The United States is moving dangerously forward in what appears to be a deliberate attempt to provoke a war with Iran, apparently based on threat intelligence provided by Israel. The claims made by National Security Advisor John Bolton and by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that there is solid evidence of Iran’s intention to attack US forces in the Persian Gulf region is almost certainly a fabrication, possibly deliberately contrived by Bolton and company in collaboration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It will be used to justify sending bombers and additional naval air resources to confront any possible moves by Tehran to maintain its oil exports, which were blocked by Washington last week. If the US Navy tries to board ships carrying Iranian oil it will undoubtedly, and justifiably, provoke a violent response from Iran, which is precisely what Bolton, Pompeo and Netanyahu are seeking.

Domestic violence victim Diona Clark gave testimony Wednesday at a sentencing hearing for her ex-boyfriend. Drying tears with a tissue, she said she would like her ex-boyfriend to serve prison time for having shot her twice. The first bullet entered under her left arm, the second bullet entered the left breast, went inches from her heart, after grazing her hand which required microsurgery, collapsed her lung, and chipped her rib.

But the Judge, Stephen McIntosh, extended the final sentencing for three weeks until Wednesday 29 May, so he can determine whether the defendant, Larry Belcher, can be housed in prison, since he shot himself in the head after shooting her, and remains in a wheelchair 14 years later with other associated medical conditions.

Clark told the court, “My desire is for him to serve prison time...I don’t think he is remorseful for what he has done to me. I would like him to be judged according to what he has done to me.”

Ethics classes in U.S. philosophy departments are pathologically obsessed with imaginary scenarios, often involving trollies, that purport to demonstrate some people’s greater acceptance of causing death or suffering if they don’t have to physically, directly, immediately cause it. Some people would supposedly pull a switch so that a trolley killed one person rather than staying on another track and killing five people, but wouldn’t push one person onto a track to save five people.

I say “supposedly” because, luckily, nobody’s gotten the funding to actually try out an experiment (as far as we know, I can’t speak for DARPA).

The purpose of all this imaginary murdering is unclear for two major reasons. First, some professors will simply conclude that people are weak and ought to know better (which they could have told you to begin with), while other professors will tell you that whatever people imagine they would do simply is what they should do because their inner whatchamawhoochie is intuitively in touch with the great cosmic whatchamacoochie. So, what have we learned?

Two months ago, I heard a story. You heard it too, if you went anywhere near a television or a newspaper in the United States. The government of Venezuela needed to be overthrown because it wouldn’t allow in humanitarian aid.

Friday, May 10, 2019, 6:30 – 8:30 PM