Clueless yet again

Clueless says it all regarding Trump and the so called leaders of Congress in terms of policy, governance and tech as seen by the long view approach to power evidenced by China's quiet incursion into Latin America and the Dems clueless response to Trump and company by focusing on THE RUSSIANS and the awfulness of the orange yam instead of coming up with viable ideas to attract people to vote out the trolls who are selling out America in order to get a fast buck no matter what the cost may be. To whit:

QUINTUCO, Argentina — The giant antenna rises from the desert floor like an apparition, a gleaming metal tower jutting 16 stories above an endless wind-whipped stretch of Patagonia.

The 450-ton device, with its hulking dish embracing the open skies, is the centerpiece of a $50 million satellite and space mission control station built by the Chinese military.

The isolated base is one of the most striking symbols of Beijing’s long push to transform Latin America and shape its future for generations to come — often in ways that directly undermine the United States’ political, economic and strategic power in the region.

The station began operating in March, playing a pivotal role in China’s audacious expedition to the far side of the moon — an endeavor that Argentine officials say they are elated to support.

But the way the base was negotiated — in secret, at a time when Argentina desperately needed investment — and concerns that it could enhance China’s intelligence gathering capabilities in the hemisphere have set off a debate in Argentina about the risks and benefits of being pulled into China’s orbit.

“Beijing has transformed the dynamics of the region, from the agendas of its leaders and businessmen to the structure of its economies, the content of its politics and even its security dynamics,” said R. Evan Ellis, a professor of Latin American studies at the United States Army War College.

“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

– Barack Obama to bank CEOs in 2009 (he sure protected them)

I’m only half kidding with the title here. No, I don’t think establishment Democrats are actually trying to lose, but I agree with the sentiment that they’d rather continue to lose to Donald Trump with someone like Hillary Clinton, than win with someone like Bernie Sanders.

The fight within the Democratic Party is very real and ultimately comes down to two groups with completely different understandings of reality. The big donor, Wall Street side of the party still wants to claim everything’s normal and fine with the exception of Donald Trump. As soon as he can be removed we can all go back to American exceptionalism; or something like that. Easy peasy. In contrast, the other side acknowledges things are very, very rotten and huge change is imperative. To summarize, one side wants to go right back to the Presidency of Barack Obama (with some added militarism), while the other is saying the status quo needs to go.

Forget for a moment what you think of leftist populist ideas, they’re at least willing to admit our country is systemically broken and corrupt, while the other blames everything on Trump and Russia. This isn’t a minor difference within a happy marriage, it’s the sort of conflict that ends in divorce. We remain in a justifiably populist moment in American history, and corporate Democrats want to fight right-populism with Hillary Clintonism. That’s never going to work.

In reading all of this, yours truly is truly stunned as the issues facing America and the world are serious to the max. Here's a very small listing of same:

1. Climate change: Existential says it all as we need earth, earth does NOT need us.
2. Foreign policy: Question, what has the success rate been regarding America's militaristic approach to diplomacy since the assassination of Iran's Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953?
3. Environmental degradation: Rampant pollution is slowly destroying the environment and the lifeforms that live in it.
4. Attack on science & education: Questioning reality and being educated is essential for man's survival, adherence to religion and dogma is not.
5. Over population: Earth cannot sustain 7 billion people, let alone a projected 9.8 billion by 2050.
6. Overshoot Day: The day man has used up all of earth's resources for the given year. 8/1/2018 

Remember ...

We are using 1.7 Earths.
We use more ecological resources and services than nature can regenerate through overfishing, overharvesting forests, and emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ecosystems can absorb.

Any questions?

1037 ...

Illustration by Sam Whitney/The New York Times

Hidden in plain sight but maybe not as Trump's Big Beautiful Bill contains big plans to turn America into something unimagined prior to the reelection of Agent Orange, the luckiest man on planet earth.

To whit ...

Whatever else can be said against the One Big, Beautiful Bill, the 1,037-page legislation carrying President Trump’s domestic agenda, at least the grandiosity of its name reflects the grandiosity of its ambition. Far more expensive than the pandemic stimulus package Mr. Trump signed in his first term, the bill would provide some $3.8 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy, paid for by cutting over a trillion dollars from government programs and borrowing most of the rest.

