At present UnderMars is pushing out 26mb/s of data and climbing fast. To put that into context, that's approaching three hundred gig a day or nine terabytes a month of transfer. Expensive! I've cut the resolution and quality of the images slightly so they're about a third the size, which I hope will halve my bandwidth. If anyone has 100+ mb/s of bandwidth they are able to donate for this (about $5k a month), please contact me. I will keep the site online as long as possible but if the bandwidth continues to climb I will not be able to afford to.
Warning: Site is extremely graphic.
It's rather disturbing reading what people have to say about me and the site. It's interesting that I've rarely gotten flack about posting pictures like this if they're accompanied by an over-the-top paranoid antiwar rant (nor does antiwar.com, which posts such images centrally on a daily basis), but if I post them sans-politics, to show them as is without politicizing, suddenly I'm a bad guy… People need to see these scenes as they are seen at the time, not as tools of one set of pundits or another.
One of the biggest problems with war is that it's hidden behind a thick political and media filter where each “side” twists it to broadcast their own message. However, war is not fought by the media or the politicians or even the corporate CEOs that profit from it — war is fought by the commoner, and it is the commoner that suffers through war. It is the common man's story that must be told if the uninitiated populace is ever to see war for what it is.
The Aztecs believed that when the sun dies, as it eventually must, the world falls into chaos and is destroyed and reborn, with this cycle repeating five times. We currently living under the fifth and final sun Naollin — Tonatiub — the Sun God. During this era the inhabitants of the Earth are to be tested under increasing hardships, with each returning to the sun as they inevitably perish.
Eventually this sun will die as well, and the planet we live on will be destroyed by an immense earthquake that will tear the world apart forever. Some versions of the mythos allow us redemption, but only if we cast away the sins that are destroying the world. I wonder if we would take the opportunity?
In the last two weeks Michael Moore, Raed, and news around the world have demanded that the Pentagon/DoD investigate Under Mars, a documentary site of first-hand war photos that I host. I have received many angry emails about it wishing any number of terrible fates upon me (most assuming I am a US soldier), and a few of support as well. I have no plans to publish these letters because the site is intended to be apolitical and I feel the letters would violate that. So don't ask.
Warning: Site is extremely graphic.
In doing this site I've put myself and my family at risk from all sides, to say nothing of the thousands of dollars of bandwidth it has run through already. I hope I am making the right decision in keeping it running, as I believe very strongly it is important to show the experience of war for what it is, without censoring or political commentary in order to help people absorb the experience.
Thank you to those of you who have supported me in this effort and the site, and especially to one person who made it possible in the first place. The fact that the site even exists though breaks my heart.
War must end, but before then we must all face it.
Not that I'm much for blank “national pride” in general, but seeing Wednesday's speech by the Canadian Prime Minister makes me very proud to be Canadian. The subject was his support for Canada's Bill C-38 — the legalization of gay marriage. He made three core points debunking bigots in his speech demanding that all the provinces uphold Canadian law:
Re: “Gay marriage violates religious freedom” This idea is fundamentally untrue, since gay marriage is about protecting and granting freedoms, rather than restricting them. A specific church has no responsibility to sanction a gay marriage, but the state does. Any other action would be restrictive of fundamental individual rights.
Re: “We need a national vote on this” This notion violates the core spirit of the Charter of Rights, which is designed specifically to protect the rights of the minority from mob opinion. The whole point of a Bill of Rights type document is to protect the individual, not to protect the crowd.
Re: “Civil unions” are an acceptable compromise Nothing short of full gay marriage rights is equality. Duh.
I hope this is the start of a wave that will encircle the globe.
And I hope America doesn't try and strong-arm Canada on this like they have on just about every other pro-freedom stance we've taken, with threats, increased sanctions, embargoes, and restrictions on tourists crossing the border… “they hate us for our freedom!”
Earlier today we drove up to near San Carlos (about two and a half hours away) to where the gray whales hang out in a sheltered bay there. Along with an RVing couple from Alberta, Canada, Rachel and I went out in a small motorboat with Saira and Michael to meet the whales. I figured, OK, if we're lucky maybe we'll see some, but it the reality of it is a lot more overwhelming.
Almost immediately we saw that the bay was teeming with whales — pairs of them, each generally a fifty foot long thirty ton mother, each with a child maybe twenty feet long. Already this was more than I'd expected, but the babies are very curious and come right up to the boat, rolling over on their bellies asking to be rubbed. I was very surprised at how much they enjoy human contact… They approached the boat — it's not as if we chased them or anything like that. I have to emphasize that they came up to us and could leave any time they wanted; they chose to stay and I don't think there's anything I even could have bribed them with (except of course that barrel of krill I keep in my back pocket).
I shot a little video with my digital camera. Because it's not done with a proper camera, the quality is pretty poor, but if you'd like to get an idea of how close we were you can check out the footage above.
All in all we probably saw between fifty and a hundred whales and were at times surrounded by as many as a dozen simultaneously. Three pairs were curious enough to come and say hello, and they stayed within two or three feet of the boat for about five to fifteen minutes each. As I said, they appeared to absolutely love having their bellies and noses rubbed. Nothing I write here will adequately describe it and the video does not do it justice (although I admit I may be high-balling the sizes of the whales).
Honestly, the only thing that could have topped the experience would have been hopping out of the boat onto one of the whales and riding it to the depths of the sea to do battle with the kraken.
I'll post some video footage later or in the next day or two but today we saw between fifty and a hundred grey whales, and came into immediate physical contact with six. They sure are friendly and like having their bellys rubbed. Pretty weird rubbing the belly of something that weighs thirty tons and is fifty feet long, but hey, they call the shots, and they wanted a belly rub.
