War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Much ado about President Obama’s hot-mike comment to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during the nuclear pow-wow in Korea: “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Obama appears real-positive about what will happen in November. Although he snagged some dumb-ass comments from GOP presidential contenders, and tried to make light of…
Dramatic changes in climate are being rigged as plot devices for entertainment — ‘Are you not?’ From the New York Times review of the new film, “4:44 Last Day on Earth:” The cause of the calamity is an environmental breakdown enabled by the human failure to do anything about about climate change. Or perhaps the…
Iran not unplugged: Oil prices on Friday briefly spiked to the highest level in three weeks following a report that Iranian oil exports dropped significantly this month. … Benchmark U.S. crude rose by $1.52 to finish at $106.87 per barrel in New York. Earlier, prices jumped by $2.95 per barrel in 13 minutes to $108.25,…
Doc: I don’t give a shit if he’s from Johannesburg. I don’t want to hear dune koon or sand nigger from him or anybody. Vig: Captain uses those terms. Troy: The point is, Conrad, ‘towel head’ and ‘camel jockey’ are perfectly good substitutes. — Three Kings US Army Sgt. Bob Bales is to be charged…
There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past. –Â George Carlin On occasion there’s just too much going on to actually get a hold on some subject for a morning’s blog post, which happened today — plus I didn’t sleep too well and crawled out feeling a bit of the WTF. This…
“I mean, with the other guys, you can dig into their past and find at least some shred of rational thinking, even if they’re cynically downplaying it now,” Gallardo continued. “But I get the sense Santorum is speaking nothing but his completely unfiltered thoughts. I know it’s weird to say this about a politician, but…
Raining like a mad dog up here on California’s northern coast, and in the pre-dawn hours, cold as shit. And on this first day of spring, weather is screwed. And so is the world — the French are hunting for a crazed killer, Mexicans are seeking more killers of police investigating headless bodies, Iraqis are…
Although the name of the supposedly “lone service member” who killed 16 Afghan civilians a week ago has finally emerged — Sgt. Bob Bales — the names of the victims of the rampage haven’t seen the light of day. As Paul Woodward wrote at War In Context, the reason: Because they are not Americans. These…
Another under-reckoning. From Nature: Recent studies have focused on the short-term contribution of the Greenland ice sheet to sea-level rise, yet little is known about its long-term stability. … Here, using a fully coupled model, we show that this criterion systematically overestimates the temperature threshold and that the Greenland ice sheet is more sensitive to…
Some joy from the Arctic Methane Emergency Group: We declare there now exists an extremely high international security risk* from abrupt and runaway global warming being triggered by the end-summer collapse of Arctic sea ice towards a fraction of the current record and release of huge quantities of methane gas from the seabed. Such global…