas...n_n...I hope that you can enjoy them. This also might help you to relax after those other articles... The Music Video is titled: Weird Al Yanlovic-Amish paradise

Who owns the world?

Supporters of the Capitalistic principles over the Socialistic and/or communistic ones always promote the freedom of choice that it possible to work your way out of being poor. Now this might be true for the occasional lucky one but on the average that fairy tale does not come true. Why should it? How would it be economical possible? First there is no reason as to why it this should happen second economically it would mean extreme inflation, if most people are rich, then everything gains in value since you can ask for more, but that means that someone has to be paid more as well. Now this always happens but at a very slow rate now say that suddenly everyone would be rich, technically it is not that the worth of the environment changes but rather of the money which then loses value extremely fast since everyone has it. It is basically not economically feasible to have the fairy tale come true for a greater portion of the society. So why is this believe there, as a tool for more power? Maybe but that question goes beyond the scope of this article. What are the effects of this believe? It induces the feel of comfort and assures you that there is somewhere out there a put filled with gold under your own private rainbow. Does this necessarily reflect 'reality' apparently not. This believe is then supported by such things as lotteries and gambling which emulate the chance to win something or to 'achieve' something that would allow one to escape this society.
A recent study of the UN found that 2% of the world population owned more then half of the world wealth, this wealth is in land, technology etc. Those two percent see no need for gaining more they have everything and the ones that do not have as much see it and believe that they can reach it if they just work hard enough.
This allows these two percent to continue owning as much or more as they have without the threat of someone taking it away from them.
Of course now the question is posed would the solution be to redistribute the world's wealth to everyone more or less equally? That is unlikely since such a sudden change would be to extreme and create problem with people that never had such resources available to them.
I will now leave with the question, why did this develop and why did people let this go this far?

Here is a related Article
Richest 2% own 'half the wealth' (BBC)

The first Space colony?

NASA now officially declared that, the plan to land on the moon and establish a base will reach its critical phase with the first landing and the establishment of an outpost. This of course sounds more like something out of an Sci-Fi novel or movie then reality. The benefits that NASA envisions from creating a base on the moon are several. First they want to use this base to increase the knowledge about the universe and the creation of the planet and hope to answer some more questions relating to where live comes from. Further this expedition is likely to increase international cooperation since this is a multi-national effort. Further it can increase our 'economical sphere' or simply put we can use the moon for resources. Further the moon project would allow for a Sandbox which relatively close for manned missions to Mars. Further it could then be used as a launch platform for manned missions to the Mars and eventually to other planets.
Is all that just a nice dream? It is unlikely since NASA and other Space Agencies seem to be very motivated to complete this mission and succeed in creating this colony. All this sounds as id our Sci-Fi fantasies are coming true, or at least some of them are. Of course one has to remember that this would be true for many technologies we use today such as the car, the Internet or simply the Computer and most other technologies we use today. Were considered 'Sci-Fi' or impossible to achieve this is a very ambitious project which is likely to consume a great deal of resources, yet this gamble might well pay off.

Here are links that offer some information concerning this issue.
Why the moon? Poster (NASA)
Moon, Mars and beyond (NASA article)

Nuclear Submarines to stay in UK?

Tony Blair stated that it would be dangerous for Britain to stop having a contingent of nuclear weapons, this would not reflect a Cold War way of thought he says but rather the facing of the reality that nuclear weapons can be obtained by many forces today. This indicates that the new school of thought is that we are surrounded by nuclear and/or other catastrophic weapons aka Biological and chemical weapons. That everywhere one of those weapons could wait and that the only protection against that threat are more of those weapons. That then in turn are placed in 'strategic' positions which allow us to shoot anyone who might be responsible for the devastating strike against us. Further this school of thought does not indicate action but reaction, that the strike can and will happen, and that all we can do is to be able to destroy anyone who might be responsible.

