[venusss]

In 1995 Norway launched a weather satellite. Russians were informed of this launch beforehand… but it got lost in the bureaucratic process.
Russian radars identified it as Trident missile.

Nuclear briefcase was activated and countdown started. With some 4 minutes left, it was identified that this was not a Trident…

4 minutes. 240 seconds… that little between continuing this however imperfect human history…. and coming close to eliminating it… or at least the life as we know it.

I am not gonna rant here about how nukes are terrible and we shall disarm today, lest we invoke 99 red balloons scenario tomorrow. Yes, we been almost there, it seems… but we are here today and we still thrive. We may regret we ever played with the atom and argue about long peace of 20th century versus possible End of Ze World scenarios… but that is all we can do.

I want to talk about something else… about beauty of being alive. I personally had a crisis not so long ago where I doubted sense of it all… the mundane, vapid existence… What if I am just pretending there is purpose? What if there is none?

It does scare me to read about how we might have been over, before I…. and the others…. had chance to experience many things we did, but at the same time, knowing of this incident makes me appreciate the beauty of life. The miracle of being here, after we stood on the brink. The new day that brings new hope.

It’s rainy day today and the stock market is not doing well, the Middle east is on fire and down there in Europe we are trying to save Greece, although most of us at this point would prefer to see Hellas crash and burn on a live stream. And I am single, 26 and unsure of my future and with shaky self-image and still kinda have no idea what to do with this life, besides trying to make impact. But life is beautiful, existence is worth it. Because we will get through most of our crises… we are a race of survivors, us humans.

Life is a miracle, every day is… it is just somehow tragic one often learns to appreciate it after almost losing it. I wish humanity looked at this moment when our fate was on countdown and appreciate that whoever or whatever it was back than… saved us in the last moment. We might learn to appreciate our lifes much more.



(posted in my blog as well)

[Perna]

The Black Brant scare: "One version of events persists: Using the allies' facilities, the US were testing the Russian early time detection systems and response policies, since the status of the Russian defensive-offensive capacities was considered to be at least questionable after the collapse of the USSR."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident

Yes, it is wonderful when we get the "right" viewpoint in time; yes, it would be nice to get it ahead of time, before we get the wrong one rather than chasing after the wrong hoping it is wrong!

Stanislav Petrov — World Hero

In 1983 in Russia, there was a man who would have been considered an enemy by the people of America.

But, as it turned out, he would become for them and for the world an unknown hero — perhaps the greatest hero of all time.

Because of military secrecy, and political and international differences, most of the world has not heard of this man. He is Stanislav Petrov.

http://www.zimbio.com/Stanislav+Petr...rov+World+Hero

Part and Parcel of Mindfulness is living in the moment.........

I try, everyday to see Nature, and Humankind in all it's beauty; and to see it with new eyes from this aging body. All life is a miracle!

I feel younger everyday as a resultant of this mindset.

How beautiful is it that others are in agreement?