Geeky science note: LHC now most powerful collider, surpassing Tevatron, BBC reports. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8385891.stm

Thom, please interview Dr. Lisa Randall, Harvard, (author Warped Passages) about Branes, Strings and Particles and the LHC.

Mark,

Producers of the Thom Hartmann Show refer to this as a "Live Blog."

Louise,

P.S.

I am running the latest version of Windows XP + updates.

What is it that causes some humans to glorify war? It cannot be denied. Those on the progressive, anti-war left don’t understand it, perhaps because they don’t want the prospect of being shot at to interfere with their lives. But many people, particularly Southerners for some reason, think that the military and the prospect of fighting an enemy is the highest ideal, and gives “meaning” to their existence. Officers especially feel “incomplete” without the experience of war; after all, war—or the glory of war—is their reason for being. Being a “great captain” in the military history books still has some pull on the imagination of some dreamers, but I have to admit that as I have grown older, accounts of the fight for justice (the Dreyfus Affair), and the defense of conscience (Thomas Beckett, Thomas More) have had a greater pull on my imagination.

History, as it has been said, is nothing but war and politics. So we are fascinated by Alexander the Great’s attempted conquest of the known world, marching with a modest army from Macedonia to India. Why? What motivated him to march his weary men thousands of miles in mostly tractless, arid conditions for no particularly purpose but personal glory? Why did Napoleon march all over Europe, in the process wiping out a whole generation of French men—merely for “La Gloire?” Although there may be underlying motivations involved—Hitler, for example, wanted additional “living space” for the “master race,” the agricultural and oil resources of Russia, and the destruction of European Jewry—most people fascinated by war are those who think in terms of the “glory” of it. Americans, of course, like to fancy themselves as above such petty considerations, and in a few instances—such as WW II and the subsequent reconstructions of Germany and Japan—the U.S. can rightly point to with some glad-handing. But other conflicts, such as the Mexican and Spanish-American wars, Vietnam and Iraq—motivations are much more open to question and doubt. It seems the weaker the perceived enemy, the less Americans need a moral justification to kill the “dark races.”

However, I think it is a bit hypocritical for some of us to express shock and dismay at Obama’s “reversal” of his promise; he never made any such promise to leave Afghanistan in the status quo. I have to credit Ed Schultz with being honest enough to point out to his listeners that Obama’s Afghanistan surge should not surprise anybody—this is what he told us he would do during the campaign, and many of his supporters readily agreed with this. Getting business done in Afghanistan should always have been the Bush administration’s first—and only—priority. It seems clear by now that Afghanistan served as a convenient pretext for the invasion of Iraq; Bush and Cheney had planned the Iraqi invasion before 9-11—they may even have secretly desired some kind of provocation (just not the kind that occurred). But for most Americans, we had an understandable motive for invading Afghanistan, but because we did not go there in force, sending most troops to Iraq, we find ourselves in the mess we are currently in. I have a difficult time in seeing how this will end well, but if it has a chance to, it has to be by the carrot and stick approach that Obama has proposed.

Obama is also giving this “surge” a definite timeline to work, or not. And none too soon for troops who have seen too many deployments. I have just read that many troops with “mental health” issues are being given “potent psychotropic” drugs to make them “fit” to return to combat. What will happen when these drugged soldiers return from combat is something society will be forced to deal with, since the military seems loath to do so itself.

Uhmm, I don't have to imagine America without a strong middle class, I can observe it.

It would take imagination to picture a strong American middle class.

And another 100,000 civilians dead.

Dan Rather was on the Rachel Maddow’s show on November 30, 2009. He said on the show that the terrain is hostile and a problem in Afghanistan. The jungles in Vietnam had a hostile terrain. Iraq’s desert has the oppressive heat and it is a hostile problem. Thom Hartmann talks of Afghanistan and their villages and Afghanistan is not even a country. The village people in Afghanistan will not take up arms against Afghanis. Plus, we are going there to protect a corrupt government. Why should more people be killed and maimed to protect a corrupt government?

On December 1, 2009 I had a chance to listen and watch the Rachel Maddow show. I do like her reporting style.

