War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
The US is getting the shaft in war making. Two invasions and two bloody, nasty quagmires. Rare is the Maureen Dowd column that is more than pancake face powder, or a shoe-horned turn at national politics, and rare still is a piece with insight into the US’ two beleaguered faraway wars. In her column this…
Long ago, when in high school, I lost almost $100 somewhere after a shopping trip. My mother — always aware of how a bit means a lot, and even with the money being my own hard-earned cash — went nearly ballistic. Nowadays, nothing of the sort happens, no fits pitched, no hand-wringing, no talking about…
Massive toxic leaks into the environment can be horrible, whether it be the Gulf of Mexico or a horrible, incompetent-run war in Afghanistan. On Sunday, WikiLeaks (my laptop won’t load the group’s website) released a shitload of formerly-classified documents on the Afghan conflict, and the result ain’t pretty. From the the New York Times: The…
What? Me worry? (Illustration found here). Since the last time I’d posted, there’s been a shitload of weird, dangerous and dumb stuff happen, but most of it apparently hasn’t had enough stupidity involved to really get me spiking the old keyboard again — this past week’s adventure via the Internet, though, has caused a return,…
Writing society: I remember when it was kind of cool to be a blogger. You’d walk around with a swagger in your step, a twinkle in your eye. Now it’s just humiliating. Blogging has become like mahjong or needlepoint or clipping coupons out of Walgreens circulars: something old folks do while waiting to croak. (Illustration…
Of course, one can forgive Steve McCroskey for nearly-screaming demands at his wife. The airport manager was having a real-real neurotic day, was under intense, coronary-inducing pressure, and what the heck, an airliner was in great jeopardy, hundreds of lives were at stake, and Johnny wasn’t helping at all, clowning around, being a total douche-bag. And…
Just as I figured: Computers are intolerant, racially discriminatory and just creepy. Figuring out African-Americans was a problem for HP’s newest face-recognition gear: In the video, Wanda (Caucasian) and Desi (African American) — two employees at what appears to be a computer electronics store — expose a flaw in the webcam software. As depicted, the software…
Must-read on the twisted-horror of the US Senate health care bill at FireDogLake. Politics and the human condition.
In the midst of bad news from many quarters, this latest does make one feel better. From Wired: That asteroid is Apophis, a 900-foot asteroid. Calculations released on Christmas Eve 2004 appeared to show that there was a greater than 2 percent chance the asteroid would hit the Earth in 2029. The asteroid appeared ready…
Copenhagen: Tempers flared Monday at the United Nations climate summit as poor nations staged a walkout to protest what they called inadequate aid offers from rich countries, and the U.S. and China jockeyed for position. The talks have become what one observer called a “farce,” as guidelines agreed on two years ago are not even…