As the Senate takes up the legislation after its passage in the House last month, Mr. Trump and his allies have worked hard to conceal the true impact it would have on the country, falsely casting it as a golden deal with no downside for the American people. Times Opinion asked seven writers with a wide range of policy expertise to reveal its potential repercussions.

A presidential power grab

Typically, if parties refuse to comply with court orders such as temporary restraining orders, judges can threaten to hold them in contempt. It’s one of the main ways that the courts enforce their rulings. If this bill passes, courts would be able to make such interventions only if plaintiffs first provided security, or a bond.

A sicker America

The current draft of the Republican tax bill would reduce the federal Medicaid budget by at least $600 billion over a decade. That would be the largest cut the program has faced since its inception.

Immigration, a blueprint for nationwide fear

This bill would pave the way for the largest investment in federal immigration enforcement since the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 — one that would turn that department into a Trojan horse for an assault on the civil rights of all Americans.

The United States already spends more on immigration enforcement than on all other federal criminal law enforcement agencies combined. This bill seeks an additional $175 billion for Mr. Trump’s restrictionist agenda, including deportations in the interior of the country, as well as border barrier construction and surveillance technology. The bill has $45 billion earmarked for detention infrastructure alone. It would also give billions of dollars to border states for assisting in border security operations.

More economic turmoil and isolation

Mr. Trump has made clear that foreigners are not welcome here. He has sought to prevent them from selling their goods and services here. And now Republicans have a plan to discourage them even from investing in the United States.

Dirtier, more dangerous air

The bill would prevent America from innovating in the energy sector and make the country poorer — but Americans, by and large, wouldn’t feel that.

What they would feel is what this bill would do to their air. By slowing the rollout of renewable energy and by removing incentives for Americans to buy electric vehicles, the bill would increase the amount of coal, natural gas and oil burned nationwide, making pollution far worse. (Power prices may also rise.)

A weaker military

The bill seems as though it would fulfill Mr. Trump’s promise to make the U.S. military “bigger, better, stronger and more powerful than ever” — until you look closer.

The bill would add $150 billion to the Pentagon’s top line, and the administration claims this would be the first $1 trillion defense budget.

But the $150 billion in the measure is a one-time increase rather than a permanent change and one that the submitted budget wouldn’t sustain: My colleague Todd Harrison calculates that when you strip away the financial gimmicks, Mr. Trump’s claimed trillion-dollar defense budget would actually be a $31.5 billion reduction from the last one under President Joe Biden. That’s roughly the annual cost of 10 Army brigades.

Factoid

Mr. Trump’s policy bill would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday. That estimate was all but certain to inflame concerns over the fiscal consequences of the legislation.

And we haven't even talked about the negative impact of this bill on science, research and tech. Seems this administration has no competency whatsoever save for the lust for money and the power it accrues as grifting and surveillance as art form is the one thing this administration know how to do well without question. 

Read the very long NYTimes Op piece, you will learn a lot, I know I did.

Divisions among Republicans threaten President Trump’s policy bill, which includes cuts to taxes, Medicaid, food assistance and clean energy programs, and additional money for border security and the military.
Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

2500 & Counting

2500 blurbs, not bad, not bad at all IMHO as the notion of writing this many articles simply was not even imagined when BRT was founded on the insistence of a good friend, Marty H', who actually thought I might have something of worth to say to the world back in 2007. Now let's think about this, anyone of us rubes, connected to the web, can say things of value at literally no cost, save for hardware linked to the web. To yours truly, astounding says it all in light of just how immense and complex the internet truly is.

With this notwithstanding, where are we as a species on planet earth in early 2018 with so much going on, both good and bad. Well for starters ...

