Irreverent. Irrelevant.

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.  And, if it is a nod to America’s rejection of the type of leadership from the past eight years, then he deserves it.  Maybe not yet…but that is for another post.  I am changing the subject.

Let us revisit Orwell’s 1984…”whoever controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.” Here they are speaking about the events in history, and our recollection of it.  Oh, and manipulation of it.  My interest came from two stories that caught my attention today.

I have been loosely following CERN’s work on the Hadron Collider since AirForceStepDad stated “I just know they opened up some kind of hole-in-time…” when it broke.  Don’t mind him–he took the pills during Desert Storm.  So I was dismayed that a researcher in the facility was arrested. First, there was conflicting information on the French physicist working in the vicinity of the Large Hadron Collider had been arrested with links to Al-Qaeda. He was in contact with the organization, and although he had not begun preparing for any specific action, he had expressed an interest in carrying out attacks. My info discrepancy came from the actual number of individuals arrested, from NPR and the BBC coverage of it.  Hate to ignore blogs, but I was looking for traditional media on this one, because a few originally led me to believe that he was actually working ON THE LHC. Which terrified me.  But he was not, and in fact he was working on the Beauty Quark with independent researchers (also neat subject matter…and anti-matter), and so was not actually working with CERN on figuring out the origins of the universe (and I guess the Higgs Boson – Thanks wikipedia!). For their part, CERN did make sure that they knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the electrical failure from last year was exactly that.  Even still, the thought of terrorist activities so close to the only gigantic particle accelerator is not all that comforting. The physicist was unnamed in reports.

This led me to a blurb that I know I heard somewhere…Iranian Atomic Scientist missing, or kidnapped?  I searched for a bit, but wasn’t able to find anything until I ran across Al Jazeera’s information. Apparently, Shahram Amiri is  missing, and was purportedly working on Tehran’s nuclear program.  From what I read however, there is speculation on whether he defected or was kidnapped.  Al Jazeera indicated that many media outlets believe he defected to the west, while his family dismisses that notion.  So then, Iran goes and holds Saudi Arabia (there they are!!!) responsible for not protecting Amiri when he disappeared from their country.  Here’s a thought: If you want to play the “Big Boy Totalitarian Country” game, you don’t let your important people leave the country.  I think that is the third rule down the list. 

While the Iranian foreign minister claims that they have proof of American interference, but U.S. officials have said that they don’t have any information on Amiri. He went missing before the secret site at Qom was revealed, by about three months, so it is safe to guess that he is safe. But…ummm….unless he is here, and quite secure in the United States, I think we should be a little more concerned.

Which brings me to my important point. Once I found the article on Al Jazeera, and had his name, then I found all sorts of articles about his disappearance, with the headline that most often included “nuke scientist” (Is that considered proper?).  These were all within the last week.  What concerned me about Iran was that there was no report of his disappearance, and if he had ended up with really vicious people, we wouldn’t have known until a few days ago–if at all.  More disturbing is that if his disappearance was reported…it’s getting harder to use a search engine to find news from a specific day, specific event, or for events over a year ago. 

I, like many people rely on digital news.  What is beginning to happen is, without the help of a blogger’s link, sometimes you cannot search and find information about what happened if it was too obscure, or if it was too long ago.  Obviously, there was no report of his disappearance.  I also tried searching for information reported when the LHC malfunctioned last year, and consistently came up with the physicist’s arrest.  I gave up and went to CERN’s  site for the date of the incident, then was able to find news in a search.  In searching for this information, I realized how easy it is to manipulate information over time.  I have heard numerous people screaming “1984!!!” without realizing just what that would mean. The true danger from 1984-style media control does not lie within the United States, simply because there are so many “citizen journalists”.  There are, however, repressed societies that can foster misinformation and virtually change the past  before their very eyes (although a more subtle approach would probably be preferable).

My friend, the Squirrel

This has been an interesting week.  The most notable parts seem to have been bookended by a dead squirrel.