If you had a chance to listen and watch her show after Obama’s speech at West Point, we as Americans have accepted the Bush Doctrine in its entire totality. We will attack any nation or group we want to attack whether they are a threat to us or not.

Dr. John Nagl, a specialist in counterinsurgency, was saying on the Rachel Maddow show that we need to increase our military force numbers. Will the return of the military draft be near? Dr. Nagl also mentioned that the increase in military force numbers would help to end the unemployment problems. What he did not say that increasing the military force numbers would keep America on an endless path of more wars with no end in sight.

I did not listen and watch Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, and Ed Schultz for their ideas and thoughts on the expansion of the Afghanistan war. I have opposed the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war from day one and nothing has changed my mind on these wars. We will continue to receive ongoing information on how important and necessary this expansion is but I will still oppose this war and all wars.

The real reason for putting more troops into Afghanistan is for the oil and natural gas resources in the Middle East and Central Asia. America believes that it is her right to control all of the world’s resources in oil and natural gas.

The fighting for oil and natural gas resources will continue forever. How many more people must die for these resources?

If this is true, why are we in the Middle East fighting over oil?

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

Gerald posted this terrific link yesterday with statistics that will help us write coherent, fact filled letters to the editor so I wanted to re-post it.

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/30/why_they_hate_us_ii_how_m...

In the article, I so appreciated MOHAMMED SAWAF's rational discussion of the horrifying statistics detailing numbers of lives from the Middle East ruthlessly ended by our bombs and warfare. At the same time, SAWAF also makes sure to state clearly that not all of these deaths were our fault. His rational tone gives his article the weight the horror in these numbers deserves.

I especially appreciated this paragraph: "Contrary to what Friedman thinks, our real problem isn't a fictitious Muslim "narrative" about America's role in the region; it is mostly the actual things we have been doing in recent years. To say that in no way justifies anti-American terrorism or absolves other societies of responsibility for their own mistakes or misdeeds. But the self-righteousness on display in Friedman's op-ed isn't just simplistic; it is actively harmful. Why? Because whitewashing our own misconduct makes it harder for Americans to figure out why their country is so unpopular and makes us less likely to consider different (and more effective) approaches. "

Unfortunately President Obama invoked in his Tuesday night war call the same 9/11 fervor that Bush used to bring a football-game sort of adrenalin tone to what would become the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Because we have never experienced war on our soil in our lifetime we so easily deny its realities and allow our leaders to justify the murder of innocent people who mean to do us no harm. We accept our leaders' rationalizations that this murder is being done in the name of our "security" when all evidence shows that we are less secure because we are killing so many innocent people, an obvious, common-sense truth.

I haven't figured out the math, but how many innocent people will have to die for each one of those 3,000 Americans who were killed on 9/11? 30,000? If we kill 30,000 people from the Middle East for each one of the folks who died in 911, does that make any sense whatsoever? Such behavior seems much more "evil" than the actual act committed on 9/11.

In his speech President Obama reminded us that we were going to battle not only for the US but for other allies who experience terrorist attacks from the Taliban. Would that bring the numbers down to 10,000 innocent deaths for each person killed by a terrorist?Is this a moral act?

There is a sort of underlying belief that Presidential candidates have to lie about a few things in order to get elected, and I think most progressives truly thought President Obama was talking tough about Afghanistan to win debates, but that in his heart he knew that bombing countries never makes them stronger.

I think we believed that after he was elected he would settle in to his real intentions and end the war in Iraq and help Afghanistan with humanitarian aid not more war. Now we must realize he is in many ways another puppet, or has been turned into a puppet, for China's interests because of our debt. It's obvious that this war has very little to do with security, because our presence there is escalating the recruitment of those who wish to harm us.

If we want to help women and children in Afghanistan, and help prevent more people from joining terrorist organizations, we need to build for them schools, libraries, hospitals and roads and help create jobs. Bombing and maiming hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in order to capture 100 Taliban leaders is unconscionable, and I hope that we can muster enough outrage to stop our President from committing another unforgivable act in our name.

That's spelled BANGLADESH. Sorry.