Hammer Mill Days

Well, that's finished. Took us long enough. I swear, this takes more effort every time, and here at Big Green, we're built for comfort, not for effort. At least I am. Matt's the one out in subzero temperatures at the crack of dawn, dragging tree limbs to struggling beavers. Me? I write stuff and bang on the piano. And shit. I guess I could blame our slowness on the cold, like everyone else, but hell, we were born into this frozen hellscape, raised in its nurturing embrace, and will likely finish out our days frozen to the ground from whence we rose. In other words, yeah, hell ... it's sure cold outside! So where was I? Oh yeah. The February podcast. Here's what we've got in this installment of THIS IS BIG GREEN: Ned Trek 22: Mitt's Brain. Though there is never a one-to-one relationship between Ned Trek episodes and those of classic Star Trek, this one is based on the ludicrous Season 3 episode called "Spock's Brain". It's as asinine as...

There was some reporting by Patrick Cockburn this week about ISIS and the planned campaign against the group in Mosul, which is slated to begin in April. Cockburn says that the World Food Program is putting resources in place to handle a mass exodus of Sunni residents from the city, perhaps as many as a million. This is expected because the main fighting force that would retake the city will likely consist of Shia militia. Sunnis are terrified of these forces - much more so than they fear ISIS - hence they will take their chances on the highway rather than on the wrong end of the knife. So, once again, we are on the verge of creating another catastrophe in Iraq, the predictable consequences of which will be a further radicalization of the Sunni community, just as our 2003 invasion gave rise to Al Qaeda in Iraq, the precursor of ISIS. Same story, over and over again, and we somehow expect a different ending. Our imperial foreign policy is an enemy manufacturing machine, as the past s...