• Back in 2007, AI was taking off, in one way, by ascertaining credit worthiness when one applied for a credit card.
• The smart phone, revolutionized by Apple, made the scene, thus transforming how the world communicated on a most personal level.
• The web went prime time in NY minute.
• The woeful era of "W" was coming to an end with a black president coming into view.
• The tech titans were admired almost to a fault without the spectre of fake news circa 2018.
• Amazon was starting to become the major online resource to buy stuff.
• Web 2.0 was the next big thing with emphasis on video, graphics and social media.
• Twitter, as short blurb machine, came online.
• The slow death of print started gathering speed.
• Writing. as art form. started to atrophy due to, in large part, texting, the voluntary approach to Newspeak given to just how limited texting truly is on, you guessed it, the smartphone.
• Conversation, as art form, to the young, starts to atrophy due to, yet again, texting on the smartphone.
• The iPad goes live in 2007.
• They Live, the prescient SF film of the 80's, becomes reality due to the obsession us rubes have with the smartphone. 
• News become no news with pundits gossiping on air about one story for one hour as this saves money by not having reporters on site actually reporting the news.
• News is now Network writ large.

Fast forward to 2018, a partial list at best. :)

• Tech is everywhere with people obsessing over the smartphone more than ever.
• Global warming is finally accepted as fact.
• Facts are disdained by the uneducated as facts are hard to understand, ditto science.
• News is dumbed down due to the statement above.
• News is dedicated to selling ads and holding onto the demographic watching the news in question. i.e. Fox, MSNBC, CNBC, ect, ect, ect.
• Robots become real.
• Drones become real.
• AI becomes real.
• Crispr becomes real.
• GMOs are everywhere, ditto franken chicken, beef and pork.
• We are under surveillance 24/7'
• Our civil rights have been trampled upon thanks to "W" and Obama.
• The Arctic is unraveling.
• The oceans are acidifying.
• The Gulf Stream gyre is slowing down thanks to the loss of Albedo, thus causing the Arctic to become a heat sink.
• The Antarctic is melting as is Greenland.
• Resource depletion and environmental degradation is a given.
• There are too many of us on planet earth.
• Overshoot is moving toward June by 3 days a year. We need 1.5 earths to keep us going.
• People are trying to save species but the outlook looks grim.
• Earth doesn't need us.
• Fake news is now starting to be written by AI.
• Imaging and audio software, thanks, in part to Adobe, can now create artificial and modified entities that cannot be discerned from the real thing. Think an artificial Trump, god forbid, or any other person in public view.
• Cinemagraphic video is everywhere.
• China is now a superpower.
• Trump and company look backward not forward as sustainable tech begins to take control.
• Infrastructure is essential for a country to be viable, a notion Trump and the Deep State seem not to understand.
• George Carlin was right, the real owners of the country don't want people capable of critical thinking.
• The US is in decline, thanks to inept politicians, bought and paid for by the deep state who depends on never ending war to keep the money coming in.
• Everything has a cost, there "ain't" no such thing as a free lunch due to the two laws of thermodynamics.
• Sustainable tech becomes real.
• Russia is coming back while America is losing it.
• Trump threads a needle with the Electoral College and becomes president.
• The US has no vision.
• AI will replace many white collar jobs in the months and years ahead.
• As per Bill Joy, The Future doesn't need us.
• Never ending war is a prime part of US foreign policy as the nation no longer has a vision of itself in 2018.
• Amazing things are happening in tech and science as we speak but one must look for it to see why this is true.
• The web is now privatized, thanks to the mendacious stupidity of the FCC's Ajit Pai, the bought and paid for puppet of Verizon but the fight to turn the Net into a utility is not over yet thanks to the overwhelming majority of Americans who want the net left alone.
• Obama was right, the existential threat we face, if Trump doesn't start a nuclear war, is Global Warming.
• Governance is at risk due to the incompetence of all three branches. The cabinet also thanks to Trump loading it up with fools and mendacious entities who shall not be named.
• The repugs don't know how to govern, the dems don't know how to think. 
• A third party is definitely needed without question.
• Dollars are now bits while Bitcoin is the tulip craze of 2018.
• Last but not least, we will survive but it won't be easy.

"Nuff said ... for now. :)

300/3000 ...

300/3000 ... = 300 blurbs in 2019, 3000 blurbs since 2007, something somewhat significant IMHO. What's even more significant is the fact you, my loyal readers, continue to read the musings of a senior citizen talking about all things related to science and tech and how both disciplines impact civilization 24/7.

