background preloader

Pain Continues after War for American Drone Pilot

For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn't be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world. The container is filled with the humming of computers. Bryant was one of them, and he remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. "These moments are like in slow motion," he says today. With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Second zero was the moment in which Bryant's digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif. Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion.

Algeria, Mali, and why this week has looked like an obscene remake of earlier Western interventions - Comment - Voices And there you have it. Our dead men didn't matter in the slightest to him. And he had a point, didn't he? For we are outraged today, not by the massacre of the innocents, but because the hostages killed by the Algerian army - along with some of their captors - were largely white, blue-eyed chaps rather than darker, brown-eyed chaps. Had all the "Western" hostages - I am including the Japanese in this ridiculous, all-purpose definition - been rescued and had the innocent dead all been Algerian, there would have been no talk yesterday of a "botched raid". If all those slaughtered in the Algerian helicopter bombing had been Algerian, we would have mentioned the "tragic consequences" of the raid, but our headlines would have dwelt on the courage and efficiency of Algeria's military rescuers, alongside interviews with grateful Western families. Racism isn't the word for it. So you know whom we care about. I called up another friend, a French ex-legionnaire, yesterday.

John Candy Biography[edit] Early life and career (1950–1980)[edit] Candy was born in Newmarket, Ontario, in 1950.[1] The son of Sidney James Candy and his wife Evangeline (Aker) Candy, he was raised in a working-class Roman Catholic family.[2] He studied at Centennial College in Toronto and at McMaster University. 1980s career (1980–1989)[edit] Candy also produced and starred in a Saturday-morning animated series on NBC titled Camp Candy in 1989. Later years and death (1990–1994)[edit] In 1991, Bruce McNall, Wayne Gretzky, and Candy became owners of the Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts. Candy was survived by his wife Rosemary Hobor, and his two children Jennifer Candy and Christopher Candy. Legacy[edit] Candy's funeral was held at St. Candy's star on Canada's Walk of Fame The John Candy Visual Arts Studio at Neil McNeil Catholic High School, in Toronto, Ontario was dedicated in his honor after his death. Filmography[edit] Television[edit] References[edit]

Researcher: U.S. Tested and Perfected a "Tsunami Bomb" January 2, 2013 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. As if global warming isn’t posing a great enough challenging to low-lying regions, New Zealand author recently uncovered evidence that the United States perfected a “tsunami bomb” that can flood whole coastal cities decades ago. The blasts from a series of these tsunami bombs can create waves up to 33 feet high, which can wipe out small towns or villages along the coast. New Zealand author Ray Waru discovered these secret tests, known as “Project Seal,” while doing research in the national archives for his new book Secrets and Treasures, which first revealed information on this bomb testing. "It was absolutely astonishing,” he told the AFP. The United States ultimately dropped the nuclear bomb, rather than the tsunami bomb, on Japan at the close of World War II. Tsunami Bomb later became the name of a short-lived California punk band in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Big Sugar's Sweet Little Lies Chris Buzelli On a brisk spring Tuesday in 1976, a pair of executives from the Sugar Association stepped up to the podium of a Chicago ballroom to accept the Oscar of the public relations world, the Silver Anvil award for excellence in "the forging of public opinion." The trade group had recently pulled off one of the greatest turnarounds in PR history. For nearly a decade, the sugar industry had been buffeted by crisis after crisis as the media and the public soured on sugar and scientists began to view it as a likely cause of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Industry ads claiming that eating sugar helped you lose weight had been called out by the Federal Trade Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration had launched a review of whether sugar was even safe to eat. Consumption had declined 12 percent in just two years, and producers could see where that trend might lead. Precisely how did the sugar industry engineer its turnaround? At best, the studies seemed a token effort.

