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You will LOVE it, if... ... You like great writing. (I don't use "great" with "writing" very often, but Spiller deserves it.) ... You think war is a fascinating subject. ... You think PTSD is a new thing. ... You think this makes the book sound worthwhile: Enjoy.

... That Would Be 2009 Woe is us. The predictions keep getting worse, while the denialists keep getting louder. Something completely human about that, no? In case you missed the latest blast from the future from the National Academy of Sciences, here is the L.A. Times piece on it (from a month ago - thanks, Digg, for reviving it). Always check your sources, boys and girls. Know what the N.A.S. is? The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is an honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. The NAS was signed into being by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863, at the height of the Civil War. Do you believe the NAS or the latest Climate Denialist/Birther/Creationist whackjob? Up to you, of course. In short, the big, Congressional-mandated study by all those distinguished scholars says things are URGENT, we should get on the stick an

IT'S ONLY MONEY More than 1 in 5 (U.S.) kids live in poverty (U.S.A. Today) Now that is just unacceptable. Remember that the top 1% in American wealth have more money than the bottom 80%. Then there's: A new Gallup poll finds the national debt tied with terrorism as voters' biggest worry. Health-care costs, unemployment, immigration, and global warming all lag. http://bit.ly/9sbXaf Oh, great, the "deficit hawks" are about to eat our livers again. Quoting that rich old liberal George Soros: "June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire investor George Soros said “we have just entered Act II” of the crisis as Europe’s fiscal woes worsen and governments are pressured to curb budget deficits that may push the global economy back into recession. " The "pressuring" comes from deficit hawks who - in my humble opinion - just don't understand that getting the economy going again with LOTS of jobs is the only way to start reducing the national

THE JOY OF PUBLICATION II I said it before; I'll say it again. There is something special about seeing one's letter in a paper. This one is in the April 21, 2010 The Independent one of our East Mountain weeklies. The publisher Wally Gordon interviewed three of the local "Tea Party" organizers after a small rally. He used "Passion" in his headline. It was a good piece, quite fair, and used many quotes from the three ladies. One of them, a Mrs. Cooper, said she "didn't believe in health insurance, didn't have it and wouldn't use it if she did." She also said "death panels" were in the health care reform law. I was moved to write a letter. (You probably have to click it to read it.) I even got a "fan" call from a guy happy to see another liberal in the East Mountains.

Singapore Moving to Dominate the Water Biz There's wind power (China & Germany in the lead), geothermal (Iceland in the lead), Ocean wave power (Britain, Australia & Scotland in the lead), solar power (China & Germany leading) ... WAIT! Where's the U.S.A. in this renewable energy list? In what is clearly a big part of the future of the world energy budget, we are slow getting off the starting line. We invent and innovate and engineer really well, but when it comes to actually manufacturing in this field, we simply are not living up to our own (and the world's) expectations. Then there's WATER. Some say it will soon be more valuable than oil. Potable water is already one of the great shortages in the world. Even in rich America, fresh water is in precipitous decline. So another big part of the future is processing water. "Treating" water: Cleaning it up, desalinizing it, recycling it . Again, the leading countries in this vital field

I Admit It… I’VE TRADED OPTIONS Therefore I’m the worst kind of gambler . Now, before I get into excessive breast beating and teeth gnashing, let’s face it, EVERYONE WHO “INVESTS” IN STOCKS is gambling. That money you put in General Electric or General Motors or General Mills, etc. does NOT go to those companies. It goes to whoever sold that stock, plus a slice of it goes to the brokerages involved. Typically, not a penny goes to the company on the stock certificate. The companies don’t do more R&D, buy more equipment or hire more people because you “invested” in them. So you are not investing in American industry, you are just gambling that some other sucker will pay you more for your stock than you paid. Or – more rarely – that the company represented by the stock will dole out some of its profits as dividends to you as a stockholder. We all believe that buying stock is better than playing roulette because we make more i

Wrongo, Coast Guard See below, "Some Good News" where I blithely accepted a Friday Coast Guard evaluation that there was no more leakage from the big BP rig that blew up, burned an sank in The Gulf. That's what I get for being such an optimist. Here's the current state of things from the A.P. By CAIN BURDEAU The Associated Press Sunday, April 25, 2010; 9:43 PM NEW ORLEANS -- It could take hours or it could take months to stop a 42,000-gallon-a-day oil leak polluting the Gulf of Mexico at the site of a wrecked drilling platform. Whether the environmental threat grows many times bigger depends on whether the oil company can turn the well completely off. Crews are using robot submarines to activate valves at the well head in hopes of cutting off the leak, which threatens the Gulf Coast's fragile ecosystem of shrimp, fish, birds and coral. If the effort fails, they'll have to start drilling again. Dang.