"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine
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Author: lobotero
I have been a radical, labor organizer, writer, lecturer, teacher, analyst, political activist , convention delegate and I still have my sanity--who knew?
I just watched a great movie (even though it is not historically accurate)….Lawrence of Arabia (1962) starring Peter O’Toole, who was exceptional as Lawrence…..
The movie was about the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918….it was lead by British intel officer T.E. Lawrence (BTW he was not as popular in the Middle East as the movie would have you believe)…..this movie gave me an interest in the Middle East and World War One that lead to my degrees I got from university……for that I thank Lawrence even if he was a d/bag……
Yes Irene it is time for that history lesson you all dread……
The Arab Revolt of 1916-18 was a major episode of WW1 and, due to the subsequent fame of T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”), it has enjoyed a level of public and scholarly attention that continues to this day. The Arab Revolt had its origins in pre-war contacts between the Sharif of Mecca, Hussein ibn Ali, leader of the Hashemite faction, and British authorities in Cairo. The Hejaz region of Arabia (in modern-day Saudi Arabia) had been under Ottoman control since the sixteenth century but Hussein recognised that the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) or “Young Turk” government was focused on extending its control throughout the Ottoman provinces.[i] The immediate pre-war years saw a crackdown on dissenters in Syria and Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and this forced Hussein’s hand. In 1914, he made overtures to GHQ in Cairo in order to gauge possible British support for a future revolt.[ii] In the months following the outbreak of war in 1914, a steady supply of small arms and money was ferried across the Red Sea by the Royal Navy and landed on the Arabian coast.[iii]
By 1916, it seemed that Cemel Pasha, governor of Syria and commander of the Ottoman 4th Army was about to act against the Hashemites and their supporters. The Sharif felt that the moment had come to instigate the revolt and with his sons (the Emirs Ali, Abdullah, Feisal and Zeid) he rallied tribesmen to his cause during the summer months. On 5 June 1916, the Emirs Ali and Feisal informed the Turkish commander at Medina, General Fakhri Pasha, of the Arabs’ intention to withdraw from the Ottoman Empire. An attack on Medina was repulsed and the Arabs refocused their efforts to begin attacks on the strategically important Hejaz Railway. On 10 June, Sharif Abdullah proclaimed the revolt in Mecca and further attacks occurred on Ottoman garrisons at Ta’if and Jiddah. The Arab Revolt was truly underway.[iv]
There seem to be a bunch of stuff happening in space these days……so I feel I must let my readers know the stuff they may have missed……
Since my younger days watching the serials “Flash Gordon”, “Rocky Jones” and “Buck Rogers” I have been fascinated with space and the exploration of planets……
Mars is getting more attention these days…..so maybe a quick history of the many missions to Mars would help…..
Since 1960, humankind has launched dozens of missions to Mars in an effort to get to know our planetary neighbor better. Some of the missions were flybys, gathering information in brief bursts. Others were long-standing orbiters that lasted years as they traveled around the Red Planet.
Since the first successful flyby in 1965, four space agencies have successfully made it to Mars: NASA, the former Soviet Union space program, the European Space Agency and the Indian Space Research Organization, while others, including the space agencies in Japan and China, have tried.
A report came out that life may be developing close (a relative term) to home…..
A few decades ago, we didn’t know if there were any planets outside our solar system. Thanks to advances in astronomy like Hubble and the Kepler Telescope, we now know there are uncountable planets in the universe, including at least one in the solar system next door. Researchers from Cornell University are taking a closer look at that planet, known as Proxima-b to determine if it might harbor life. They believe that it very well may, and the proof they cite is Earth.
Proxima-b orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, a mere 4.24 light years away from Earth. Scientists announced the discovery of Proxima-b in 2016. It orbits its parent star every 11.2 Earth days and has a mass at least 1.3 times that of Earth, suggesting that it has a rocky surface. As a red dwarf, Proxima Centauri is smaller and cooler than the sun, so liquid water might exist on Proxima-b even though it orbits very close to the star.
Venus at one time could have been as water rich as the Earth……
Venus may have once been a water-rich, Earth-like world whose raging volcanism morphed it into the overheated planet it is today. But it didn’t become a nightmarish planet overnight. The fingerprints of its gradual shift may be present in some of the oldest surface features, hidden in plain sight.
To understand what happened on the neighboring world billions of years in the past, researchers are turning to tesserae, complex geologic features on the Venusian surface whose origins remain a mystery. Tesserae are broad plains where rocks have been folded and broken by geologic activity.
Speaking of life on other worlds…….There have been many years to debate on whether we should be sending invites out in space…..think Independence Day movie……
Today, scientists around the world are trying to phone, well, whatever‘s out there — and fighting over whether it could spell our doom.
Nearly seven in 10 Americans think there’s intelligent life out there. Will they be cute and sweet like “E.T.”? Or ruthless like the “Independence Day” creatures in giant spaceships blowing us to smithereens?
It’s not just theoretical. It’s a giant debate raging in the scientific community. Stephen Hawking, the renowned astrophysicist, fell into the “Independence Day” camp, warning: “Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach. Who knows what the limits would be?”
A dwarf planet discovered over a decade ago is the largest body we know of in our solar system without a proper name – but that’s about to change.
Meg Schwamb, an astronomer at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, and her colleagues have opened a public vote to name the distant world, which is currently known only as 2007 OR10. They have selected three potential names that fit the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) rules on official names for minor planets, and will recommend the winner to the IAU, which will then select the formal name.
So why now, instead of when the researchers discovered OR10 in 2007? “You can’t name something when you don’t know anything about it,” says Schwamb. “When we found it, I knew the orbit and generally the size.” Now, after lots of follow-up observations, we know more than just that it is about 1250 kilometres across and orbits beyond Pluto in the Kuiper belt.
