Another April 15

Another April 15 has come and gone with nothing newsworthy occurring other than a groups of disgruntled Republicans sprinkling small amounts of tea to onto surface water. Apparently, the so called tea parties did not brew up much of a stir in Washington.

As the number of American troops occupying Iraq is decreased the number of American troops fighting elusive and mostly unseen enemies in Afghanistan will be increased. Alas, perpetual war is a key nutrient required for government growth and one of its controlling appendages, the military-industrial complex. Both appear to be putting on an alarming amount of weight as the working class struggles to survive the economic nosedive.

Contrary to popular belief, stimulus programs do not work. They only prolong and intensify recessions and can even transform them into depressions. Japan literally blanketed its landscape with public works projects but the spending did not reverse its long recession.

It appears that the torture memos are going to be made public. Americans should not be debating whether the barbaric, evil and counterproductive practice might be useful under certain circumstances. The ticking bomb argument is bogus.

Is Uncle Sam going be the biggest stakeholder in GM along with the insurance giant AIG? I thought that state ownership of businesses or "the means of production" is defined as communism, an evil that Americans have spent half a century fighting tooth and nail. My, how things have changed - and mostly for the worse. I wonder how the thousands of Americans employed by more successful foreign auto companies feel about feel about how their tax dollars are being "invested". I strongly suspect that they were never provided an opportunity to express their opinions.

I have not had time to scan any of my own slides yet so there will be no images associated with this first post. I have, however, played with a few Hubble images which can be viewed by clicking my Flickr link. This blog is still in a rudimentary form but improvements are on the way.