Nuclear proliferation is probably more dangerous now than in any time in history.  A few nukes controlled by terrorists or rogue states is more of a concern than a multi-megaton confrontation between Russia and the U.S.  North Korea is a rogue state.  A Taliban-controlled Pakistan could launch a nuclear terrorist attack.  Iran is both rogue and terrorist.  Their support of Hezbollah qualifies them as terrorists and their official goal of exterminating Israel qualifies them as a rogue state.  However, the Iranian people are starting to place demands on their totalitarian state that may lead to its collapse.  How long this takes is critical.  If Iran develops nuclear arms before reform takes place, Israel will probably act.  It’s a race against time.

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No, I have NOT suddenly become a neocon or right-wing militaristic neo-nazi.  There are two positive things about the draft that I have in mind.  The first is that on the military side politicians would be a lot more reluctant to involve us in wars, knowing that their constituents are less inclined to tolerate capricious deployments.  And if their sons and daughters couldn’t wriggle out of it (a requirement for any future draft), they might go from being a hawk to a dove.  The second is that on the civilian side, that is, combined with community service and service abroad like the Peace Corps, young men and women would be required to think about other countries and their proper role respect to Gaia and its peoples, at home and abroad.

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No, I’m not writing about the present state of the Irish economy.  I’m also not writing about that wonderful soupy mixture I yearned for as a kid when Mom cooked fish on Friday.  Today’s post treats several topics: the hijacking of the Republican Party by the Tea Party extremists; the Mideast peace talks; Labor Day; and bedbugs.  Hence, it’s a stew.

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Mr. Obama’s speech last night struck me as serious and cautious.  He exhibited caution with respect to Iraq and caution with respect to the economy.  Moreover, not by what he said so much as what he didn’t say, I received the distinct impression that he now realizes there is only so much a president can do and that sometimes you just have to let events play out.

Iraq is a sore point, to be sure.  Mr. David Brooks in yesterday’s N.Y. Times declared nation building there a success.  He considered the economic and political fronts, just as Mr. Obama did.  Others are not so positive, including Mr. Obama.  While Iraq this year might end up with the fastest growing economy in the world, growing from zero is a lot different than growing from an already high level.  ABC News even thinks it’s significant that people can now go out in Baghdad and eat ice cream.  I don’t know if that’s economic or political, but it is sophistic.

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In contrast to Mr. George Carlin, I don’t intend for this post to be funny.  I’m not very good at doing funny.  While Mr. Carlin was adept at poking fun at many things and certainly used a more flowery vocabulary, the only thing I’ll do in his memory is to steal his title.  I recently learned that titles can’t be copyrighted, so, authors out there, go for it.  (My novel, Full Medical, for example, is often seen as some POD self-help non-fiction work.  Unless you’re one of the villains, there’s not much about self-help in it.  But I didn’t steal that title.  Well, just a wee bit, in tribute to Frederik Pohl and his sci-fi classic Gateway.)

We visited the D.C. area this weekend.  Usually a city trying to revert back to the swamp that it was, the humidity was low enough that the heat was tolerable.  A good day for demonstrations, I thought.  No, I didn’t go see Professor Mouth, Mr. Glen Beck, lead his mostly white crowd in their push to establish an American theocracy.  I also didn’t mingle with the mostly black crowd in their nostalgia fix of celebrating Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  I thought that was going to be on the Mall too, but I couldn’t find it.  Just kidding.  I wasn’t looking for either one.  But the drive from New Jersey gave me time to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going.

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A new book out, written by journalist Leslie Kean and called UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go On the Record, will surely stir up that old UFO hornet nest again.  My first acquaintance with serious works on UFOs occurred in 1956 with Capt. Edward J. Ruppelt’s classic The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects.  (Yes, I was only ten years old—call me precocious.)  This report seemed serious enough (to my budding scientific mind)—after all, the Captain was the first head of the USAF Project Bluebook.  So what’s this all got to do with Fermi?

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While the illegal drug war is like a pit bull that takes big, random bites out of American citizens and their wealth, there is a legal drug war going on that is more like a vicious little dachshund continuously nipping at those same heels.  Drug companies, home grown or otherwise, are at war with the American consumer.  It is an insidious war of greed, privilege, and exploitation, and the innocent victims in this war are legion.

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Some time ago I was collaborating with some researchers at the Universidad Complutense in Madrid.  My four weeks in that city represented the best “working vacation” I ever had.  I really got involved in Spanish culture.  Together with the cook at a coffee shop near my pension (boardinghouse), for example, I even left my mark on their culture—a grilled cheese and egg sandwich with a hole in the top where the yolk can wink at you.

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Independent of your views on the Iraq War, I would like to throw out some points of discussion.  Now that everybody is focusing on Afghanistan and Pakistan (will the floods now ensure that al Qaeda and/or the Taliban get nukes?), what about Iraq?  Will it just go away?  Can we count it as one of the few friends of the U.S. in the Middle East?

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Our social and political rhetoric these days is more of a mindless rant with mostly zero content—emotional, irrational, angry, and bitter.  Perhaps those tweets on Twitter, those writings on the Facebook Wall, and the forums provided by the internet for any blogger with a chip on his shoulder have made it too easy.  We succumb to the notion that we are free to express our opinions, and do we ever!

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