Politicians are fiddling while the planet burns. What's a voter to do?
The Eastern Sierra Speaks
Politicians are fiddling while the planet burns. What's a voter to do?
Categories: Global Warming, 1149 words4 feedbacks •From 14 Dec Newsweek. James Hansen is the world's preeminent authority on global warming. At the end he suggests that civil disobedience may be necessary.
Planet Earth is in imminent peril. We now have clear evidence of the crisis, provided by increasingly detailed information about how Earth responded to perturbing forces during its history and by observations of changes that are beginning to occur around the globe. The startling conclusion is that continued exploitation of all fossil fuels on Earth threatens not only the other millions of species on the planet but also the survival of humanity itself—and the timetable is shorter than we thought.
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On a Steam Train to the Khyber Pass
Categories: Afghanistan, 113 words2 feedbacks •These links are to video of a trip to the Khyber pass, the main entrance to Afghanistan from the outside world. These were shot by a German friend of mine who is an electrical engineer (retired). He took this video in 1997 when he was in Pakistan working on a large electrical generating station.
In the 19th century a British military force of some 20,000 men tried to conquer Afghanistan. Their supply routes were cut after they were defeated and all perished except for one soldier who was allowed to live so he could return to tell the Brits what had happened so that they would be discouraged from sending any more invaders.
Escalation in Afghanistan
Categories: Afghanistan, 451 words3 feedbacks •This is a letter I just sent to the Inyo Register.
Last night President Obama addressed the nation from the Eisenhower Auditorium at West Point. He laid out a rationale for sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, bringing our total to almost 100,000, not counting contractors and additional NATO forces. He quoted Eisenhower on the need to balance countermanding needs. Had he dug a little deeper he might have found that Eisenhower, back in the 1950s, warned strongly against American involvement in a land war in Asia.
Interviews From the Line at a Sarah Palin Book Signing
Categories: National Politics, 95 words5 feedbacks •For those of us who paid attention in school and learned to think one way or another the mindlessness of these Palin supporters is numbing and hilarious at the same time.
I received the comment that this link only comes up as a photo, but it works fine for me, it goes to the Firedoglake web site and the screen on the page loads as a video. You click in the large screen itself to get it started. Please leave a comment as to whether or not you are able to get the video. Thanks
