In recent years, the US body politic performed a laborious stocktaking of the multiple failures that led up to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, with intelligence failure being bandied about as a prime contributing factor.
The 9/11 commission of inquiry concluded that fragmentation and shoddy coordination among the panoply of American intelligence agencies caused a preventable disaster. But here too, the longer-term view was that the problem went much deeper than incompetent turf battle among spy organizations and that it was actually a come-uppance for misguided American foreign policies in the Middle East.
Post mortems of events that generate a crisis for American overseas interests essentially go along two opposing lines. The first one is technical, which involves dissecting the minutiae of why the nation’s assortment of spies did not provide accurate advance information so that the dreaded outcome could have been occluded or at least hedged against.
The second one is political, which asks why American interests were poorly defined and executed by the highest office holders in power when the realities on the ground were clearly headed towards a shocking denouement that would set back US influence in a country or region for decades.
[…]
If the attacks of 9/11 unearthed the “why do they hate us?” refrain, the largely peaceful deposing of decades-old pro-American tyrants today has uncorked the “why do we always back the bad guys?” soul-searching.
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The House of Representatives Friday passed a measure to end federal funding for abortion provider Planned Parenthood a day after Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., brought the chamber to stunned silence after describing her own personal experience with abortion.
Friday afternoon, the House passed the amendment by a vote of 240-185. The vote was generally along party lines, with all but seven Republicans voting for the cut, and 10 Democrats voting in favor. One Republican voted present.
The measure would eliminate about $330 million through the end of September for preventative-health services, including federal funding for contraception and cancer screenings, at Planned Parenthood clinics across the country.
Rep. Jackie Speier (D) took to the House floor to respond to comments made by Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., against abortion funding. “There is a vendetta against Planned Parenthood, and it was played out in this room tonight,” Speier continued. “Halliburton is responsible for extortion, for bribery, for 10 cases of misconduct in the federal database, for a $7 billion sole-source contract. But do you see us over here filing amendments to wipe out funding for Halliburton?”
Planned Parenthood needs better lobbyists.
Courtesy CNN
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$1,000,000 for 3 days work, this must be the right profession.
Answer: What is health care? Question: The industry IBM Corp.’s Watson is targeting after vanquishing its human opponents on the game show “Jeopardy!”
One day after the Watson computer defeated human champions in a three-day match, its creators and a Massachusetts software company are preparing to sell a medical version of the smart machine.
IBM has an agreement with Nuance Communications Inc. of Burlington to sell Watson-based products to health care providers. Nuance already offers voice-recognition software for a variety of applications. The companies are pitching forthcoming technology that will, among other things, allow medical providers to describe symptoms orally and get diagnostic information in return.
Watson, the result of four years of work by researchers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was launched to test whether a computing system could rival a human’s ability to answer questions posed in natural language with speed and accuracy.
He’d probably make a good lawyer as well.
A Spanish nun has been kicked out of the religious order where she lived the last 35 years in seclusion after spending too much time on the social networking site Facebook. María Jesús Galán, dubbed “Sister Internet” by her fellow nuns, announced on her Facebook page that she had been asked to leave the convent after disagreements over her online activities.
The 54-year old, who lists her hobbies as “reading, music, art, and making friends” had almost 600 Facebook “friends”at the time of her eviction and now has fan pages with thousands of supporters from around the globe calling for her to be allowed back into the order.
A computer was first brought onto the premises of the 14th century Santo Domingo el Real convent in Toledo, central Spain 10 years ago after the Mother Superior was persuaded it would lessen the need for nuns to enter the outside world…
However, the nun quickly saw the possibilities and soon began digitising the archives contained within the convent’s ancient walls and making them accessible to the world…
But despite admitting that her dedication to her vocation was as strong as ever she said she was driven from the convent by her fellow nuns who disapproved of her cyber activity and “made life impossible”.
Don’t worry. The Lord will provide. Har!
When narcotics officers appeared at a Castro home shortly after 7 a.m. on Jan. 11, they had permission from a judge to search for “proceeds” from an illegal marijuana grow. The SFPD and DEA found no piles of marijuana money at 243 Diamond St., one of six addresses raided simultaneously in San Francisco that morning. Instead, they found Clark Freshman, who rents the penthouse at the two-unit building. Freshman, a UC Hastings law professor and the main consultant to the television show Lie to Me, was put into handcuffs while in his bathrobe as agents searched, despite Freshman’s insistence that they had the wrong place and were breaking the law. “I told them to call the judge and get their warrant updated,” he says. “They just laughed at me — I guess that’s why they’re called pigs.”
