Well this will be good for the stability of the Middle East.  With U.N. approval, British Navy personnel have been stopping and boarding ships in Iraqi waters to search for supplies being smuggled from Iran to the Iraqi insurgents.  Earlier today, shortly after stopping and searching a merchant ship, the British suddenly found themselves surrounded by Iranian naval vessels.  The British were detained and escorted into Iranian territorial waters.

Navy personnel captured at gunpoint (The Scotsman Evening News):
...A journalist on board the ship, Ian Pannell, said that they had just boarded a dhow, a traditional Arabian sailing vessel.

Mr Pannell said: “While they were on board, a number of Iranian boats approached the waters in which they were operating – the Royal Navy are insistent that they were operating in Iraqi waters and not Iranian waters – and essentially captured the Royal Navy and Royal Marine personnel at gunpoint."...

Continuing in the vein of yesterday's post, I have a few more random thoughts to share...

Survivorman
Perhaps you've never seen this show, it's on The Science Channel (not to be confused with Discovery Channel or The Learning Channel).  I really enjoy it.  The premise is simple.  In each episode they take Les Stroud and dump him in the middle of nowhere with meagre supplies and about 50 pounds of camera equipment.  His only mission is to survive for seven days before the crew returns to pick him up.  He's not allowed to break down the camera equipment and use it for survival, and he does all the filming himself.  I can only imagine what an incredible amount of effort is involved in shooting himself walking past the camera or trudging off into the distance, only to have to return and get the camera.  This show strikes me as one James would enjoy.  I've seen this poor guy dumped in the arctic tundra, the swamps of Georgia, some desert out west somewhere, even one episode where he had to survive in a life raft at sea for seven days. You can order season 1 of the show on DVD if you are interested.  I discovered this show during my many days of bedrest over the last month or so.

North and West of the City...
I'm sick of this phrase.  I hear it all the time during weather reports, as in "2 to 5 inches of snow are expected in the Boston area, while areas North and West of the city could receive as much as a foot."  It's snowing today.  Unlike those in and south of the city, there's no rain following the storm here... it's just piling up.  Day before St. Patrick's day and the snow is just dumping down.  *sigh*

Cosmos and Carl
I miss Carl Sagan, and I loved Cosmos when I was a kid.  One of my best memories of childhood is sitting in the living room with my Dad watching Carl explain history, other dimensions, outer space, the doppler effect, and various other intriguing things.  Pat and I both talked recently of trying to find the Cosmos series on DVD to watch with Lynnea (though it might be too slow paced for her.)  Amazon has it, if you are interested.  One of my favorite segments of that series was when Carl explained what it would be like for two dimensional creatures to encounter a three dimensional one, as a way of explaining what a fourth dimension might be like, as a mechanism for explaining the concept of a curved universe as it relates to the big bang.  The two dimensional creatures were called "flatlanders" because they lived (appropriately enough) in Flatland.  I finally found that segment on YouTube, but it is included in a larger 10 minute video.  You can watch it here, the part about Flatland starts about 3 minutes in, after a discussion of Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding.  In the next segment, Carl ties in the curved universe and questions about the existence of God.  It's slow paced but wonderfully done.  I really should pick that series up and watch it again as an adult--I've no doubt I'd learn more this time.

Destroying a Career
As you probably know, Valerie Plame testified today before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and finally had a chance to speak out on her cover being blown by an administration with hopelessly misplaced priorities.  One of the saddest things about this, as far as I can see, is that her CIA career as a covert agent is basically over at this point.  That's got to be infuriating for her.  I can't imagine what that must be like.  From her testimony today:

..."My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior officials in the White House and State Department. [...] I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained." [...] Under questioning, Plame recounted feeling "like I had been hit in the gut" on the July 2003 morning when she saw a newspaper story by syndicated columnist Robert Novak identifying her...

Pace and the Unbagged Cat
Smooth one General, really smooth.  For those of you who haven't heard, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, stepped in it on Tuesday by saying he supported the Pentagon's ban on gays serving openly in the military because homosexual acts are "immoral".  Way to go, dickhead.  There are thousands upon thousands of gay people serving in our great nation's military right now, many of them putting themselves in harm's way.  Thanks for telling them that they're a bunch of immoral perverts.  General Pace, for his part, has refused to apologize for the remarks, and has only gone as far as to say that he regrets making them.  I'll bet he does, but only because it is inconvenient for him now that the cat is out of the bag.  As far as offending the gay troops who've been valiantly serving over the last four years of this misguided war?  It's clear what Pace thinks of them.  I never understood the ban on gays in the military, and I understood don't-ask-don't-tell even less, except that it allows good soldiers to serve a country that needs them, regardless of their sexual orientation.  And the same people that screeched in 1993 that we couldn't let gays in are screeching today that we can't let gays serve openly, for the same stupid reasons--because it would cause a breakdown in unit cohesion on the battlefield.  What a bunch of bullshit.  I'm sorry but a guy brave enough to crawl across a battlefield under fire while trying to avoid landmines isn't going to be worrying if the guy behind him is checking out his ass.  Give me a goddamned break, PLEASE.  Here's a thought, I won't ask then next time something as stupid as that enters your mind, and you don't tell, okay? (As a sad but not unexpected sidenote, conservatives are leaping to the General's defense.)