Day: June 14, 2023

Flag Day–2023

Today is Flag Day…the time when we set aside to honor and display our nation’s symbol….

Of all the flags on display by all those so-called ‘patriots’ about 70% are display incorrectly.

If you display thew America flag then display it properly.

https://i.imgur.com/PXOM2P2.jpg

A little history because most have no damn idea.

It Is Flag Day!

June 14–The Day Of The Flag

Not a national holiday but that is no excuse for a shoddy display of our flag.

On Flag Day you should learn some American history…..

On June 14, 1954, Flag Day that year, President Eisenhower signed a joint resolution of Congress amending the 1942 Flag Code, adding the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.  The president had only recently been baptized a Presbyterian and was apparently in a religious feeling when he declared “the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.”

Not surprisingly, not everyone agreed.  The backdrop to this issue was the Cold War, the struggle of atheistic communism against “Christian” democracy and capitalism.  Eisenhower and Congress clearly wanted to differentiate us from them.

Many people already were against the Pledge of Allegiance on religious or philosophical grounds.  Jehovah’s Witnesses thought the saying of the Pledge to the Flag was a form of idolatry.  Forcing schoolchildren to  recite the Pledge in the classroom was a breach of religious freedom, they said.  Making a provision where the non-pledgers could silently sit or stand without reciting the Pledge was unacceptable because of the ostracism sure to come down on the children not saying the pledge from the other kids.

Additionally, constitutional purist have always objected to the Pledge on the grounds that in a democracy based on dissent people should not be saying an oath of loyalty.  That seemed too much like the totalitarian states with all their pledges, oaths and affirmations.  The First Amendment should prohibit forcing certain speech just as it allows free speech.  Again, the argument against having school children say the Pledge and allowing “dissenters” to remain silent was considered unacceptable because of the peer pressure sure to follow.

June 14, 1954: President Signs Controversial “Under God” into Pledge of Allegiance

Have a good day and a better tomorrow.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

Have a good day…..

“lego ergo scribo”

Here A Nuke….There A Nuke….Everywhere A Nuke

The news that Russia would place nukes in Belarus sent a jolt through the blog-sphere with a wealth of dire predictions of the world to come.

Looks like July may start the warnings all over again.

Why is that, Professor?

I am glad you asked.

Putin said last week that Russia will send tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus next month once the construction of storage facilities is completed, which is expected to happen by July 8.

And of course Poland had to thump its chest at the news….

Polish President Andrzej Duda said Monday that NATO must respond to Russia deploying nuclear weapons to Belarus.

“I absolutely believe that such a situation demands an unequivocal response from NATO,” Duda said at a joint press conference in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, according to Bloomberg.

Duda didn’t specify what kind of response he had in mind, but he has previously said Poland wants to host US nuclear weapons. In October 2022, Duda said he was discussing the idea with Washington.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his plans to deploy nukes to Belarus, he compared the move to NATO’s nuclear sharing program, under which Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey host US nuclear weapons.

(antiwar.com)

This appears to be a replay of the Cold War years…..and the usual dire predictions have begun from those god awful think tanks….

A Swedish think tank that keeps tabs on nuclear weapons around the world issued quite a statement Monday to describe the state of things: “We are drifting into one of the most dangerous periods in human history,” said Dan Smith of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, per the Guardian. The assessment comes as the group’s latest assessment found that the number of operational nuclear warheads ticked up again in 2022.

  • SIPRI counts 9,576 in military stockpiles ready for use in various countries, which is up 86 from the previous year, per Reuters.
  • The new 86 belong to China (60), Russia (12), Pakistan (five), North Korea (five), and India (four). The group acknowledges this is a best guess given that China has never disclosed its numbers. SIPRI estimates China now has 410 in all.
  • Nuclear-armed states are listed as the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel. The US and Russia account for 90% of the world’s total, according to SIPRI. Counting warheads that have been retired and are awaiting dismantlement, the world total is 12,512.
  • The group said diplomacy over nuclear arsenals has taken a hit since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in particular. “It is imperative that the world’s governments find ways to cooperate in order to calm geopolitical tensions, slow arms races and deal with the worsening consequences of environmental breakdown and rising world hunger,” said Smith.

A closing thought….Nations wasted $157,000 per minute on nukes….

A new report published Monday by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons shows that the world’s nine nuclear-armed countries spent more than $157,000 per minute on their atomic weaponry last year, enriching private contractors at the risk of imperiling humankind.

Combined, nuclear-armed nations spent $82.9 billion on their arsenals last year, according to ICAN. The United States was the biggest spender, dumping $43.7 billion into its already massive arsenal in 2022—more than all of the other nuclear-armed countries combined.

“The U.S. Congress allocated $16 billion for the [National Nuclear Security Administration] in 2022 to spend on weapons activities,” ICAN’s report notes. “In 2022, the Department of Defense requested $27.7 billion for ‘nuclear modernization,’ including the ‘Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, B-21 Bomber, Columbia class submarine, and Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications.'”

Overall, the report shows global spending on nuclear weapons increased for the third consecutive year in 2022.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/nations-wasted-nuclear-weapons

What say you?

Is this end times that all the religious sort have been waiting for  for so many years?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”