If it’s not yet time to start worrying…

It’s getting awfully close. BTW, if you’re wondering whether the creep in the video has the street cred to back up his Earth-ending bombast, he is affectionately known in Russia’s kleptocratic circle as “Putin’s mouthpiece.” I wonder what the Vegas … Continue reading If it’s not yet time to start worrying…

Chemical Warfare

Speaking from my privileged First World perspective, our, meaning the United States’, response to the Syrian war has always been a very conflicting and troubling issue for me.

Poor me, right, when there’s somewhere around 500,000 Syrians dead and over 10,000,000 displaced.

Poor me, indeed.

But since all pain is relative, all I can do is acknowledge/empathize with/pray for the atrocities external from me while focusing on finding some way to mitigate or at least reconcile with the conflicts and turmoil internal to me.

So far I’ve been unsuccessful…

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This would make for great fiction…

Global food poisoning? Yes, We’re maxing out. Forget Peak Oil. We’re maxing-out on Peak Food. Billions go hungry. We’re poisoning our future, That’s why Cargill, America’s largest private food company, is warning us: about water, seeds, fertilizers, diseases, pesticides, droughts. You name it. Everything impacts the food supply. Wake up America, it’s worse than you think. We’re slowly poisoning America’s food supply, poisoning the whole world’s food supply. Fortunately Cargill’s thinking ahead. But politicians are dragging their feet. They’re trapped in denial, protecting Big Oil donors, afraid of losing their job security; their inaction is killing, starving, poisoning people, while … Continue reading This would make for great fiction…

Crossing One Thin Line After Another

History shows us there is a thin line between outrage and unrest, between unrest and riot, and between riot and revolution. And it seems lately that we are constantly crossing these lines, that we are constantly on the edge and on the verge of being pushed to the limit, that every day, somewhere in the world, individuals, families, communities, countries, and regions are fluctuating and transitioning from one point of frustration to the next, even more frustrating point. From the economy, to the environment, to intractable politics, to intolerance, to technology, to terrorism, to any number of other issues, who … Continue reading Crossing One Thin Line After Another

TOTAL WAR OR TOTAL PEACE – A Relating to Humans Political Issues Feature

I do not have much to say as an introduction to this powerful topical essay by Paul Xylinides, our IABS&R Volume 2 selectee, other than to compel you to go take a look at today’s headlines. There you will unfortunately witness once more what brutality we humans are willing to inflict upon other humans in an effort to further our own goals, be they political, religious, or whatever cause it may be that motivates us into a frenzy of fanaticism and murderous hate.

My prayers are with Pakistan as I mourn the lost lives of all the innocent children.

Paul will also be contributing a guest post for us tomorrow.
– 8:00pm (EST), Wednesday, December 17, 2014


TOTAL WAR OR TOTAL PEACE
by Paul Xylinides

The concept of total war has been especially widespread in execution in the twentieth century. It means just what it says, that is, the decision by one or both sides in a conflict to use all and every means in order to prevail. War crimes become unavoidable and are a matter of course under these scenarios. Moral and legal concerns are completely set aside. Intended to prevent or, at best, minimize carnage directed towards the innocent, the rules of war are effective only so long as one side enjoys vastly superior capacities and thus the luxury of choosing how to conduct itself in an engagement. Recent comments by Vladimir Putin as to his country’s continued possession of a nuclear arsenal illustrate what recourse a threatened nation feels justified to employ. Today, the United States is able to act militarily within the rules of war. Should the day come that a figure such as the present Russian leader were to carry out his veiled threat, it is not conceivable that the United States would not respond in kind.
Continue reading “TOTAL WAR OR TOTAL PEACE – A Relating to Humans Political Issues Feature”

A Super Sad True Look at What May Lie Ahead

BOOK | FICTION | LITERATURE SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY by Gary Shteyngart RATING: ★ ★ ★ In Gary Shteyngart’s SUPER SAD TRUE LOVE STORY, the state of the union is dire. The country is bankrupt and so are its morals and values. It is at war both abroad and at home with itself. Its fall from grace and global dominance is near complete. Its citizens are vacuous, intellectually dead, and have ceded their free will and persona’s to ubiquitous technological devices and the killer apps that power them. While this may sound like a description of the America of … Continue reading A Super Sad True Look at What May Lie Ahead