10.07.05
Posted in Rants at 7:43 pm by Thomas
From IOL via the Daily Kos:
“US forces bomb Iraq’s Euphrates bridges
Baghdad – US-led forces have bombed eight bridges on the Euphrates River in western Iraq to stop insurgents using them, US military spokesperson Major General Rick Lynch said Thursday.
“We have been taking out portions of bridges with precision strikes,” he told a news conference.
Of 12 bridges between the Syrian border and Ramadi, 110km west Baghdad, “four remain under control of the coalition forces and Iraqi forces after precision strikes on the others,” he said.”
This is what they call a strategic retreat. By blowing up these bridges, the US is ceding all the territory to the north of the Euphrates River to the insurgents, who can now control entry by heavily armed US troops into these areas as well as the US troops can now control entry from insurgents in vehicles from the north. It cuts both ways.
Even worse, it does nothing to stop insurgents from crossing the river the old style by wading through it. They never have been relying on heavy vehicles, so why should they start now?
This is not necessarily a bad thing in the military sense if you are fighting an active rear guard action on a battle field, but it is sheer insanity in a country that a force has been occupying for three years.
The US is now actively destroying the infrastructure of Iraq “to save the Iraqis”. This is, again, against the Geneva Convention like so many other things the US has done over the last three years. War crimes after war crimes transform the United States more and more into an international pariah.
Leaving right now would be an improvement. There may still be years of civil war in the future for Iraq, but at least the Iraqis will know that whatever solution they ultimately come up with is theirs.
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10.05.05
Posted in Navel Gazing at 11:49 pm by Thomas
So I’m sitting here, trying to work on a web page and I’m half listening to a conversation in my head – between the two main characters of the novel I wrote last year!
I’ve been thinking a lot about the two of them, since they are going to be in action again in a month when NaNoWriMo starts – the new book is going to be a sequel.
And now they are already alive in my head… talking to each other! I hope that’s a normal writer’s condition or I’m in trouble. 
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10.02.05
Posted in Modern Life at 12:57 am by Thomas
Since I have oh-so-much free time right now (Not!), I’ve begun what can only be called an insane project… a game for the Sony PSP!
It’s been a lot of fun already to work on this and to play with the limitations and possiblities of a handheld game console, but oh man… what a mountain of work.
It’s a multiplayer space-flight RPG called “A Darker Sky”, and since I’m doing it all by myself I’m splitting my time between programming client-server communication code, designing screens, rendering space scenery and space ships and writing back story and item descriptions… it’s fun to stretch a bit and to warm up some underutilized skills.
I expect to go into alpha testing of the core code in the next weeks and to start a public beta phase towards December. Check here for more details in the coming weeks!
Added 10/2/05:
For what it’s worth… here’s the announcement on the site: http://www.adarkersky.com
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Posted in Culture at 12:44 am by Thomas
November is National Novel Writing Month!
After squeezing through the finish line with just above 50000 words (2004 Winner!), I’m going to try again this year with a sequel to my still-unpublished novel from last year..
It’s going to be exciting to try for a second book… I actually can’t wait for November 1st, when everything else slips into the background and it’s writing, writing, writing – at least 2000 words every night, come hell or high water.
It’s going to be fun!
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