War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
Mr. Bush had belittled “nation building†while campaigning for president 18 months earlier. But aware that Afghans had felt abandoned before, including by his father’s administration after the Soviets left in 1989, he vowed to avoid the syndrome of “initial success, followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. “We’re not going to repeat…
Jobs has finally topped the news cycle with an overpowering media assault and now maybe more US peoples will have a chance at getting employed… Whoa, wait a sec! Not that kind of jobs, dumb ass! Yes, Steve Jobs is dead. Two things there — one, life is really, really fleeting, he was only 56,…
“How can we let this happen? How is that acceptable in the United States of America? The answer is, it’s not. It’s an outrage. And it’s a betrayal — a betrayal — of the ideals that we ask our troops to risk their lives for.” — Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, April 2008, reacting to the suicide…
Nearly as Pink Floyd intoned more than 30 years ago: “Is Anybody Out There?” the noted follow-up nowadays: Is anybody listening, or paying attention? A surge is rippling through US financial districts as the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon spreads across the country, apparently some people are finally opening eyes and ears to everyday people’s money…
In the last few years there’s been a momentous outburst of gall — the audacity of some people to bullshit despite incredible evidence to the contrary — which has touched just about every aspect of US life, especially in politics. Two such unrelated examples occurred this past weekend, one involved GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry…
Environmental disasters are nothing new, neither are financial disasters, and both are man made for the way-most part. The on-going ‘Occupy Wall Street’ demonstration, which is gaining a shitload of traction the last few days, netted 700-plus arrests yesterday when protestors tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge — the spark from New York has jumped to…
Everyday appears a mystery, and the mystery more wonderful. ‘Light at dawn, shone through clouds, thick with weather. Even in the gray a beauty of quiet, potent perplexity Awaiting this day. A most-astonishing sight.’ Poetry has always explained a lot of shit we just don’t understand, a state in which reality can’t seem to interpret,…
“If this works out, we’ll have the ability to track people persistently across wide areas,†says Tim Faltemier, the lead biometrics researcher at Progeny Systems Corporation, which recently won one of the Army contracts. “A guy can go under a bridge or inside a house. But when he comes out, we’ll know it was the…
(Illustration found here). Early Tuesday here on California’s northern coast and listening to neighbors act like loud assholes at this early hour makes me want to scream, lash out into the dark, pierce the clear, clean air with a shitload of curses. Although I’ve been awake awhile, and I’m fully awake right now, the disturbance…
“If you don’t want it to be the most expensive year [for gasoline prices,] you’re surreptitiously rooting for an economic debacle.†— Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service (via the Washington Post last week) (Illustration found here). Yesterday, I put another $20 worth of fuel in my old Jeep Comanche and still at…