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There’s absolutely no evidence that Iran has, or has ever possessed, nuclear weapons. Indeed, the Obama Administration negotiated an agreement whereby Iran agreed not to develop nuclear weapons or even enrich uranium to the purity necessary to create a fission bomb. Trump tore up that agreement, but there’s no evidence that Iran made any progress toward an atom bomb since then. Still, last June Trump claimed to have obliterated Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons program. Now he’s claiming that his attack on Iran was justified because their nuclear weapons posed an immanent existential threat. So is the Iranian atom bomb dead or alive? “Speaking from the East Room at the start of a ceremony to award the Medal of Honor to a trio of U.S. Army soldiers who’d served in the Second World War, the Vietnam War and Afghanistan, the president said Iran’s ballistic missile capability would have “soon” been able to reach beyond hitting American bases in the Middle East and Europe to hit “our beauti...

I just finished reading  Sitting Bull’s War: The Battle of Little Big Horn and the Fight for Buffalo and Freedom on the Plains  by Paul L. Hedren. Several years ago, I read “Empire of the Summer Moon” by S.C. Gwynne, which is a history of the Cheyenne people, so I was passingly familiar with the clash of the plains Indians and White settlers in all its violence, tragedy and inevitable outcome. Sitting Bull’s War is unusual in telling the history largely through the lens of the Indian experience. The time period is basically from 1870 to the mid 1880s, and largely involves the Hunkpapa Sioux, Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne, although many other smaller tribes appear. The clashes begin with the surveying of the northern buffalo country for the Northern Pacific railroad. Small skirmishes ensued as the Indians tried to drive off the White men, who then returned with military protection. In several battles, Indians noted the poor marksmanship of the soldiers. Gradually, the buildup of Am...

During the Vietnam war, we were told Americans were fighting and dying because of the domino theory—that if the dictatorship in South Vietnam fell, the communists would take over all of Southeast Asia and India. It was a lie. During the US invasion and military occupation of Iraq, we were told that Americans were fighting and dying because Saddam (a) was complicit in the 9/11 attacks and (b) had WMDs that threatened the United States. It was a lie. Now, the US has, with Israel, embarked on what appears to be a sustained war in Iran, justified by a need for regime change, something Trump came to office repudiating. Is this war necessary? Is it worth the loss of lives and the suffering it will necessarily cause? Here’s Timothy Snyder: “A war is a time when we will be told not to ask questions. But a war is actually when questions must be asked. And they must be asked in light of what we already know. The presumption created by the surrounding evidence is that this war could very well be ...

The overclocked 8 th   grader in the White House has decided that the path to the Nobel Peace Prize lies through war. “The strikes opened a stunning new chapter in U.S. intervention in Iran and marked the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic. They came after tensions soared in recent weeks as American warships moved into the region, and Trump said he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program at a moment when the country is  struggling at home  with  growing dissent  following  nationwide protests .” With months to plan, the US and Israel no doubt selected high-value targets. “Airstrikes killed five students at a girls’ school, the first confirmed fatalities in Iran in the operation, according to the state-run IRNA news agency." Your tax dollars at work.   https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-iran-us-attack_n_69a29565e4b00f9077394f34?origin=home-latest-news-unit

“ Police arrested a man for a burglary in a city he had never visited after face scanning software deployed across the UK confused him with another person of south Asian heritage. “Alvi Choudhury, 26, a software engineer, was working at the home he shares with his parents in  Southampton  in January when police knocked on his door, handcuffed him and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him at 2am. “Thames Valley police had used automated facial recognition software which matched him with footage of a suspect of a £3,000 burglary 100 miles away in  Milton Keynes , according to documents shared with the Guardian by Liberty Investigates. “But the CCTV footage showed a noticeably younger man with different features apart from similar curly hair, said Choudhury, who was left confused about why he had been arrested.” Apparently, they already knew this was the ChatGPT of surveillance. “ But the technology was revealed in December to produce a far higher rate...

  My parents were both college grads. My dad was an MIT-trained chemical engineer. My mom had a bachelor’s degree in psychology. After she finished college, she got married and became a homemaker, eventually raising five children. Needless to say, during that time she wasn’t earning the average salary of a high school grad—she wasn’t earning anything. What a college grad earns depends as much on them and their motivation as it does on their major. “Indiana legislators hope to build upon Congress' "Do No Harm" earnings test with Senate Bill 199, which seeks to   end college programs   whose graduates don't earn more than those with only a high school diploma. While the bill has support from the state commission, it faces opposition from faculty who argue it threatens academic integrity. Roughly a dozen public institution programs would fail the proposed test, based on recent federal data showing that the average salary for a high school graduate in Indiana is slightly ...