A furious Freshman has pledged to sue the DEA and the SFPD for unlawful search and seizure of his home. SFPD offered no comment other than reiterating they had a warrant from Judge Richard Kramer to search 243 Diamond. But Peter Keane, dean emeritus of Golden Gate University’s School of Law, says there appears to be a problem. “There’s been cases like this in the past where police have a warrant to search [a single residence], then they get there and it’s a multi-unit building and they search the whole building. In those cases, people have sued and collected substantial settlements. I think whomever is representing the government better get out his checkbook.”
“I’ve been on the fence for years about the legalization of drugs … and now I’m a victim of this crazy war on drugs,” says Freshman, who pledged to sue until “I see [the agents’] houses sold at auction and their kids’ college tuitions taken away from them. There will not be a better litigated case this century.”
AeroVironment, the California-based company behind the largest, highest and longest flying unmanned aircraft system, the Global Observer, has now achieved a remarkable technical milestone with a much smaller aircraft. With its “Nano Hummingbird” the company has for the first time achieved controlled precision hovering and fast-forward flight of a two-wing, flapping wing aircraft that carries its own energy source and relies only on its flapping wings for propulsion and control.
The hand-made final concept demonstrator Nano Hummingbird has a wingspan of 16 cm (6.5 in) and weighs just 19 g (2/3 oz), which is less than the weight of a AA battery. Into this tiny and lightweight package the AeroVironment UAS team has managed to cram all the systems required for flight, including batteries, motors, communications systems and even a video camera.
The aircraft can climb and descend vertically, fly sideways left and right, fly forward and backward, as well as rotating clockwise and counter-clockwise – all under remote control and while carrying a video camera payload. It is even capable of doing a 360-degree loop.
The Nano Hummingbird can be fitted with a removable body fairing, which is shaped to have the appearance of a real hummingbird and, although it is larger and heavier than an average hummingbird, the aircraft is actually smaller and lighter than the largest hummingbird found in nature.
Development bucks came from taxpayers via DARPA. Maybe the rest of us will get to play with it after the spooks are through using it as a mini-spyplane.
Executive Producer: Sir Geir
This Episode’s Associate Executive Producer and 279 Club Member: Colin Sloman
Art: Nick The Rat
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Throwing a party? Kim Kardashian would love to attend — if you’ve got a couple hundred thousand dollars to spare.
The ubiquitous Kardashian family (Kris, Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, Robert, Kendall, Kylie and Olympian Bruce Jenner) has taken reality fame to a new level, translating one television show into a veritable branding empire. The Hollywood Reporter, which works to unlock the secrets of the clan in their issue, reports that, in all, the family took in a whopping $65 million in 2010.
But for what?
Their faces — and names — are everywhere, but many don’t quite know what the Kardashians do, exactly. That’s easy: they just live their lives. It’s just that they let everyone else watch in. And then buy.
Here’s the whole, depressing story of this poor family who have to deal with horrific problems like these:
And then there are those who watch the family’s three series on E! (with a fourth going into production this year) for the there-but-for the-grace-of-God voyeurism: Thank God my mom doesn’t want to know the size of my boyfriend’s penis! Hey, at least my dad isn’t walked over by every single member of his family and my mom doesn’t engage me in a postpartum discussion about personal lubricant. When asked about that last particular discussion, [Bruce] Jenner looks genuinely puzzled. “Really? Who hasn’t had to use lube?”
There is finally an explanation for a Los Angeles TV reporter’s slurred gibberish during a live broadcast Sunday night, which puzzled millions.
Serene Branson’s bout of babbling was caused by a complex migraine, her physician, Dr. Neil Martin, told The Los Angeles Times.
Branson’s nightmarish 10-second report after Sunday night’s Grammy broadcast from the Staples Center began: “Well, a very, very heavy burtation tonight,” before her words became even more incomprehensible.
The original video posted here from Today on NBC was pulled.
MADISON, Wis. — As four game wardens awkwardly stood guard, protesters, scores deep, crushed into a corridor leading to the governor’s office here on Wednesday, their screams echoing through the Capitol: “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Behind closed doors, Scott Walker, the Republican who has been governor for about six weeks, calmly described his intent to forge ahead with the plans that had set off the uprising: He wants to require public workers to pay more for their health insurance and pensions, effectively cutting the take-home pay of many by around 7 percent.
He also wants to weaken most public-sector unions by sharply curtailing their collective bargaining rights, limiting talks to the subject of basic wages.
I think we’ll be seeing more of this.
Found by Cinàedh.
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