Just after 1 a.m., April 12, 1961, a Soviet Vostok rocket blasted off from Baikonour cosmodrome, which alerted US radars in the Aleutian Islands. Twenty-three minutes later, Jerome Wiesner, JFK’s scientific adviser, was notified by…
From long ago, and not-so-surprisingly far, far away: Defense Secretary McElroy said after a conference with President Eisenhower Friday that the Pentagon would have “a pretty rough time” trying to avoid a military spending increase…
Yeah… Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel. — Benjamin Franklin (Illustration…
“There is nothing more wicked, more disastrous, more widely destructive, more deeply tenacious, more loathsome.” “…once war has been declared, then all the affairs of the State are at the mercy of the appetites of…
(Illustration found here via Google Images). The current US political scene sucks through an extremely-thin straw, making it hard to swallow a possible federal government shut-down this Friday (tomorrow!). In my humble estimation, there’s never…
An example of the fiscal foolishness of war. From Stars and Stripes: The Air Force secretary says the service has been spending about $4 million a day to keep 50 fighter jets and nearly 40…
Climate change has already worm-holed its way into the tattered fabric of everyday life. The American Medical Association and its editorial from yesterday (Monday): If physicians want evidence of climate change, they may well find…
In another attempt to pinch-out a phrase for the times, President Obama launched his 2012 re-election bid this morning with a stirring, “It begins with us,” planted on his official site at barackobama.com. I knew…
An interesting post from Australian writer on peak oil, Cameron Leckie, on the most-interesting concept of catabolic collapse, and how this view of the inevitable failure of complex systems affects/effects our current world — a…
Ordinary US peoples are financial slaves to the rich: In terms of types of financial wealth, the top one percent of households have 38.3% of all privately held stock, 60.6% of financial securities, and 62.4%…