IF EVER LIFE COULD IMITATE ART, this might be one clear case in point. On Sunday, Palestinian militants that are highly affiliated with Hamas, which is now the ruling party in the Palestinian parliament, dug-up a tunnel that started in Palestinian territory and ended up on Israeli ground. Due to this crafty method used by the militants, two Israeli soldiers were killed after they were attacked at an Israeli outpost near the Egyptian border and an Israeli officer named Gilad Shalit was abducted. It was a daunting Sunday morning raid that took the Israeli side by great surprise and mostly off guard. The tunnel is said to be 800 meters long and was built after 4 months of arduous tunneling. The attack was carried out by putting about 1.5 tons of explosives at the end of the tunnel, just below of what was an Israeli outpost. One news site called the method “very ingenious” and although crude and low-tech compared to other modes of attack used by militants before, it is very hard to guard against. It might be very difficult to anticipate this sort of attack even by the use of powerful satellites. There is just no way of scanning effectively of what’s actually happening below ground over a very large area like the Israeli-Palestinian border. Maybe Israeli military intelligence would have to devise a new equipment or military apparatus that could prevent this kind of attack in the future.

The Sunday morning attack was so unusual that to me, it’s the sort of thing that can only happen in movies, like in Jerry Bruckheimer movies for example. This certainly reminded me of one Sylvester Stallone movie titled “Escape To Victory” where prisoners of war from the allied forces had forced their way from captivity by digging a huge tunnel that had led them to their freedom. Incidentally—on this World Cup season— this movie is also big on soccer as the prisoners had also used the game of soccer in planning their escape from their German captors.

And the Israeli response to the daring Sunday raid was also cinematic in a way that as I am writing this, Israeli tanks and fighter planes are still bombarding the Gaza area, as Israeli soldiers incursed into an area they had recently given up and they are demanding for nothing less than the freedom of Corporal Gilad Shalit from its Palestinian abductors. All that mayhem; only for one Israeli soldier. Just like that World War II movie we all know too well, Steven Speilberg’s “Saving Private Ryan”.

This recent tumults between Israel and Palestine is downright regrettable. Hamas was supposed to finally recognize the Israeli state, a very big step that may lead towards lasting peace between the two warring nations. And this had to happen when Hamas seems to appear to be softening now as miniscule economic aid into Palestine by perennial donor countries had greatly affected its clout on power, as rising food shortage and health crisis could turn an angry Palestinian populace against them.

Now it is reported that Hamas is moving mountains for the release of Corporal Shalit. But what if Hamas does not really have a hold on those militants whose leaning is not so very ascertained? This mayhem—huge fire and explosions in the Gaza area resulting from fierce Israeli firestorm—may go on for days and may just exacerbate the already very fragile situation between the two rival nations.

I hope that this latest raucous episode between Palestine and Israel would end up just like in the movies, where everything is settled and resolved. And there’s a lesson to be learned at each end….Well at least for most of the time.

This time it’s the much-vaunted U.S. National Academy of Sciences that’s harking the onset of global warming, and its negative effect to our environment. It concluded in a study that the earth’s climate is hottest nowadays in almost 2,000 years. Commissioned by the U.S. Congress to determine the legitimacy of widespread allegations that earth’s temperature is heating up, the members of the academy came up with a chart that shows a sudden rise in global temperature. Graphically, the said chart resembles a hockey stick that now its slowly gaining popularity as the “hockey-stick chart”.

I’ve seen a hockey stick before and we all know how it looks like. It’s like a check mark in our examination papers, or like a Jai-Alai racket. Therefore, this sudden up-tick in world’s temperature is so sudden that I have never seen a chart like that before, suddenly going up in such a short time-frame. Maybe, if we can only see the income charts of oil companies like Petron or Shell, then maybe we can actually witness such fantastic graph.

Al Gore was saying this all along—that the Earth is heating up and the United States of America should be signing the Kyoto Protocol the soonest time possible, otherwise, catastrophic changes in the earth’s climate may occur in the next fifty or hundred years that we’d be seeing deserts expanding at a deadly rate, jungles disappearing like bunnies in a magician’s hat, super-destructive storms (like Katrina) and humongous smogs smoldering the cityscapes from New York to Ulaan Bator. I heard a CNN report yesterday that says New York has had the hottest weather this year.

