For a rather grim math lesson about the ebola outbreak, this post from John Michael Greer will more than do the trick. To summarize, absent successful intervention, various factors that slow these things down some, dumb luck, etc., if the present reports of the ebola virus doubling in infections every three weeks or so are in fact accurate, and human transmission patterns proceed apace in our ever more “globalized” world… an outbreak like this, at that rate (with somewhere between 50-90% fatality rate of those contracting ebola)… would result in something like everyone on Earth being exposed by, say, end...

It actually slipped my mind that, two days ago, this blog slipped through its thirteenth anniversary; I suppose I should give it a bar mitzvah, but then, just how old is it in [talking] dog years? Damned if I know. So many things seem so old and tired (besides my nearly fifty-two year old self). Anyway, we can start with this Atlantic observation (and of course, hit-piece) of Hillary Clinton (she hasn’t gone away either; btw she and I share a birthday). The piece notes Hillary’s campaign shtick (including her recent book) are all about playing it “safe,” and not...

. Did the President’s Big Speech [TM] threatening to kick ass and take names re: “the Islamic State[TM]” bring back that awesome 9-11 spirit? Because Paranoia Is Patriotic [TM]. It’s That Day [TM] all over again. Just forty-one years ago on 11 September, a CIA-sponsored coup d’etat military junta that the United States was happy about toppled the democratically elected government of Chile and then murdered that nation’s rightful president Salvador Allende President Salvador Allende committed suicide. And, of course, it is just two years after Benghazi [TM]. In case you’re wondering just what these seemingly disparate (or not so...

One wondering what would take the situation in Ukraine (now featuring a Russian aid convoy on its way to Eastern Ukraine which, as Brother Dmitry observes, will likely be delayed or outright barred from entry while the Ukrainians figure out how to shake it down) off of the front page, might think, “the situation in Gaza.” There, of course, a tentative cease-fire seems to be holding, as both sides may have achieved their respective political ends from pummeling Palestinian civilians (or in the case of Hamas, getting them pummeled), fulfilling Clausewitz’s famous axiom that war is just politics by other...

It’s (my college classmate) President Barack Obama’s 53rd birthday… I hear he’s keeping a low profile for the occasion. Given the way things are going… understandable move.

Regarding the most recent Malyasian Airlines disaster (maybe God just doesn’t like that airline?)… as he does with so much going on in our world, Brother Dmitry explains it all for you, in this brilliant thought experiment. Bottom line: now that we are safely thirty years beyond 1984, aside from everything being “doubleplusgood”… we apparently no longer need ask for “evidence” from those purporting to “report” the “news.” We are simply provided the regime’s narrative, and voila, everything is settled for us. No further thought needed. In this case, we are at war with Eurasia; we have always been at...

Do not look at anything like Jon Rappoport’s blog here, because as we all know, none of us have any power, let alone power over our own imaginations, to do anything at all (let alone pursue actual happiness or fulfillment). Best we take in things like a horrifying plane crash in Ukrainian airspace that Russian and Ukrainian officials seem hellbent on blaming on each other (along with other horrors associated with an ongoing insurrection in Ukraine), or for that matter, a horrifying conflict in the Gaza Strip that both Israel and the Palestinians on blaming on each other, or the...

Happy 4th of July. This, from a bygone era, while still the official public narrative, is now just a nice piece of Clinton-era nostalgia… for those actually nostalgic for the Clinton-era… hmmm….

The Grey Lady’s Charlie Savage just gives us the (redacted) memo itself of the Justice Department’s stated justification for the state-sanctioned murder of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki by the United States government in a targeted drone strike. The memo was released as part of a court decision by the U.S. Second CIrcuit Court of Appeals in New York. Wapo has a bit more (including a citation to the wrong amendment). And for the usual spot-on analysis we get from Marcy and the gang, try this and related posts from empty wheel. Amusingly, the author of the memo was former DOJ...

As we encounter our first full day of summer, I give you… a Mermaid Parade image from New York’s Mayor Bill DeBlasio and family, featuring King Neptune Dante DeBlasio and Queen Mermaid Chiara DeBlasio. Having dragged my own family to said Mermaid Parade (in Coney Island) on enough occasions… nice to see Familia DeBlasio in the spirit. Nope… nothing snarky to say here folks… move along. Too nice a day for that sort of thing (just back from the Queens 10-K… in more or less the usual time… long trip for a short race…) And perhaps Team USA will prevail...