This piece will not have links to sources more intelligent than said writer's (save 2) but rather personal takes on 2020, life in general and the issue of mortality as BRT has been fairly impersonal in its 12 years of existence inspired by a dear friend who said "You think you know a little bit so prove it." Hopefully I have and will continue to do so as there is simply too much happening to quit now in-spite of a world going mad as man moves ever forward into the 21st century. Note: this is a partial take at best.

The long decline

America is losing its mojo. From disastrous foreign policy endeavors beginning after WWII to the substitution of innovation in favor of money manipulation favoring the elite, the country's financial well being is being frittered away by greed (elimination of Glass-Stegall), incompetence and government corruption, not only in terms of tax code malfeasance favoring the rich but also with the fact there are no term limits, thus guaranteeing the pols never-ending quest for money in order to get re-elected no matter what the cost may be. This lack of term limits for the supremes also applies as this gives too much power to any sitting president in determining what political direction the country may go based on the kind of justice chosen for the job. Think Alito, Kavanaugh and Scalia for starters with Thomas in the wings.

The art of stupid

The educational construct in America is lacking to say the least and tech is one reason why this is so. Consider the smartphone and texting. In order to do this efficiently, newspeak is required due to the small form factor of the tech being used. This compression equation of newspeak ties in nicely with the use of emojis as showing one a happy face in social media equates to one-click while typing happy requires five. Expand this notion to writing whereby thought and the ability to tie together cogent thoughts necessitates taking the time and effort to make it happen, something starting to get rarer as AI is beginning to be used to replicate this valuable practice at speeds well beyond the ken of man. Endpaper. Nooze rules to sell ads and shape opinion. A lack of education makes the sell easy.

Thinking Elysium

The environment's unraveling, not only in terms of climate change but also in terms of environmental degradation and resource depletion, driven in large part by fossil fuel use, pollution and the impact of too many people living on planet earth. By 2050, the weakening polar vortex and jet stream, caused by global warming, will disrupt food production in unpredictable ways while intense drought and rising waters promise to displace millions, reminiscent of the film Elysium, a dystopian near-future view of mankind heading toward an abyss of our own making.

Technical incompetence & the denial of science

 All one has to do is listen to the president and congress talk tech to see just how blindingly ignorant these people truly are. The denial of science is even worse, not only in terms of the long term adverse effect it will have on the well being of the populace but also on the long term well being of the country. China has caught up to the US in terms of patents and computation and has surpassed the US in terms of developing rapid mass transit at a rate beyond anything this country has to offer. At the same time this is happening, the shortsighted view of never-ending growth and continued support of old industries like coal, fracking and drilling promise to accelerate the decline of the US while the rest of the world rapidly moves toward sustainables like wind, solar and wave. 

2020, politics & the end of the world

Politics, the art of lying and protecting the deep state of every country since the beginning of time, has reached its zenith (or nadir/take your pick) with the elections of far-right "populists" Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonro and Boris Johnson, provocateurs one and all, supporting the powers at be at all costs while the end of the world awaits thanks to climate change and the inability of nations to get their act together to ameliorate this existential threat to mankind. 

Regarding 2020, the Constitutional Crisis begins and ends with Trump with three questions silently moldering on the minds of thinking people everywhere ... 

1. The real 2016 Russigate ... How far will Barr and Durham go in their criminal proceedings?
2.  Will Trump leave if defeated? and ...
3. What will his hardcore followers do if Agent Orange is defeated?

On mortality

Gaff: It's a shame that she won't live, but then again, who does? - Blade Runner

Being a senior, yours truly thinks about mortality and ... the important things in one's life. 

To this writer it's

• Family. Having a son and his family close to my wife and me, rules. Ditto for two brothers and two sisters. On my wife's side, her niece's family rules.
• Friends, the close ones are truly rare indeed.
• Good art. You know, Miles, Shakespeare, Conrad, Twain, Carlin, Orwell, etc, etc, etc.
• Cartoons of all stripes :)
• Good coffee
• Good conversation
• Good wine & beer
• Pretty women - all ages :)
• Innovative tech
• Insightful science
• Good health
• Last but not least, having an open mind and the will to keep on moving :)

Any questions? :)

