terrorism

In RE Iran: “We Killed Yamamoto”

“Fellas, this guy is going to stand trial in a U.S. court, and if we have to stick heroin on his plane to get him there, that’s what we’re going to do.”
– President Jed Bartlet, The West Wing

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was Japan’s top naval commander-in-chief.  A brilliant strategist, a masterful tactician, and a genius at logistics, Yamamoto masterminded Pearl Harbor and had operated the Japanese attack fleet against the Allies in such a way that their materiel disadvantage was more than compensated for by his audacity.

In 1942, the American SIS broke the Japanese naval code (more…)

Living Without Fear?

I don’t fly.

It’s not that I’m afraid of heights or superstitious about technology, and it’s certainly not a fear of terrorism.  Commercial aircraft are insanely safe, especially when compared to interstate highways.

No, I won’t fly because the security offends me.

Before we get too far into this:  I’m aware this isn’t an entirely rational (more…)

What’s Behind Conway’s Aleppo Moment?

We’ve heard the jokes; we’ve seen the memes.  Kellyanne Conway is now a national laughing stock.  Which happens, so big whoop, right?

For those few of you who may have missed this story, CNN published the best account I can find — not snarky, not snotty at all, which is worthy of note as they tend to give Conway a hard time whenever they can.

If you don’t (more…)

Beating My Drum

Every time something horrific happens, every op-ed writer in America puts out their thoughts on it:   why it happened, how it could have been prevented, the senselessness of it all.  And what’s sad is, a lot of people are getting sick of it, ignoring it, moving on.  We see so very much that’s horrible and we just can’t face one more thing in a litany of more things.  And the last thing we need is some self-important armchair political hack telling us who did what wrong and who’s at fault.

So why am I, yet another self-important windbag, writing anything?  Why do you need another helping of empty wind from someone else who doesn’t matter?  Why do we need any of them yapping at us when what we really want to do is grieve in peace or fix the damn problem already and get on with the business of living but this time in safety?

Good questions.  Here’s the answer: (more…)

Conspiracy Theories And 9/11: World Trade Center

Many remember 9/11, but some of us view the events in a different light.  In order to discuss it, I’d like to start with some baseline information and move on from there.

PM-911-lead

The official story:  On 11 September, 2001, two commercial airliners impacted the main towers of the World Trade Center on the island of Manhattan in New York City.  Thousands of people (more…)

Conspiracy Theories And 9/11: The Pentagon

Not too long ago, a good friend of mine was looking at Facebook when he suddenly exclaimed, “Good God!  Don’t tell me people still believe that $#!+!”

Because we’re talking Facebook, I had to ask for a bit of clarification.  I mean, really — there’s a lot of $#!+ out there, after all.  And so I asked, “To which particular bit of $#!+ do you refer?” (more…)