An interesting sequence of events unfolds around the Axis of Evil:

- Signs appear of escalating agendas in the higher echelons of power, as heads of state slink around the globe to confer, accompanied by 'random' shootings and mysterious missiles.

- Big Brother cracks down in cyberspace - even SOTT comes under the crosshairs of mysterious hackers.

- The food crisis continues, and more vegetable species become endangered (banana, wheat, tomatoes).

- Technology goes berzerk, with serial collapsing cranes, and mysterious resurrecting WWII bombs.

- Floods and droughts abound.

- The sun loses its spots and the fireballs associated with the Taurids are nowhere to be found.

All the while, the public is kept ever more distracted by the growing media circus of Obama vs McCain.

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How the Tunguska object may have appeared.

One hundred years ago today, on the night of 30 June and 1 July, one of the most extraordinary events in modern history occurred.

The first reports of a strange glow in the sky came from across Europe. Shortly after midnight on 1 July 1908, Londoners were intrigued to see a pink phosphorescent night sky over the capital. People who had retired awoke confused as the strange pink glow shone into their bedrooms. The same ruddy luminescence was reported over Belgium. The skies over Germany were curiously said to be bright green, while the heavens over Scotland were of an incredible intense whiteness which tricked the wildlife into believing it was dawn. Birdsong started and cocks crowed - at two o'clock in the morning. The skies over Moscow were so bright, photographs were taken of the streets without using a magnesium flash. A captain on a ship on the River Volga said he could see vessels on the river two miles away by the uncanny astral light. One golf game in England almost went on until four in the morning under the nocturnal glow, and in the following week The Times of London was inundated with letters from readers from all over the United Kingdom to report the curious 'false dawn'. A woman in Huntingdon wrote that she had been able to read a book in her bedroom solely by the peculiar rosy light. There were hundreds of letters from people reporting identical lighting conditions that went on for weeks... (Tom Slemen)

None of the people witnessing this strange phenomenon had any idea that, in the central Siberian plateau, just after 7:15 a.m. local time, the planet had been hit by a cometary impactor that exploded - as most such impactors do - in the atmosphere just above the Earth's surface.

The Iraq disaster and rising gas and food prices have people across the globe in a state of fear and shock. It's high times for Bush & Co.

Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist cred by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: "disaster capitalism." It usually goes well -- until it doesn't.

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A 20-year anniversary slips by unnoticed.

July 3 marked 20 years since the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655. All 290 passengers aboard, including 66 children, were killed. In the intervening years have any extenuating circumstances surfaced to excuses this colossal blunder?

Let's revisit the Iran-Iraq war, when Iran routinely attacked Kuwaiti ships and tankers. To protect them and other neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf, in the spring of 1988 the U.S. increased its naval presence in the Persian Gulf. Among the ships deployed was the Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser. Equipped with the new Aegis weapon system of computers and radar, it was tasked with detecting enemy aircraft.

Turned out, though, its commander, Captain William C. Rogers, was more interested in picking fights than surveillance. In fact, the Vincennes had just exchanged fire with Iranian gunboats -- an action well below an Aegis cruiser's pay grade -- when its crew thought it detected an attacking F-14A fighter on its radar.

In fact, it was an Airbus A300 flying in a commercial corridor. When the Vincennes launched a guided missile in its direction, it never had a chance.