War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
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 2008 personally, and this ain’t 2008. From CNN: Shortly afterward, Obama sent an e-mail to supporters to say he will…
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 most intricate, interconnected, and near-fragile-to-the-touch world. Leckie examines employment and how the world’s work force will shift from techno to…
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% of business equity. The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over…
In the face of so much bad shit going on right now — even another US theater of war in Libya — the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan is taking a deep-back seat on the runaway bus of a 24-hour news cycle. However, death is still there as six US GIs were killed Tuesday in eastern…
Despite the over-abundance of mustard, a shit sandwich is still a shit sandwich. US peoples know stupid when they realize it — something ain’t right: Just 32 percent of respondents viewed the tea party favorably, while a record-high 47 percent had a negative view of the movement that propelled Republicans to dramatic Congressional victories last…
This story from last week (via Forbes): Federal safety officials are investigating a report that two planes landed at Reagan National Airport without control tower clearance because the air traffic controller was asleep. An aviation official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the incident, said the single controller — a supervisor — was…
Even as radioactivity from Japan’s shredded Fukushima nuclear plant has been detected all over the globe, from China to the eastern part of the US, one killjoy piped up: Lake Barrett, a nuclear engineer and former staffer for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the risk of exposure from the Fukushima plant is very small,…
As these modern times gets more complicated, the ability of government to stare way-down into your bowels to catch a terrorist turd has come a long way, baby, and the future of freedom doesn’t appear too inconspicuous, either. In fact, any private aspect of our daily lives is open to be scrutinized, filmed, recorded and…
While the northern California coastline continues its monotonous weather — Rain showers and isolated thunderstorms. Some thunderstorms may produce small hail — the US Upper Midwest is way-beyond the quiet isolated thunderstorm routine with a record-level snowpack. Dr. Jeff Masters has a most-excellent post at Wunderblog on the situation: National Weather Service models show this…
Unlike many other countries on the planet, at least the ones who claim some form of freedom, a great obstacle facing US peoples is not the economy (though, it is terrible), nature or even some horrific wars, but the heartless, self-centered shitheads to the right of the political center. Yeah, that’s right, Republicans, Tea Baggers,…