In life there are always those “Oh shit!” moments…..well this plane had one of those very moments…..in a BIG WAY!
In 1956, the Grumman aircraft corporation was testing its new fighter, the F-11 Tiger, off the coast of New York state. The pilot fired a long burst from its guns and moments later suffered mysterious, catastrophic damage that caved in the windshield and mortally wounded the engine. What happened? The pilot had shot himself down.
The F-11 Tiger, like all Grumman aircraft, was named after a cat. Fast and nimble, the F-11 was only the second supersonic fighter in the Navy’s inventory, capable of 843 miles an hour (Mach 1.1). It was actually Grumman’s first supersonic fighter and the company’s inexperience with the consequences of supersonic flight, as well as the fighter’s amazing speed, would be one test Tiger’s undoing.
On September 21st, 1956, as DataGenetics explains, a Grumman test pilot flying a Tiger off the coast of Long Island dropped his nose twenty degrees and pointed it at an empty spot of ocean. He fired a brief, four second burst from his four Colt Mk.12 20-millimeter cannons, entered a steeper descent, and hit the afterburners. A minute later, his windshield suddenly caved in and his engine started making funny noises, eventually conking out as the pilot attempted to return to Grumman’s Long Island airfield.
It is NO secret that since the election of Trump as the leader of the Free World I feel that the US is going backward not forward…..as a Progressive (read Leftist not Democrat) I see trouble ahead economically….yeah I know things are just ducky right now but that is right now……what about the future…..remember that time when we say we are doing all this idiotic stuff for……
I have been writing about the disappearance of the Middle Class that NO one wants to admit……but now aMIT economist has also seen this slide and written about it (maybe the world will listen to him)……
America is regressing to have the economic and political structure of a developing nation, an MIT economist has warned.
Peter Temin says the world’s’ largest economy has roads and bridges that look more like those in Thailand and Venezuela than those in parts of Europe.
In his new book, “The Vanishing Middle Class”, reviewed by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Mr Temin says the fracture of US society is leading the middle class to disappear.
I wish I could lay all the blame on Trump but that would be disingenuous….the truth is every president since Ronald Reagan has made the slide worse with policies that favor the uber-rich and ignored the plight of the working stiff.
The long the problem is ignored the more that our beloved nation looks more and more like some developing Third World nation……
Is that what you want?
Time to learn some basic economics before you vote…..
The theory, in brief, argues that countries that issue their own currencies can never “run out of money” the way people or businesses can. But what was once an obscure “heterodox” branch of economics has now become a major topic of debate among Democrats and economists with astonishing speed.
For that, we can thank Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who told Business Insider in January that MMT “absolutely” needs to be “a larger part of our conversation.” That was the most vocal mainstream support MMT had gotten, which for years had been championed by economists like Stephanie Kelton (a former adviser to Bernie Sanders), L. Randall Wray, Bill Mitchell (who coined the name Modern Monetary Theory), and Warren Mosler — as well as a growing number of economists at Wall Street institutions
You have now heard what FOX has to say about Mueller’s Report. Same with CBS, NBC, MSNBC, NY Times, WaPo, etc etc etc…..
I really do not care what the pundits have to say …their opinion matters not……I want to make up my own mind (I may be alone here)……
We even heard from the AG Barr in a news conference before anyone in the public even saw much less read this report. This is an odd move…..but to what end?
Do your self a favor about READ THE DAMN THING!
I had a helluva time getting to a place where I could read this report…..the government sites were NO help at all (go figure)…….I give several sites in case one does not work for you.
Do not be a bobble-head…..read the report for yourself…..though if you have made up your mind before read then reading would be a waste of time….if that is the case please move on and read you comic book or drink the kool-aid of stupid.
Be a partisan HACK or an informed citizen….after all this is your country….time to act like you truly care!
With all the hub-bub going on about the report that the country is waiting to be revealed another situation was developing……
North Korea tests another weapon…..
North Korea announced that it has test-fired a new type of tactical guided weapon, the AP reports. The Korean Central News Agency says Chairman Kim Jong Un observed the firing of the weapon Wednesday by the Academy of Defense Science. The agency reports that Kim said “the development of the weapon system serves as an event of very weighty significance in increasing the combat power of the People’s Army.” The agency says Kim mounted an observation post to learn about the test-fire of the new-type tactical guided weapon and guide the test-fire.
The announcement came after reports of new activity at a North Korean missile research center and long-range rocket site where the North is believed to build long-range missiles targeting the US mainland. The White House says it was aware of the report and had no comment. The AP could not immediately and independently verify North Korea’s claim.
The last meeting between the two Supreme Leaders ended badly…at least according to some……and some have asked just what will it take, if anything, to bring about a settlement on this situation?
HERE’S SOMETHING you don’t expect to hear at a conference: “Send Lady Gaga to North Korea.” That was the most audacious idea emerging from a recent North Korea academic conference this past March at the University of Virginia. The presenter, in discussing his own research, explained that due to the failure of the recent U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi, new ideas and connections—such as increasing cultural and people connections—could help offer fresh ways to build trust in a relationship that clearly has next to none.
If only selling records to little monsters was as easy as reconciling old enemies. In fact, such an idea, while certainly clever, makes one thing all the more obvious: Korea watchers the world over are out of ideas when it comes to crafting creative approaches to solving the conundrum that is the U.S.-North Korea relationship.
There have been rumblings that yet another meeting of the two leaders may be coming later this year…..but will that bring about the solution the world has been wanting for 60 years?
