Another Seal Broken

If it isn't telling enough that Russia is reeling from mulitiple terrorist attacks, more Marines die everyday in Iraq, and there are people in this country that would actually vote for Dubya (who are not rich), surely the arrival of the End of Days is presaged by the fact that Robert Wyatt is mentioned in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly. And he's given a positive word to boot. Granted, it was in reference to his appearance on Bjork's new album, but still...

Today was a slow day. My productivity was limited to running a couple errands. But I swear that I'll do better tomorrow. I stopped in at CZ and chatted with Miss Jolene. We came to an agreement whereby we'd meet at TH on Thursday afternoon and I'd show her how to burn CDs. So I'll have to find my copy of Nero.

Stevie and I are watching a documentary about Waco. Just how far away are non-Branch Davidian religious folk from that kinda shit? Quite far, I hope. But it scares me to read that bit from the new book on the Bushy family, The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty. It says, "George sees this as a religious war. He doesn't have a p.c. view of this war. His view of this is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And we as the Christians will strike back with more force and more ferocity than they will ever know." Just how far is Dubya from being a Jim Jones or a David Koresh? It's like The Crusades all over again. Not that I have great sympathy for Islam, mind you. I watched part of an interview with Bernard Lewis, a scholar of Islam and author of many books. He said that Islam is a tolerant religion and Jews, Xtians, and Muslims did live together pretty peacefully in the medieval world of the Middle Ages. But, he gave the caveat that Islam is tolerant of other Abrahamic religions, ie - Judaism and Xtianity. Thusly, tolerance of godless heathens like myself are not to be tolerated. Granted, mileage varies, but it's cold comfort. I think I'll have to check out Terry Jones' series on The Crusades from the library.

My Tiger Cruise has been pushed back until late October. A bummer as it conflicts with the FFRF convention. But so it goes - you can't do much about the schedule of a carrier group.

They just showed the corpse of an 8-year old girls from Waco. The cyanide from the gas made her muscles contort so that her body curled backwards. I had no idea that cyanide contracts muscles like that - so forcefully that it breaks bones. While I felt horrible for that girl, my mind almost immediately jumped to World War I. Here's a list of gases and who used them in the Great War:

benzyl bromide - German, tearing, first used 1915

bromacetone - Both sides, tearing/fatal in concentration, first used 1916

carbonyl chloride (phosgene) - both sides, asphyxiant, fatal with delayed action, first used 1915

chlorine - both sides, asphyxiant, fatal in concentration, first used in 1915, cylinder release only

chloromethyl chloroformate - both sides, tearing, first used in 1915, artillery shell

chloropircin - both sides, tearing, first used in 1916, artillery shell (green cross I)

cyanogen (cyanide) compounds - allies/Austria, asphyxiant, fatal in concentration, first used in 1916, artillery shell

dichlormethylether - German, tearing, first used 1918, artillery shell

dibrommethylethylketone - German, tearing, fatal in concentration, first used in 1916

dichloroethylsulphide (mustard gas) - both sides, blistering, artillery shell (yellow cross)

diphenylchloroarsine - German, asphyxiant, fatal in concentration, (dust - could not be filtered), first used in 1917, artillery shell (blue cross)

diphenylcyonoarsine - German, more powerful replacement for blue cross, first used in 1918

ethyldichloroarsine - German, less powerful replacement for blue cross, first used in 1918, artillery shell (yellow cross I, green cross III)

ethyl iodoacetate - British, tearing, first used in 1916

monobrommethylethylketone - German, more powerful replacement for bromacetone, first used 1916

trichloromethylchloroformate (diphosgene) - both sides, asphyxiant, fatal with delayed action, first used 1916

xylyl bromide - German, tearing, first used 1915

If it wasn't bad enough having bullets being shot at you, there's this mist creeping towards you that will make your skin carbuncular, your lungs dissolve, and make hyrochloric acid condense on your eyeballs. Isn't there a quote by Orson Welles' Harry Lime in The Third Man about the Germans? Something about them being a bunch of barbarians who should be wiped out...?