Новости за 12.01.2018

The subject of Wormwood, Frank Olson, was involved in secret CIA interrogation and mind control experiments. He was also working on germ warfare programs for the U.S. military at Fort Detrick. As Eric Olson says in the film "This conflation of things, biological weapons on one hand, covert operations on the other, was what brought Fort Detrick and the CIA together. And my father was in the centre of that. He was arguably in the most dangerous spot in the whole Cold War." More

Over the past few months, social media companies have come under increasing scrutiny from media critics, watchdog groups, and US congressional committees. Much of the criticism has focused upon how Facebook and Twitter facilitated the propagation of inflammatory messages created by Russian agents during the 2016 US presidential elections, ostensibly to polarize American voters. Self-serve More

Happy cultures are all alike. But this is not a happy culture. Sullen and sour, America seems like a country whose nerves are shot. And, after 16 straight years of war, why wouldn’t the political neurons be frayed? Each day the fear factor is being ratcheted up. New threats are being targeted. New wars being More

When Donald Trump became president, days became dog years – except that the changes have been more chaotic and less predictable. What seems likely one day seems out of the question the next.  Lately, the pace and the level of chaos has actually picked up.  Predicting what will come next is therefore an even riskier More

Being president isn’t like hosting a talk show or running a media brand. Oprah’s success in her field is no more indicative of her potential to be a good president than Trump’s success in real estate was. You can’t criticize Trump for having no relevant experience or evident understanding of public policy, then say that More

At some time in the 1970s, it became obvious that homo politicus, the propertied white male that our dearly beloved Founding Fathers had originally entrusted with the vote, and others over the centuries that were begrudgingly allowed to join them in the privilege, had been transmuted into homo economicus. Now treated as human capital, we are but factors in GDP enhancement, our political lives curtailed by the rise of neoliberalism. More

One of the most ingenious propaganda weapons ever developed is that the powerful nations of the West—led by the United States—have a moral responsibility to use military force to protect the rights of people being repressed by their governments. This “responsibility to protect” (R2P) always had a dubious legal standing, but its moral justification also More

It’s January, yet methane hydrates in the Arctic are growling like an incensed monster on a scorching hot mid-summer day. But, it is January; it’s winter, not July! On January 1st Arctic methane at 2,764 ppb spiked upwards into the atmosphere, which, according to Arctic News: “Was likely caused by methane hydrate destabilization in the More

Liberals and other Democrats are getting dumber by the day. I keep running into them and hearing the same story over and over: things are bad because Trump is the president. That’s it. It’s all you have to know. It’s the only thing that matters to these unstable dolts. It’s all about Trump. It’s Trump More

Miguel Flores arrived in the United States in 1999 and has had Temporary Protected Status (TPS) since 2001. Since then he has been working to support his mother and father, 68 and 71, who live in El Salvador. But things have changed now, and his parents could lose the stability they have enjoyed for so More

The Golden Globes: Hollywood’s most prominent women, costumed in black to support the #MeToo movement, were misty eyed, wonderstruck when Oprah Winfrey delivered her first campaign speech, inspiring liberals throughout the USA! USA! USA! to an orgasmic shattering-of-the-glass-ceiling altitude. Some among the crowd appeared transfixed, transcending the secular. Their faces rapt, as if they were More

Taínos [in pre-Hispanic Puerto Rico] considered ‘Juracán’ the manifestation of the fury of Guabancex, goddess of the winds. — Félix Cruz Furiously solipsistic, Maria brutalized Puerto Rico, bringing it to its knees. Three main collapses with one blow: Electricity, communications, and roads. From Tuesday to Wednesday, everything came down at once. Who is afraid of More

In 1887, Frederick Engels made a chilling prediction of the war that would come in 1914: The only war left for Prussia-Germany to wage will be a world war, a world war, moreover of an extent of violence hitherto unimagined. Eight to ten million soldiers will be at each other’s throats and in the process More

Pepper spray. (Oleoresin capsicum or OC). During Redwood Summer, back in the 90s, people went north in an attempt to keep the old growth redwoods from being killed (aka logged). A group of young people chained themselves in front of a timber industry office with their hands in pipes so their ties together could not More

“No fun, my babe… no fun…” — Iggy Pop Silicon Valley is a waterless ghost, a companion of the Angel Investor Moroni floating over stale tributaries of Perversion, Prudery, and Surveillance. And, to match the strangely puritan outrage over Late Hollywood’s games of ersatz decadence (Weinstein beating off into a planter sums the whole scene More

The world is a month away from the PyeonChang 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea. My friends in South Korea have already bought tickets for multiple events. What a wonderful opportunity for the parents to expose their two boys to displays of athletic skills and friendly competition between nations in the Olympic spirit. All is More

Fifty years ago the southern Vietnamese revolutionary forces together with regular army units of the northern Vietnamese military launched a military offensive against the forces of the southern Vietnamese and US militaries.  This offensive, known as the TET offensive because it took place during the TET holiday, involved hundreds of thousands of fighters on both More

What if social media is hit with a wave of explosive, realistic-looking viral videos whose authenticity can’t be confirmed? It’s highly unlikely that the social networks, the news media or the political class will know how to respond to such a situation. — Farhad Manjoo, “In 2018, Expect Chaos To Be the New Normal,” The More

The book Fire and Fury emphasizes that Trump loves bullying. He is superficially pleasant when he thinks such a pose will benefit him in some way, but as was made clear by his reaction to condemnation after his Jerusalem blunder, he is a malevolent, insolent, arrogant, sabre-brandishing bully with all the refinement, grace and style of a More

I am now in Texas, the culmination of our current 1000-mile/1600 km trip, having made overnight stops in Knoxville, Nashville, and Memphis on the way. Americans, and foreigners who have lived here for a long time, know of the great pride Texans have in their state.  My first experience of this was back in the More

The leader of the Untouchables’ liberation movement, or what later became known as the movement of the ‘’Dalit’’ (literally, ‘’the crushed’’ in Sansrkit) Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar did more than stand up to Mohandas Gandhi. He was one of the leading figures of the Indian independence movement against British colonialism. British colonial liberals and progressives who More

Why should the American media and politicians salivate over instability and the prospect of regime change in Iranian? It’s not America’s business to dictate the future of Iran or be a dimwit cheerleader from the sidelines. Besides, actual American interests would run antithetical to an Iranian regime ouster, were we not wagged by the Israeli-Saudi More

Australia’s alliance wars – their respective causes, conduct, and consequences – are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed – indeed, ‘dead’ – ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency.  More

There is a lot of angst in the US corporate world. They are quite concerned that the renegotiation talks between the US, Canada and Mexico (the three participants in the North American Free Trade Agreement –NAFTA) may not deliver a new agreement that is as lucrative as the old NAFTA. NAFTA has been in place More

On December 7th 2017 the US Fish & Wildlife Service (i.e., “the Service”) requested comments from the public “…on a recent D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling…that may impact our June 30, 2017, final rule delisting the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) grizzly bear Distinct Population Segment (DPS).” In its Federal Register notice, the Service exclusively More