London Blasts!!! Was it a power surge or something more sinister at work??

Earlier today, a series of six explosions rocked the city of London, crippling the famed London Underground rail network. This tragedy occured a day after London was declared the host for Olympics 2012 and while the G8 Summit was underway in Scotland.

The question is: was this a power surge as authorities initially claimed or is it something more sinister, something ruthless? If an incident like this happened about two decades ago, the first thought on every Londoner's mind would be "the IRA did it!" Of course, how remarkable times have changed. There is no doubt that this is NOT the work of the Irish Repulican Army, who had laid down its arms a few years ago and is working towards a peaceful solution to its problems with England.

If investigations proved that it WAS a terrorist attack, little doubt on anyone's mind who would be involved. But let's not be quick to blame it on those poor, wretched mountain dogs that goes by the name of Al-Qaeda. Though they are highly suspect, but there are others who have their own reasons to stage such a despicable act of tyranny upon humanity. But there is no room for doubt about Al-Qaeda's involvement in this as it was reported by BBC that an Islamist website with Al-Qaeda links had put up a claim that it was responsible.

The G8 summit is due to start in Scotland, and this could have happened because somebody wanted to make a point, but what kind of point are those idiots trying to make that is worth crippling the London Underground and wrecking havoc on the lives of hundreds, if not thousands. But there is no doubt that what the perpetrators had achieved what they had set out to achieve. Major financial stock markets across Europe plummeted drastically, some up to three percent! Could it be a coincidence that one of the agenda for the G8 summit was to discuss the poverty situation in Africa? The losses incurred are high and the impact on British and European economy could be serious and may take a while for it to recover. No doubt England's neighbours are all quaking in their seats for the next unexpected strike.

But why choose the London Underground, you wonder? If the experts had predicted in the days after 9/11 that London is susceptible to attacks, they should have guessed that London Underground would be a primary target. Up to three to four million users a day! If one plane were able to destroy a tower, imagine what a bomb could do to an underground train station. The emphasis here is UNDERGROUND. No chance of escape. The force of the explosion will rock and resonate more powerfully when enclosed, hence the scale of destruction much more vast. Fortunately, the baddies wasnt obviously thinking about that as from what I have read on the news so far, none of the trains were turned into bombs but could have been planted somewhere in the stations itself.

Yet, despite the scale of destruction - even a double decker bus on the surface was not spared - there has been a suspiciously low count of casualties and fatalities. So far, from what I know on the Internet, there were 90 casualites and 2 fatalities. This is just speculation I believe. There would be more trapped in the trains devastated by the blasts. The most important thing right now is for the rescuers and authorities to get in there and get them out before its too late. Air in the tunnels will not last long after an explosion and there could be dangers of chemical gas leakage. All I could do right now is join the millions of people across the world who are obviously in prayer right now that the destruction was not as bad as I had presumed and the fatalities remained low.

I feel that this is a warning to the Western powers that they are not as strong and powerful as they think they might be. There will always be people one step ahead of even the most feared intelligence agencies in the world. This is just but a taste of what is to come in the future. None of us are safe now. Anywhere where people congregate will be susceptible to attacks. As they always say, prevention is better than the cure. The US opted for the cure after 9/11, which is to launch into a series of war with Afghanistan and Iraq. Britain followed suit to back-up 'Big Daddy'. What they should have done is ponder over what went wrong, why people would do such a thing and stand back up and start all over for the better. If the USA had done some soul-searching and lessen their arrogance a notch or two, I doubt the farce that is Iraq and Afghanistan today. You cannot fight fire with fire as they always say.

Nevertheless, England ought to have shored up its defences on home soil, knowing that the G8 Summit is going on in Scotland. Of course, no one expected this to happen, especially coming after a night of partying to celebrate victory over Paris for the right to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. That certainly brought everybody's guard down. No matter what the authorities say,I still think that it is a high possibility that this is indeed a terrorist attack. Six, not one or two but SIX simultaneous explosions at six different locations! Wake up and see the logic! If there's a power surge, how could it have caused six explosions at six different places?? No, it is something more sinister. And I am damn sure about it! Anything lesser and I'll say its a cover up!

We are heading for an uneasy future right now. What the days in the future will bring no one knows for sure, but I pray that everyone will not give up hope. We have someone watching over us and we should not fear anything even though we are walking through the valley of death. It will be a while for us to get over this but then again, most of us are still feeling the pain over 9/11. I don't know whats it is like to lose someone in that kind of tragedy, but I still know what it is like to lose someone. Especially those we love. But I know we have a good God who would never let us down and on that God I entrust my life and future.

