War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
“They stuff people’s heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall,” he told Harry. “Want to come upstairs and practice?” “No, thanks,” said Harry. “The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick.” — Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone According to Juan Cole’s most-essential…
As I was thinking fairly-clear this morning — thinking is sometimes for me a really, really mega-complicated ordeal and not so unclouded — and although mostly about all kinds of related/unrelated shit, the focus finally came to war, which is part and partial to this whole blog, and on today’s complete-whole world the life-and-death real…
How in the living shit of any-kind-of-daylight can the US ‘win‘ any kind of war in Afghanistan? On Tuesday via Raw Story: According to a watchdog group and a litany of whistleblowers, Armorgroup North America, a key U.S. security contractor in Afghanistan, has suffered a breakdown of its chain of command resulting in an atmosphere…
In the last few months, Gail Collins of the New York Times has become one my most-favorite pundits, making clear, concise points with a keen sense of humor. This morning she looks at those insufferable computer upgrade notices that are seemingly always there, and always ready, willing and able to promise a more-wonderful life in the…
In my eighth-grade history class (circa 1962), we would have studied a historical document similar to the one released on Monday, and although content might have been far less graphic, one thing was for sure –Â it would not be anywhere, anyhow at all connected to the US; most-likely from centuries past, in some more…
Last summer, I had some sort of political epiphany as candidate Barack Obama near-nonchalantly shot/tossed a basketball in front of a crowd of US troops in Afghanistan — Too cool for school. One can watch the event here. From a Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday: Among all Americans, 49 percent now express confidence that Obama…
As the economy tanks, the more wealthy of us are also going down the drain, albeit in slower, easier fashion. From the New York Times yesterday: But economists say — and data is beginning to show — that a significant change may in fact be under way. The rich, as a group, are no longer…
UPDATE BELOW “I’m glad you’re not overreacting. What do you wanna run?” “I don’t know. What do I wanna run? — They didn’t do it.” “They didn’t do it? You don’t have close to that. You have unattributed cops.” “She doesn’t have ‘Gotcha!’” “You don’t have “Gotcha!” for page one until you have a shot…
UPDATE BELOW The war-worn and weary Afghan people go to the polls tomorrow for a national election amidst Taliban scare tactics and a weak central government unable to comprehend the inevitable. In October 2004, Moqadasa Sidiqi (left), was the first Afghan to cast a ballot in the first national election post-Taliban, but she did so in…
A shitload of cows standing around farting — Not! Another brick in the wall as a research team has found that a powerful global warming component, methane gas, is seeping from the Arctic seabed, which is nothing new (a study last year revealed the methane time bomb), but for the first time the process appears…