But President Bush and Dick Cheney continues to be so adamant, citing loss of millions of American jobs if America signs the Kyoto Protocol. Al Gore belched at this, and had repeatedly accused President Bush of unduly protecting the interest of oil and coal companies in America, an industry to where he had once belonged to a Texan oil magnate before he went into politics.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences mainly lays blame on “human activity” for the onrush of global warming, like industrial pollutions, fuel emissions and continued use of prohibited chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons in air-conditioners. I bet its time we take this warning more seriously. I think President Bush should stop being a “war president” for a moment, and give global environment a much needed attention.

Many scientists have reiterated that if global warming goes on at the present rate, ice in the North Pole would melt gradually causing the global sea level to rise by 6 to 8 meters in a hundred years. If that happens, coastal cities like New York, Manila, and Tokyo (note that 80% of the world’s population live in coastal areas) would disappear on the face of the earth.

I think this is an environmental threat not to be taken lightly.

Been losing sleep for some nights now. Not that I have some worry in my mind, as you might have thought. It’s the World Cup fever that’s actually keeping me up all night, even towards dawn. And to top that, the U.S. Open is hours away from the climactic fourth round and maybe Scotsman Colin Montgometrie might just snatch his first ever grand slam title and move stealthily away from that fancy yet ignoble honor of being marked as the “best golfer around not to ever have won a major title”. He use to share that with Phil Mickelson, but Mr. Mickelson has already got three major titles now, the last two was in a row in fact (winning the PGA Championship in 2005 and then The Masters the following year).

I have gotten no satellite subscription but I could watch the games thru (shall I say benevolence) of the China Mainland news channel CCTV 1 and without it, I wouldn’t have known what to do. I would have been at a lost as to where to get World Cup coverage. Sam and Bambit are watching the games on the net, using this cool downloadable program that lets you watch a lot of television channels from all over the world online but my slow and retarded dial-up connection just won’t allow me this privilege. I used to resent foreign-language channels on cable television, particularly its superfluity and pointlessness to a guy like me. I mean, who cares about television programs that you couldn’t understand after all. If I were a foreign-language student or an anthropologist, I might have some use with them foreign language cable channels, peeking into other countries culture and environment through the boob tube and salivating over a foreign tongue and learning proper diction and accent. But now, CCTV 1 is nothing but heaven sent, a manna from the sky, a treasure trove from under the mighty seas.

So how does it feel watching live soccer games with Chinese commentators on the helm? I am sure it ain’t as pleasing as watching them with English voiceovers eating up English words with pure British accent. We all like that Brisitsh accent don’t we all, even though at times it is just incomprehensible and garbled like ‘what the hell was that BBC guy was saying all along’.

The early games are supposedly aimed at dividing the boys from the men that there’d be games where the mighty strong goes against lowly upstarts like the upcoming game between Australia and Brazil; when the green and yellow clad Brazilians are rated top of the list by FIFA and the Australians having gotten to the final stages of this tournament only for the first time since 1974.

But the round of sixteen, the knock-out stage, would soon be on hand and I hope I’d still be sleepless in Zamboanga by that time.

It’s the biggest show on earth and its happening right before our eyes. FIFA World Cup 2006 finally took off last night amidst great fanfare and excitement. It’s easily the biggest sporting event there is and would you believe, it’s even bigger than the Olympics. I was pleasantly surprised to catch the second half of the opener between host and heavy-favorite Germany and upstart Costa Rica on RPN 9, just about the time German striker Klose scored on a follow-up of his own miss, on the day he was celebrating his 26th birthday—that for a dramatic opening day. My World Cup time clock was a little bit off since I was thinking that the games would not begin till Sunday and if I hadn’t stayed late enough last night, I would have missed the action-packed first game, when in fact do not intend to miss a single night of the coverage. I should blame the lackluster local TV coverage of the World Cup for nearly missing my first night, lackluster in a way that RPN 9, the TV station now carrying the live coverage, have not made even the slightest effort to drum-up this World Cup broadcast when usually there should have been. This astounds me to no end. I mean, this is one of the grandest sports spectacle to be had, if not the grandest, and yet the local television carrying it have not made sure that the viewing public would be reasonably aware of the games on local TV. Just like that upcoming Pacquiao-Larios fight in July where ABS-CBN had been drum beating about it even when it’s still a month before the bloody fight night comes, too far early in fact that I thought it felt like ABS-CBN is cashing so darn well on what could be a very expensive fight to hold or sponsor (They even have this text your answer contest; just like in the Pinoy Big Brother show). This un-ideal situation had left me guessing what TV outfit would carry the games, and it felt like having a lotto ticket in hand—I could never be so sure.

