The Romantic poet William Blake wrote, in the age of European colonial expansion and encounter with Asian fauna: TIGER, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? Tigers in the wild could be extinct in only 12 years if extreme conservation measures are not […]
Looking for PETN, Scanning Grandma at the Airport, and the Future of Air Travel
In all the furor about the new TSA scanners and pat-downs at airports, what surprises me is that there is very little discussion of what exactly the inspectors are now looking for and why they are shifting tactics. The old scanners and procedures designed to discover metal (guns, knives, bombs with timers or detonators) are […]
Congressional “Study” Attacking Climate Change Found to be Plagiarized, Error-Ridden
A USA Today investigation of a 2006 congressional “study” attacking climate change reveals that 35 of the 91 pages are plagiarized from a textbook by Raymond Bradley; but the authors didn’t content themselves with stealing another’s prose– they systematically introduced errors into it! The study was requested by Rep. Joe “I Apologize to BP” Barton […]
NATO sets 2014 Deadline for Afghanistan Withdrawal (but not US), as Thousands demonstrate in London
The Afghan Pajhwok News Agency reports a seeming discrepancy between statements of NATO and US officials with regard to when the Afghanistan mission will wind up. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen foresaw the beginning of a withdrawal in 2011 and a certain end to those troops’ combat missions by the end if 2014. In contrast […]
Bush could be Arrested in Europe: Turley to Olbermann
Keith Olbermann interviews Jonathan Turley on London mayor Boris Johnson’s warning that if Bush comes to Europe to flog his ‘memoirs’, he might be arrested. Johnson, a Tory (conservative), wrote in the Daily Telegraph last week, ‘ It is not yet clear whether George W Bush is planning to cross the Atlantic to flog us […]
“Don’t Touch My Junk”: The Rap Video
Mike Adams at NaturalNews.com has a rap video on the intrusiveness of the new TSA inspections at airports. It is based on the protest of passenger John Tyner’s protest of being searched up his inner thigh. This text will be replaced by the player
Southern Afghans Have Never Heard of 9/11
An opinion survey carried out in Helmand and Kandahar provinces showed that 92% of the Afghan respondents (1000 men) had never heard of 9/11. Most Americans are ambivalent about the Afghanistan War precisely because it is hard to dismiss the argument that the September 11 attacks were planned out there in some of 40 terrorist […]
Juppe: Afghanistan a ‘Trap’; NATO stuck There Past 2014
At the NATO summit in Lisbon, it is expected to be announced that although 2014 is the target date by which NATO and US troops would withdraw, in fact a NATO contingent will be in the country thereafter in some capacity. Although this prospect is said to mollify Afghan elites around Karzai who fear being […]
Jon Stewart on the Rachel Maddow Show
Jon Stewart interviewed by Rachel Maddow: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy