All warfare is based on deception," - Sun Tzu

"Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn." - John Stockwell

"If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace." - Ludwig von Mises

I never in my life would have thought that I would I enlist in the military. Sure, there are a great many reasons that people do enlist, some want money for college, others want a change of pace, yet others had dreamed of it since they were a kid. None of these reasons explains why I joined. In many ways it would dictate my fate.

I grew up in a middle-class Ohio town, went to college for a year, quickly realized that it just wasn't for me, and began working for a records management service as a delivery/pickup driver pulling in about $27,000 a year. Sure, that isn't much to some people, but it was pretty good back then for a 21-year-old with no education. I certainly didn't love my job, but it paid the bills.

Laurel - An ExxonMobil pipeline that runs under the Yellowstone River near Billings in south-central Montana ruptured and dumped an unknown amount of oil into the waterway, prompting temporary evacuations along the river Saturday.

Company spokeswoman Pam Malek said the pipe leaked for about a half-hour, though it's not clear how much oil spilled into the water.

The cause of the rupture in the pipe carrying crude oil from Belfry, Mont., to the company's refinery in Billings wasn't known.

Brent Peters, the fire chief for the city of Laurel about 12 miles east of Billings, said the break in the 12-inch diameter pipe occurred late Friday about a mile south of Laurel.

Peters said about 140 people were evacuated starting about 12:15 a.m. Saturday due to concerns about possible explosions, and the overpowering fumes. He said many were allowed to return at about 4 a.m. after instruments showed fumes had decreased. He said more evacuations occurred farther downstream outside his district but those numbers weren't immediately clear.

A controversial law requiring adults applying for welfare assistance to undergo drug screening has gone into effect in Florida.

Saying it is "unfair for Florida taxpayers to subsidize drug addiction," Gov. Rick Scott signed the legislation in June.

"It's the right thing for taxpayers," Scott said after signing the measure. "It's the right thing for citizens of this state that need public assistance. We don't want to waste tax dollars. And also, we want to give people an incentive to not use drugs."

Under the law, which went into effect on Friday, the Florida Department of Children and Family Services will be required to conduct the drug tests on adults applying to the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.

The aid recipients would be responsible for the cost of the screening, which they would recoup in their assistance if they qualify.

Exclusive: New studies show that America's corporate chieftains are living like kings while the middle class stagnates and shrivels. Yet, the Tea Party and other anti-tax forces remain determined to protect the historically low tax rates of the rich and push the burden of reducing the federal debt onto the rest of society, a curious approach explored by Robert Parry.

If the "free-market" theories of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman were correct, the United States of the last three decades should have experienced a golden age in which the lavish rewards flowing to the titans of industry would have transformed the society into a vibrant force for beneficial progress.

After all, it has been faith in "free-market economics" as a kind of secular religion that has driven U.S. government policies - from the emergence of Ronald Reagan through the neo-liberalism of Bill Clinton into the brave new world of House Republican budget chairman Paul Ryan.

By slashing income tax rates to historically low levels - and only slightly boosting them under President Clinton before dropping them again under George W. Bush - the U.S. government essentially incentivized greed or what Ayn Rand liked to call "the virtue of selfishness."

Further, by encouraging global "free trade" and removing regulations like the New Deal's Glass-Steagall separation of commercial and investment banks, the government also got out of the way of "progress," even if that "progress" has had crushing results for many middle-class Americans.

True, not all the extreme concepts of author/philosopher Ayn Rand and economist Milton Friedman have been implemented - there are still programs like Social Security and Medicare to get rid of - but their "magic of the market" should be glowing by now.

We should be able to assess whether laissez-faire capitalism is superior to the mixed public-private economy that dominated much of the 20th Century.

The old notion was that a relatively affluent middle class would contribute to the creation of profitable businesses because average people could afford to buy consumer goods, own their own homes and take an annual vacation with the kids. That "middle-class system," however, required intervention by the government as the representative of the everyman.

The plane crash in northwestern Russia that killed 44 people was probably caused by a combination of pilot error and bad weather, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Tuesday.

The RusAir jet, which took off from Moscow at 22:30 local time (18:30 GMT) on Monday was due to arrive in Petrozavodsk, the capital of Russia's northwestern republic of Karelia, at 00:04 on Tuesday (20:04 GMT Monday), but crash landed on a highway one kilometer (0.6 miles) away from Petrozavodsk airport, which was shrouded in fog. The aircraft broke up and burst into flames on impact.

Eight of the 52 people on board survived and were taken to local hospitals.

Corruption down the line, from Big Pharma to doctors and the war on drugs, builds a growing epidemic and an addiction-fueled empire.

I left a very white, very affluent Philadelphia suburb for NYU in 2007. When I go home, Oxys always come up in conversation with friends: Who got really "bad" (and can you believe it was him?!), who started selling, or what new pill-based friendship is the strangest. On one visit, I found pens gutted to be sed as straws (to snort pills) and tin foil in my old best friend's bedroom, to smoke Oxys.

In Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, suburban moms and dads enjoy a short commute to the city and send their kids off to a "Blue Ribbon School of Excellence" to prepare them for the educational institutions to which they aspire. Aside from school and work and partying in big houses, there is not much to do.

Boredom tends to inspire some creative takes on "fun." Out of my town, for example, came the Jackass crew. Their worm snorting and reckless self-injury (shocking their testicles, paper-cutting their eyelids) might not have occurred if they had the resources of a city. When Jackass star Ryan Dunn died in a drunk-driving accident June 20, he crashed his car on Route 322, a road members of my community use regularly.

Drugs are another common way to escape boredom. Pop one pill and working at the local pizza parlor after school might not be such a drag.

Health officials in the Indian state of Rajasthan are launching a new campaign to try reduce the high population growth in the area.

They are encouraging men and women to volunteer for sterilisation, and in return are offering a car and other prizes for those who come forward.

Among the rewards on offer is the Indian-made Tata Nano - the world's cheapest car.

It would take a miracle for our intractable problems to become tractable. Being in denial about that doesn't help anyone.

It gets worse. If you pay attention to the news, the prospects for the future look grim. The new normal of high unemployment and stagnant wages will likely not turn out to be just a phase. The next generations may indeed do worse than the ones before them. Thanks to the Supreme Court, big money will keep tightening its stranglehold on elections and lawmaking. Financial reform and consumer protection will never survive the onslaught of lobbyists. Reckless bankers will go on making out like bandits, and the public will always be forced to rescue them. The Internet, along with cable and wireless, will be controlled by fewer and more-powerful companies. The world will keep staggering from one economic crisis to another. We will not have the leadership and citizenship we need to kick our dependence on oil. We will not even keep up with the Kardashians.

Add your own items to the list. Whatever global threats scare you -- climate change, the Middle East, loose nukes, pandemics -- and whatever domestic issues haunt you -- failing schools, crumbling infrastructure, rising poverty, obesity -- the odds are that the honesty, discipline, resources and burden-sharing required for a happy ending will not, like Elijah, show up at our door.

Tokyo - A former nuclear adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan blasted the government's handling of the crisis, and predicted more revelations of radiation threats to the public in the coming months.

In his first media interview since resigning his post in protest in April, Toshiso Kosako, one of the country's leading experts on radiation safety, said Mr. Kan's government has been slow to test for dangers in the sea and to fish, and has understated certain radiation threats to minimize clean-up costs. In his post, Mr. Kosako's role was to advise the prime minister on radiation safety.

And while there have been scattered reports of food contamination - of tea leaves and spinach, for example - Mr. Kosako predicted there will be broader discoveries later this year, especially as rice, Japan's staple, is harvested.

"Come the harvest season in the fall, there will be a chaos," Mr. Kosako said. "Among the rice harvested, there will certainly be some radiation contamination - though I don't know at what levels - setting off a scandal. If people stop buying rice from Tohoku ... we'll have a tricky problem."

Mr. Kosako also said that the way the government has handled the Fukushima Daiichi situation since the March 11 tsunami crippled the reactors has exposed basic flaws in Japanese policy making.

"The government's decision-making mechanism is opaque," he said. "It's never clear what reasons are driving what decisions. This doesn't look like a democratic society. Japan is increasingly looking like a developing nation in East Asia."

Counties Across South Impose Bans Amid Persistent Drought and Record Blazes

This July Fourth holiday could be dimmer than usual across the South after officials imposed bans on the sale and use of fireworks amid persistent drought and some of the worst wildfires in recorded history.

Officials from Florida to Arizona have prohibited the use of fireworks to reduce the risk of more wildfires. They are also asking counties and residents where bans aren't in place to give up holiday displays.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez on Wednesday ordered state police officers to help enforce bans and restrictions put in place across parts of the state. "The conditions in New Mexico are simply too dangerous for anyone to buy, sell or use fireworks this summer," she said in a statement.