Perhaps, you could say World Cup awareness here in our country is so low and interest for it is nearly nil that RPN 9 did not find it imperative to publicize its present broadcast of World Cup games. Football is not really a sport where Filipinos are crazy about and in my observation only a very small number of the population actually patronizes it, and even a fewer number who had actually played it. Yet in my mind, this could have been the best time to promote the sport of football to our youth, for I believe every sport should be worth endorsing. Sports help take our kids away from youthful misconducts like drugs and violence. Besides, football is one sporting event that we Filipinos could excel if only we put our mind into it. I could in fact see a Wayne Rooney or a Diego Maradona coming out of our midst—small but terrible. Its an event where height is not might, unlike basketball where even our mightiest basketball superstars get bludgeoned in international competitions by far taller and heftier players from countries like China and South Korea. The natural physique of the Filipino is best suited to this game—the smugness and quickness is there. The Philippine Football Federation, the governing agency supervising football in our country should have taken it as their duty to make sure that this year’s World Cup, or for any year for that matter, would not pass us by like a mirage in the desert or like a slight wind that has just gone by. For if we miss it, it’s like we Filipinos are missing the boat. The bus has left and we just missed the ride.

The world celebrates FIFA World Cup. I could even feel the games like a soothing summer wind passing by. The reverberation is felt from one end of the globe to another. And we should be celebrating it too.

It was like as if there was a total eclipse of the sun yesterday, or Halley’s Comet was passing by. There was so much buzz about yesterday’s date—the 6th of June, 2006—as it had conformed to that mythical (and dreaded) number “666”. Suddenly, talk about the world coming to an abrupt end (that is, the coming of the Apocalypse) were permeating like heavy coffee aroma floating across a narrow room. What’s with the number? What’s to believe in its legend? According to New Testament texts, “666” is the number of the Beast, the Anti-Christ who is bound to be earthbound and wreck havoc so well that there’d be rapture and end of days. In the New Testament, Revelation 13:16-18 states:

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom: let anyone with the understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six.

Within the ambiguities of the above biblical passage, many had came forward to interpret it and generally, it is supposed that “666” is the number of Satan or the Anti-Christ. Some early biblical relics have exhibited such number to be “616” (in Greek form) and could be inferred to the infamous Roman Emperor Nero by using a numerological method called Gematria. Emperor Nero was historically known as a pervent persecutor of early Christians and Jews, feeding them to the lions for the public’s seeing pleasure. In any sense, “666” is generally attached to extreme cruelty and devilishness.

This sudden numerical debate brings me to Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code’ where it was mentioned there that the pyramid structure built in front of the famous Louvre museum in Paris is made-up of exactly 666 glass panes, as requested by Francois Mitterand, the former French President. Some written materials have allegedly confirm this, like the brochures that was published in the early 80’s as a primer to the pyramid project. This fact is now being strongly rebuked by the Louvre’s administrators.

So whose afraid of “666”?

Yesterday had already passed by and nothing so grave had actually happened to the world, except for the usual (but still dreadful) explosions in Iraq and the volcanoe eruption in Indonesia. It might not be in the date that’s to be reckoned. Actually, it is generally believed that if the Anti-Christ is to come, he can actually be identified by the number “666” tattoed naturally somewhere in his body, most probably in the forehead and that way, nobody could miss his coming.

But I have tried myself to read and analyze the biblical text (Revelation 13:16-18) mentioning the much-talked about number but I couldn’t seem to infer nothing about it or “calculate” from it; whether or not it refers to a date or to a particular name. Maybe it had referred to “Hitler” since it’s a six-letter name or “Marcos” for that matter. But none of the two had been bad enough to qualify as the Beast, for nothing nearly apocalyptic had happened during their respective “reigns of terror”. Although they can be “apocalyptic” in many sense.

