NASA is headed back to the moon. For $30B dollars. On a test flight. Because, you know, we've never done this before.

THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS. To build the most powerful rocket ship, ever. To send exactly no one, into space. THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS.

What does your community/state need? Homeless housing and care facilities? Mental health clinics? Pay raises for teachers? New library? New fire trucks? Better water pipes? A hospital?

THIRTY BILLION DOLLARS. Why, that would replace bridges, update the electrical grid, or pave about ten miles of interstate.

What a damn waste.

 ".....to lower the gun killings although not by much unfortunately. There has to be a solution to this. Anybody here have an idea?

Solution is a change in social mores, primarily starting with families raising better citizens. The pandemic locked down most of a population, already stressed with the fun of daily trying to get by, at any economic level. After 15 months of a pandemice, we had a three month period where it looked like we were staring to emerge from it all. Now, its variant is surging among us, primarily among the vaccine non-believers, but others have contracted it as well. Add in job loss, benefits cut/loss, eviction notices, late car payment notices, overdue utility bills, and not knowing where your child's next meal is coming from while schools are out of session, and we have an angry, frustrated pop. ready to explode, wanting to yell, scream, rage on. We Americans, in the same boat as billions around the world with this pandemic, are acting out with our guns. Questions?

 No substantial changes to public education. Another new approximately 180-day school year; roughly 50-minutes classes, resulting in less than six actual classroom hours daily; attended by students who do not like to read, cannot put their electronic devices away, and most of whom do not really seem motivated about their lives, nor curious about the world around them; and so American students will continue to trail in the international rankings of school achievement. 

Meanwhile, six countries have their students attending 200 days-plus, and two more countries are at 190 days-plus. Why can't we add at least three weeks, 15 days, to our academic calendars? Fewer staff days, fewer and shorter holiday breaks, etc. Some districts are starting up tomorrow, as early a starting date as ever, and yet there is little improvement in graduation rates and international standings. 

We continue, as a nation, to improperly fund public education through property taxes, thus ensuring that those in poverty remain stuck with sub-standard facilities and resources. If we are to greatly improve this wonderful nation, lower the violence, increase the love, add to our accomplishments, we need to totally over-haul our national approaches to public education. 

Meanwhile, get ready for another ho-hum year. But your school's football team will be important, eh?

 These companies are in the business of making weapons. Not just pistols and rifles, but also tanks, jets, and rockets.

As wars continue and more people are feeling insecure around the world, business is flourishing.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri) looked into which arms companies were making the most money.

These are the top 25 arms manufacturers around the world, according to 2017 data.

25. Rheinmetall (Germany): $3.4 billion

24. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (Japan): $3.5 billion

23. Tactical Missiles Corp. (Russia): $3.5 billion

22. General Electric (US): $3.8 billion

21. Booz Allen Hamilton (US): $4 billion

20. Textron (USA): $4.1 billion

19. Naval Group (France): $4.1 billion

18. Leidos (US): $4.3 billion

17. Rolls-Royce (UK): $4.4 billion

16. Honeywell International (US): $4.6 billion

15. United Shipbuilding Corp. (Russia): $4.9 billion

14. United Aircraft (Russia): $6.4 billion

13. Huntington Ingalls Industries (US): $6.8 billion

12. L3 Technologies (US): $7.7 billion

11. United Technologies Corp. (US): $7.7 billion

10. Almaz-Antey (Russia): $8.5 billion

9. Leonardo (Italy): $8.8 billion

8. Thales (France): $9 billion

7. Airbus group (Trans-European): $11.2 billion

6. General Dynamics Corp. (US): $19.4 billion

5. Northrop Grumman Corp. (US): $22.3 billion

4. BAE Systems (UK): $22.9 billion

3. Raytheon (US): $23.8 billion

2. Boeing (US): $26.9 billion

1. Lockheed Martin Corp. (USA): $44.9 billion

A certain level of national defense is required. But we are failing around the world as human beings, to care for and about each other, and address our more basic needs. Billions without basic needs being filled: food, shelter, water, medicine, dental and eye care, high death rates, short life spans, lack of sewers, paved roads, electricity, running water. We simply have got to do better, and donating monthly to the combined federal campaign and United Way and the Red Cross isn't going to cut it. Space war has already started, despite the words we enscribed on a plaque we set on the moon all those years ago. I am tired of war. I am tired of living under a nuclear threat that continues to grow worse around the globe. I am quite tired of it all, the rationalizations, the excuses, the deaths, the suffering.

Five of the top six are American companies that, granted, employ a great number of people, directly and indirectly. To what end?