War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Haboob: A strong wind that occurs primarily along the southern edges of the Sahara in The Sudan and is associated with large sandstorms and duststorms and may be accompanied by thunderstorms. It usually lasts about three hours, is most common during the summer, and may blow from any direction. A haboob may transport huge quantities…
Another view of this particular day: You profess to believe “that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth,” and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored…
(Illustration: ‘Burning of Colours‘ by Wojciech Kossak found here via Google Images). After more than three months, Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace‘Â is finally finished — and to reveal how good a read it’s been, I hated for the book to end, even as the once-big-lump of pages fluttered down to a few thin sheets,…
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 telephone and the shit hit the fan. Despite the US throwing Alan Shepard up in sub-orbital space for less than…
From Aljazeera English: A second explosion rocked Japan’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex, sending a plume of smoke into the air and touching off fresh concerns of radioactive leak in the quake and tsunami-hit country. The International Atomic Energy Agency said on Monday the reactor has not been damaged. In the same report, more…
“‘Smart growth’ destroys the environment. ‘Dumb growth’ destroys the environment. The only difference is that ‘smart growth’ does it with good taste. It’s like booking passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same.” — – Dr. Albert Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Colorado; World Population Balance…
As simple as one, two — bye, bye. (Illustration found here). As events in Egypt reach once again a kind of flash point Friday after Hosni Mubarak showed himself as mentally-unhinged in not only not stepping aside, down or in some kind of way displaying a sense he needs to get the shit out of…
As the world watches revolutionary unrest spread across a big chunk of the Middle East, one of the most vital and festering problems leading the surge is eating — or not eating. In 1996, The World Food Summit defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious…
Egypt is a way-ancient land now exploding via extreme-modern media, but a good reason for all the unrest is as old as time — food. And a near-twist-a-flex attitude in the US, where prices are fairly stable, mainly because American consumers aren’t really paying much for the actual agriculture product. From a NPR report on rising…
In September 2000, a peek into the future. During a Labor Day campaign stop in Illinois, George Jr., oblivious of a mic just inches from his mouth, blubbered an aside to The Dick, which eventually revealed a nasty, two-faced-lying politician. Via salon.com: “There’s Adam Clymer — major league asshole — from the New York Times,”…