Yes…a dead squirrel. I was going through the Declaration of Independence and the abridged Constitution to see how it is perceived that the Obama administration is violating them (or doing so in any way that could be construed as more than the Bush white house); I went outside for a smoke, and lo…

It looks like he had fallen from the largest tree in our backyard onto the driveway, and probably didn’t feel much after hitting the ground. Technically, roadkill. It was then that I realized that squirrels are conservative by their nature–quite content to scamper by and around the dead one, eating nuts, chasing each other–basically ignoring the dead one and its misfortune. For my part, I didn’t know what to do with it; dead, gross, a rodent, and covered with ants already. I figured the squirrel community wasn’t going to get together and throw “a Celebration of Life,” so I watched it over the next few days, and hoped that the cold snap that was keeping the odor down would hold.

I realized on Monday that there is a new job scam…you apply for a legit looking job posted somewhere, you get back a legit looking email response.  Then they ask you to pull your credit. From a link theyprovided in the e-mail. So, alas, no real job there, as I haven’t heard back from two of them since I sent a reply that I had gotten my free yearlies from www.annualcreditreport.com, the one that is the official partnership of the three agencies. The job charlatans are smart, though. There are so many rackets out there, waiting to ensnare the desperate jobseeker. A word of advice: NEVER pay to work. Not ever.

I have to say I was disappointed at Iran’s launch of long-range missiles.  This is probably not the best move to make while all the time insisting that the country’s nuclear program aims are peaceful. I went to check out the IAEA’s minutes and other info on Iran from the past couple of years to see if they did report the building of the under-mountain site…apparently, almost everything that goes on between a sovereign nation (like us) and the IAEA is supposed to be confidential.  Iran was pretty upset about a few details that leaked in the Bush years, which ultimately led to more U.N. sanctions against the country.

In other news, it’s pretty crappy that while being pounded by a typhoon, about 3 huge earthquakes occur causing giant tidal waves. That is nuts for a region of the world to endure at the approximate same time.  As I write this, for the Philipines, there’s another typhoon looming; for Indonesia, another earthquake just rocked the area.

But Derrion Albert will never read this blog post. No, he was beaten to death with boards and vicious kicks, while being filmed on cell phone, while trying to walk home from school (or help a friend…details are foggy). My mistake was watching the video, which his family wants to remain on the web, to raise awareness.  My heart broke when he tried to get up, and the boys just jumpedon him and ended it all. From where I was in front of the computer, I wanted to stop it somehow, but by the time I saw the video, this Chicago honor student was gone forever. If you’ve ever been a teacher (or ever been in school, for that matter), you know that kids will run to wherever the fight is, and just watch transfixed–that is your worst fear for the school day. But this was outside of school, and apparently no-holds-barred. I am saddened and sickened. Again, I’m reminded that this could have been my baby brother, just a year older than Derrion was. I can’t even grab all these kids–gang members and spectators–by the shirtcollar and explain to them how utterly dumb this kind of behavior is.  I hope the judge can.

On the subject of Chicago, I think it’s a bad idea for the windy city to host anything.  Let South America have the games for a change–Illinois doesn’t need the debt anyway (they have plenty).  And, not saying that the Olympics are full of terrorists, but I’d rather not take the chance 100 miles from where my grandma lives.  There are enough Chicago people (see characterization in paragraph above) in my small hometown to make me nervous for her safety already.

I also decided to try and learn Arabic.  I’m working my way through a couple of resources and methods on the web, but I wish I could take a class.  Oh well, we’ll see how this goes first. If anyone knows of any outstanding websites for learning how to speak and read/write, let me know.

Then…on the third day…he was…gone? I went outside to have my wake-up cigarette on Thursday morning and the squirrel was just gone.  I only got a half-chuckle when I informed my fiance that I’d given our buddy (who we’d been watching succumb to nature and ants) a new, Biblically-inspired name. Well, I thought it was funny, even though I was pretty sure that one of the neighborhood cats finally came by.

At any rate, I have tons of stuff to do today. We’re going to our university’s homecoming weekend activities, and I have to pack and run a few other errands. I never did finish looking for the parts of our Declaration and Constitution that had been stomped on, but hopefully nothing too crazy will happen today.