The Hypocrisy of Political Parties

Ezra Klein could be my near soul mate as far as my basic premise that the political parties have made a complete and utter mess of things and do not deserve to exist in this noble experiment we call America, but he is a bit more tolerant of their existence than I.  However I do need to give him all the credit for some excellent research and commentary. 

Global warming...us???

Yes, humans....think about it...think long and hard since no one in Congress or who belongs to any political party is obviously going to have the intelligence or courage to do so.  

Think people!
 

Don't let facts get in the way....

of an opportunity to pontificate and recast the 'facts' according to your prejudices.  

This is Really Cool

to think about...no matter what kind of continuing nonsense is going on down here on the polluted orb we inhabit.  An excerpt from the Phys.org site linked on the right:

"Data from NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft indicate that the venerable deep-space explorer has encountered a region in space where the intensity of charged particles from beyond our solar system has markedly increased. Voyager scientists looking at this rapid rise draw closer to an inevitable but historic conclusion - that humanity's first emissary to interstellar space is on the edge of our solar system."

This is a 34-year old spacecraft and the transmissions from it take almost 17 hours...one way...and we are just geting out of our local solar system.

Feeling small yet?

The rest of the phys.org item is here.

As always, dear readers - happy thinking!

Stephen Hawking

If you haven't read Stephen Hawking or otherwise had an occasion to appreciate his intelligence and sharp wit, you have missed the opportunity to appreciate one of our greatest living thinkers.  Just a quick snippet from a recent appearance in Seattle at which he commented on his "M-theory" of other, alternate dimensions as a potential 'theory of everything':

"I feel to ignore it would be like claiming that God put fossils in the rocks to trick Darwin into believing in evolution,"

In response to a journalist's question about time-travel at a press conference:

"I have experimental evidence that [backward] time travel is not possible. I gave a party for time travelers, but I didn't send out the invitation until after the party. I sat there a long time, but no one came."

Book Review - Descent Into Chaos

I am posting another of my Goodreads book reviews, this one on a book that discredits thoroughly almost every assumption and move that the US has made in the last 12 years in the Middle East, particularly in regards to Pakistan.

Descent into Chaos: The United States & the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan & Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It took me a long time to read this book, mainly because of all the names of people and places. It is a complex and very detailed look by a respected Pakistani journalist at the mess that is Pakistan and Afghanistan. That it was largely due to the incredibly inept bungling of the Bush administration I knew before reading the book, but just how culpable, how willingly the administration chose the wrong road each and every time and how thoroughly they played into the hands of al Qaeda and the Taliban was something of a revelation.

Another fact that came out with glaring clarity was just how thoroughly the Bush administration lied to the American people - while Rumsfeld was praising the ability of the warlords to govern Afghanistan and Bush was extolling the wonderful aid Musharaff giving the US in tracking down al Qaeda they were both taking American aid money and using it to clamp down and solidify their own power in the first case or feed the money through the Pakistani army and the ISI intelligence service to the Taliban. The US would have been much better off (and closer to dismembering al Qaeda) if they had invaded Pakistan at the outset, but this would have taken too long since they had something resembling a real army and Bush would have been delayed in his blood lust to invade Iraq.

Telling as well is the insider's view of the lack of coodination in NATO between the countries, and the way their reluctance to get involved at all played out in scenario after scenario where NATO countries tried to do at least some nation-building/rebuilding but a disinterested US turned its back (and closed its wallet) to any meaningful recovery activities for the country's infrastructure or the government.

The author has personal relationships with many of the top players in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and brings a depth of knowledge about the ethnic strife and politics of the area that can only can come from living it, and watching your part of the world being savaged by faraway countries with more money and guns than common sense.

The Picture that Makes You Stop

I came across this a few months ago and just found it again.  I have mentioned before that in another life I could enjoy a career in photojournalism.  The best images simply take your breath away for a moment.  This example is one of the best of the craft I have seen recently...I hope it wins some recognition. 

 

A boy swings in a park converted to a cemetery in the northwestern Syrian town of Idlib on Saturday. RODRIGO ABD / Associated Press

What does this image say to you?  Are the graves in this converted city park marching inexorably toward the swing, and the innocence of youth it represents?  Perhaps toward the boy? 

(The full caption from the Tulsa World is included to acknowledge the photographer, the image was originally dated in March of 2012.)