BAD? AS OPPOSED TO WHAT?

History never looks like history when you’re are living through it. – John W. Gardner

I don’t want to alarm anyone but, this is all looking exceedingly unpleasant. Reading between the war-media bullshit, as we have trained ourselves to do, it would appear that, in Iraq, the US is losing control of the cities, and calling down airstrikes, while reluctant allies pull out of the hotspots. Both Sunni and Shi-ite insurgents move through the civilian population like Chairman Mao’s fish through water. Civilian casualties, and incidents like yesterday’s aerial blitz on a Falluja mosque strengthen Iraqi resolve, and move matters inexorably towards a full-scale popular uprising – something with which the US military is totally unequipped to cope. A mendacious and unnecessary war has gone beyond being illegitimately waged and is now being arrogantly lost, in classic ‘Nam fashion, and at mind-boggling speed. Meanwhile the poor fucking grunts, some already there a year, have their tours extended, and spring moves towards summer in one of the most environmentally unappealing places on the planet. In a parliamentary democracy, it would only be a matter of time before a vote of no confidence would be organized, and the current leadership removed from power. But that is not the American way, and so the gang in the White House fumblingly presides over what may well be the collapse of the First Crusade of the Third Millennium, and who knows what the hell will follow, as the whole of Islam, in all its infinite numbers, engages against us. I’d just love to be wrong, but I’m started to worry that these larcenous pygmies-in-power may have actually triggered an epic, if not an apocalypse.

MAYBE GREENLAND MELTING?

And as the war hots up, this story from Nature comes at me...

Greenland's huge ice sheet could melt within the next 1,000 years and swamp low-lying areas around the globe if emissions of carbon dioxide and global warming are not reduced, scientists said on Wednesday. A meltdown of the massive ice sheet, which is nearly two miles thick would raise sea levels by an average seven yards, threatening countries such as Bangladesh, islands in the Pacific and parts of Florida. ''Any area that is less than seven meters above sea level would be flooded,'' said Jonathan Gregory, a climate scientist at the University of Reading in southern England. Researchers have already calculated that an annual average temperature rise of more than three degrees Celsius would be sufficient to melt the ice sheet in the future.

LINK

I wrote the cover story in today’s LA CityBeat. It’s a profile of publishers-to-the-damned Adam Parfrey and Richard Metzger. http://lacitybeat.com/

CRYPTIQUE – Check with the Mamalukes. Bang or whimper?