Global
This film presents a synthesis of my father’s book The Doomsday Machine. His book depicts the evil murderousness of nuclear war plans, and the particular dangers posed by ICBMS, with their first strike capability, intended to be launched on warning.
He believed that with these weapons both the U.S. and the USSR/now Russia had constructed Doomsday Machines, capable of destroying most life on earth — machines that are particularly dangerous because neither side acknowledges this reality but continue to proceed as if there were some circumstances in which it was possible to win a nuclear war.
The epigraph from Dad’s book is from Nietzsche: “Madness in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”
And I am very glad that this film expands on that particular theme with the title: “Ordinary Insanity” — ordinary, as he says, because it is so widely shared.
Gaza requires urgent international attention.
What is happening in the besieged and devastated Strip at the moment by far exceeds an unfolding humanitarian disaster; it is a calculated geopolitical reshaping. Israel is actively executing a plan to permanently occupy the vast majority of Gaza, with consequences that require little elaboration considering what we already know about the ongoing genocide.
Currently, much of the international debate centers on a single official: Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov. The former United Nations Special Coordinator has been designated by the United States as the Executive Director of the Trump administration’s newly established ‘Board of Peace’—an international council founded to oversee the implementation of Washington's 20-point Gaza roadmap.
We start GREEP Zoom #269 with the New York firestorm ignited by DONALD TRUMP’s unwelcome appearance at the third game of the NBA Finals, which the Knicks have lost….a loss millions of New Yorkers now blame on Trump.
We’re then confronted by reports from HOWIE HAWKINS and MYLA RESON on atomic reactors under fire in Ukraine and radioactive clouds now pouring over LA from the melted Santa Susana reactor in Simi Valley.
Thanks to co-convenor MIKE HERSH we’re joined by Virginia County official WALA BLEGAY with a spirited explanation for her powerful fight against data centers’ mass destruction power grids & water supplies.
From PAUL NEWMAN, ALISON GREENE, LYNNE FEINERMAN and DOROTHY REIK chime in with critical points on data centers and election protection.
As we move forward with a critical list for the “all-out war” of election protection including the power of money, vote by mail, KKK-style intimidation, mass data theft used to “steal our votes,” creation of new “ghost voters” to throw elections, unverified vote counts, Gerrymandering, lack of credible audits, and more….all opposed by the grassroots campaign for an overwhelming turnout.
This article first appeared here
The U.S. Army wrapped up a live-fire counter-drone exercise in Lithuania in mid-May, and the headline out of Anduril’s marketing department was straightforward: the software worked, the targets died, and the kill chain ran on Lattice.
What that means in practice deserves more scrutiny than Anduril’s press team is inclined to provide.
The announcements
In November 2025, the Army selected Anduril Industries to serve as the software backbone of its Integrated Battle Command System Maneuver program — IBCS-M — establishing Lattice as the next-generation fire control platform for counter-UAS missions across the force. Less than six months later, Flytrap 5.0, a live-fire exercise conducted in Lithuania with U.S. and allied forces, served as the program’s public coming-out event.
This article first appeared here
Running away to join the circus generally isn’t the best way to deal with your problems. But sometimes it’s the only way available to you.
That’s the situation faced by Jacob Jankowski in Water for Elephants, a touring musical now playing at Columbus’s Ohio Theatre.
We first meet Jankowski as an old man (Robert Tully) reminiscing about his past, but the show then thrusts us into that past, when a young Jacob (Zachery Keller) hitches a ride on a circus train and is offered work after he reveals he was trained as a veterinarian.
Because the Great Depression is in full force, and because Jacob has no other prospects, he reluctantly accepts the job. He then tries to make the best of what turns out to be a bad situation, complicated by a dictatorial and sadistic boss, August (Connor Sullivan). The job’s only perk is that Jacob gets to meet the show’s beautiful star performer, Marlena (Helen Krushinski), who, unfortunately, turns out to be August’s wife.
The latest wave of US airstrikes has already reportedly damaged critical civilian infrastructure, which according to the Iranian government has cut off some 20,000 Iranians from their water supply amid sweltering heat.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that the US is going to be launching major strikes in Iran, while President Trump says he’ll “bomb the shit out of” the Iranians if they don’t agree to a deal of his liking.
The latest wave of US airstrikes has already reportedly damaged critical civilian infrastructure, which according to the Iranian government has cut off some 20,000 Iranians from their water supply amid sweltering heat.
Meanwhile the US war machine is acting like a poor widdle victim and claiming it’s only bombing Iran in order to defend itself from unwarranted aggression.
Our President holds up a chart showing that if you stood up the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on its side, it would be taller than the Empire State Building!
But apparently, no one told Trump that if you stood the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on its side, ALL THE WATER WOULD RUN OUT!
And now he wants to paint Lincoln’s pond blue. Don’t complain, he could have demanded we paint the Potomac River blue.
I suspect Trump’s idea of turning the reflecting pool blue comes from the toilets at Trump Tower that have that blue stuff in the bowls which, Trump says, is “very classy.”
In fact, instead of this multi-million dollar paint job, why don’t they just throw some of those Tidy-Bowl tablets into Lincoln’s reflecting pool. He won’t mind. He’s dead. They didn’t have blue stuff in his day.*
Can you imagine what Lincoln’s thinking right now? He’s thinking, “Damn, I always wanted a toilet-bowl blue reflecting pool. And I always wanted a ballroom! With bullet-proof glass. If I had that, I’d still be President today! So, blow my head off Mt. Rushmore and put this guy’s combover in my place.”
Suddenly my cynicism vanished and things started making sense . . . America started making sense, from past to present.
I was already in the process of writing this column – hey, the nation’s 250th birthday is coming up – and had never felt more lost. Where, where, where am I going with this? What am I trying to say? My words had no core, no soul. I felt like I had given myself the random rubble of a bombed-out building to write about.
Then a friend sent me a link to a New York Times opinion piece. I decided to give it a quick read. I don’t necessarily trust the Times. It can be smugly wrong. But I took a look – it was by literary critic A.O. Scott – and I couldn’t stop reading it. He had found our country, it seemed, beginning with these 35 simple words:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”