b. traven A few weeks ago I wrote that Russia, in occupying Crimea, was mainly concerned about maintaining their basing of their Black Sea Fleet in Crimea. This after their clear understanding that the regime change in Kiev, partially financed by us, was largely part of the U.S. strategy of surrounding Russia with American assets…
Daniel N. White Front blew in Sunday in Texas, a dry norther, and once again I’m allergy sick. Physically debilitated and mentally impaired too. I know better than to operate power equipment on allergy days. I minimize my driving, and mostly I do things indoors and breathe the HVAC filtered air. Most of the work I…
W.J. Astore Back in January, James Carroll had an op-ed in the Boston Globe that called for eliminating the Air Force as a separate service. He claimed that the Air Force’s strategic components (its nuclear ICBMs and manned bombers) were now largely irrelevant, that the Air Force’s tactical mission could be folded into the Army…
W.J. Astore CBS News has an article that shows that President Richard Nixon sought to cover up the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. The article draws from notes taken at the time by H.R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff and hatchet man. The notes suggest that Nixon ordered “dirty tricks” to discredit the…
W.J. and J.A. Astore My Dad, Julius Anthony Astore, was a child of the Great Depression. Born in 1917, he had to quit high school in 1933 to help support his family. In 1935 he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, working in forestry and as a firefighter in Oregon until he left in…
Richard Sahn How often one hears these days the following line: “Why should I care about government surveillance. I haven’t done anything wrong.” But “wrong” does not mean what it used to mean when I was growing up. “Wrong” today means saying the politically wrong things, expressing ideas and desires which can be interpreted to…
W.J. Astore A visitor to my home today saw my retirement plaque, which marks my twenty years of service in the US Air Force. He immediately thanked me for my service to my country. I appreciated his thanks because I took (and take) some pride in having served honorably in the military. But people who…
Michael Murry In my youth, I used to hear people say, when looking upon the abused and destitute of this world: “There but for the grace of god go I.” Which always sounded to me like another way of saying: “There and by the curse of god go they.” The concept of omniscient omnipotence, whether…
b. traven Funny how politicians start looking for Jesus when the Devil is attacking them personally. Sen. Feinstein, Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee (SIC) didn’t need Jesus when she supinely supported the CIA and NSA’s illegal spying on American tax paying citizens, you and me. When John Brennan, already notorious for his role in…
Michael Gallagher. Introduction by William Astore. It was called mutually assured destruction, or MAD for short. In the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union threatened each other with mass murder. If the nuclear missiles had flown, perhaps 100 million souls would have been vaporized in thirty minutes. Perhaps the human species (and most…
The Contrary Perspective 