Jötunn The jötnar (anglicized jotunn or jotun, plural jötnar; /ˈjoʊtən/, /ˈjoʊtʊn/, or /ˈjɔːtʊn/; Icelandic: [ˈjœːtʏn]; from Old Norse jǫtunn /ˈjɔtunː/; often glossed as giant or ettin) can be seen throughout Norse mythology. The Jötnar are a mythological race that live in Jötunheimr, one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology. They were banished there by the Æsir who refuse them entry to their world, Asgard. The Jötnar frequently interact with the Æsir, as well as the Vanir. Etymology[edit] In Old Norse, the beings were called jǫtnar (singular jǫtunn, the regular reflex of the stem jǫtun- and the nominative singular ending -r), or risar (singular risi), in particular bergrisar ("mountain-risar"), or þursar (singular þurs), in particular hrímþursar ("rime-thurs"). Norse jötnar[edit] Origins[edit] The first living being formed in the primeval chaos known as Ginnungagap was a giant of monumental size, called Ymir. Character of the jötnar[edit] Relationship with Nature[edit] The giantess Skaði

Our Intolerable Risk by PETER G. COHEN In a 2012 Status of World Nuclear Forces report, The Federation of American Scientists (FAS, founded in 1945 by many of the original group of scientists who invented and built the first atomic bombs and who later came to oppose them) estimates that 1,800 Russian and U.S. nuclear warheads are on “high alert,” ready to strike at the push of a button. This, two decades after the Cold War ended. While it is difficult to ascertain how many nuclear warheads exist in each nation without access to classified information, based on publicly available information, the FAS counts approximately 16,200 stockpiled nuclear warheads, of which almost 4,000 are “operational.” That this level of risk is holding the people of the world hostage is intolerable. If a small fraction (as few as 50, according to the American Geophysical Union) of those 1,800 “high alert” warheads were to detonate on either of our nations, Russia or the U.S., such a detonation would cause a worldwide catastrophe.

The Inequality That Matters - Tyler Cowen The Costs of Green Dreams The environmental and economic costs of Germany’s decision to shut down its nuclear reactors are growing. Wealth of nations India’s Hindu temples have huge stores of gold sitting idle outside the banking system. Modi wants to change that, and it’s rankling important parts of his Hindu base. Don't Cry to Me Argentina The President tells her people (and the web): “Everything has to do with everything.” Culture Wars Chinese scientists are facing a big backlash for an unethical experiment that edited the DNA of embryos—a historical first. Putin's Prospects Russian workers who have gone without pay due to the economic troubles are protesting at the national scale. The Afterparty Rages On Libya’s failure becomes a campaign issue in the UK.

Sleipnir Additionally, Sleipnir is mentioned in a riddle found in the 13th century legendary saga Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, in the 13th century legendary saga Völsunga saga as the ancestor of the horse Grani, and book I of Gesta Danorum, written in the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus, contains an episode considered by many scholars to involve Sleipnir. Sleipnir is generally accepted as depicted on two 8th century Gotlandic image stones; the Tjängvide image stone and the Ardre VIII image stone. Scholarly theories have been proposed regarding Sleipnir's potential connection to shamanic practices among the Norse pagans. In modern times, Sleipnir appears in Icelandic folklore as the creator of Ásbyrgi, in works of art, literature, software, and in the names of ships. Attestations[edit] Poetic Edda[edit] Prose Edda[edit] An illustration of Odin riding Sleipnir from an 18th-century Icelandic manuscript. In chapter 16 of the book Skáldskaparmál, a kenning given for Loki is "relative of Sleipnir 36.

US-Australia plans for war on China A newly published book by journalist David Uren has revealed that the Australian government’s 2009 Defence White Paper contained a “secret chapter” that assessed “Australia’s ability to fight an air-sea battle alongside the United States against China.” The chapter was omitted from the public version as it contained references to Australian forces assisting the US military to impose a naval blockade of China’s trade routes, and likely Chinese retaliation against targets on Australian soil. The existence of the confidential chapter was prominently reported on the front page of the Australian newspaper on Saturday under the headline “Secret ‘war’ with China uncovered.” Labor’s Defence Minister Stephen Smith was questioned about the revelation on Sunday. While he attempted to dismiss as “nonsense” the report that Australia had plans for war with China, he confirmed that there were both public and secret versions of the White Paper.

Related: