War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
From long ago, and not-so-surprisingly far, far away: Defense Secretary McElroy said after a conference with President Eisenhower Friday that the Pentagon would have “a pretty rough time” trying to avoid a military spending increase staring July 1. McElroy ruled out any increase totaling as much as two billion dollars in excess of the estimated…
(Illustration found here via Google Images). The current US political scene sucks through an extremely-thin straw, making it hard to swallow a possible federal government shut-down this Friday (tomorrow!). In my humble estimation, there’s never been a more nasty, chaotic mess than DC right now, and the real losers are the ordinary, rank-and-file US peoples…
Climate change has already worm-holed its way into the tattered fabric of everyday life. The American Medical Association and its editorial from yesterday (Monday): If physicians want evidence of climate change, they may well find it in their own offices. Patients are presenting with illnesses that once happened only in warmer areas. Chronic conditions are…
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…
(Illustration found here via Google Images). As the entire world appears to be going full-steam bat-shit insane, the announcement yesterday of the death of movie icon Elizabeth Taylor most-oddly gives life a more normal feel to it, a reassuring sense that time is still the same, that people grow, mature, and then die. Taylor’s obit…
“There is a distance, a veil between us.” — ‘All Quiet On The Western Front,’ Erich Maria Remarque (Illustration found here). War as waged nowadays — slipshod and way-unnecessary — kills in ways way-beyond the flesh. The US has destroyed a certain of segment of its population, a big chunk, in waging nasty, cruel and…
In observation, however, it’s not flies in the ointment that really matters, but worms in the can, which once opened, spews forth something way ugly, slimy and gross. And this little adventure now ongoing in Libya has all the makings of one nasty can. Hillary Clinton begs to differ: As international forces launched attacks against…
In a modern world gone dangerously bat-shit crazy, maybe happiness is indeed a warm gun. As we ponder Japan getting radiated — workers were still trying this early morning to water down the exposed spent fuel rods in the Fukushima plants, but horrific shit is still moving closer and closer to an out-of-control mode —…
Surrealism is alive and well in Japan. Early Wednesday, according to CNN, Japanese authorities found traces of radiation in tap water in Fukushima city, 50 miles from the nuclear plant at Daiichi — odd, however, a check of tap water later in the day found nothing. Meanwhile, South Korea’s Astronomy and Space Science Institute reported…