Is this series out on DVD yet?
Beginning scene of the new HBO series The Newsroom explaining why America’s Not the Greatest Country Any Longer… But It Can Be.
(Source: youtube.com)
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Want to stand in awe of our universe? Listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson and tremble.
(Source: youtube.com)
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This map shows you the delicate tracery of wind flowing over the U.S. (Hint.fm) h/t @nprnicole
Click through to see animated wind patterns. Very, very cool.
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TEHRAN—Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions, Iranian officials said Wednesday they were increasingly concerned about the United States of America’s uranium-enrichment program, fearing the Western nation may soon be capable of producing its 8,500th nuclear weapon. “Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran,” said Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi, adding that Americans have the fuel, the facilities, and ”everything they need” to manufacture even more weapons-grade fissile material. ”Obviously, the prospect of this happening is very distressing to Iran and all countries like Iran. After all, the United States is a volatile nation that’s proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat.” Iranian intelligence experts also warned of the very real, and very frightening, possibility of the U.S. providing weapons and resources to a rogue third-party state such as Israel.
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Covert war is still war, and war on another front is not what we need right now. Get the facts and muffle that drumbeat against Iran.
U.S. debated sending commandos into Iran to recover drone
The U.S. considered sending in covert missions to Iran to recover a drone that crashed in the country, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The RQ-170 Sentinel, a high-altitude stealth drone known as the Beast of Kandahar, went down in Iran while on a surveillance mission. Iran said it shot the drone down, but the U.S. maintains it crashed due to a malfunction.
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I, for one, am supremely disappointed at the prospect of the U.S. missing out on an entire episode of the critically acclaimed series, especially based on the worthless reasoning that “it’s controversial.” Controversy is good. Controversy begets conversation and progress. If Attenborough does come off as alarmist, allow people the opportunity to interpret that on their own, and others to respond to it in turn. I can’t think of a worse way to handle the situation than to not air it at all.
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David Attenborough on the U.S. censorship of the Discovery Chanel’s episode on climate change. More at io9 (via climateadaptation) You can’t have a conversation about climate change if you … well, refuse to have a conversation at all. (via jtotheizzoe) “You can’t have a conversation about climate change if you … well, refuse to have a conversation at all.” That’s not a bug, that’s a feature. (via lord-kitschener) |
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Last spring I published some reflections to my course blog that included some reflections on a talk by Leymah Gbowee, one of three women who won the Nobel Peace Prize today.
Discussion not facilitated by me broke out in The Sociology of War and Peace today, in consideration of Alex Morrison’s contribution to Patterns of Conflict, Paths to Peace, (Ch. 3), on conflict resolution in the international arena. It seems that this topic has been waiting to break out all…
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BY GLENN GREENWALD 9/20/11
Imagine this power in the hands of Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry.
What’s most striking about this is not that the U.S. Government has seized and exercised exactly the power the Fifth Amendment was designed to bar (“No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law”), and did so in a way that almost certainly violates core First Amendment protections (questions that will now never be decided in a court of law). What’s most amazing is that its citizens will not merely refrain from objecting, but will stand and cheer the U.S. Government’s new power to assassinate their fellow citizens, far from any battlefield, literally without a shred of due process from the U.S. Government. Many will celebrate the strong, decisive, Tough President’s ability to eradicate the life of Anwar al-Awlaki — including many who just so righteously condemned those Republican audience members as so terribly barbaric and crass for cheering Governor Perry’s execution of scores of serial murderers and rapists — criminals who were at least given a trial and appeals and the other trappings of due process before being killed.
From an authoritarian perspective, that’s the genius of America’s political culture. It not only finds way to obliterate the most basic individual liberties designed to safeguard citizens from consummate abuses of power (such as extinguishing the lives of citizens without due process). It actually gets its citizens to stand up and clap and even celebrate the destruction of those safeguards.
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