What Caught My Eye Today

Guantanamo Bay - The U.S. military abruptly dropped charges against five Guantanamo Bay detainees, including one who allegedly plotted to detonate a "dirty bomb" in the U.S., after a prosecutor accused the military of suppressing evidence that could have helped clear them. No, no. You read that correctly. The dude who is supposed to be prosecuting these alleged terrorists accused the military of withholding evidence from the defense. You don't see that every day. The American Civil Liberties Union said the decision to drop the charges "underscores the complete failure of the indefinite detention system and the need to shut down the prison." You don't say. The prosecutor said the military was withholding evidence that could have helped clear the defendants. He resigned in what he called a crisis of conscience. Well, at least someone in this mess still manages to have a conscience.

Economy - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the current financial challenges facing the country will persist for a number of months, but he said the economy will rebound. One has to appreciate the optimistic tone. Lord knows it couldn't have been easy for Paulson to say this with a straight face. On the other hand, what else could he have said? "Sorry folks. The economy is done and it ain't coming back." Everyone knows you can't say those sorts of things, even if they're true. He said that close cooperation with other countries is critical and cautioned that it is important for all nations to be careful to make sure that the actions they are taking to deal with the crisis do not come at the expense of other nations. So not only does the U.S. have to do things right but so does the rest of the world and we have to cooperate with each other to do it? We're doomed.

India - Scientists have better maps of distant Mars than the moon where astronauts have walked. But India hopes to change that with its first lunar mission. Chandrayaan-1 — which means "Moon Craft" in ancient Sanskrit — launched from the Sriharikota space center in southern India in a two-year mission aimed at laying the groundwork for further Indian space expeditions. "Moon Craft" is the best you guys could come up with? Dude, you're going to the moon for crying out loud. You'd think that you could sex up the name just a little bit. As India's economy has boomed in recent years, it has sought to convert its new found wealth — built on its high-tech sector — into political and military clout and stake a claim as a world leader. That's a much more practical use of wealth than trivial little things like reducing poverty and illiteracy among the quarter of the population earning less than $0.40 a day. It is hoping that a moon mission — coming just months after it finalized a deal with the United States that recognizes India as a nuclear power — will further enhance that status. To date only the U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China have sent missions to the moon. And then there were six.

And finally, another item for the "No kidding, Sherlock" file...

Nukes - The world is on the brink of an avalanche in the spread of devastating weaponry, a new global non-proliferation group warned, saying that a nuclear incident would dwarf the September 11 attacks. Do ya think? "The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else (in) to the category of the insignificant," said the co-chair of the report. These idiots needed to write a report to state the obvious? There are between 13,000 and 16,000 nuclear warheads actively deployed around the world and that it was "really a bit of a miracle" that a nuclear catastrophe had not occurred during the Cold War or afterwards. Now that I can believe. Scary thought, isn't it? I think I'm going to go rub that lucky rabbit's foot now.