The Darkest and the Best Batman Ever! (SPOILERS!!!)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Creator: Bob Kane

Movie Cast: Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Liam Neeson, Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe & Rutger Hauer

Finally, a movie that remained truthful and did justice to the vision of Bob Kane’s beloved and enigmatic creation. Even Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns could not be matched with what Christopher Nolan had done here with Batman Begins. And of course, let’s not even compare it with the utterly forgettable and ultra campy versions of Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forver and Batman & Robin.

Nolan’s is by far the best of the lot and stayed true to the dark and gritty nature of the comic books. Nolan is one of the rising crop of talented young directors who made a name of himself in the indie movie circuit with excellent hits like Memento and Imsomnia before branching out into the mainstream. Warner Bro. could not have picked a better director in Nolan.

The movie opens with Bruce Wayne (Bale) incarcerated in an Asian country for crimes committed as part of his research into the criminal mind and heart. Often picked on (most likely due to the fact that he is the only Mat Salleh there), Wayne found freedom in the mysterious Henri Ducard (Neeson in his first villain role) who belongs to the enigmatic League of Shadows, who proclaimed to be humanity’s guardian of righteousness by way of destroying corrupted civilisations – “We burned London to the ground. We brought Rome on its knees!”

Appointing himself mentor (Neeson’s roles of late have seen him mentoring various characters) with the hopes of using him to lead the League of Shadows in purging Gotham City of evil, Ducard trained Wayne on how to use his fear and turn it against his enemies. “To overcome fear, you must become fear itself!” proclaimed Ducard. (More like “to overcome your fear of bats, you must be THE bat!”)

However, when forced to kill a criminal, Wayne refuses to stoop to the level of a criminal and turned against his trainers before returning to Gotham City to begin his journey as the Caped Crusader… Batman! Along the way, his ever faithful butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Caine) provided the encouragement and support that Wayne needed as well as a few words of wisdom. Caine was a delight to watch as Alfred and has some of the movie’s best lines besides providing the audience a chance to catch a breather from the tense moments of the film.

Nolan gave Wayne’s transition into Batman a certain level of plausibility as he slowly perfects and masters his role with the aid of scientist Lucius Fox (Freeman), an outcast member of Wayne Enterprise’s directors. The inclusion of Fox also makes Wayne’s evolution into Batman more believable, with him being the source of all of Batman’s nifty gadgets – from the lightweight cape that enables him to glide through the air to grappling hooks and the Batsuit as well as the Batmobile, which goes by the name Tumbler! Don’t know about you but the Batmobile is the best of all Batmobiles I have seen on the silver screen. It fits the edgier, more brutal and tougher Batman. And it has to be every man's wet dream!

Gadgetry and Batmobiles aside, Wayne/Batman slowly began to take on the ruthless crime lord Carmine Falcone (Wilkinson), only to discover that Falcone was just a puppet behind a much more diabolical plot to destroy Gotham City. Instead of going for the more popular Bat foes in the comic, Nolan settled for Dr Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow (Murphy) who is no less evil and crazy. Wielding a powerful hallucinogen drug that is similar to LSD, Scarecrow is certainly not to be messed around with.

I simply love everything about this movie. From the Narrows to the progress of the plot to the minimal special effects (Nolan hates CGI thus avoiding it completely in this movie), everything about the movie have an artistic touch to it. And because there are no CGI effects, it becomes much more real. When Batman jumps of a building, he definitely jumped off the building. The most special effects in the film is the climax, where Lt Gordon (Oldman) blows away Gotham City’s monorail system with the Batmobile. It was one of the most spectacular scenes involving trains I have ever seen.

What made this movie work, as I had mentioned before, was Nolan and his vision of how the Bat should take form. He is also well-known to get the best out of his actors and we can see here that he certainly did with Bale believably portraying the angry, hungry for revenge billionaire turned masked vigilante. It was also a good idea for Nolan to change Bale’s voice when he becomes Batman.

I believe that this movie would have won over a new generation of Batman fans and the long-suffering fans who have been waiting for the true portrayal of the hero can now breathe much easier. I, for one, am certainly looking forward to the sequel, knowing who the next diabolical villain would be.

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