On the WMD fiasco: It’s the sovereign job of congress and the media to oversee and point out inconsistencies, but this is too little too late. Where were all the detractors before the war? Oh wait, they quickly gave their assent to declare war on Iraq, and the rest of them were all being flag-waving yes-folks on CNN, MSNBC, and the major networks. The gall of Tony Blair to ask for patience on the world’s part, when it was patience the rest of us begged before we went ahead and invaded. Sad. But, the “coalition” will prevail. If the public can believe Saddam had WMD, it can believe Iraq needed to be liberated.

All of this aside, there’s a larger, more inherent problem that surrounds this issue, and that is Accountability, or lack thereof. No one wants to be held accountable for his/her actions or decisions any more … therefore, we cannot hold the leaders of the world up to a sense of ethics that no longer exists. It’s just when these same leaders accuse others of unaccountability, and use that as a reason for aggression, that I start to get bothered; it’s a case of “do as I say, not do as I do.” So, how about rooting out the Saddam in ourselves as a country first, eh? That will be the day.

This is SO cool! Not just the VR, but that organizations are willing to counteract the barbarism-apathy and keep the artifacts alive. What a great teaching tool … hope it works.

Computer scientists, archeologists and art historians at the University of California-Berkeley are collaborating to create a virtual version of Iraq’s National Museum, reconstructing images of the museum’s smashed or stolen vases, statues and cuneiform tablets from archived photos and historical records. “The dream is to create a kind of virtual atlas of these cultural gems, and help keep any more of them from being lost,” says Ruzena Bajcsy, director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Information Technology Research, which is spearheading the effort.

Academic and cultural institutions — ranging from the University of Pennsylvania to the British Museum and the United Nations are working to build a virtual catalog of the museum’s collections. But the effort goes further than just helping catalog treasures that were lost or stolen in Baghdad — the project’s goal is to generate a much larger database, complete with photos, maps, drawings and text to illustrate the full range of Iraq’s historical artifacts. The final product will include everything from 3D images of tiny art objects to entire virtual tours of Iraqi archeological sites. “We want to make this easy to use, not only for teched-up scholars but for students and anyone else,” says Robert Price, UC Berkeley’s associate vice chancellor for research.

“The idea here is to put the best information technology at the service of the arts and humanities.”

In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut’s non-human Tralfamadoreans see all time at once like a mountain range and just look along it; their viewpoint is contrasted with that of the human protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut’s handling of the difficulties humans have overcoming their time-bound senses may be suggestive in this instance.

If you have to go, go only for the cool, but completely gratuitous, special effects of whole cities being demolished by volcanic upheavals and earthquakes. Never mind that more than 90% of the world is severely underpopulated and underwater. Geologic catastrophes of the celluloid variety always seem to pick New York City and Tokyo in some strange prescient fashion.

I am boycotting the movie for obvious reasons. As I did Earthquake, Volcano, Anaconda, and Lake Placid. Speaking of Lake Placid, I am reminded of Oliver Platt’s line from the movie, “I’m sure you didn’t know that. They hide information like that in books.” Sorry, natural phenomena just don’t have personal vendettas against human beings … but should. “Bovine Invasion” or “Attack of the 50 foot Kudzus” would have been more exciting movies to watch, if Hollywood were to create such features.

Thought Hilary Swank was smarter than this movie, too.