In science, there are all sorts of gossip that tweak the infallibility of scientists.
For example, the discovery of the “big bang” was postponed until they cleaned the antennae of Pigeon poop, and found it was the sky, not the poop, causing the hum of  the big bang.
And Penicillin may have been discovered because of carelessness […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Due to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s decision to prolong her stay in the Middle East, her scheduled meeting in Washington with visiting Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski has been cancelled. The announcement of the cancellation was made Tuesday by the State Department spokesman Ian Kelly.

Tomorrow, of course, she has a meeting […]

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Ah, Halloween is here, and the TV channels are full of stories of witches and ghosts and goblins of all sorts.
Most of it is harmless fun: art and literature helps mankind be able to confront the evils around them in a way that strengthens their ability to hope that confronting the more real evils around […]

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TedLipien.com, SAN FRANCISCO — Bill Clinton might have asked what the “enhanced” definition of “to enhance” IS? The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw is busy blaming a Polish translator for mistranslating U.S. Ambassador Lee Feinstein’s TV interview answer about Polish troops in Afghanistan, which caused a diplomatic uproar in Poland. In an interview broadcast last […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. media has not yet picked up on the latest diplomatic controversy between Poland and the U.S. But the public disagreement between President Obama’s new ambassador in Warsaw Lee A. Feinstein and the Polish defense minister over plans to send additional Polish troops to Afghanistan is drawing media attention in Poland.

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Ah, a British paper just pooh poohed the British victory at the Battle of Agincourt, saying that Prince Hal was not outnumbered 4 to 1, merely outnumbered 2 to 1.
Actually, the author misses the point, which is that the elite knights of France got slowed down by the mud and were massacred by ordinary British […]

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In “Evolution’s Fatal Flaw”, a carefully researched and well written book, author Lawrence Wood sets out to validate two controversial and often debated claims:  that evolution is the proper explanation for our origins; and that evolution is all about the survival of the species, not as one might suppose, about the survival of the individual.  […]

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President Obama was brought up in Asia, yet he seems clueless about Afghanistan, and of the geopolitical problems in this area.
The press is even worse, preferring the simplistic out of date explanations of the “Afghanistan is Viet Nam” meme, or the “Stop the war” meme, or stressing civilian casualties “reported” by Taliban linked sources without […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Tony Blinken, national security adviser to the vice president, said in a briefing with reporters before Biden left for Europe October 20, that leaders in Warsaw, Bucharest and Prague should think less of what the U.S. can do for them and more about what they can do with the United States.

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She was the first to arrive, suitably attired in a fetching little number created by a famous designer in 1925; and was the last to leave. And why not? It was her 100th birthday celebration and she was enjoying the moment. Music, a play, champagne, and cake. It was all there, and all in her […]

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This year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner would not receive at the White House the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who is on a visit this week to Washington. President Obama apparently wanted to avoid upsetting Chinese communist leaders before his official trip to China.
Unwelcome at the White House […]

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Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — Displaying unprecedented boldness for a US diplomatic mission, the US Embassy in Warsaw conceded on its official public website that Poles believe that the “insensitive timing” — as the Embassy put it — of the Obama administration announcement on canceling the US missile shield system in Central Europe “shows that Obama […]

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Dear Poland, Happy Soviet Invasion Day, Love Uncle Sam
Wired
While American and international media blames President Obama for choosing to announce his decision on the removal of the missile defense system from Poland and Czech Republic on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet attack on Poland on September 17, 1939, surprisingly so far no one has […]

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This week I wanted to do something a little different. Even though this event occurred many years ago, the name and event remains the same. Also, I doubt this aspect has been discussed at any great length. This event occurred before I was born and before many today were born. It even occurred before Charles […]

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The number of Independent voters has increased dramatically since 1995. Depending on whose statistics you read the proportion of Americans registering as political Independents (or decline to state their affiliation) is currently between 38 and 40%; and this is scaring the hell out of both the Democrat and Republican Parties. But Thomas Richard Harry, author […]

