Day: May 24, 2016

Faster Than A Speeding Bullet

Nope, not some silly reference to the Man of Steel movie…..but rather something a littler more real than some cinematic crap.

I am an old fart and I remember the Cold War all too well.  The arms race….build a bigger and better plane…or a tank…..or a bomb.

In my youth when in grade school we had nuke attack drills…..where the kids would get under their desks and cover their eyes and ears and wait for the blast.  These were monthly drills….they were very scary for 8 or 9 year olds…..

Thankfully those days are behind us……a new world was born and we feel safer….at least against a nuke attack.

In today’s world things move at a faster pace…..and the necessities for delivering a nuke bomb is no exception…..

A rocket went up over the Australian desert on May 18, but this successful test launch was no ordinary feat: The experimental rocket hit a speed of Mach 7.5—or 7.5 times the speed of sound—qualifying it for “hypersonic” status, reports Gizmodo. Military scientists from the US and Australia teamed up on the project, called Hypersonic International Flight Research Experimentation, or HiFire. The goal, reports techradar, is to design an engine that flies at Mach 7, and Wednesday’s test is one in a series that will run through 2018. “It is a game-changing technology … and could revolutionize global air travel, providing cost-effective access to space,” says chief Australian scientist Alex Zelinsky, per AFP.

To put the feat in more concrete terms, the scientists say such an engine could make a trip from Sydney to London possible in a mind-boggling two hours. (Today’s travelers can figure on closer to 24 hours, factoring in connecting flights.) In fact, it would make any trip in the world much more manageable and make it far easier to put satellites in space. But Popular Science also takes note of the military applications: “With that much speed, it would be impossible for an enemy [to have enough time] to move anything on the ground after radar detected [a] plane, letting it either capture pictures immediately or drop bombs almost unimpeded.” The next test, in which the engine would separate from the booster rocket, is scheduled for 2017.

This is what the industry has come to……we now have a rocket that can deliver a nuke in the time it takes to pee…..

Ain’t progress great?

Down The Rabbit Hole

I recall the reports after the 2003 invasion and the occupation of Iraq that the US sent in palettes of cash to be used in the after war programs that the US was planning……and somewhere down the line palettes starting disappearing with millions of dollars and to this day few seem to know where this money went….probably into the bank accounts of the many private contractors that were crawling all over Iraq like maggots on a corpse…..

Source: Missing Iraq money may be as much as $18 billion

I bring all this up again because it appears that Iraq was not the only time that American cash has disappeared when “aiding” another country with its pro-American policies…..

Ukraine’s oligarch-owned propaganda TV channel Ukraine Today announced to the world a milestone in the fight against corruption. In response to the solicitation of two Verkhovna Rada parliamentarians (members of president Petro Poroshenko’s cabinet), the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office (GPO) initiated an investigation of the missing two million dollars of U.S. and EU aid that was originally allotted to reform the country’s judiciary.

While two million dollars is chump change in comparison to size and history of Ukrainian corruption, such quick action by the (until now) very shy Ukrainian prosecutors has raised eyebrows in political circles around the world. This is in sharp contrast to 2014, when in one of the biggest heists of aid money anywhere—an estimated two billion dollars in IMF aid for Ukraine—speedily exited the country via PrivatBank, owned by the politically-connected oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.

Source: The U.S. Is ‘Missing’ Millions in Ukraine | Observer

Granted the cash missing in Ukraine is chump change as compared to the billions lost in Iraq……however the point is that taxpayer money is being thrown down an abyss when it could be made useful in this country.

How long will this type of crap continue?

A New National Progressive Movement

This election has shown something that I have been saying for the last decade or so……this country needs a true progressive party as part of the process……

I wrote about it in 2008 after the election of Obama and again in 2010 after the disastrous mid-term elections…..but read them for yourself…..

https://lobotero.com/2010/11/12/how-about-a-new-bull-moose-party-2/

And then later this one……

https://lobotero.com/2016/04/27/is-it-time-from-a-change/

Bernie’s candidacy is showing that there is a growing need for a true progressive party….the Dems are just neocon lite……progressives have nothing to vote for……. but anyone but a Repub…..

As Sanders fights for a California primary season finale, activists look ahead.

The sun was hot. The shade was sparse. Yet they kept coming. For three-plus hours on Wednesday morning, several thousand Bernie Sanders believers of every stripe—college students cutting class, older retirees and labor activists, parents with teenage kids—wearing every imaginable Bernie pin, tee-shirt and baseball cap packed the dusty field at the Santa Clara fairground near San Jose, California. They more than eagerly awaited his arrival.

“He’s the best candidate ever,” one man blurted out. “Feel the Bern! Feel the Bern!” people spontaneously chanted. The sound system played Bob Marley, Neil Young, John Lennon and Steve Earle, who growled “The revolution starts now…” As they waited 1960s folk superstar Joan Baez took the stage and sang, “The opposition candidate is stirring up a fuss. She’s got the billionaires, he’s got us…”

Source: A New National Progressive Movement Is Emerging in the Shadows of the Sanders Campaign | Alternet

Teddy got it Right in the early 20th century…..the trouble is we let his plans slide to the back burner….it was more important to elect one of the 2 parties….be damn for the people and the country……

Time to revive the Bull Moose Party……Bernie has started the movement now let’s not give it away……

Check it out and let me know what you think….should we be happy with the 2 party system or should we start a new party that will put the country and the people first?

Time for the people to step up and do the RIGHT thing!

American Democracy Is in Crisis Mode

The two “presumptive” nominees are all the rage now in the media…..and there are some of us trying to explain what has happened to our electoral process…..it is a bit difficult…..

The crisis that has made Trump’s victory a possibility isn’t about Trump. It’s about what’s happening to the American people.

The election news is all about Trump, 24/7, but the crisis that has made his victory a possibility and that would bring tyrannical folly in its wake it isn’t about Trump. It’s about what is happening to the American people.

What is happening to us is something that Trump embodies perfectly, in all his populist vulgarity. But no populist rhetoric of democracy can hide the truth that what’s happening to us is what’s being done to us.

Source: American Democracy Is in Crisis Mode and We’re All Complicit: Here’s What Needs to Happen | Alternet

Regardless who wins in November this country is in serious danger…..and the only ones that will pay the price for this ego trip are the American people.

Parallels Between Israel and 1930s Germany

The situation in Israel and Palestine is one that most of the Western world has no idea about the events…..the MSM goes out of its way to avoid any news that would put Israel in a bad light…..

But if one searches the media they will see that there is so much more going on and the world needs to take a close look at the situation….

All hell broke loose. What!!! Traces of Nazism in Israel? A resemblance between what the Nazis did to us with what we are doing to the Palestinians?

90 years ago was 1926, one of the last years of the German republic. 80 years ago was 1936, three years after the Nazis came to power. 70 years ago was 1946, on the morrow of Hitler’s suicide and the end of the Nazi Reich.

I feel compelled to write about the general’s speech after all, because I was there.

Source: Parallels Between Israel and 1930s Germany – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com

Remember these are comparisons….and yet I am not alone in my suspicion…

Source: Former Officials See ‘Seeds of Fascism’ in New Israeli Govt — News from Antiwar.com