Maybe, “666” refers to the name “George”, as in George Bush. Who knows? Certainly, Almajinehad is too long a name for “666” to fit in.

Maybe, the world will be on the look-out for a guy whose first name, middle name, and last name all has six letters each. And I bet, he had to be famous to be qualified as the missing guy known as “The Beast”.

And according to this site, any among us can be the “beast”. Even Arnold Schwarzenneger.

See Related Articles:

“6-6-6: Is our number really up?”

“Number Of The Beast (Wikipedia) “

By the time Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahamdinejads had sent the so-called “love letter” to U.S. President George Bush a month ago, it was a point that even the sternest political analyst could never mistake for. Iran wants a way out of this scorching conflict that resulted from its not-too-nascent nuclear activity and America’s intense aversion to such. It wasn’t in a very meek tone but maybe Almajinehad had thought it could take President Bush out of his back. But of course, we could only subsume all too well how President Bush must have reacted to it, and what could be his mighty response. It would have been a “Go To Hell!” kind of thing, for President Bush is never the sort of guy that could trust a peculiar individual like Almajinehad.

But now, the rhetoric spewing from Iran’s side continues to become more virulent as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni warns just yesterday of a severe oil shortage/crisis if America “misbehaves” towards Iran, meaning if military option is used by America against the Islamic state east of Iraq. Ayatollah Khameni remarked strongly that any such “misbehavior” could cause a great toll on the oil security in the middle-east region and of course, the rest of the world (Actually, one need not be a rocket-scientist to realize that). Perhaps due to this probability, oil-hungry China is not so inclined to approve a severe sanctioning of Iran and is even poised to veto any decision of the United Nation Security Council to that effect. Russia had also expressed its dissent over such suggested action, and this is probably due of its huge arms-trade with it.

Now despite these latest rants from the Ayatollah, Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki continually maintains that his country does not intend to build nuclear weapons and said that any nuclear activity is solely for peaceful purposes, like consumer and industrial energy purposes. In his own words:

“Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran’s military and defense doctrine,… nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction are obstacles to international peace and security.”

The Ayatollah Khameni also said:

“(Iran) is not pursuing a nuclear bomb. This is not true, and it is an absolute lie. We are not pursuing an atomic bomb. We have no plans that would require us to have a bomb. This is against Islamic principles. Building and maintaining a nuclear bomb costs a lot, and we do not need this. “

Still, the U.S. Government takes these statements lowly and wouldn’t have any of it. President Almajinehad’s unkind words against Israel and its Jewish population some months ago might have stuck so well that President Bush now appears to be hell-bent to see to it that Iran stop its nuclear activity by hook or by crook. (U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice had demanded Iran to respond to an EU compromise in a week’s time.)

Could one actually believe that Iran may not verge into weaponry once it acquires an advanced nuclear technology? Maybe one could assume that it is merely preparing itself for a future where many alternative form of energy—like ethanol and hydrogen-fuel—would be more available in large quantity and at much-popular prices. With recent advancements in fuel technology, there’d be a time where oil prices could dip to the lowest minimum as transports and factories could switch to more environmentally-friendly form of energy and are readily available from a wider range of suppliers. Production of hybrid cars for example, those that run on a combination of gas and electricity, are slowly on the rise. And if such model could be sold at regular prices—like the ones commonly bought by car buyers today—then the demand for gasoline could of course stumble down in the near future like Jack did from a hill. This likelihood would of course affect the viability of some economies like that of Iran and other oil-producing countries. So perhaps Iran had to decide whether to swim or drown.

Meanwhile, the European Community has recently formulated a compromise that could just convince Iran to completely abandon its nuclear ambition. Although much of the compromise is still largely unknown (until Iran had been informed of it in the coming days), it is said to be a proposal for cooperation in energy concerns.

Could Iran take this deal offered by EU and finally find an escape route from this brimming quagmire? Maybe President Almajinehad will take advantage of what could be his last opportunity to undo this disorder that he had fanned all to well in recent months. Maybe he should think hard about it. An economic embargo against Iran may be the last thing he needs. Iraq had been sanctioned in the past and had been affected by it so severely. There could be a no way out for Iran if the embargo is finally instituted.

With an economic embargo at hand, it would be just harder for Iran to swim and so much easier for it to sink.