Darkness, Darkness ... Rev II

Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic. Source: Getty

Yours truly has waxed poetic about the 21st century version of the dark ages first foisted upon us by Trump I, aided and betted by Mitch, the supremes and the Heritage Foundation but you already know that, right? Now, fast forward to 2025 and ... from defrocking Harvard and other university elites to Robert F. Kennedy Jr's jihad against modern medicine and vaccines, the actions of this coterie of ignorant and demonic clowns continues ever onward in their endless pursuit of creating a christian/nazi/fascist entity designed to create a dictatorship over a once great nation known as America. Higher ed's not perfect with colleges colluding with the CC companies to gin tuition into the stratosphere along with maintaining deep connects to big business and the MIC but at the same time, basic research, funded by the government and enabled by the universities, have improved the quality of life in ways both astounding and profound but read on brave readers as The Atlantic's take regarding the new dark age circa 2025 is spot on and terrifying to contemplate without question.

The warlords who sacked Rome did not intend to doom Western Europe to centuries of ignorance. It was not a foreseeable consequence of their actions. The same cannot be said of the sweeping attack on human knowledge and progress that the Trump administration is now undertaking—a deliberate destruction of education, science, and history, conducted with a fanaticism that recalls the Dark Ages that followed Rome’s fall.

Every week brings fresh examples. The administration is threatening colleges and universities with the loss of federal funding if they do not submit to its demands, or even if they do. The engines of American scientific inquiry and ingenuity, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, are under sustained attack. Historical institutions such as the Smithsonian and artistic ones like the Kennedy Center are being converted into homes for MAGA ideology rather than historical fact and free expression. Libraries are losing funding, government-employed scientists are being dismissed from their jobs, educators are being cowed into silence, and researchers are being warned not to broach forbidden subjects. Entire databases of public-health information collected over decades are at risk of vanishing. Any facts that contradict the gospel of Trumpism are treated as heretical.

These various initiatives and policy changes are often regarded as discrete problems, but they comprise a unified assault. The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science. If this assault is successful, it will undermine Americans’ ability to comprehend the world around us. Like the inquisitors of old, who persecuted Galileo for daring to notice that the sun did not, in fact, revolve around the Earth, they believe that truth-seeking imperils their hold on power.

By destroying knowledge, Trumpists seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination, and to prevent meaningful democratic checks on their behavior. Their victory, though, would do much more than that. It would annihilate some of the most effective systems for aggregating, accumulating, and applying human knowledge that have ever existed. Without those systems, America could find itself plunged into a new Dark Age.

A Change is nigh ...

Anger & sorrow ...

Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean during the second moonwalk.
NASA/Recall Pictures/Alamy Stock Photo

Complex tech takes years to develop beginning with base research and leveraging it to create tech able to change the world. From quantum mechanics leading to the creation of the computer to the invention of software to build AI, complex systems are fragile beasts requiring patience, intelligence and vision in order for said system to thrive. The somber take by Scientific American regarding proposed cuts to NASA by the administration from hell is spot on because once you gut a complex system, it takes years, if even possible, to resurrect the system. Anger and sorrow on this potential dismantling of something wonderful and far reaching breaks my heart without question.

For more than half a century planetary exploration and space science have been a hallmark of American achievement and excellence. From Mercury to Pluto and beyond, we have gained enormous understanding about planetary origins and evolution. We have learned about the atmospheric, surface and interior dynamics of other worlds. All those discoveries have carried implications for what’s happening here on Earth. In classrooms around the world, exploring new worlds and probing the mysteries of the universe is an emblem of America.

But that may now end; the Trump administration is poised to take the chainsaw to space science, just as it has to almost everything else in the U.S. science portfolio. Trump officials are planning huge, destructive cuts for space science, according to news reports, likely killing all new mission plans for this decade, including the long-sought, all-important Mars Sample Return mission. This flight was meant to return now-waiting samples from the red planet.

China is already leading the way to the moon and Mars with robotic vehiclelike rovers and sample returns and is also likely to do so with human missions. The U.S. human space program, meanwhile, is bogged down with a stumbling Artemis program, built with a convoluted architecture marked so far by failures and delays in nearly every major component. The latest is the repeated failure of SpaceX’s Starship, which twice now has exploded in flight. Reminiscent of the 1980s, when we paused planetary exploration after the success of Viking and launch of Voyager 1 and 2, the U.S. has iced new Mars missions, with plans to cancel Mars Sample Return, and redirected our once great lunar capability to small experimental landers built by inexperienced new companies. Beyond specific missions, the loss of space science research capability will be a generational calamity.

