The Greater World

Addiction blows. No pun intended. Shits on you, your friends, family, etc…The U.S. government has its own addictions, not least of which is hegemony. Call me a commie, but you know you want to say “true dat, double true.” We wreak havoc on the whole world, and part of the havoc for the rest of Western Hemisphere is the drug war. But even after years of fighting dirty Colombians and crazy Bolivians, all we’ve seen is an increase in cocaine usage in the states. The solution on the home front?

The White House is considering weapons in its space policy through the Air Force, and will probably incorporate the long-standing view of Air Force: the United States should have space superiority. The 2001 Rumsfeld Report discusses, in light of missile defense, options for weapons in space. The United States Air Force’s Lance Ward has said: “We must establish space superiority: freedom to attack, freedom from attack.” In October 2002, Paul Wolfowitz asserted that space is the “ultimate high ground.” The domination of space is part of the Air Force’s strategic doctrine. Now non-state actors play a role in space, such as commercial satellites, but, formally, every satellite launched comes from some state, but some lack oversight. The Rumsfeld Report exaggerates near-term threats in stressing that, unless we do something, we risk a space “Pearl Harbor.”

Brace yourselves. The Chinese and Russians are again a happy, authoritarian family! And they gonna take us down!

New York nightlife has always been popular with foreign tourists. Last week the most notable, and incongrous, foreign visitor to Manhattan clubland was Iraq War veteran and Pennsylvania Congressional candidate Patrick Murphy who brought his campaign to Happy Valley, the nightspot named for Penn State 's idyllic home. Murphy came flashing his indie cred with a lineup of comedians known for snark, including MTV's The State mastermind Michael Showalter.

While at work, we at Cosmodrome sometimes want to know what is going on in the world beyond our carpet-walled cubicles. And occasionally we want harder hitting news than superstar bloggers like Ari Berman or even PageSix can offer us (Sca Jo said what? Kiefer’s doing karate in a bar again? Sweet.), though this happens less than we’d like you to think. Until iPods get their shit together and start to pick up broadcast news, we’re stuck with the only option of online news sources. At one point about a year ago I decided to analyze the way in which these sites have used headlines to rope in you and me and everyone we know.