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Bo Macreery, the author of the novel “Why We Don’t Kill Spiders,” is one of those rare writers who can pull a long forgotten period of history off a dusty book shelf and breathe fresh, new life into it; turning it into a rich and vibrant tale that resonates with the world we live in […]

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On August 15th (August 14 in the US), Japan surrendered, ending the long struggles of World War II.
One would think that the end of a war that cost millions of Asian civilians their lives would cause rejoicing, but a lot of news organizations are ignoring the story.
The New York Times, admonished last year by a […]

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The Anchoress today linked to a story in the National Catholic Reporter about a woman in North Korea who was executed for the “crime” of distributing Bibles.
Well, the gulags and executions in North Korea are an under-covered story in the West, at least until National Geographic’s roving reporter got arrested for “spying” a couple months […]

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Who’s Your Daddy?
People say you can’t judge a book by its cover.   Maybe so; but the minute I laid eyes on the cover of Hell Hawks: The Untold Story of the American Fliers Who Savaged Hitler’s Wehrmacht, I had to read the book.  Why?  Because I wanted to find out if these guys really did […]

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Imagine the scandal.
A well known war leader’s body was taken from a cemetery on Federal land, and his skull used as an object of ridicule by the enemy. The family is requesting their return, but the bones are owned by a group that includes some of the most influential people in the land, so their […]

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I haven’t seen the HBO series on the Tudors yet (HBO Asia is a year behind the US), but I find it interesting that the story is being revived and retold for today’s audience.
The story of Henry and his six wives is one that has held the fascination of people for hundreds of years. Is […]

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In Africa alone, 800,000 children die of malaria each year.
The death rate was actually once lower, but then economic problems, and the banning of DDT caused a rebound of disease carrying mosquitoes, and a resurgence in these diseases.
But it’s not only malaria: Southeast Asia has had a rebound in Dengue fever in the last few […]

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Back in World War I, according to historian Margaret Anderson, many of the so called “German atrocities” in Belgium was in response to snipers. The German soldiers responded to what they assumed was an uprising by civilians; but some episodes were friendly fire incidents, and others were from the rag tag Belgian Army, whose […]

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Well, here we are. Ten years to the day since that horrific day in Littleton, Colorado. A day that forever changed history in the world of Peer Abuse and bullying. It is a day that is hard to comprehend and a day that has left many to speculate. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris came to […]

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Some of the western blogs about China are touting a photo exhibition about China’s Red Guards.
You can find it on Facebook, or HERE. :
Quick: what’s wrong with this description:
 A 20-year-old barely out of high school, Solange Brand took a job at the French Embassy in Beijing at the beginning […]

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On April 9, 1942, the American and Philippine soldiers who were holding out in the siege of Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese.
The Manila Bulletin reminds us of what happened then:
Some 72,000 men of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) laid down their arms. On the Death March, 20,000 died. Of the […]

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Some would say they were the best keep secret of WWII. The female Air Force Service Pilots known as the Fifinellas proved their skill and valor, bursting through the gender barriers during the height of World War II. For the next 2 days, in Polk City, 3 WASP veterans will share their stories During the […]

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According to history, the Auschwitz concentration camp was the largest of its kind,  It included three main camps, all of which incarcerated prisoners and practised forced labor. One of them also functioned for an extended period as a killing center. There  are not many people still alive that managed to survive the horror of being […]

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It was truly the Garden of Eden.  Birds, fish, and animals of every size and description thrived together in a landscape of lush tropical vegetation amongst exotic flowers and palm trees that rose in some places to more than one hundred feet; all relatively untouched by man.  This was the Florida Everglades region of Southwest Florida […]

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After fifty years of controversy, the US Congress finally decided to grant the promised pensions to the “irregular” soldiers who fought the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II.
Rooting back to 1941, since the Philippines was considered a protectorate of the United States, then-U.S. President Roosevelt ordered that those Filipino soldiers who fight against […]

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