Truer words never spoken.

We were there ... back in the day ...

Alternative Facts

sci·ence

ˈsīəns/

noun

the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.

"the world of science and technology"

synonyms: branch of knowledge, body of knowledge/information, area of study, discipline, field

                       "the science of criminology"

Very precise is it not? A discipline, when properly done, is intended to be questioned, to be accurate and above all else, to be separate, as best as possible, from politics, prejudice and above all else, religion, vital considerations not even comprehended by the Trump administration.

Leaders of several of the nation's top science organizations say they've been shunned by the Trump administration and are alarmed by signs that the administration will muzzle government researchers and reject the scientific evidence that informs such critical issues as vaccine safety and climate change.

Their comments in interviews with The Washington Post come as scientists around the country are considering a grass-roots revolt against President Trump that could include a march on Washington. The sudden eruption of activism among people typically more comfortable in a laboratory or manipulating equations was incited in part by reports that the Trump administration is restricting the ability of government employees, including scientists, to communicate with the public.

“The signals are not encouraging, and they’re alarming, and they’re causing a lot of fear in the scientific community,” said Christine McEntee, chief executive and executive director of the American Geophysical Union.

“I’ve never seen the scientific community so concerned,” said Rush Holt, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “This goes way beyond funding. When fake news is accepted as just one of the alternate approaches, then there are serious problems to be addressed.”

Yes indeed.

An extinction-level event ...

Image credit: Josh Dinner

From tariffs to diplomacy to science, it seems Agent Orange's crew can do nothing right save damaging rather important endeavors like space exploration and science as it's better to not tax billionaires and surveil against us 24/7 rather than insure the health of the nation with emphasis on research as research enable countries to thrive, a notion these people seem to not understand in any way, shape or fashion.

Since January, when President Donald Trump took office for the second time, the White House has been asking U.S. government organizations to implement some pretty radical changes. Things have been tense, to say the least. Thousands of federal workers have been laid off with little explanation, programs that improve diversity in the workplace have been eliminated, research grants have been cancelled in large sweeps, and international college students find themselves at risk of losing their legal status.

One government organization that could be hit the hardest is NASA.

The agency has faced a particularly extensive amount of pressure from the Trump administration: surveillance, goal restructuring, website purging and more. Other federal science organizations haven't been spared, either — places like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have been targeted as well. The ground of U.S. science seems to be quaking for political reasons rather than scientific ones, leaving scientists disheartened by their government and anxious about what's next.

And things only got worse on May 30, when the Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 budget request for NASA came out. It proposes cutting the agency's science funding by 47%, and the agency's workforce by about one-third — from 17,391 to 11,853. This budget has to be officially passed by Congress to take effect, but if it indeed does, the effects could be brutal.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the White House's 2026 NASA budget proposal is the sheer amount of missions it would cancel altogether: 41 projects, as the Planetary Society said in a statement denouncing the report.

"This is the extinction-level event we were warning people about," Dreier said.

NASA's Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie looking down at one of 10 sample tubes deposited at the sample depot it created in an area nicknamed Three Forks. This image was taken by the WATSON camera on the rover’s robotic arm on Jan. 20, 2023, the 684th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

China is so happy about this administration from hell as it's doing a great job of
dismantling a once great nation for China at no cost.
Something to think about don't you think? 

The fate of the country ...

A banner in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar featuring the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an airstrike at the start of the U.S.-Iran war.Credit...Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times

A year ago, yours truly predicted this escalation of war with Iran and friends of mine laughed.
I bet they aren't laughing now.

This CF goes beyond Custer as Custer's fate was confined to a single battlefield. The US was not impacted.
With the war with Iran, foisted upon us by Israel and Trump, the impact of this CF's becoming existential.

To America’s allies, President Trump’s war in Iran, now in its sixth month,
seems headed for a strategic defeat.

They worry that the inability of the United States to turn military superiority into a sustainably changed Iran has displayed a vulnerability that Russia and China will welcome. In addition, Mr. Trump’s goals remain unmet, and the U.S. military is running short on key armaments that it needs for global reach.