A Link to a related article
UK nuclear weapons plan unveiled

Al Jazeera and BBC

I have used both as sources for recent events quite often, and both seem to me to be good sources. Yet, both differ in a very interesting point, which is style, they both cover similar events and both do in a manner that allows the reader to follow comfortably. Now Al Jazeera has bold titles such as 'Rumsfeld admitted Iraq failings' this is not wrong but it does but a aggressive note on the article before it is being read. While the BBC on the other hand supplies more diplomatic titles such as 'Rumsfeld urges Iraq tactic shift' now both these headlines cover the same event, yet the BBC one puts a very different light on the issue without having read either of the articles.
I would like to add two things here, first the BBC is a British governmentally owned and Al Jazeera began as Qatar governmentally owned, while Al Jazeera is now privatized the BBC to my knowledge still is owned by the British government.
The BBC takes a very diplomatic approach while Al Jazeera takes aggressive attacks to do the same as the BBC attempts to do which to tell the 'truth'.

Iraq Policy

The US-governments answer to problems in Iraq was that the troop number should be increased, President Bush stated that the US-forces would remain in Iraq until the 'job' was done. Iran has pushed the US towards the leaving or at least reducing their military presence in Iraq arguing that peace would not be achievable as long as US troops would remain in Iraq. Further the Iranian leadership stated that it would be willing to aid Iraq, once the US-troops had left, because before that it would be a wasted effort. Since the US-forces were an outside force, that had invaded the daily lives of the Iraqi population. One also has to consider the territory in which Iraq lies changed hands very often and this created an area which had no cultural roots. In the 30's the western powers drew the map for the middle east and did not let the regional population create their own countries. This might have created some of the conflicts in the middle east artificially. Rumsfeld the 'almost' ex-secretary of defense stated that it was apparent that the current Iraq policy was not working, that it might be better for the peace in Iraq to reduce the number of US-soldiers in Iraq and focus more on training the Iraqi police and military force. So that those could eventually deal with the challenges they face. Rumsfeld the person that is facing a legal challenge concerning war crimes and that was often criticized for his 'gun-ho' behavior is now also the first member or 'almost' ex-member of the US government to state this. It is an odd development, it could reflect his lack of risking a political carrier since his has already suffered greatly, maybe that he his trying to get around the legal challenge, but independently of those possibilities he might simply be saying his mind. This is a very new course for Rumsfeld and a challenge to the current administration.

Here are two related articles
Rumsfeld admitted Iraq failings (Al Jazeera)
Rumsfeld urged Iraq tactics shift (BBC)

WoW trail

World of Warcraft is being offered for free for a ten-day trail in which you can try the entire game out for ten days for free...n_n...I must say I have wanted to check WoW out ever since it came out and after a few hours on there I can understand what all the hype was about it is a fun and engaging game. If you have some time to spare and a decent internet connection you should definitely try it out!!!

WoW Trail site

have fun and enjoy...n_n

Gamers to buy their own world

Gamers are aspiring to buy the source code to a online based, game and, the gamers already managed to collect more then 60.000 euros.
This is a very interesting new development in the area of gaming, the Gamers want to begin to distribute the source for free. This if successful could show a great shift in the gamer to company relationships. This is shows that some Gamers do not wish to be subjugated by the companies.

Here is the full story
Gamers aspire to take over world (BBC)

New Form of war

The US has warned that banking websites and and the stock market could be attacked by the Al-Quaeda. This is the beginning of a new form of warfare, orienting itself on economics instead of of the military or the civilian population this would aim directly at the economic base of the enemy. Making even an army of 50 a very dangerous one which could circumvent the entire American military, and yet still cripple it if successful.
Of course this makes it sound very easy, but the websites are protected by firewalls and heavy encryptions, further those sites are monitored by administrators, that are supposed to stop hackers. This and the fact that the hackers would have a limited amount of time to hack successfully and evade tracking, or be gone from the point at which they would be hacking. The hacking itself is one not easy secondly it would require people with a working knowledge of the programs employed, and of course of the programming language employed. Further the hacker would have to have a working knowledge of security protocols used, all this is not easy, then again it is cheaper then fighting a shooting war. This is a most interesting development.

Here are related articles
US issues cyber attack warning (Al Jazeera)
US warns of al-Qaeda cyber threat (BBC)