For the moment, Iran is seemingly resolute under a more radical government, its nuclear and ballistic missile programs are degraded but not destroyed, and the Strait of Hormuz is effectively under its control. The war has left both the United States and Israel in weaker positions — and blaming each other for the mess.

Iranian missiles and drones not only restrict traffic through the strait and damage the economic infrastructure of allied energy production, but they also continue to threaten American bases across the Middle East and have killed or injured American service members.

The dignified transfer in Delaware for U.S. Army soldiers killed in action last month
while deployed in Jordan.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

What the domestic U.S. news is actively suppressing is the staggering scale of the devastation. The Pentagon officially admits to 19 U.S. soldiers dead, over 624 wounded, and 42 aircraft lost. But independent intel shows the Muwaffaq al-Salti Air Base in Jordan was absolutely gutted by Iranian ballistics.

Worse, the unrestricted infrastructure war has already started. The U.S. and Israel struck civilian, academic and gas sites in Tehran and Iran immediately responded by hitting critical water and electricity infrastructure in Kuwait. Factor in the Houthi blockade choking the Red Sea and one sees the entire Levant breaking apart under the thermodynamic stress of this war.

But the true tripwire? Iran's strikes inadvertently hit a Chinese installation by circumstance.
By dragging China's physical assets into the crossfire, the calculus of this disaster has officially
been raised to a possible World War III scenario.

This administration is destroying America as we speak. From the demonization of science and medicine to the weaponization of education and immigration, the damage is extreme and ongoing. Combine this with Israel defining our foreign policy and dictating how to destroy Iran has been a loss leader for the ages and supports the fact this war has become existential in scope. Where this goes, no one knows but from this writer's perspective, nothing good will come from this unless Trump is removed from office via the 25th. 

In closing, the midterms are the last hope for this nation as both houses must turn blue to try to limit the damage
and hold course until 2028. The fate of the country depends on it. 

Into the valley of Death rode the 600 ...

To ignore science is folly, to actively stifle it is something else all together, especially when the science in question is climate change and the impact it's having on the world, an action bordering on criminality as this research is vitally needed, in part, to inform the nation on how to intelligently adapt to the enormous changes coming to planet earth as we move further into the 21st century. 

In the next few months, the White House will complete the rollback of the most significant federal effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, initiated during the Obama administration. It will expand its efforts to impose Mr. Trump’s hard-line views on other nations, building on his retreat from the Paris accord and his recent refusal to sign a communiqué to protect the rapidly melting Arctic region unless it was stripped of any references to climate change.

And, in what could be Mr. Trump’s most consequential action yet, his administration will seek to undermine the very science on which climate change policy rests.

Undue process.

The attack on science is underway throughout the government. In the most recent example, the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey, James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously.

Scientists say that would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040. Models show that the planet will most likely warm at about the same rate through about 2050. From that point until the end of the century, however, the rate of warming differs significantly with an increase or decrease in carbon emissions.

William Simpson - Charge of the light cavalry brigade, 25th Oct. 1854, under Major General the Earl of Cardigan.jpg Created: 1 March 1855

The Charge of the Light Brigade was a failed military action involving the British light cavalry led by Lord Cardigan against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava on 25 October 1854 in the Crimean War. British commander Lord Raglan had intended to send the Light Brigade to prevent the Russians from removing captured guns from overrun Turkish positions, a task for which the light cavalry were well-suited. However, there was miscommunication in the chain of command, and the Light Brigade was instead sent on a frontal assault against a different artillery battery, one well-prepared with excellent fields of defensive fire. The Light Brigade reached the battery under withering direct fire and scattered some of the gunners, but they were forced to retreat immediately, and the assault ended with very high British casualties and no decisive gains.

I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.

II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
   Someone had blundered.
   Theirs not to make reply,
   Theirs not to reason why,
   Theirs but to do and die.
   Into the valley of Death
   Rode the six hundred.

III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
   Rode the six hundred.

IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
   All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
   Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
   Not the six hundred.

V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
   Left of six hundred.

VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
   All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
   Noble six hundred! 

Alford Lord Tennyson

Criminality indeed ...